The hotel where Megan Waterman was last seen

Crime Scene Location in Hauppauge, New York

This is the hotel where Megan Waterman was last seen.

It is located at 2050 Express Drive South in Hauppauge, New York.

Waterman is believed to be a victim of the Long Island serial killer (LISK).

In the early hours of June 6th, 2010, the 22-year-old sex worker left the Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge to meet a client for an outcall.

That was the last time anyone saw her alive.

Six months later, her body was discovered beside three other LISK victims on Gilgo Beach. Their killer had wrapped their remains in duck-blind camouflage burlap and then placed them in the thicket beside Ocean Parkway.

The four women had been asphyxiated. There were also signs that they had been "kept for a while" and tortured. In Waterman's case, she had been found with clear or white duct tape.

Waterman's disappearance was immediately treated with suspicion. While on the road, she would call home 2-3 times a day to speak to her three-year-old daughter. However, those calls suddenly stopped in June 2010. When the news first broke that four bodies had been discovered near Gilgo Beach, Waterman's mother, Lorraine Ela (pictured right), told reporters that she was "90% certain" that her daughter was among them. In her opinion, too much time had passed for her to still be alive. Ela passed away in August 2022—roughly 11 months before Rex Heuermann was arrested in connection with her daughter's murder.

At the time of her murder, Waterman was being trafficked from Maine to New York by her pimp and boyfriend, Akeem Cruz.

Cruz had convinced her to become a sex worker by promising her that they would use the money to buy a house and start a family together.

LISK contacted Waterman on June 5th, 2010, after he saw her escort profile on Craigslist. One advertisement from the date of her disappearance shows that she was operating under the pseudonym Lexi.

After narrowing in on "Lexi", the killer proceeded to schedule an outcall with her using a disposable burner phone that he had activated earlier that day.

Megan Waterman was born in Portland, Maine, on January 18th, 1988. She was 5'5" and weighed roughly 145 lbs.

The authorities believe that the Long Island serial killer was a regular "john" who frequently picked up girls over the years. He only killed when the circumstances were right and he felt confident that he would get away with it. Otherwise, he played it safe and used their services as normal.

On the night in question, Waterman was at the Holiday Inn Express by herself, as Cruz was in Brooklyn.

Security footage showed her walking out of the lobby and turning right, towards a dark and deserted industrial area on the southern side of the hotel.

It is likely that LISK chose this spot as the pickup point because it lowered his chances of being seen by a random bystander or a security camera.

When it comes to outcalls, working girls are often accompanied to the client's vehicle for safety reasons. This precautionary measure warns the "john" that both he and his license plates have been duly noted.

However, in Waterman's case, she was all alone.

When the killer saw "Lexi" strolling towards his vehicle by herself, it would have quickly dawned on him that there was nothing to link them together.

The pickup was taking place in a dark and mostly deserted area with no witnesses around. Furthermore, all of his calls had been made from a prepaid phone that was registered under a fake name.

From his perspective, he had the perfect opportunity.

Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge — This is the southern side of the Holiday Inn Express hotel. We have highlighted a likely pick-up spot in red. The building on the left did not exist in 2010.

Cellphone records indicate that Waterman was picked up and then driven to Massapequa Park, which is about 15–20 miles southwest of this hotel. The last activity on her phone occurred at 3.11 a.m. in the same area.

Although the authorities had evidence that suggested the killer was living somewhere in Massapequa Park, they were unable to identify a suspect. Consequently, the investigation went nowhere for more than a decade.

Then, on July 14th, 2023, news suddenly broke that the newly-established Gilgo Beach task force had arrested a 59-year-old Massapequa Park resident named Rex Heuermann in connection with the murders of Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Amber Lynn Costello.

Megan Waterman crime scene location

The address and the GPS coordinates for this location are as follows:

Address

2050 Express Drive South, Hauppauge, New York, NY 11788, USA

Map

To view directions on how to get there, you can use the Google Maps shortcut below:

Google Maps

GPS coordinates

The latitude and longitude coordinates for the hotel are:

40.807799, -73.221353

Directions

The hotel is situated in the south of Hauppauge, close to the Long Island Expressway.

Photos

Photos of the hotel and other related images.

Holiday Inn Express

This is an east-facing aerial image of the Holiday Inn Express hotel in Hauppauge.

A number of sources say that Megan Waterman was last seen walking along the service road towards the gas station (the red route). However, this appears to be an unreliable piece of information that has been gradually accepted as fact.

Although one website claims that an employee saw her walking along the service road, this is incorrect. In reality, that statement came from Waterman's pimp and boyfriend, Akeem Cruz.

Cruz did not see her walking along this route, as he was in Brooklyn at the time. In his statement to the police, he claimed that Waterman called him and said that she was going to a convenience store.

