Rex Heuermann and Maureen Brainard-Barnes: First of the Gilgo Four

She needed three thousand dollars. She was about to be evicted. If she lost the apartment, she could lose her kids. So Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, took the train to Manhattan from Connecticut and checked into the Super 8 Motel to work as an escort — the same thing she'd done before, earning enough to get through another month. On July 9, 2007, she told a friend she had a client lined up. That was the last anyone heard from her.

Episode 4 of "The Seven." Maureen was the first of the Gilgo Four to disappear and waited the longest to be found — more than three years, before her remains were recovered in December 2010 alongside the others, wrapped in burlap on Ocean Parkway. Her family described her as a dreamer, an artist, a songwriter. Her daughter Nicolette was seven when her mother was killed.

Prosecutors allege burner phone data traced the man who contacted Maureen back to "the box" — a cluster of cell towers in Massapequa Park. They say Heuermann checked her voicemail after she vanished. DNA on a leather belt binding her remains matched his wife's profile. Maureen's life, her family's fight for accountability, and the full prosecution case — covered here.

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