LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK: The unnerving discovery of 11 human remains near Gilgo Beach haunted the Long Island community for more than thirteen years. The case became the subject of an exhaustive investigation but remained unsolved until the arrest of Rex Heuermann. The Manhattan architect, 59, was apprehended on July 13 as a prime suspect in the murder of four sex workers, whose remains were found on the remote island in December 2010.
While Heuermann has been charged in the murders of three sex workers, authorities still have no answers regarding the deaths of six other victims, who were discovered dismembered in the same area on Long Island's South Shore. This has revived a fierce debate over whether or not Heuermann is the sole killer. “This is hard to talk about, but is this same killer, or are there two?” asked Josh Zeman, a filmmaker and producer who dug deep into the case for a 2017 documentary called 'The Killing Season'. “It’s been really baffling to some of the best minds in the country,” he told Fox News Digital.
Who is the Manorville butcher?
The mystery surrounding the infamous Gilgo Beach cold case is made worse by the time and place where the victims' dismembered remains were found. The skull of one victim, who is identified only as “Fire Island Jane Doe,” was found on Gilgo Beach in 2011 but her legs were found about 16 miles east on Fire Island in 1996. A second victim Valerie Mack’s head, hands, and right foot were found on Gilgo Beach in 2011, while her torso was found 11 years earlier in Manorville, New York, which is about 40 miles east of Gilgo Beach. Similar to Mack’s case, Jessica Taylor's torso was discovered in Manorville in 2003, but her skull, hands, and one of her forearms were discovered in March 2011 along the shore along Ocean Parkway.
In 2011, authorities discovered the remains of a young Black or biracial woman - another Jane Doe - near Gilgo Beach in 2011 but her torso was found in Hempstead Lake State Park in 1997. A toddler who investigators said was a child of “Peaches” was also found on Gilgo Beach in 2011. “So you have a killer who’s leaving torsos in Manorville, additional body parts in Gilgo Beach and the same person, theoretically, has left other body parts in other parts of Long Island,” Zeman said, adding, “It’s wicked confusing… The fact that these body parts, these torsos, were found in Manorville is why people call this killer, ‘The Manorville Butcher.’”
Is Rex Heuermann the Manorville butcher?
While officials were busy investigating the Gilgo Beach Murders, a Manorville resident named John Bittrolff was arrested through DNA in July 2014 for killing two sex workers named Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee. Theories put up by the public and law enforcement instantly connected Bittrolff to the Gilgo Beach case, but he was soon pulled off the radar because of his third distinct method of execution, which involved beating his victims to death and abandoning them by the side of the road. “Many said he must be the Gilgo Beach Killer. He must be the Manorville Butcher. He must be responsible for all these bodies along Ocean Parkway,” Zeman said.
“But right now, we don’t know. It was originally said during his trial, that an [assistant district attorney] said he might be connected to more bodies, but we’ve yet to find out if that’s really true or speculation,” the filmmaker continued. Bittrolff was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison. “He remains somewhat of a tangential and mysterious figure in this whole question if there are one or multiple killers,” Zeman said. Now it is revealed that Heuermann apparently knew about Bittrolff as he was one of his 200-plus alleged Google searches related to the Gilgo Beach case, according to his bail application, which detailed thousands of Google searches for explicit pornography and nearby sex workers.
Is Rex Heuermann connected to any other victim?
In Heuermann’s 200-plus alleged Google searches, there was one that caught Zeman’s eye: “Asian twink tie-up porn.” A twink is a term to define a gay or bisexual young man with a “slim, boyish appearance.” “Personally, I always thought it was two killers,” Zeman said, adding, “But one of the bodies that were found along Ocean Parkway was an Asian male so that suddenly made me think that suddenly we are dealing with one killer.” The victim Zeman was referring to hasn’t been identified but he is described as a young, biological male found wearing women’s clothing.
When the body was discovered in April 2011, authorities believed he had been dead for around five years. “I still don’t know (how many killers), and this was a big problem for Suffolk County from the beginning,” Zeman said. “It’s been said (former Police Commissioner) Richard Dormer was fired because he got in an argument with the DA whether it was one serial killer or two. So this debate about one serial killer or two has been raging since the very earliest days of this investigation.”
