CHESTER COUNTY, S.C. — Investigators searched a property owned by the family member of a man charged with killing three people in New York tied to a series of unsolved killings that span roughly 15 years.
The FBI told NBC News on Monday that the agency conducted a search of property owned by a relative of Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old man charged in three deaths linked to the "Gilgo Beach" murders.
Chester County deputies assisted with seizing Heuermann's truck in the area, the sheriff's office confirmed on Monday.
Property records show that Heuermann's brother owns a home on Rippling Brooke Drive north of Chester. Heuermann owns a plot of land on the same street, according to property records.
Heuermann was linked to the murders after investigators used DNA on pizza he ate to genetic material found on the human remains of one of the victims. He is accused of killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
He is also considered the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman whose body was bound and hidden in thick underbrush along a remote beach highway, authorities said.
Heuermann was arrested on Thursday amid a renewed investigation that first identified him as a suspect in March 2022, when detectives linked him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
In March, detectives tailing Heuermann recovered his DNA from pizza crust in a box that he discarded in a Manhattan trash can and matched it to a hair found on a restraint used in the killings, authorities said.
Heuermann’s lawyer entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf Friday in New York state court.
The "Gilgo Beach" murders spanned from 1996 to 2011 and referred to 11 sets of human remains found along a New York suburban beach highway. Investigators have said over the years that it’s unlikely one person killed all 11 victims.
