How LISK Was Finally Arrested — The Gilgo Beach Killer Caught After 13 Years
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Thirteen years of dead ends in the Gilgo Beach case. Every suspect cleared. Then a pizza box changed everything.
Today we break down exactly how LISK—the Long Island Serial Killer—was arrested. The Suffolk County task force, the Chevrolet Avalanche tip, the cell tower evidence, the DNA breakthrough, and the pizza crust that allegedly tied it all together.
The investigation stalled for years after bodies were discovered along Ocean Parkway in 2010 and 2011. Then a new task force formed in February 2022. Six weeks in, an investigator noticed an old witness statement about an "ogre-like man" driving a Chevrolet Avalanche.
A database search returned one name: Rex Heuermann.
Cell phone records allegedly connected the alleged Gilgo Beach Killer to burner phones in every instance. But investigators needed physical evidence.
Enter whole genome sequencing. This cutting-edge technology can extract DNA from degraded samples traditional testing couldn't use. A California lab applied it to hairs found on the Gilgo Beach victims. According to prosecutors, hairs on six of seven victims linked to LISK or his immediate family.
But they still needed his DNA directly.
May 2023. Heuermann discards a pizza box outside his Manhattan office. Investigators retrieve it. DNA from the crust matches a male hair found on Gilgo Four victim Megan Waterman. A profile found in only 0.04% of the population.
July 13, 2023. The alleged Long Island Serial Killer arrested. Twelve-day search of his Massapequa Park home. Fifty-eight hard drives. Over two hundred firearms. The planning document that prosecutors say supports the Gilgo Beach case.
The defense has challenged the DNA technology as "magic." Judge Mazzei rejected those challenges. The LISK trial happens September 2026.
Seven women. Thirteen years. Finally, a trial.
Part 5 of 5.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske. Here now, Tony Brucey. |
| 0:06.0 | Let's talk about pizza. May of 2023, investigators have been tailing Rex Ehrman for months. |
| 0:16.0 | They've connected his movements to burner phones. They've linked his home to the cell tower box where the crucial calls originated. |
| 0:28.3 | We talked about that. |
| 0:29.2 | And our last piece on this topic, they watched him add money to prepaid phones at a Manhattan cell phone store, but they need DNA. |
| 0:42.6 | That hereman walks out of his midtown Manhattan office, finishes a slice of pizza, and tosses the box into a public trash can. |
| 0:50.6 | Within hours, a pizza crust is in a forensic lab. |
| 0:58.4 | The DNA on the crust, according to the prosecutors, matched a DNA profile from a male hair found on Megan Waterman's body. |
| 1:07.8 | After 13 years of dead ends, prosecutors say it discarded pizza box cracked one of the longest running serial killer investigations in New York history. |
| 1:18.8 | We're about to get into this and I'd love to get your thoughts in the comment section. |
| 1:22.2 | As we do on Substack or YouTube, the links are in the description. |
| 1:26.8 | Be sure to press subscribe wherever you're listening or watching so you don't miss any of this. |
| 1:31.0 | Let's back up to where this started. |
| 1:33.2 | December of 2010, a Suffolk County police officer is treading his canine partner near Gilgo Beach. |
| 1:40.0 | When the dog alerts on something in the brush along Ocean Parkway. |
| 1:51.3 | The officer investigates and surprise training day, he finds human remains. |
| 1:56.7 | Over the following months, authorities discovered 10 more sets of remains along a 10-mile stretch of that desolate highway. Four women found within a quarter mile of each other |
| 2:03.0 | wrapped in burlap became known as the Gilgo four melissa barthelamy mega what megan |
| 2:08.7 | waterman amber costella and marine brainard barnes the search had actually started for someone else |
| 2:16.3 | chanin gilbert a 23-year-old S-worker, had disappeared in May of 2010, |
| 2:22.3 | after making a frantic 911 call from a client's home in the area. |
| 2:26.3 | Her body was found in December of 2011. |
... |
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