Missing S.C. Woman May Be Linked to Gilgo Beach Suspect

Law enforcement officers in South Carolina are investigating whether the disappearance of a woman in 2017 has a link to the suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders on Long Island in New York.

The Sumter County Sheriff's Office wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday that someone contacted their office Aug. 20 claiming to be a friend of Julia Ann Bean, who was 37 when she was last seen in Sumter County on May 31, 2017.

"An investigator met with this individual and was told that they believed there may be a connection between Bean and murder suspect Rex Heuermann," the sheriff's office wrote.

Heuermann, an architect in New York, was arrested July 13 and charged with the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello, whose bodies were found covered in burlap along Ocean Parkway on Long Island's South Shore in December 2010. He has pleaded not guilty. He also is the prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who disappeared in 2007.

The Sumter County Sheriff's Office wrote the day after meeting with the tipster, the FBI was contacted and Bean's daughter Cameron was interviewed by investigators. According to the sheriff's office, Cameron told investigators she recalled seeing someone with her mother who could be Heuermann.

"Sumter County Sheriff's Office investigators have been pouring over the information they have recently received to determine if there is any evidence linking Bean with Heuermann," the sheriff’s office wrote. "Yet, there are no confirmed facts that confirm or deny the possibility of a connection."

Heuermann owns four vacant lots in Chester County in the northern part of South Carolina, ABC News reported Thursday. Sumter County is the southern part of the state. Authorities in Chester County also have said they are looking into any connections between missing people and Heuermann.

WPDE-TV reported Friday that Sumter County deputies said Bean's daughter believes the man who could be Heuermann was the last face she saw her mother with when they were hanging out before she vanished. Cameron last saw her mother on June 1, 2017, a day before her graduation.

"It was on that date that Cameron tells us she accompanied her mother and an unknown male who was taking them to get her nails done," Sumter County Public Information Officer Mark Bordeaux told WPDE-TV.

Officials said Cameron gave her mother and the man tickets to attend the graduation, but they never showed. Authorities said Bean's daughter moved to Texas, and when she came back to Sumter to spend Thanksgiving with her mother, Bean was nowhere to be found and her daughter reported her missing, WPDE-TV reported.