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Last week police arrested 59-year-old Rex Heuermann in connection with a string of bodies which were found on a barrier island off Long Island a decade ago. At the time, we didn’t know anything about what had tipped off authorities to the possibility that Heuermann was their suspect. Since then Heuermann was charged with three murders and we’ve learned a lot more about the evidence in the case. It turns out police have been looking at him for a full year.
Court documents obtained by The Post Friday detailed how investigators first focused on Heuermann just last year, after a vehicle-registration search showed the local dad of two owned a first-generation model of the truck that had previously been tied to the then-unknown killer.
It is unclear why it took so long for authorities to apparently make the link between Heuermann and the car, given that the architect seemed to make no effort to hide it.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to The Post on Monday that the detail about a dark-green Avalanche being linked to the case came in soon after the bodies of the “Gilgo Four” were found strewn around Ocean Parkway in December 2010.
“That tip came in very early on in the investigation,” a rep with the DA’s office said.
Heuermann had the truck parked in front of his house just a 15 minute drive from the crime scene where the bodies were found. That seems like it maybe should have been followed up a lot earlier. They also had a vague description of the suspect though it’s not clear if this was given to police a decade ago or more recently. A witness described him as an “ogre.”
On Sept. 1, 2010, Costello got a call from a burner phone.
