Prosecutors on Tuesday charged a suspected serial killer from New York in the long unsolved murder of a Norwich woman who disappeared in 2007.

Rex Heuermann, 60, who was already facing three counts of murder, is now charged in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who was 25 and working as an escort when she disappeared. Prosecutors have previously said Heuermann was a prime suspect in Brainard-Barnes’ death and now say they can link him to Brainard-Barnes with DNA evidence.

Heuermann was arrested in July 2023 and charged in the deaths of three other women ― Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Collectively, the four women, all sex workers, are known as the “Gilgo Four,” because their remains were found along a secluded stretch of Ocean Parkway in the Gilgo Beach area of Long Island. The remains of 11 people in all ― eight women, a man and young child ― were also discovered along the beach area starting in 2010. One woman’s death has been ruled an accidental drowning.

“The grand jury investigation of the so-called Gilgo Four is over. It has been concluded,” Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a news conference on Tuesday.

Tierney said investigation into the deaths of the other women continues. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Tierney called Tuesday’s charges against Heuermann a “small measure of closure,” for Brainard-Barnes’ family, who had waited years for answers. He thanked her family members, some of whom spoke after Heuermann’s was arraigned Tuesday in a Riverhead, N.Y., courtroom, for their continued advocacy in the case.

“While the loss of my mom has been extremely painful for me, the indictment by the grand jury has brought hope for justice for my mom and my family,” Nicolette Brainard-Barnes said in court.

She said she was only 7 years old when her mother vanished.

“I remember she read to me every night,” the now 24-year-old said, surrounded by other family members. “Now I can no longer remember the sound of her voice.”

“It has been 16 years since the loss of my sister, 16 years since I heard her voice because 16 years ago she was silenced,” Melissa Cann, Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ sister, added.

She remembered her sister as a “loving mother and giving friend” who would “never get the chance to show the world how talented she was.”

“Maureen was more than how she has been portrayed,” the 39-year-old said through tears.

The Day could not reach family members for further comment.

Heuermann, of Massapequa Park, N.Y., first became the target of an investigation by a special task force in 2022 when investigators identified his Chevy Avalanche pickup truck as the same truck seen in the area where one of the women disappeared.

Investigators have also linked Heuermann to the killings by matching DNA obtained from pizza crust he tossed in a trash can in Manhattan to a hair found on a burlap bag found wrapped around one of the murder victims.

Tierney said on Tuesday that investigation has revealed Heuermann’s wife and family were away at the time of Brainard-Barnes’ disappearance. He said investigators have gathered phones and other electronic devices related to the case that show Heuermann had contacted numerous sex workers, searched for torture porn and had searched for software he could use to erase data from his computers and digital devices.

Brainard-Barnes, a single mother of two, was a former blackjack dealer at Foxwoods Resort Casino. Her family has said she was facing eviction when she started working as an escort. Police said she is believed to have taken an Amtrak train to Grand Central Terminal in New York City in July 2007. At the time, police said, she was working as a sex worker and advertising on Craigslist, Backpage and other websites and working out of various hotels in New York.

Brainard-Barnes was first reported missing by a friend on July 14, 2007. Her remains were discovered Dec. 13, 2010, during the search for another missing woman.

“She was an intellectual. She was a writer. She was an artistic person. She cared very deeply about the people that she loved. She fiercely protected them," Tierney said at Tuesday’s news conference. “She’s sorely missed by the people that loved her."

Heuermann faces three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of three women killed between 2009 and 2010. He is charged with second-degree murder in Brainard-Barnes’ death. Tierney said the murder would have had to occur within 24 months of two other murders to warrant a first-degree murder charge.

Associated Press reporting is included in this report.