New York’s Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann sentenced to life in prison

After decades waiting for justice, relatives of women murdered by New York’s Gilgo Beach serial killer laid into him on Wednesday before he was sentenced to life in prison. He told them: “I am responsible” for the crimes.

“The words I would say would have no meaning,” added Rex Heuermann, the Long Island architect who lived a secret life of violence for years before admitting he killed eight women.

The sentencing capped an extraordinary investigation that solved one of New York’s most perplexing mysteries.

The seemingly unconnected and largely overlooked disappearances of young women 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.

Heuermann, 62, will have no possibility of parole.

Rex Heuermann is escorted away after being sentenced at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, New York, on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

But “a million years isn’t enough”, Jasmine Robinson, a cousin of victim Jessica Taylor, said. “Nothing will ever make this right.”