Billy Baldwin says Gilgo Beach suspect was his high school classmate

Billy Baldwin shared an apparent connection between himself and Rex Heuermann, the man who was charged in connection with the Gilgo Beach murders.

Baldwin, a Long Island native, said on Twitter July 14 that he and Heuermann were classmates in the graduating class of 1981 at Berner High School in Massapequa, New York. 

“Woke up this morning to learn that the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect was my high school classmate Rex Heuermann,” Baldwin, 60, wrote on social media. “Married, two kids, architect. ‘Average guy… quiet, family man.’ Mind-boggling… Massapequa is in shock.”

In a digital copy of Berner High School’s yearbook for the graduating class of 1981, there appears to be a photo of Heuermann on page 70. The high school has since been converted into the junior high school, now called Alfred G. Berner Middle School.

On Instagram, Baldwin wrote in a similar post that he was “shocked” to learn that he had gone to school with Heuermann, who was charged July 14 with killing three women: Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. 

Heuermann pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder. He was ordered to be held without bail.

The 59-year-old New York architect was placed under arrest at his Massapequa Park home on the evening of July 13 around 8:30 p.m. according to Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison. He was taken into custody in Long Island the morning of July 14.

Heuermann’s arrest comes more than a decade after 10 bodies were found along Gilgo Beach in Long Island. 

Police discovered Barthelemy’s remains Dec. 11, 2010 before finding three more bodies two days later in their search, including those of Waterman and Costello. 

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said that after the victims’ bodies were found in 2010, all of the cases went cold. 

In January 2020, Suffolk County police released new information about evidence related to the Gilgo Beach murders. By February 2022, the Gilgo Homicide Investigation Task Force was formed. 

In March 2022, a connection was made between Heuermann and Costello when officials discovered that there was a first-generation Chevy Avalanche registered to the architect at the time of the murders. A witness to Costello’s disappearance said it was believed that vehicle was driven by her killer.

After a police detective from Suffolk County took 11 bottles of trash from outside of Heuermann’s home for testing in July 2022, results from a forensic lab in February concluded that there was a link between the DNA profiles generated from the bottles and the female hairs recovered from the three victims.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com