Plea for info on mystery Gilgo Beach ‘Asian Doe’ victim as DA won’t rule out Rex Heuermann
Suffolk County investigators are trying to ID “Asian Doe,” one of the bodies dumped near Gilgo Beach more than a decade ago — and aren’t ruling out accused serial killer Rex Heuermann as a suspect.
The victim, a cross-dressing suspected sex worker found among 11 bodies dumped along the desolate stretch of Ocean Parkway since the 1990s, may be tied to Heuermann through his sick online searches like “asian escorts manhattan” and “young twink tied up porn,” authorities suggested Monday.
First, they want to find out who the mystery victim is.
“This is a call to action,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said at a press conference. “We want to enlist the public’s help to ID ‘Asian Doe.’”
The call came as prosecutors released a new forensic sketch in an attempt to identify the victim and move one step closer to solving one of the remaining Gilgo Beach mysteries.
The skeletal remains of the unidentified Asian man were found along Ocean Parkway on April 4, 2011, with investigators estimating his age to have been between 17 and 23 years old when he died “a violent death” sometime before 2006 and dumped at the site.
He was approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall with bad teeth, according to investigators, and was likely a sex worker whose body was found between Gilgo Beach victims Megan Waterman and Jessica Taylor.
Tierney said the victim was a biological male but was dressed in women’s clothing, including several garments by designer Bill Blass, and likely identified as a woman.
The DA would not speculate whether Heuermann, a hulking Manhattan architect charged with killing most of the victims, was also a suspect in the “Asian Doe” slaying — nor would he rule it out.
“As we said all along, each one of these victims is a separate crime scene,” he said. “Start from that separate crime scene and you work your way up, which we’re doing. And, you know, it’s all nice to speculate, but basically doesn’t matter unless you bring charges. We’re certainly not at that state.”
Pressed on the questions, Tierney said some of Heuermann’s graphic online searches suggest a possible link.
“We have a bail document which details some of the internet searches done by the defendant and some did contain searches using similar terms that we just described,” he said.
Prosecutors said in court papers this year that the accused killer kept a stomach-turning computer file detailing “planning document” and “lessons learned” from the slayings.
Heuermann is now charged in the deaths — unsolved for more than a decade — of six sex workers whose bodies were dumped along Ocean Parkway.
Initially charged with killing the victims known as the “Gilgo Four,” Heuermann was charged with killing two others in June, including one woman who was killed as early as 1993.
He is now facing murder charges in the deaths of Waterman, Taylor, Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello and Sandra Costilla.
Heuermann, who was arrested outside his Midtown office in 2022, was linked to the crimes through DNA evidence plucked from a discarded pizza box and even from his daughter’s energy drink can.
He has remained behind bars without bail.
Heuermann has not been charged in the deaths of other victims found near the site, including Karen Vergata, Shannan Gilbert, a black woman identified only as “Peaches” along with the remains of a toddler — and the Asian victim Tierney now wants to identify.
“It was previously known that this victim was of Asian descent,” he said Monday. “However, now we know that it is a strong likelihood that the victim is of southern Chinese descent — Han Chinese descent — and Han Chinese is one of the 56 officially recognized ethnicities in the people from China.”
Tierney credited the NYPD and state police with helping with the new rendering of the victim and with help in spreading word throughout the Asian community in the Big Apple and the area.
Meanwhile, CrimeStoppers is offering a $2,500 reward for “Asian Doe’s” identity.
