MASSAPEQUA, NEW YORK — Architect Rex Heuermann, a 62-year-old resident of Massapequa Park on Long Island, was arrested on July 13, 2023, in Manhattan after authorities obtained his DNA from a discarded piece of pizza outside his Midtown office. Heuermann later admitted in court to murdering eight women in the Gilgo Beach serial killings, a case that dates to 2010 when human remains were first discovered on Gilgo Beach on Long Island.

Heuermann, a married father of two, had commuted by train from Massapequa Park to Manhattan for his work as an architect. Massapequa Park and the adjacent community of Massapequa sit on Long Island's South Shore, about an hour's train ride from the city. His arrest placed one of Long Island's longest-running unsolved cases in a community with deep ties to law enforcement.

Massapequa is home to New York Police Department detectives, multi-generational police families, officers from both Nassau and Suffolk counties, and members of other law enforcement agencies. "There are probably more police officers in the Massapequa and Massapequa Park area than in any other part of Long Island," said Bob Livoti, president of the Association of Retired Police Officers.

That law enforcement presence extends to local gathering places. Johnny McGorey's, a pub located next to a rail station in Massapequa, is a regular spot for off-duty officers. Joanne Fountain, the owner of the pub, described the generational nature of the policing tradition among her patrons. "His dad was a cop, his grandpa was a cop, and he just got hired onto NYPD, too," Fountain said, speaking about one of the pub's regulars.

Nassau County, which encompasses the Massapequa communities, lost around 350 people in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including many first responders.

The Gilgo Beach investigation stretched over more than a decade. Jimmy Burke, a former Suffolk County police official, ended cooperation with the FBI in the case at one point during the probe. Authorities ultimately linked Heuermann to the killings through DNA evidence recovered in Manhattan, leading to his arrest more than 13 years after the first remains were found along the Long Island coastline in 2010.