Gilgo Beach killings: Police investigate link between Rex Heuermann, missing South Carolina mom

(NewsNation) — Authorities are investigating a possible connection between accused Gilgo Beach Killer Rex Heuermann and a South Carolina woman who has been missing since 2017.

Julia Ann Bean, 37, was last seen alive on May 31, 2017, in Sumter, South Carolina, according to the Sumter County Sheriff's Office.

Investigators have been poring over "the information they have recently received to determine if there is any evidence linking Bean with Heuermann," the Sumter County Sheriff's Office said in a press release this week. "Yet there are no confirmed facts that confirm or deny the possibility of a connection."

South Carolina police asked the FBI to help investigate the possible connection after Bean's daughter recently came forward saying her mother was last seen with a man resembling Heuermann, the sheriff's office said.

Bean's daughter, Cameron, also said the unfamiliar man was driving a dark truck, the sheriff's office said. A truck similar to what she described was hauled from Heuermann's South Carolina home.

Investigators are interviewing individuals and looking into reports that she may have been seen with the Gilgo suspect.

“Miss Bean may have a connection with the serial killer in New York, Rex Heuermann,” sheriff’s office spokesman Mark Bordeaux recently told local news outlet WLTX. “It’s still unclear, but there’s enough hope that our investigators are doggedly pursuing an answer.”

Heuermann, a New York City architect, has been arrested in connection with three of the 10 victims linked in the Gilgo Beach murders in New York.

The bodies of Milissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello were discovered along Ocean Parkway on Long Island in December 2010.

Heuermann is also the prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard Barnes, who disappeared in 2007.