The wife of the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer filed for divorce less than a week after her husband was arrested for the crimes.
She filed for divorce on Wednesday, and her attorney, Bob Macedonio, told Fox News shortly after that the arrest has taken a toll on the family.
“This is all still a whirlwind,” Macedonio told the outlet. “Her and her children’s lives have been completely turned upside-down.”
The Daily Wire is not naming the suspect in keeping with a company policy that seeks to deprive mass killers of the notoriety they often crave. Since The Daily Wire is not naming the suspect, and his wife is not suspected of any crimes, she will also not be named.
Macedonio further said that about an hour after the 59-year-old suspect was arrested, authorities went to his house and informed his family about the arrest. They then seized the family’s passports, computers, phones, and iPads.
“They were home and the cops came in, and they were completely blindsided, and they told them what was going on,” Macedonio told Fox.
Investigators have had control of the home for the past week as they continue to search for evidence. They have reportedly recovered hundreds of guns. The suspect has pleaded not guilty.
The 59-year-old suspect, who remained unidentified for more than a decade, was arrested last week for the murder of three women whose bodies were found on Gilgo Beach in Long Island, New York, in 2010.
All four bodies were found within days of each other. The body of Melissa Barthelemy was found on December 11, 2010, during a police training exercise with a K9, according to a bail application obtained by the Daily Beast. Two days later, police searched the area and discovered the bodies of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello. So far, the suspect has not been charged for Brainard-Barnes’ death, but is the prime suspect.
All four women are believed to have been sex workers, and each was lured out to Long Island by someone using a burner phone. After their deaths, the cell phones of Brainard-Barnes and Barthelemy were used by the killer.
In January 2022, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office created a task force to look into the cold case at the behest of new County Commissioner Rodney Harrison. This task force reviewed every piece of evidence gathered in the original investigation, and about two months after reopening the case identified a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche that belonged to the suspect. At the time of Costello’s murders, a witness identified an Avalanche at the scene.
Connecting the Avalanche to the suspect was only the first step. When police looked deeper into his personal life, they discovered links to the burner phones used to lure two of the victims, as well as taunting calls that had been made to Barthelemy’s younger sister after her disappearance. Cell phone records also showed that the suspect had checked Brainard-Barnes’ cellphone voicemail after her disappearance. He also lived in Massapequa Park, where the victims are alleged to have disappeared from, and he worked in Midtown Manhattan, where the taunting calls to Barthelemy’s sister were made.
Travel records show that the suspect’s wife was out of the country when Barthelemy, Waterman, and Costello disappeared.
At one point in 2009, the phone activity for Barthelemy’s phone, which had been used after her disappearance, stopped, coinciding with the suspect being in Iceland. When he returned to the United States, the cell phone activity resumed.
While investigating the bodies of Brainard-Barnes, Costello, and Waterman, the Suffolk County Crime Lab found unidentified female hair. The hair was sent to a forensic laboratory that was able to determine that the hairs all came from the same woman who was not one of the victims. On July 21, 2022, an undercover Suffolk County Police Department detective collected 11 bottles from the suspect’s trash. The DNA from those bottles was linked to the hair found on the victims, and is believed to be from the suspect’s wife, who is not suspected of being involved in the murders.
A male hair was also found on Waterman’s remains and was used by the forensic lab to develop a DNA profile. Investigators retrieved a pizza box from the suspect’s garbage can and linked DNA from the box to the male hair strand found on the victim. The DNA profile excluded 99.96% of the North American population from being the source – but the suspect could not be excluded.
He was arrested on July 13. If convicted, he faces multiple life sentences without parole.
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