Long Island Serial Killer Suspect Rex Heuermann Indicted in Another Murder
The N.Y.C. architect and father of two is charged with killing New Jersey mother Valerie Mack, a woman who spent years known only as Jane Doe No. 6.
The man suspected of being the Long Island Serial Killer has been charged in a woman’s slaying, bringing his alleged murder count to seven, according to a superseding indictment obtained by Oxygen.com.
On Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, Rex Heuermann was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury on charges of second-degree murder for the 2000 death and dismemberment of Valerie Mack, a woman long believed to have been a victim of the man colloquially known as the “L.I.S.K.,” “Gilgo Beach Killer,” “Craigslist Ripper,” and other monikers.
Mack marks the latest murder charge for the disgraced New York City architect and married father of two accused of the tortures and murders of multiple sex workers, most of whom were discarded along a beach highway on Long Island’s south shore.
Who was Valerie Mack?
Mack was a 24-year-old escort living in Philadelphia when she mysteriously vanished in 2000, some time after relatives saw her that summer in New Jersey’s Port Republic area. She was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on June 2, 1976, and "shuffled between several foster homes until she was ultimately adopted by the Mack family," per a bail application emailed to Oxygen.com from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. At 17, she gave birth to a son, and moved in with the child’s father in Wildwood, New Jersey soon after.
Mack had “several prostitution-related arrests” in Philadelphia between 1996 and June 2000 and was believed to also perform sex work in Atlantic City, the application stated.
The exact date of Mack’s disappearance is unknown, though officials said she was killed some time between September 1 and November 19, 2000.
When was Valerie Mack linked to the Long Island Serial Killer?
Mack’s partial remains were discovered on April 4, 2011, months after officials began scouring the overgrowth of Gilgo Beach in search of missing escort Shannan Gilbert. Investigators found the area — about 50 miles east of downtown Manhattan — was something of a serial killer’s dumping ground, where the remains of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman, and Melissa Barthelemy — known as The Gilgo Four — were found.
At the time, Mack was an unidentified victim known as Jane Doe No. 6, though her remains matched other body parts discovered in a wooded area of Manorville, New York — another 50 miles east of Gilgo Beach. In the earlier case, on November 19, 2000, a dog alerted three hunters to a trash bag sealed with duct tape, containing the woman's partial remains.
Missing was the victim’s head, hands, and right foot, according to the application. However, they were found 11 years later on Gilgo Beach, less than a mile and a half from the bodies of The Gilgo Four, plus Jessica Taylor, whose partial remains were also initially found in a wooded area in Manorville in 2003.
According to the recent documentation, the killer used a "hand-powered saw" with "similar blade widths" to dismember both Mack and Taylor.
More bodies discovered along the Gilgo Beach stretch included a female toddler found .04 miles from Mack, the child's unidentified mother (known as “Peaches,” due to a tattoo), an Asian John Doe, and “Fire Island Jane Doe,” the latter of whom was a 1996 dismemberment victim ID’d in 2023 as Karen Vergata.
Heuermann has not been charged with those murders, nor has he been charged in connection to the 2011 death of Shannan Gilbert. He was, however, charged with the murders of The Gilgo Four, Taylor, plus the 1993 murder of Sandra Costilla, a case not previously connected with the others.
Mack's identity remained unknown until May 28, 2020, after the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory (S.C.C.L.) and the FBI enlisted help from genetic genealogists. The scientific line of inquiry led to Jane Doe’s son, and the victim was positively identified as Valerie Mack.
RELATED: New Details about Gilgo Beach Murder Suspect Rex Heuermann's Life Behind Bars Revealed
How Hair Connected Rex Heuermann to Valerie Mack
Forensic scientists with the S.C.C.L. found “several” human hairs with Mack’s body, “one of which was found in the vicinity of the decedent’s left wrist,” according to the D.A.’s documents. Due to less-than-advanced testing available at the time, efforts to create a DNA profile from the hair were fruitless. However, new retesting by the Gilgo Homicide Task Force proved on Oct. 29, 2024, that the hair was a 99.65% match to Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup, and/or their daughter, Victoria Heuermann (both females share the same mitochondrial DNA).
A second look at the hair at a separate laboratory on Nov. 26, 2024, proved the hair belonged to Victoria Heuermann, who was only 3 or 4 at the time of Mack’s homicide, according to officials.
The scientific evidence, per the D.A.’s office, was “thereby linking evidence from yet another crime scene to the Defendant through his immediate family.”
Such DNA tests linked Mr. Heuermann to his other alleged victims. Hairs belonging to his wife and/or daughter were found with Waterman and Costello. Meanwhile, experts stated Rex Heuermann’s hair was left on a shirt found with Costilla’s body, a “surgical drape” underneath Taylor, and the “bottom portion of burlap” found with Waterman, according to the recent documents.
Digital Evidence Allegedly Connects Rex Heuermann to Valerie Mack
A “planning document” found on Heuermann’s electronic devices was once believed to have been created in 2001 or 2002. But officials now believe it was created in 2000, “which notably coincides with the year Valerie Mack was murdered,” according to the D.A.’s office. On it, the author referenced “saw/cutting tools” and a “DS” (believed to stand for “dumping site”) pointing to Mill Road, near where Mack’s remains were initially discovered in Manorville.
Officials said there was a “large uptick in downloads” of disturbing pornography in September 2000 — around the time Mack disappeared.
“Moreover, in the months leading up to Ms. Mack’s disappearance and murder, the Task Force uncovered pornographic images accessed by Heuermann which include, breast mutilation, and the tying up of women with rope, which largely coincide with a.) the injuries inflicted on Ms. Mack’s breast and b.) how the rope ligatures were utilized on Valerie Mack,” according to the bail application. “These pornographic downloads were discovered on a compact disc located in Heuermann’s home office.”
The alleged to-do list comprised phrases such as “REMOVE HEAD AND HANDS,” “REMOVE ID MARKS [TATOOS] [sic],” and other items that investigators said matched the works of Mack’s killer.
Per the Task Force, officials believe that whoever murdered Mack removed the lower portion of her right leg to conceal a tattoo of her son’s name.
Prosecutors alleged that “similar postmortem behavior” and “sharp-force mutilation” were used to remove a tattoo from murder victim Jessica Taylor.
Prosecutors note Rex Heuermann's seeming "lack of remorse"
Heuermann stands accused of keeping a large amount of news coverage about the then-unsolved murders in his Massapequa, New York home and Manhattan office. Five days before Jane Doe No. 6 was ID’d as Valerie Mack, Heuermann allegedly went to a website by the Suffolk County P.D. (no longer available) and visited a page about the pending identification.
News clippings as keepsakes about the murders, including Mack’s, allegedly “indicated the Defendant’s attempts to remind himself of the events that occurred throughout the murders of each victim, revealing Rex A. Heuermann’s utter lack of disregard [sic] or remorse for his actions, or the victims,” per the D.A.’s office.
Rex Heuermann has yet to enter a plea in the recent murder charge, though he previously pleaded not guilty to the other six.
He is expected to appear Tuesday morning before State Supreme Court Judge Timothy Mazzei in Riverhead, New York, according to CNN.
