In Gilgo Beach Killings, an Arrest Bears Out a Decade-Old Prediction

In April 2011, simply months after the our bodies of 4 ladies had been found buried close to Gilgo Seashore on Lengthy Island’s South Shore, a number of consultants and criminologists put together a sketch for The New York Occasions of the traits they anticipated to see in a suspect.

The ladies, wrapped in burlap and buried inside a quarter-mile of one another in an space the place the stays of 11 folks in complete would ultimately be discovered, had been most likely killed by a white man in his mid-20s to mid-40s, they stated. He’s married or has a girlfriend. He’s effectively educated and effectively spoken. He’s financially safe, has a job, owns an costly automobile or truck, and lives or used to reside close to the place the our bodies had been discovered.

On Friday, particulars started rising about Rex Heuermann, who was arrested and charged with homicide within the killings of three of the ladies. Prosecutors stated he was the prime suspect within the dying of the fourth lady. Mr. Heuermann, 59, is a married white man who works as an architect in Manhattan and lives in Massapequa Park, about 15 miles from Gilgo Seashore. He owned a Chevrolet Avalanche truck on the time of the killings, prosecutors stated.

None of this proves that Mr. Heuermann is the serial killer, and consultants famous that profiles are usually used to guage people who’ve already come to the eye of investigators. However the similarities didn’t go unnoticed by among the consultants who put collectively the 2011 profile.

“Once I heard the information yesterday, I form of needed to smile to myself as a result of it was just about what I had predicted,” Scott Bonn, a criminologist, creator and serial-killer researcher who has spoken in regards to the Gilgo Seashore killings, stated in a telephone interview on Saturday.

Mr. Heuermann, who’s being held with out bail on the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverhead, N.Y., has pleaded not responsible to the fees. His lawyer stated outdoors the courthouse on Friday that he had denied committing the killings.

The lawyer, Michael Brown, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Saturday night. On Saturday morning, the block round Mr. Heuermann’s house remained closed by the police to everybody however residents. A number of field vehicles had been parked outdoors the home to remove objects gathered for proof.

Profiling killers isn’t a exact science. And the portrait the consultants drew in 2011 may describe many males who reside on Lengthy Island and commute into Manhattan for work.

“The factor about serial killers — a minimum of those which might be extra prolific — is that they’re typically terribly odd,” stated James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern College who has studied serial killers for greater than 40 years.

“You may’t use a profile to seek out the killer,” Mr. Fox stated, including that there have been instances the place profiles had been incorrect.

In 2011, Dr. Bonn, then an assistant professor of sociology at Drew College in Madison, N.J., predicted that the killer can be “somebody who can stroll right into a room and appear to be your common Joe.”

The person can be organized, he believed, and cautious about his work. He informed The Occasions that the killer was prone to be “persuasive sufficient and rational sufficient” to steer his victims to fulfill him on his phrases.

Dr. Bonn stated on Saturday that he was not stunned to find out about Mr. Heuermann’s career. “Who’s extra organized, who’s extra meticulous, than somebody who studied engineering and structure?” he stated. Mr. Heuermann must be persuasive to promote his abilities, he added.

Prolific serial killers are typically extraordinarily cautious to not go away behind proof and might disguise in plain sight, mixing into their communities, the consultants stated.

“They often have jobs and households and so they kill half time,” Mr. Fox stated. “It’s not their sole exercise in life.”

Those that labored with Mr. Heuermann stated he was extraordinarily fastidious, impressing some purchasers whereas exasperating others together with his consideration to element. Some of his neighbors described him as an “common” man whom they wouldn’t consider as “something however a businessman.” To others, he was somebody to keep away from — a glowering, towering particular person they might see within the entrance yard of a low-slung, dilapidated home.

“We’d cross the road,” stated Nicholas Ferchaw, 24, a neighbor. “He was someone you don’t need to method.”

Serial killers can have seemingly contradictory personalities, Dr. Bonn stated.

“These people reside compartmentalized lives,” he stated, noting that Mr. Heuermann “clearly functioned very extremely — had his personal structure agency and picked up his briefcase, acquired on the prepare, went into the town each day, went into Manhattan and was capable of operate.

“However then,” he stated, “it’s nearly like they flip a change and simply develop into one other particular person fully.”

Corey Kilgannon contributed reporting.