Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann has been sentenced to life in prison without parole in an emotional end to a decades-long murder case that haunted Long Island.
Families applauded and cheered in the courtroom after the judge handed down the sentence Wednesday. He called Heuermann a “disgusting and despicable man,” stating: “You’re a coward.”
Heuermann was allowed to speak at sentencing and told the court, “I am responsible for all that was said in this room… The words I say have no meaning.”
The judge asked him if he’s sorry for his crimes, saying, “At least eight women that we know of… Are you a little bit sorry for that?” Heuermann replied, “yes.”
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Earlier at the hearing, hands clasped and resting on the defense table in an eastern Long Island courtroom, Heuermann looked straight ahead and lightly tapped his fingers as he was confronted by families of his victims.
“A million years isn’t enough,” Jasmine Robinson, a cousin of victim Jessica Taylor, told killer Rex Heuermann. “Nothing will ever make this right.”
“Justice has been done, but it can’t replace what has been taken,” said JoAnn Mack, the mother of victim Valerie Mack. “She had dreams, and you took them all away from her.”
The Long Island architect, 62, lived a secret life of violence for years before admitting he killed eight women in April.
The sentencing caps an extraordinary investigation that solved one of New York’s most perplexing mysteries — one that began as a series of seemingly unconnected, and largely unmarked disappearances of young women, but became the focus of true-crime documentaries, books and podcasts after police began discovering the victims’ skeletal remains in the sandy scrub along a coastal parkway.
Asa Ellerup, his ex-wife, and their two grown children said through their lawyers that they would not attend the sentencing out of respect for the victim’s families.
