Heuermann May Have Been Spotted With Missing Woman

Julia Ann Bean, a likely escort who struggled with addiction, vanished in South Carolina in 2017
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 1, 2023 5:47 AM CDT
Heuermann May Have Been Spotted With Missing Woman
Rex A. Heuermann, the architect accused of murdering at least three women near Long Island's Gilgo Beach, appears before Judge Timothy P. Mazzei in Suffolk County Court, Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, in Riverhead, NY.   (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, Pool)

Authorities are investigating a possible link between the suspect in New York's Gilgo Beach serial killings and a woman who disappeared in South Carolina, where Rex Heuermann owns property. Julia Ann Bean was last seen May 31, 2017, in Sumter County, about 90 miles northwest of Chester County, where Heuermann owns four vacant lots, reports ABC News. The day before that last sighting, Cameron Bean saw her mother with a man she didn't know—a man who "could possibly be Heuermann," according to the Sumter County Sheriff's Office. When the daughter saw Heuermann on the news, she "had chills," family friend Heidi Kovas tells the Sun. "That was the last man I saw her with personally," Cameron Bean wrote in a text message viewed by the outlet.

The sheriff's office said a family friend first reached out with "third hand" information before Cameron Bean agreed to an interview with investigators, confirming that the man could have been Heuermann. "Investigators have been pouring over the information they have recently received to determine if there is any evidence linking Bean with Heuermann," the sheriff's office said, adding the FBI has been notified. "Yet there are no confirmed facts that confirm or deny the possibility of a connection," it stressed. Bean was active on social media until mid-July 2017, per the Sun. She was reported missing the following November.

Kovas offered more on the sighting, telling the Sun that the man last seen with Bean used a name other than Rex Heuermann but drove a dark truck Cameron believes was a Chevrolet Avalanche—the same truck confiscated in the Gilgo Beach case. At the time of her disappearance, Bean was a 36-year-old mother of three struggling with addiction, per the Sun. She was also "more than likely escorting," Kovas tells WPIX. Various law enforcement departments in states with ties to Heuermann have been reviewing unsolved murder and missing persons cases, particularly those involving sex workers. Heurermann is charged with murdering three sex workers, suspected of killing a fourth, and has allegedly been violent with others. (More Rex Heuermann stories.)

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