Could alleged Gilgo Beach NY serial killer be responsible for 2 missing SC women? What police say

Cameron Bean last saw her mother in 2017 when they went to a nail salon in Sumter County the day before her graduation.

A man who said he wanted to marry her mother drove them there in a Chevrolet Avalanche.

Bean believes the man was Rex Heuermann, who has been charged with murder in the deaths of three women on Long Island, New York. Heuermann bought property in Chester County in South Carolina in 2021.

The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement saying they spoke with Cameron Bean and then called the Federal Bureau of Investigation to pass on the information in the case of missing woman Julia Ann Bean.

FBI spokesman in South Carolina Kevin Wheeler said they are aware of the case but as is their practice they cannot confirm or deny whether they have launched an investigation.

He referred questions to Suffolk County, New York, law enforcement, who did not respond to questions. Among them are whether Heuermann had ties to South Carolina before he bought the Chester County property that could have enabled him to meet Bean in 2017.

Cameron Bean’s friend Heidi Kovas told Ashleigh Banfield on the News Nation program “Banfield” that Bean is certain her mother was with Heuermann. She never saw either one again.

Recently, Bean saw him on the news when he was arrested and sent a text message saying, “I have chills … I’ve seen him. That was the last man I saw her with personally.”

Kovas talked to Sumter investigators, who in turn contacted Cameron Bean. She verified the story.

The Sumter sheriff has said investigators have not found any evidence linking the accused serial killer to Julia Ann Bean’s disappearance.

Similarly, Rock Hill police looked at Heuermann earlier this year in connection with the disappearance of 18-year-old Aaliyah Bell, missing since 2014. But they found no ties. Bell was walking the half-mile from her uncle’s to her grandmother’s on a rainy evening. She disappeared without a trace..

“Since 2017, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office has extensively investigated Ms. Bean’s disappearance,” the office said on Facebook. “Investigators are interviewing individuals and investigating reports that she may have been seen with Rex Heuermann. Her case will remain open until she is found.”

Bean, who was also known as Julie, was last seen in Sumter County on May 31, 2017.

Kovas said Cameron was concerned when her mother did not attend graduation. Bean had three children; Cameron, now mother to three children; Carson, a Marine: and Cayleigh, a college student in Texas.

Cameron reported their mother missing on Nov. 18, 2017.

Heuermann owns about 18 acres beside a string of small, secluded ponds in Chester County where neighbors told The State he planned to buy everyone else out and retire.

The property in Mirror Lakes subdivision is shielded from the lake and road by a thick growth of trees and shrubs. Chester County property records show Heuermann bought the property on July 28, 2021 for $154,351.

The property was searched by the FBI, New York law enforcement agencies and Chester County Sheriff deputies in July, and a Chevrolet Avalanche was seized.

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.

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

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

Kovas said the Bean family just wants answers.

“We want to bring Julie home,” she said.