Month: December 2024

The man accused of a string of serial killings in Gilgo Beach on Long Island, was charged with a seventh murder on Tuesday.

According to a superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday, prosecutors charged the suspect, Rex Heuermann, in the November 2000 death of Valerie Mack, whose remains were found 24 years ago. Mack’s decapitated body in a wooded area of Manorville on Long Island on Nov. 19, 2000, with her remains bound with rope inside a black plastic bag which was wrapped with duct tape. Both of her hands had been severed from her body and one of her legs was cut off, according to a bail application that accompanied the new indictment. The rest of Mack’s remains were found more than a decade later, in April 2011, along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.

Heuermann, a New York architect, has been charged in the deaths of six other women, all suspected sex workers, whose remains were discovered in a remote spot along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach and parts of eastern Long Island. Prosecutors said they linked Heuermann, 61, to Mack’s death in part through a mitochondrial DNA analysis of a female hair found on Mack’s body which matched the profiles of Heuermann’s wife and daughter. At the time of Mack’s murder, Heuermann’s daughter would have been between 3-4 years old. Heuermann was also linked to Mack’s death through evidence recovered on some of the 350 electronic devices they seized from him that include his “significant collection of violent, bondage and torture pornography” dating back to at least 1994.

Heuermann, 61, was charged with one count of second-degree murder in connection with Mack’s death; he appeared in court on Tuesday shackled in a suit and told the judge, “Your honor, I am not guilty of any of these charges.” In June, Heuermann entered not-guilty pleas in the deaths of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla. In July 2023, he was charged in the deaths of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Melissa Barthelemy, and Megan Waterman.

Judge Timothy Mazzei continued to hold Heuermann without bail. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said at a news conference Tuesday that Mack’s parents “are very grateful for the small bit of closure.”

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Officials in Madison, Wisconsin are trying to determine why a 15-year-old girl allegedly opened fire at her school, Abundant Life Christian School, on Monday, killing a fellow student and teacher before taking her own life from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Police said on Tuesday were interviewing friends and family and examining the online presence of the shooter, identified by police as Natalie Rupnow, to determine what drove her to open fire in a classroom at her private Christian school.

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said on Tuesday that investigators are looking into online posts and a possible manifesto that Rupnow, who also went by Samantha, may have left behind: “We have been made aware of a manifesto, if you want to call it that, or some type of letter that’s been posted by someone who alleged to be her friend.”  Barnes said they are also examining Rupnow’s cell phone and computer to see if there were any transmissions between her and someone else, and are looking into how the 15-year-old obtained a gun and whether her parents were negligent.

Barnes told ABC News on Tuesday that The suspect’s parents are cooperating with the investigation: “they were cooperative. Despite this tragedy, they still lost a child. They still lost a member of their family. It is certain that they have probably more questions than anyone because they knew her. They lived with her and so we wanted to get an account from them of what kind of child she was.”

Two students were hospitalized in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, while another three students and a teacher suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

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