. The hunt began after four bodies were discovered in the brush alongside Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, a waterfront area near Jones Beach State Park on the south side of Long Island. Those remains, deemed the "Gilgo Four," were all of young women who were sex workers. They were all strangled to death. On Friday, 59-year-old architect Rex Heuermann was charged with first- and second-degree murder for the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. He is the "prime suspect" in the fourth killing, that of Maureen Brainard-Barnes. He may also be linked to at least seven other deaths. He pled not guilty to all the charges on Friday during a preliminary hearing at the Arthur M. Cromarty Criminal Court Complex in Riverhead, New York. But how are serial murders investigated? And how did the New York State Police, Suffolk County Police and other agencies like the FBI catch Heuermann? It boils down to DNA, said Kevin Gannon, who worked with the Bronx Homicide Task Force before his retirement. Traces biological structures are one of the first things investigators look for at crime scenes. They want any trace of it they can find, both of the victims and the killer. "They need to find out first who these individual women [and men] were," he said. "You would first need DNA to identify them." Several of the victims went unidentified for years until){kind=link}
Linking victims together and with their murderer is integral when solving a serial killing case, says retired NYPD detective Kevin Gannon. He shared two ways law enforcement can do so
Solving murders is a tricky business – and it’s especially difficult when the deaths are linked to an elusive serial killer who has been evading authorities for more than a decade.
But there are ways to catch an avid murderer, says a former New York Police Department homicide detective.
Authorities have spent the last 12 years searching for a slayer who has been deemed the Gilgo Beach murderer or the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK).
The hunt began after four bodies were discovered in the brush alongside Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, a waterfront area near Jones Beach State Park on the south side of Long Island.