Accused Serial Killer Charged With South Jersey Victim's Murder

Rex Heuermann, the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer, was officially charged on Tuesday in the murder of a South Jersey woman whose family lives in Port Republic.

This is the seventh murder charge Heuermann is facing.

Rex Heuermann Charged With Valerie Mack's Murder

Valerie Mack, 24, was last seen by her family around Port Republic in the spring or summer of 2000 and has long been considered to have been a victim of the Long Island serial killer.

Authorities say Mack was working as an escort in Philadelphia at the time of her disappearance. She also went by the name of Melissa Taylor.

Mack's partial remains were found in a wooded area off a Long Island highway the same year she went missing, and more than a decade later, her dismembered remains were found along Ocean Parkway.

The police department worked with the FBI using DNA techniques to identify Mack.

The remains were in a black plastic bag wrapped with duct tape. The bag contained additional plastic bags that contained Mack's decapitated body.

"Moreover, both of her hands had been severed from her body, above the wrists, and the victim's right leg had also been cut off from her body at the mid-calf," according to a bail application that accompanied the new indictment. "Ms. Mack's torso, legs and arms were also bound with rope."

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

Rex Heuermann Pleads Not Guilty

Heuermann, 61, was charged with one count of second-degree murder in connection with Mack's death, according to ABC News.

He appeared in court on Tuesday shackled in a suit and told the judge, "Your honor, I am not guilty of any of these charges."

Prosecutors said they linked Heuermann to Mack's death in part through a DNA analysis of a female hair found on Mack's body. It matched the profiles of Heuermann's wife and daughter.

At the time of Mack’s murder, Heuermann's daughter would have been between 3 and 4 years old.

Mack, who was originally born in Atlantic City with the name "Valerie Kym Fulton," was placed into foster care at an early age and shuffled around foster homes until she was ultimately adopted by the Mack family, according to the unsealed indictment.

Officials say Mack began living with her father's son in Wildwood in 1994 and began frequently traveling between South Jersey and Philadelphia.

Then, in 1996, she had the first of several prostitution-related arrests by Philadelphia police, according to court documents.