For more than a year, investigators discovered human remains along a stretch of Ocean Parkway in Suffolk County, Long Island. The victims who could be identified were young women, many from the New York City area, who had worked in the sex industry and gone missing — in some cases, more than a decade before they were found. It became clear that a serial killer was targeting this particularly vulnerable population, but for more than 13 years, the case languished. In 2023, though, a man suspected of being the “Long Island Serial Killer” was finally apprehended.
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer, a three-episode documentary series which premiered on March 31, 2025, delves into the lengthy investigation that culminated in a much-awaited arrest. It also explores the stigma surrounding the victims’ line of work, which may have contributed to the inquiry’s frustratingly slow pace.
“These family members were never going to give up. These women knew that there was a need to shake [up] the establishment to get attention for this case,” says director Liz Garbus. “Of course, they shouldn’t have [had] to work so hard. The system should work to protect them and should’ve protected their family members. But at the end of the day, their voices really mattered.”
Featuring interviews with journalists, law enforcement officials, and friends and family of the victims and accused killer, the series is helmed by Garbus — who also directed Lost Girls, a 2020 drama that focused on the mother of one of the Long Island Serial Killer’s possible victims and her search for justice.
The three-episode documentary series premiered on March 31, 2025.
Watch the haunting case unfold in the trailer at the top of the page.
“In early 2016, I got the script for Lost Girls, which was based on the book [Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery] by Robert Kolker,” explains Garbus. “What was extraordinary about this book and his reporting was the way in which you really felt like you really got to know these victims and their families. It also appealed to me because it told a story about … who’s valued as a victim and whose life is deemed more important when we’re talking about getting justice and resources.”
When Long Island architect Rex Heuermann was arrested in 2023 on suspicion of having murdered numerous women — including the first victims found on Ocean Parkway, known as the Gilgo Four — a new wave of media interest followed. As more news came out, Garbus began to think about revisiting the story. “Now we know who the alleged perpetrator is,” she says. “In the course of the documentary, we got to examine what was going on in the police department and uncover a corruption scandal that made it clear why so little was being done for these women. I think it’s a really interesting companion piece to the scripted film.”
In addition to interviews with victims’ friends and family that illuminate their lives as well as the posthumous struggle for the authorities to take their disappearances seriously, Gone Girls features reenactments to help viewers identify with the human beings who died. “I wanted to … bring these women to life and make them relatable. These are people’s daughters, sisters, mothers, and they worked in the sex industry,” Garbus says. “The families didn’t have troves of pictures of them. So I wanted them to feel up close and personal in a way that could only be achieved with an actor.”
While preconceived notions about the victims’ sex work were part of the reason that the investigation into the bodies found at Gilgo Beach took so long, Garbus hopes to show just how multifaceted their lives were. “[You’re] going to see stories of young women who were coming of age and trying to make it in a tough economy. But they were moms, and they were showing up for their sister’s birthday parties, and they were living a full other life,” she says. “Your morality may make you believe you would never do that, but you don’t know what someone is facing. Hopefully we can all understand and not judge and certainly not believe that they deserved anything that they got.”
To hear more from Garbus, listen to her interview on the You Can’t Make This Up podcast.
Learn more about the victims whose remains have been found and those who’ve been identified thus far here.
Not all of the remains have been identified. Gone Girls retells the stories of the victims found at Gilgo Beach, but new details continue to emerge. “There are many people who have followed this case and are still thinking that their missing loved ones could be connected to Rex.”
Case in point: A new development in the investigation was announced on April 23, 2025. Police revealed the identities of a woman (formerly known as Jane Doe No. 3) and her toddler — Tanya Denise Jackson and Tatiana Marie Dykes — whose bodies were found near Gilgo beach in 2011.
On April 8, 2026, Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty to the murders of eight women: Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, Sandra Costilla, and Karen Vergata. Learn more about the women and their stories here. On June 17, he was sentenced to multiple terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole, under the conditions of the plea deal he agreed to in April.
Track more updates on the case and read insights from series director Liz Garbus here.
