CLEARWATER, Fla. — A woman who once lived in Clearwater is among the 11 victims in a long-unsolved string of killings on Long Island also known as the Gilgo Beach murders.
Rex Heuermann, 54, was arrested in connection to the murders. He has been identified as an architect who has been living for decades across a bay from where the remains of those killed were found, authorities said.
Amber Lynn Costello was 27 years old and lived on America Avenue in West Babylon on Long Island when she was last seen. She had moved to New York from Clearwater and had completed a 28-day drug rehab but relapsed some time before her disappearance, the Suffolk County Police Department said.
Authorities said Costello was a heroin addict who lived in a house with another woman and two men — they, too, were addicted to drugs. The four of them all shared a cellphone as well. At the time before she vanished, Costello was a sex worker who often went by "Carolina" or "Mia." She advertised on Craigslist and Backpage to support her and her roommates' heroin addiction, police said. The other woman living in the home was also a sex worker and the two men would allegedly arrange dates with clients for the women.
The men would arrange a scam where after the client paid money and before the sex act would occur the men would confront the client pretending that Costello was his girlfriend and the client would flee, authorities say.
Costello was last seen leaving her residence on foot on Sept. 2, 2010, to meet a client who was supposed to pick her up at her house. She did not take her cellphone with her and she was never reported missing in the days after her disappearance.
It wasn't until Dec. 13, 2010, that her body was found on the north side of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, where detectives were searching for a missing person named Shannan Gilbert.
Police say Costello is believed to be the fourth victim in what is known as the "Gilgo Four."
Heuermann faces three murder charges for the killing of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Costello. Investigators have pinned him as a prime suspect in the overall case. He was arrested amid a renewed investigation that tied him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
Detectives were able to recover Heuermann's DNA from a pizza crust he discarded in Manhattan and matched it to genetic material found with the bodies that were bound and hidden in thick underbrush along a remote beach highway.
Heuermann's lawyer entered a not guilty plea on his client's behalf at an arraignment Friday in state court in Riverhead. Judge Richard Ambro ordered him jailed without bail, citing “the extreme depravity” of his alleged conduct.
Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael Brown, said they'd just learned about the charges Friday morning. He said Heuermann told him “I didn't do this.”
Heuermann, wearing khaki pants and a gray collared shirt, did not speak in court.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.