Rex Huerman's Atlantic City ties come to
light as police investigate unsolved murders in New Jersey casino town
Atlantic City, NJ — The arrest of suspected
Long Island serial killer Rex Huerman has prompted investigators across the
country to re-examine similar cold case murders, including a nearby oceanside
enclave where four sex workers were found dead in a sewage ditch in 2006.
Two women walking in a swamp behind a row of
motels just west of Atlantic City encountered a terrifying sight about 50 yards
past the demolished motel on November 21, 2006.
They found the remains of 35-year-old Kim
Ruffo, and police arrived to find three more women in the same pit – Tracy Ann
Roberts, 23, Barbara Breedor, 42, and Molly Dilts, 19.
Gilgo Beach search warrant executed at suspect Rex Heuermann's
home
Like Heuermann's suspected victim, all of the
victims of the "Eastbound Strangler" from New Jersey were believed to
be sex workers. All of them were made to stand in the same direction, face down
in dirty water and barefoot.
Behind the hotel is the Atlantic City
Expressway, which cuts through marsh grass in a similar way to New York's Ocean
Parkway.
Serial killer Dennis Rader called Gilgo Beach suspect Rex
Heuermann 'my clone'
Heuermann, a 59-year-old Long Island
architect who worked in New York City, was arrested earlier this month on half
a dozen murder charges in connection with the deaths of three women who
disappeared between 2007 and 2010: Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22,
and Amber Costello, 27.
He is also the prime suspect in the murder of
a fourth woman, 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who, like the others, was
found in bushes along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.
Rex Heuermann's wife photographed for the first time as she
files for divorce from Gilgo Beach serial murder suspect
The suspected serial killer-turned-suburban
father of two also owned a timeshare in Las Vegas and property in South
Carolina, where police seized an old Chevrolet Avalanche pickup believed to be
the suspected vehicle in Costello's disappearance. And Heuermann also appears
to have ties to Atlantic City.
"We should be ashamed if we don't look
at Las Vegas, South Carolina, even Atlantic City. We have to make sure if
anyone has information," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney
Harrison, who helped launch the task force last year that led to Hurmann's
arrest, told ABC 7 last week.
A dancer at the Boardwalk strip club,
Stiletto, told Fox News Digital she believes she may have seen Heuermann three
times - twice before the coronavirus pandemic and once in 2021.
He alleged that on all the three occasions,
he paid for a private room but refused the lap dance.
She said, "He just wanted me to sit and
talk with him and then kept coaxing me to meet him outside the club, and I
never went." "I've met people outside the club before, so I'm no
stranger to it, but this guy made me feel uncomfortable."
She said she believed he left her after the third meeting
because she had put on weight after the birth of her second child. All of
Heuermann's suspected victims are described as slim, with three of them less
than 5 feet tall.
Although
she said she could not be completely sure the man was Heuermann, she described
him as an older New Yorker with a similar face.
According
to The Associated Press, Dave Schaller, the only witness to the disappearance
of Gilgo Beach victim Costello, described the suspect to police as a
"monster" who stood over 6 feet tall and weighed about 250 pounds.
He
told the outlet, "When they told me she had passed away, that was the
first person that jumped into my mind." "I've been photographing his
face for 13 years."
Gilgo Beach murders:
South Carolina neighbors say secrecy surrounds suspect Rex Hurmann, 'strange'
brother
He
added that, although he stopped going to the club, Heuermann's distinctive
features bothered the Atlantic City dancer once again.
"I
know I saw her on Tinder too," he said. "When they (Suffolk County
prosecutors) released the photos used on Tinder, my astonishment went up."
The
dancer said she had been haunted by unsolved murders in Gilgo Beach and
Atlantic City for years, and said her club was close to the road leading to the
Golden Key Motel east of downtown.
Stiletto was closed
on Mondays.
Heuermann
is reported to have been a heavy drinker, but bartenders in the area said they
weren't sure whether they recognized him from TV coverage or in person, if they
recognized him at all.
Atlantic
City also has a lot in common with another of Heuermann's favorite destinations
- Las Vegas.
"When
I heard that Rex had a timeshare in Las Vegas, obviously my ears perked up. ...
Is he a gambler or is he going to an area that has a huge pool of victims,
Means sex worker?" said documentary producer Josh Zeman, who interviewed
Schaller in 2016 for A&E's "The Killing Season."
The
documentary touched on several predictions that proved true years later with
Heuermann's arrest—including that the suspect would be a Big Apple commuter
from Massapequa who might be involved in duck hunting.
"Atlantic City also has a very strong sex trade," he said.
On the other hand, while Atlantic County Prosecutor William Reynolds says investigators there are combing through all the leads in the unsolved Golden Keys case, which he refers to as the 2006 Black Horse Pike murder case, as a person of interest No official link to Heuermann has surfaced.
Suspected Long Island serial killer's duck hunting could have been ideal cover to hide body
Reynolds' predecessor, James McClain, told Fox News Digital in 2015 that the Golden Key murders fit the "FBI definition of a serial killer" and that investigators were interested in more than one person. Reynolds declined to say whether Heuermann was one of them.
