Two victims of the New York Gilgo Beach serial killer — a Black mother and her 2-year-old child — stand out as the only African-Americans connected to the case that was blown wide open with the arrest of a New York architect this month, and now police in South Carolina are investigating whether there are links between the suspect and a missing Black teenager.
An unidentified woman only known as “Peaches” or “The Girl with the Peach Tattoo” was found in Lakeview, New York, near Hempstead Lake State Park in June 1997. Peaches was decapitated, and only her torso was found. The remains of her 2-year-old daughter were found in 2011 along with more of Peach’s remains. They are believed to be victims of the Gilgo Beach killer.
The bodies of three more women, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, were found in December of 2010 on Long Island along Ocean Parkway, but the killer was not caught at the time.
The Suffolk County Police finally arrested a suspect, 59-year-old New York City architect Rex Heuermann, on July 13. He was charged in connection with the murders of Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello on July 21 after two of the victims’ cellphones were used by Heuermann, police say.
The three victims reportedly were sex workers, and following Barthelemy’s death, Heuermann taunted her family with phone calls in 2009 on several occasions and admitted to killing and raping her, police claim. He is also a suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who disappeared in 2007. There were ten bodies found in total near Gilgo Beach.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison called Heuermann “a demon,” according to ABC News.
“Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us,” said Harrison. “A predator that ruined families.”
Heuermann became the prime suspect after a male hair found in the burlap Waterman’s body was wrapped in was matched to the DNA lifted from a pizza crust thrown away by Heuermann last January. He allegedly conducted thousands of searches for “sex workers, sadistic, torture-related pornography and child pornography” on his burner phones. He became a suspect after a Chevrolet Avalanche was seen near where Costello disappeared and tracked to Heuermann in 2022.
“Peaches” was given the name due to a tattoo on her breast of a peach with a bite taken out of it. The tattoo was used in an attempt to identify her. Her torso was found in a plastic bin near Hempstead Lake State Park on June 28, 1997. More skeletal remains and that of her 2-year-old daughter were found in 2011 near Ocean Parkway and Jones Beach State Park.
The police department in Mobile, Alabama, shared Peaches’ tattoo on Facebook last year and noted they were looking for friends and family members of the late Elijah “Lige” Howell or Howard. Elijah lived in Prichard, Alabama, with his wife Carrie and passed away in 1963, according to the Long Island Press. It’s unclear why the police are looking for people who knew Elijah, but it’s possible he was related to the victim and could help identify Peaches.
“His relatives may be able to assist in the case of a woman and child found in another state,” wrote the investigators. “Does this tattoo look familiar?”
Investigators were able to determine from DNA that the 2-year-old was Peaches’ child, and the Gilgo Beach killer is often referred to as the Long Island Serial Killer. Retired Nassau County Police Det. Lt. William Brosnan the lead Homicide Squad investigator on the case said at the time, “Somebody’s missing a child and a grandchild.”
Peaches is believed to have been between 20 and 30 years of age.
Police are also investigating Heuermann’s possible connection to the disappearance of 18-year-old Aaliyah Bell. Bell disappeared from Rock Hill, South Carolina, in November 2018. Heuermann reportedly owned vacant lots 20 miles from where Bell was last seen two days before Thanksgiving, according to WSCO-TV9.
Rock Hill Lt. Michael Chavis confirmed the investigation to ABC News and noted there was nothing to identify Heuermann as a suspect yet.
“Our investigators have been reviewing any information to see if there is a correlation between the disappearance of Aaliyah Bell and Rex Heuermann,” wrote Chavis. “So far there is no indication that leads us to identify Heuermann as a suspect in this case. We will continue to investigate Bell’s disappearance and follow up on all tips and leads.”
Investigators have been searching Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home on New York’s Long Island for several days, and police in Las Vegas are also investigating whether he could be involved in any of their unsolved cases.
His wife filed for divorce on July 19, six days after his arrest, at the Suffolk County Supreme Court.
