When serial killer Rex Heuermann returns to court on June 17, eight families will finally receive justice.
Heuermann, who has pleaded guilty to the murders of eight young women whose bodies were left on Gilgo Beach and elsewhere here in Suffolk County, is set to receive three life sentences without parole, followed by 100 years to life in prison.
He terrorized Long Island for more than a decade with his heinous acts.
Incredibly, before his sentence is handed down, lawmakers in Albany could short-circuit it.
A near-majority of state legislators is sponsoring three cruel bills that will abolish life without parole sentences — and turn parole hearings upside down — for the benefit of serial killers, cop killers and other mass murderers.
And as soon as next week, they could pass them into law.
These progressive bills are being sold with soft, compassionate titles.
Don’t be fooled.
They will force grieving families to relive their worst nightmares over and over again, stealing away the closure and certainty that a life without parole sentence gives them.
The Elder Parole bill sounds like a matter of mercy for senior-citizen inmates, but it should more accurately be named the “Abolishing Life Without Parole bill.”
If it passes, the 62-year-old Heuermann — who is already well over the 55-year-old threshold the law would set — would serve only 12 more years before getting his first parole hearing.
Proponents of this awful legislation say that’s no big deal — “Of course, he won’t be granted parole,” they assure us.
That is missing the point: The parole process is torture for the victims’ families.
Every one to two years, these families would be forced to beg the state’s notoriously lenient Parole Board to keep this convicted killer locked up.
And in the process, they’d be forced to revisit his horrific crimes.
Moreover, under the falsely named “Fair and Timely Parole” bill, lawmakers would turn the entire parole process upside-down.
Its terms would direct the Parole Board’s focus solely on how well an inmate like Heuermann is faring in prison, disallowing any consideration of the horror of the crimes he committed.
How an inmate is adjusting to prison life will suddenly outweigh the societal consequences for cold-blooded serial murder.
And how about the Second Look Act, which is endorsed by New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Rowan Wilson?
Under this bill, criminals like Heuermann can begin petitioning for a “second look” at his sentence once he’s been incarcerated for 10 years.
For Heuermann, who has been held without bail since his arrest in 2023, that’s just seven years from now.
He will get a court-appointed lawyer at taxpayer expense, and the sentencing review hearing will be before another judge.
If his petition is denied, he can simply file again, and again, and again.
So much for life without parole.
There will be no finality.
No closure for victims’ families.
Just endless court hearings that will overwhelm prosecutors, judges and families already shattered by violence.
We’ve seen this show before.
Bail reform tied prosecutors’ and judges’ hands and flooded our communities with repeat offenders.
It spiked violent crime rates, which have continued to trend up across New York since the reforms passed.
Now these new progressive “reform” bills will abolish life without parole sentences for New York’s most violent, while re-traumatizing the very people we swore to protect.
These measures don’t help non-violent offenders.
They don’t rehabilitate anyone.
They prioritize serial killers, mass murderers and violent predators over victims.
They destroy the certainty that a life sentence means life — and that justice actually means something.
Every New Yorker must stand against this travesty.
Tell our legislators, as well as Gov. Kathy Hochul, to remember the victims.
It’s time for Albany to stop putting ideology before the safety of our families and neighborhoods — and for common sense to prevail.
Ray Tierney, the Suffolk County District Attorney, has been a prosecutor for over 30 years.