The problem with Cruz's statement is that he had an extremely good reason to lie about the nature of their phone call. If he had told investigators that Waterman left the hotel to meet a client, then he would have been implicating himself as a pimp and sex trafficker.

On April 13th, 2022, the Suffolk County Police Department released surveillance footage of Waterman in the hotel lobby.

In the final clip, she calmly walked out of the hotel and turned right.

This contradicts claims that she was seen walking along the red route. Instead, it indicates that her killer picked her up in the parking lot or on Central Avenue (the yellow route).

Megan Waterman turned right

The security footage showed Waterman exiting the lobby and turning right.

At the time, the Holiday Inn Express had no outdoor surveillance cameras.

Central Avenue

It is difficult to overlook Central Avenue as a potential pickup point. This small road lies to the south of the hotel and is easily accessible via the parking lot.

Locals have noted that this area is pretty quiet, especially after normal business hours. If the Long Island serial killer is as cautious as the authorities believe he is, then it stands to reason that he would have selected this spot instead of the busier service road to the north.

When Waterman exited the hotel lobby at 1.30 a.m., this street would have been completely dark and empty.

There were no streetlights on Central Avenue in 2010. The streetlights at the eastern end of the road weren't added until circa 2017.

Possible pick-up spot

LISK may have concealed his vehicle by parking behind the tree line on Central Avenue. This would have prevented hotel guests and employees from witnessing the pickup.

The turning circle on the left is in a blind spot, as there are no rooms or cameras on the southern side of the hotel.

Once he had rolled to a stop, the killer picked up his burner phone and contacted Waterman to let her know that he was outside.

After picking up his victim, he took one of the red routes highlighted above before heading west towards Massapequa Park.

During the 2000s, the Holiday Inn Express was a popular place for sex workers to conduct business, as employees at the hotel usually turned a blind eye to their activities.

If LISK was a Long Island resident who regularly picked up girls, then it is possible that he had visited the hotel in the past and knew exactly where to park.

2010

This aerial image was taken on April 1st, 2010—roughly two months before Waterman vanished.

As you can see, Central Avenue was very quiet, even during the day.

The side of the hotel

The Google Street View image above was taken two years after Waterman's murder.

The southern side of the Holiday Inn Express consists of a plain exterior wall with one small window. The hotel rooms do not overlook this area. Furthermore, it is very obvious to the casual observer that there are no security cameras.

The red line highlights a small pathway that leads from the front of the hotel down to the rear parking lot.

If the Long Island serial killer parked near this pathway, then it means that he was in a blind spot.

Cellphone activity

Waterman's cellphone activity indicated that her killer picked her up from the hotel and then drove southwest towards Massapequa Park.

The last activity from her phone was recorded at 3.11 a.m.—roughly an hour and a half after she exited the lobby.

Waterman's remains were discovered near Gilgo Beach

Waterman's remains were discovered at this section of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in December 2010. By that stage, she had been missing for six months.

Her body lay among the bodies of three murdered sex workers.

Due to their location and their close proximity to each other, the four victims have been nicknamed the Gilgo Four.

Waterman had been wrapped in duck-blind camouflage burlap and bound by duct tape.

Two foreign female hairs were recovered from the area around her head. A strand of male hair was discovered at the bottom of the burlap.

After narrowing in on Rex Heuermann as a suspect, a police surveillance team followed him until he threw a pizza box into a trash can in Midtown Manhattan. Forensic analysis later determined that the DNA recovered from the pizza crust was a mitochondrial DNA match with the male hair found on the burlap. This was significant, as the profile excluded 99.96% of the population of North America.

The female hair that was recovered from Waterman's head proved to be a mitochondrial DNA match with Heuermann's wife, Asa Ellerup. It is believed that Ellerup's hair was transferred to the body from inside the residence or Heuermann's vehicle, as she had been visiting Maryland when the murder took place.

When the task force compared Heuermann's personal cellphone records with the burner phone that had been used to contact Waterman, they learned that both devices had been in the same general areas at the same times. Furthermore, Google searches on one of his most recent burner phones showed that he had been looking up information about the victims and the Gilgo Beach investigation.

Coordinates: 40.624999, -73.374454

Google Maps

Surveillance footage

The last clip in the released surveillance footage shows Waterman walking out of the lobby and turning right.

Hotel

After turning to her right, it is likely that the 22-year-old walked down the small pathway on the southern side of the hotel.

Akeem Cruz

Waterman's pimp and boyfriend, Akeem Cruz, traveled with her to the hotel on June 5th, 2010. However, he left later that evening while she remained behind.

In 2013, Cruz received a three-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to trafficking Waterman across state lines. Although the judge said that he wasn't involved in his girlfriend's death, he did note that he had put her at risk.

This was not Cruz's last brush with the law.

In 2019, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine and heroin. Two years later, he was sentenced to 100 months in prison.