Suspected Gilgo Beach Serial Killer Rex Heuermann Expected to Be Charged with 5th Murder: Reports

Rex Heuermann, the suspected Gilgo Beach Serial Killer, is already accused of murdering four women

gilgo beach serial killings
Rex Heuermann.

The suspected "Gilgo Beach Serial Killer" is expected to be indicted on a fifth murder charge, according to multiple news reports, which cite sources.

Rex Heuermann, 59, was previously charged with the murders of  Melissa BarthelemyAmber CostelloMegan Waterman and Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

NBC New York, Fox News and Newsday report that Heuermann is expected to be indicted Thursday on a murder charge connected to a fifth victim who has not been identified.

Brainard-Barnes, Waterman, Costello and Barthelemy were working as escorts at the time of their deaths and were reported missing between 2007 and 2010, PEOPLE previously reported. Their remains were all found in an area on Gilgo Beach in Long Island, N.Y., in December 2010. It is unclear where the remains of the fifth alleged victim were found.

According to Newsday, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney previously said that an additional six sets of remains were found near Gilgo Beach in 2011 and the investigation into those remains continues.

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Bob Macedonio, the attorney for Asa Ellerup, Heuermann's wife, tells PEOPLE the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office and other law enforcement personnel searched the house the couple shared over six days last month.

The search, according to Macedonio, focused primarily on the basement.

"There were items taken, but I'm just not at liberty to discuss them at this point in time," Macedonio tells PEOPLE.

Heuermann — an architect from Massapequa Park, N.Y. — was arrested July 13, 2023, near his office building in Manhattan. He was a married father of two at the time of his arrest.

Prosecutors previously claimed that Heuermann committed the murders when his now-estranged wife and children were out of town, according to court documents previously obtained by PEOPLE.

That his family was away gave him "unfettered time to execute his plans for each victim without any fear that his family would uncover or learn of his involvement in these crimes," prosecutors said in the court documents.

Heuermann previously pleaded not guilty to murder in the deaths of Barthelemy, Costello and Waterman.

A spokesperson for Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney would not comment to PEOPLE about the reports of the pending indictment.

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