Carmen Vargas: Authorities investigate Gilgo Beach serial murder suspect Rex Heuermann over 1989 unsolved murder
LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK: Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann is facing a new investigation into the 1989 murder of sex worker Carmen Vargas, whose body was found bound near his home.
The 59-year-old Manhattan architect, who was apprehended on July 13, 2023, has been charged with first- and second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of three victims -- Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
Heuermann is also named the prime suspect in the death of another victim Maureen Brainard-Barnes, however, the authorities were not able to charge him due to missing phone records.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office recently confirmed that an investigation has been launched against Heuermann after Vargas’ family claimed that her gruesome murder bore “too many similarities” to the deaths of the other Gilgo Beach sex workers.
"I believe he did it. I believe he did it when he first started killing," Vargas' niece Felicita Figueroa told The Sun
When did Carmen Vargas die?
In 1989, Vargas was only 29 years old when she was last seen being picked up by a man outside the family apartment in East Harlem.
"She got into a dark car [...] I couldn't really see the make or who was driving it, but I believe it was a White man with glasses,” Figueroa said.
"When she didn't come home the next day, we went out asking around the neighborhood if anyone had seen her,” she continued, before adding, “She never told us where she was going, or who with - only that she was coming back."
The family spent nearly three years trying to find Vargas but she disappeared without a trace. Later in 1992, her family noticed a sketch of a woman, who had been found murdered on Long Island three years prior.
The sketch didn't much resemble Vargas but her dental record and clothes helped in identifying her. "Those are her clothes," Felicita reluctantly confirmed.
Later, authorities revealed that the sex worker was later found dumped on the side of the Meadowbrook Parkway, just seven miles from Heuermann's Massapequa Park home.
Vargas' legs were bound at the ankles with a cord and a rope was tied around her neck. Her body was discovered on September 11, 1989, but officials believe she was murdered at a different location and dumped along the parkway some two to four weeks prior.
Detectives were unable to ascertain if Vargas had been sexually abused or how she had been killed as much of her remains had decayed.
Her skull was missing three teeth. Her hyoid bone in her neck was also partially missing, Felicita said, suggesting that Vargas had been strangled to death.
Why Joel Rifkin was believed to be Carmen Vargas’s murderer?
For many years, the Vargas family believed she was murdered by Joel Rifkin, a Long Island native who confessed to killing 17 women between 1989 and 1993.
Rifkin was, however, interrogated by investigators about Vargas following his arrest, but he refused to confess to killing her.
"Joel Rifkin said, ‘That’s not me. That’s not my work,'" said Figueroa, adding, "We really thought it was him but we eventually let it go."
"He would've accepted the credit, he admitted to killing 17 women. He admitted to each and every one of them,” she continued.
Officials claimed Heuermann would’ve been 25 at the time of Vargas’ murder, and was working for Greer Construction Company in Freeport in 1989.
Nassau County investigators confirmed the possible link is being investigated, along with other cold cases.
“We’re working with our law enforcement partners to review unsolved homicide cases that fit the alleged pattern of Rex Heuermann,” Nassau County District Attorney’s Office Communications Officer Brendan Brosh told The Post.