A 59-year-old architect from New York has been arrested and charged with the murder of at least three extradited women in Long Island in 2009 and 2010, authorities in the American metropolis announced Friday.

Rex Heuerman was arrested Thursday night and yesterday was arraigned, where he pleaded not guilty to the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. According to a document from the Suffolk County Prosecutor’s Office, he is also considered the prime suspect in the murder case of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

Heuerman was arrested near his office in Manhattan, while officers searched his home in Massapiqua Township, which is near the beach where the victims were found. They were released girls, aged 22-27. The bodies were found within a radius of less than 500 meters. “They were found bound with tape or a belt, all three wrapped in burlap,” said prosecutor Ray Tierney.

The tangle of gruesome revelations began to unravel in May 2010, after the disappearance of a 24-year-old New Jersey fugitive, Shannon Gilbert, for which Rex Heuerman was not prosecuted.

Between 2010 and 2011, the remains of nine women, a girl and a man were found in the sand dunes of Gilgo Beach and Oak Beach. The macabre findings had upset the residents, while the reports of the time spoke of a “serial killer”.

According to a court document, the architect came under the microscope of prosecutors in 2022, when it was determined that one of the victims had been seen in a car belonging to Heuerman shortly before he disappeared. Investigators have since discovered genetic material incriminating the defendant.

Pornographic material with images of torture was found on Heuerman’s computer, the prosecutor said. He also pointed out that the defendant had made hundreds of Internet searches about the progress of the investigations, with questions such as “Why hasn’t the Long Island serial killer been caught?”