Melissa Barthelemy's apartment
Last Seen Location in The Bronx, New York
On July 10th, 2009, Melissa Barthelemy left this house on Underhill Avenue in the Bronx and was never seen again.
Roughly fifteen months later, her remains were found among the bodies of three other sex workers on Gilgo Beach.
On the day of her disappearance, Barthelemy took a taxi to Manhattan to meet a client who had contacted her multiple times over the previous seven days.
When she arrived in Manhattan, the client picked her up and drove her out to Long Island.
A friend said that she planned on returning the following morning. However, she never did.
Cellphone records indicate that Barthelemy was brought to a location near Massapequa, as her phone pinged a tower in that area at around 1.43 a.m. on July 11th, 2009.
Massapequa is just across the water from where her skeletal remains were discovered 17 months later.
After murdering Barthelemy, the killer used her phone to make a series of short and disturbing calls to her younger sister, Amanda.
During these calls, he calmly taunted Amanda in a monotone voice and informed her that her sister was dead. He also stated that he was going to watch her rot.
The calls continued until a TV station in Buffalo reported on them—a sign that the killer may have been actively listening out for any news about his victims.
Although investigators determined that someone was using Barthelemy's phone in Midtown Manhattan, the short nature of the calls made them almost impossible to trace to an exact location.
Before dialing Amanda's number, the killer had made sure that he was hidden among the vast crowds and traffic jams of New York City.
Barthelemy was the first of the "Gilgo Four" to be found.
On December 11th, 2010, canine police officer John Mallia and his cadaver dog "Blue" were walking along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach when "Blue" suddenly became interested in a specific section of the thicket.
At the time, Mallia was searching for a missing sex worker called Shannan Gilbert, who had gone missing from a gated community on the eastern side of the island six months earlier.
When Mallia entered the bushes to investigate, he stumbled upon a skeleton that was wrapped in decaying duck camouflage burlap.
Although he initially believed that he had finally found the remains of Gilbert, this was not the case.
Shortly afterwards, it emerged that the victim was actually Barthelemy.
This discovery triggered a wider search of the area, during which the police found the bodies of three other women: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello.
The victims were all sex workers who had gone missing between 2007 and 2010. Their killer had seemingly picked them up, murdered them, wrapped them in burlap, and then deposited their remains among the thick brambles and branches beside Ocean Parkway.
The investigation into the Gilgo Beach killings went nowhere for more than a decade. No arrests were made, and very little information was released to the public. To many, it seemed as though the case was destined to remain unsolved.
However, everything unexpectedly changed on a random summer day in 2023—more than fourteen years after Barthelemy was lured to her death.
On July 14th, 2023, the authorities announced that a 59-year-old Massapequa Park resident named Rex Heuermann had been indicted for the murders of Barthelemy, Costello, and Waterman. He was also publicly named him as the prime suspect in Brainard-Barnes' death.
Melissa Barthelemy last known location
The address and the GPS coordinates for this location are as follows:
Address
1149 Underhill Avenue, The Bronx, New York, NY 10472, USA
GPS coordinates
The latitude and longitude coordinates for the house are:
40.829722, -73.862212
Directions
Underhill Avenue sits to the east of White Plains Road in the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx.
Private Property Warning
This is a private property. It is not a public place. Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission.
Photos
Photos of the house and other related images.
Barthelemy's phone was active in Freeport, Massapequa, and Lindenhurst
Barthelemy's phone was "active" in Freeport, Massapequa, and Lindenhurst. This showed that she was somewhere on the South Shore of Long Island shortly before her death.
The motels in these areas were all investigated.
The final communication between her phone and a cell tower occurred in Massapequa at around 1.43 a.m. on July 11th, 2009.
In the days following her murder, the killer repeatedly checked her voicemail messages. Then, roughly one week later, he began to make a series of taunting phone calls to her younger sister, Amanda.
Manhattan
LISK used Barthelemy's phone to make a series of "descriptive" calls to her teenage sister, Amanda.
The fact that he repeatedly put himself at risk just so he could taunt a victim's relative indicates that he is a sadist. Comments from law enforcement officials add further weight to this theory, as the former commissioner and chief of detectives both said that the killer "spent time" with his victims and possibly tortured them.
The calls in question were all made from Midtown Manhattan. It is likely that he purposely chose this area because of how busy it is.
The phone calls to Barthelemy's sister took place on the following dates and approximate times:
- Friday, July 17th, 2009, at 12.40 p.m.
- Thursday, July 23rd, 2009, at 6.42 p.m.
- Wednesday, August 5th, 2009, between 6.50 p.m. and 7.11 p.m.
- Wednesday, August 19th, 2009, at 7.23 p.m.
- Wednesday, August 26th, 2009, between 11.29 a.m. and 11.34 a.m.
During these calls, Barthelemy's phone connected to cell towers at 4 Penn Plaza, 275 West 39th Street, 249 West 36th Street, and 408 West 34th Street.
At the time, Rex Heuermann's architecture firm was situated at 19 West 36th Street (labeled "Workplace" in the photo above).
Billing and cell site records indicate that Heuermann's personal phone, Barthelemy's phone, and the burner phone that initially contacted Barthelemy all intersected at various points in Manhattan.
Furthermore, the calls stopped between August 5th and August 19th. This is significant, as Heuermann left for Iceland on August 10th and returned on August 18th, which was the day before the killer resumed contact.
Gilgo Beach
On December 11th, 2010, Barthelemy's skeletal remains were discovered at this section of the roadside beside Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.
Coordinates: 40.624183, -73.377483
Phone calls to Barthelemy's sister
Image source: The Killing Season
Melissa's mother, Lynn Barthelemy, and her stepfather, Jeff Martina, were interviewed in the TV series The Killing Season.
During the interview, they spoke about the phone calls to Melissa's younger sister, Amanda.
When Melissa's phone suddenly started calling Amanda, they initially felt a wave of relief, as she had been missing for a week.
However, when Amanda answered the call, she heard a man's voice.
During the first call, he reportedly asked the teenager, "Are you a wh*re like your sister? I heard you're a half-breed." In the final call, he stated that he had finally killed her sister and that he was going to "watch her body rot." He then said that he might come and show her one day.
They were all kept relatively short, and he refused to speak to anyone but Amanda. On one occasion, he immediately hung up when Melissa's mother, Lynn, answered the phone.
The details surrounding these phone calls provide a lot of insight into the killer.
The fact that he repeatedly put himself at risk just so he could taunt Barthelemy's younger sister suggests that he was getting some kind of psychological gratification out of it.
During separate interviews with "Get Secure" on The Daily Blu, former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer and the former Chief of Detectives, Dominick Varrone, both indicated that some of the victims had been tortured.
This, coupled with the phone calls, suggests that the Long Island serial killer is a sadist who derives pleasure from inflicting pain and humiliation on others.
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This location belongs to the following categories:
Serial KillersLong Island Serial Killer LocationsClosest Locations
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