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Dave Schaller met with Suffolk County Police detectives in December 2010, shortly after the skeletal remains of 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello were found in an area off Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, according to CBS News.
He told them that shortly before Costello disappeared, he had witnessed a large man threatening her inside their North Babylon home. The two men got into a fight and the man eventually drove off in a Chevrolet Avalanche.
Schaller told detectives that the man’s large, “Frankenstein-like” appearance and “empty gaze,” as well as his unusual looking pickup truck, had stood out to him.
Costello, who advertised escort services on Craigslist, was last seen alive leaving her home in early September 2010.
Her remains were discovered the following December in an area off Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, near those of three other women: Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
The bodies of 10 people, nine of whom were women, are linked to the case.
A Break In The Case
The case sat cold for more than a decade until a new task force was created in January 2022. The team was made up of special homicide detectives from the Suffolk County Police Department and the FBI, along with the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office.
Their big break came the following March, when a thorough review of all the evidence zeroed them in on the same Chevrolet Avalanche that Schaller had reported seeing.
After running it through a vehicle records database, detectives found that a man who owned a Chevrolet Avalanche lived in the same Massapequa Park neighborhood that police were already focused on because of cell phone location data and call records, CBS News reports.
That man, 59-year-old Rex Heuermann, an architect working on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and married father of two, was arraigned on murder charges in Suffolk County Court on Friday, July 14, in the killings of Costello, Barthelemy, and Waterman. He has pleaded not guilty.
Although not yet charged, he is also the prime suspect in the disappearance and murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, prosecutors said.
A Chevrolet Avalanche truck was recovered in South Carolina at his brother's property and transported to Suffolk County, police said.
Detectives obtained a mountain of additional evidence against him, including cell phone records and DNA that was found on camouflage burlap used to restrain the victims, according to prosecutors.
Investigators also linked Heuermann’s email account to dozens of disturbing search queries, including “girl begging for rape porn” and “torture redhead porn,” prosecutors said. He also reportedly looked up numerous news articles about the Gilgo Beach murders.
Asked why it took police so long to follow up on Schaller’s tip about the truck, Suffolk County DA Raymond Tierney, who took office in 2022, told CBS News that it likely got lost in a “sea of other tips and information” they received at the time.
“At the time, there wasn't really any coherent leadership at the top. So, there's no interaction between the FBI and the other agencies,” Tierney told the outlet.
"I can't say from a leadership perspective what happened prior to January 2022, but I can tell you what we did starting in February 2022, and that's what we did and six weeks later, we had a suspect.”
Police are now working to prove that Heuermann committed the murders at his home while his family was away.
On Sunday, July 23, a team of investigators was seen searching his Massapequa Park property with dogs, a backhoe, and ground-penetrating radar, CNN reports.
This continues to be a developing story. Check back to Daily Voice for updates.
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