Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann addressed by victims’ families at sentencing: ‘Disgusting coward’

(NEW YORK) — Anguished relatives of the Gilgo Beach, New York, serial killing victims aimed decades of anger at their loved ones’ killer, Rex Heuermann, as they read victim impact statements at his sentencing on Wednesday.

“I can’t even put into words the eviscerating hatred I have for you,” said Jasmine Robinson, cousin of victim Jessica Taylor, who would have turned 43 on Wednesday. “You fill me with so much repugnance.”

Another cousin, Violet Swager, remembered Taylor as “fierce, kind, compassionate, beautiful and intelligent.”

She said to Heuermann, “You chose small women because you’re nothing more than a weak, disgusting coward.”

In April, Heuermann, 62, pleaded guilty to killing seven women: Taylor, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack and Sandra Costilla. He also admitted to killing an eighth woman, Karen Vergata, though he was not formally charged in her death.

Brainard-Barnes’ sister Missy Cann broke down in tears as she read a statement prior to the imposition of the sentence.

“You are a coward who preyed on vulnerable, innocent women,” Cann said.

Mack’s parents, Ed and JoAnn Mack, said Heuermann robbed their daughter of the chance to achieve her dreams.

“I would like to say to Mr. Heuermann, what you have done to our family is beyond what words can express,” JoAnn Mack said. “Even though justice is done, it cannot replace what you have taken from us.”

Barthelemy’s sister, Amanda Funderberg, recalled how Heuermann tormented her after the murder by calling her and saying he was letting Barthelemy’s body rot.

Funderberg turned to stare down Heuermann in the courtroom, telling him, “You can look at me while I’m talking — it has been about 17 years since we’ve spoken.”

She called him an “ogre” and a “repulsive monster.”

Waterman’s daughter, Liliana Waterman, who was 9 when her mother was killed, recalled finding out about how her mother died while scrolling on her phone.

“In an instant my world shattered,” Liliana Waterman said. “I have spent 16 Mother’s Days without her.”

At an April hearing, Heuermann agreed to serve three consecutive life sentences followed by four consecutive sentences of 25 years-to-life, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the New York City architect targeted sex workers, strangled them and dumped their bodies near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach over the course of 17 years.

Heuermann “walked among us, play acting as a normal, suburban dad, when in reality, all along, he was obsessively targeting innocent women for death,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in April.

The Gilgo Beach cases went unsolved for years, until Heuermann’s arrest in 2023.

Since then, Heuermann has been in custody at the Riverhead Correctional Facility. While in jail, Heuermann has been reading books about murder and serial killers, and he’s communicated with Keith Hunter Jesperson, a 1990s serial killer known as the Happy Face Killer, Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon told ABC News.

Defense attorney Michael Brown said in April that the decision to plead guilty belonged solely to Heuermann. Brown said Heuermann would likely have more to say at sentencing.

Part of Heuermann’s plea agreement also requires him to be interviewed by the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit.