NEW YORK — Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann is expected to plead guilty Wednesday to murdering eight women — including a victim he had yet to be charged with killing, according to reports.

Heuermann, 62, is expected to admit to the 1996 slaying of 34-year-old mother of two Karen Vergata, whose remains were found in April 1996, with additional remains found in April 2011, Newsday reported Tuesday.

Heuermann will return to the Arthur M. Cromarty Court Complex in Riverhead, Long Island, at 11 a.m. Wednesday for the anticipated plea hearing.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney has announced he will speak to reporters alongside victims’ family members at the Suffolk County Police Academy in Brentwood after the hearing.

Vergata, who is believed to have been working as an escort in Manhattan at the time of her disappearance on Valentine’s Day 1996, struggled with addiction and was estranged from her family. As the years went by and no one heard from her, they became increasingly worried.

Advances in DNA testing allowed investigators to finally identify her remains, previously known only as “Fire Island Jane Doe” as Vergata’s in 2022 using a genetic genealogy review.

“You never know when it’s going to be the last time you see someone,” her stepsister Brenda said at the time. “We wondered what happened to her. But she had a habit of just not being in contact. We just assumed (she was dead). No one heard from her in 20 years.”

Heuermann was never charged for her death.

The hulking suspect, who lives in Massapequa Park, Long Island, has maintained his innocence since his arrest in Midtown Manhattan on July 13, 2023, for the slayings of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello.

The three women were part of who investigators designated the "Gilgo Four" — the first four bodies found in December 2010, wrapped in burlap within a quarter-mile of each other along Ocean Parkway.

They were discovered while police searched for Shannan Gilbert, another missing woman.

Police said it was a Long Island pimp — and pizza crust DNA — that steered investigators toward Heuermann, a husband and father who had been living quietly in the suburbs and commuting to Manhattan, where he worked as an architect.

The pimp described the suspect’s vehicle as a green Chevrolet Avalanche during a spring 2022 meeting with investigators.

Cops retrieved DNA from a pizza crust found in a Manhattan trash can near Heuermann’s work office and matched it with a hair found on Waterman’s body.

For each murder, Heuermann used a different burner phone to contact his victims, prosecutors say.

“Shortly after the death of the victims he then would get rid of the burner phone,” Tierney previously said.

Detailed cellphone site tower info used in tracing Heuermann’s whereabouts and burner phones used to contact his victims have been cited as evidence in the case.

As investigators mined a trove of electronic devices recovered from Heuermann’s cluttered home, members of the Gilgo Homicide Task Force discovered harrowing “pre-prep” and “post event” checklist documents revealing how he methodically planned out his kills — which he described as “hunts,” according to prosecutors.

The lists are categorized by supplies he would need, “pre-prep work” and “DS” — dump sites where he had left victims’ remains.

The prep work checklist included mundane tasks like getting his vehicle inspected, reviewing weather reports and picking routes without any traffic cameras. He even wrote reminders based on what he learned from his previous killings, prosecutors said.

Heuermann has been held without bail since his arrest.

Barthelemy, 24, worked as an escort and was last seen at her Bronx apartment on July 12, 2009, when she told a friend she was going to see a man and would return. She never did.

Four days after she went missing, Barthelemy’s younger sister, Amanda, began receiving menacing calls from an unidentified male caller. The man taunted her, saying chillingly, “Do you know what your sister is doing? She’s a whore,” the Daily News previously reported.

Barthelemy’s remains were discovered on the north side of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach on Dec. 11, 2010.

The youngest of the “Gilgo Four,” 22-year-old Waterman of Scarborough, Maine, disappeared on June 6, 2010, and was last seen boarding a bus to New York — possibly with her pimp. She was the mother of a 3-year-old daughter.

Costello, 27, who was living in West Babylon, Long Island, when she disappeared, struggled with heroin addiction and worked as an escort to fund her habit. She went missing after heading off on foot to meet a man on Sept. 2, 2010. Her body was found on Dec. 13 of that year.

In January 2024, Heuermann was charged with the death of the final “Gilgo Four” victim, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who was 25 when she died. Brainard-Barnes, who worked as a sex worker, was reported missing in July 2007 after arranging to meet with a customer.

Heuermann murdered the Connecticut mother while his wife, Asa Ellerup, and children were vacationing in Atlantic City, New Jersey, according to court records.

Brainard-Barnes’ daughter remembers her as a sweet woman who read to her every night before bed.

“I was only 7 years old when my mother was murdered,” Nicolette Brainard-Barnes said at a 2024 news conference. “There are countless times I needed her and she was not there. I wish she was here today, but she was taken from us.”

Heuermann was later additionally charged with killing 20-year-old Jessica Taylor, 28-year-old Sandra Costilla and 24-year-old Valerie Mack.

Authorities said Taylor, a sex worker, died between July 21 and July 26, 2003. Taylor grew up in Poughkeepsie and lived in New York City before she disappeared. She was last seen alive at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

It was 10 years before Taylor’s body was discovered decapitated, with her head and body in another location.

“When I think of her, I see her smile first, big and bright, lighting up her face, beaming through her beautiful eyes,” Taylor’s cousin Jasmine Robinson said.

“Jess was somebody that I looked up to. She was a force, one of the strongest women that I know, with a heart of gold. She was and still is loved immeasurably. When her life was stolen, a light went out. She is forever missed.”

Costilla was murdered between Nov. 19 and 20, 1993, according to court records.

The remains of Costilla, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, were found in a wooded area in Southampton by a pair of hunters. Hairs recovered from her body were genetically linked to Heuermann, prosecutors said.

Unlike the other victims in the case, officials have never described her as a sex worker.

Costilla lived in Ridgewood, Queens, until around 1992, police said. She also lived for a time in an apartment in Flushing, Queens, according to property records.

Mack had been working as an escort in Philadelphia and was last seen by her family that year in New Jersey. A hunter’s dog discovered Mack’s decapitated body in a wooded area of Manorville, Long Island, on Nov. 19, 2000.

Her remains were tied with rope in a black plastic bag that was wrapped with duct tape. Both of her hands had been severed from her body and one of her legs was cut off, according to court papers.

The rest of Mack’s remains were found more than a decade later, in April 2011, along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.

When Heuermann was indicted for murdering Mack in December 2024, he defiantly denied it in court.

“Your Honor, I am not guilty of any of these charges,” Heuermann blurted out, shaking his head.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment Tuesday. Heuermann’s defense attorney Michael Brown could not immediately be reached.

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