Accused serial killer planned to move to 18-acre secluded SC property

The New York man accused of killing three women bought about 18 acres of land beside a string of small, secluded ponds in Chester County two years ago as a retirement home.

Neighbors say Rex Heuermann had planned to buy everyone else out, The New York Post reported.

“I heard that,” said James Austin, who lives across a small pond from Heuermann’s property. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He can see Heuermann’s property but the residence is shrouded by a thick growth of trees along both the pond and the road on the other side.

Austin and three others own the dam that impounds one of the dozen or so lakes that make up what is known as Mirror Lakes subdivision.

It is an area of mostly mobile homes on large lots, each at least 4 acres.

Austin said he and his wife moved to the area 20 years ago. The main draw is privacy. He can see the homes of less than a handful of neighbors from his 7 acres.

Heuermann’s property on Rippling Brooke Drive was searched by the FBI, New York law enforcement agencies and Chester County Sheriff deputies this month.

A Chevrolet Avalanche was seized.

Heuermann, an architect, is charged in three of the 11 deaths of women whose remains were found buried along a stretch of Gilgo Beach beside the Atlantic Ocean in Babylon, New York in 2010 and 2011.

The truck — or a similar one taken from Heuermann’s Massapequa Park, New York, residence — factors into the murder investigation because an associate of one of the women told police he had seen a vehicle like it at the time of her murder.

Officers were looking for cell phones, condoms, cut ends of black leather belts, devices that stamp letters on leather, knives, scissors, cutting instruments, and Bounty paper towels, according to a search warrant.

Austin said Heuermann’s brother Craig also has property in the subdivision but does not live there. He has talked with him once, mostly about the fact they were both MPs in the service.

Austin said the Heuermanns mostly kept to themselves. His contact with Rex was seeing him riding by in the Avalanche.

Many stories about the Heuermanns have circulated among the community, including one in which Craig hit a neighbor with a pole for mowing on Sunday, The New York Post reported. Craig and Rex were also believed to have cut a small boat in half after warning the owner to get it off their property, Austin said.

The boat had been there since Austin moved in decades before.

Austin said he used to fish the area as a boy growing up in Chester, looking for crappie, brim and bass. Back then it was known as White’s ponds. There was a box at the gate for people to pay to fish.

Now, the 70-year-old mostly fishes for bass and throws them back in.

“It’s pretty quiet,” he said.

Property records in Chester County show Heuermann bought property in the Mirror Lakes subdivision on July 28, 2021 for $154,351.

The Chester County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook the agency has been working with the Gilgo Beach Task Force “gathering evidence in Chester County relevant to their investigation.”

Chester Sheriff’s spokeswoman Londa Pringle declined to give more information about the agency’s involvement but did say they were on site just that one day.

Heuermann is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, according to an indictment unsealed in Suffolk County Criminal Court. He has pleaded not guilty.

He is also considered the prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

One Chester County neighbor told The New York Post, “I’m glad that they found this out before he moved down here. We wonder what’s going to happen from this point on.”