Rotovirus on rise on Long Island, and nationwide

The confessed serial killer, Rex Heuermann, told family members that the woman whose body was found in a wooded area in North Sea was indeed the first murder he committed and the only one that was not planned ahead of time.Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that in a documentary released yesterday on the streaming service Peacock, Heuermann’s wife and daughter recounted conversations they had with him last summer in which he admitted to them to have killed eight women between 1993 and 2010.The first, they said he told them, was Sandra Costilla, whose body was found in a small section of woodlands off Fish Cove Road, just north of Noyac Road.His wife, Asa Ellerup, says in the documentary that he told her he killed Costilla, who was a sex worker he had hired and arranged to meet over the phone, inside an SUV he owned at the time, a two-tone blue Dodge Ramcharger.“He said he killed Sandra Costilla in the Dodge — that was his first murder, before I married him,” Ellerup says in the “The Gilgo Beach Killer" fourth and final episode.Heuermann would have been 29 in November 1993, when Sandra Costilla, 28, disappeared. Her body was discovered by two Southampton waterfowl hunters early on the morning of November 20, 1993.“He said ‘The first one, I had no idea I was going to kill at the time, I just randomly did it,’” therapist Alison Winter, tells the documentary cameras, after speaking with Heuermann, with Ellerup, in the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverside in August 2025.Costilla’s murder had been the earliest one that Suffolk County Distirct Attorney Ray Tierney’s office had linked to Heuermann since 2024, when a new examination of DNA evidence in cold case murders following Heuermann’s 2023 arrest linked him to the decades old Southampton case.Costilla’s body was found, still partially clothed. Her body had been mutilated but was not disremembered, like many of the other victims, and only feint effort had been made to avoid the body being found.“She was lying on her back with her arms outstretched over her head — her legs were uncovered, a shirt was pressed over her head,” Tierney said at a press conference in 2024, the day he announced the new charges against Heuermann. “The victim suffered numerous sharp force injuries, 25 in all, which we believed were post-mortem.”Neither the D.A.’s office, nor the documentary, has shed any light on how Heuermann arrived at the small plot of undeveloped land in North Sea as the disposal site for Costilla’s body. The other bodies of his victims were found in dense brambles off a remote stretch of the Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach and in the woods of the Long Island Pine Barrens in Manorville.***There will not be a Republican Party candidate for East Hampton Town supervisor for the second straight election cycle, giving the winner of this year’s highly contested Democratic primary race a straight shot at the town’s top office. Jack Motz reports on 27east.com that East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen has, for months now, been running a challenge against incumbent Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, who was formally endorsed for a third term by the established Town Democratic Committee in January.Besides running a fiery campaign for town supervisor, Larsen has been backing a push to reshape the local Democratic Committee in his image by unseating the lion’s share of the 38 sitting committee members and putting his allies in their place.Throughout the campaign, Larsen has defended his political identity from establishment Democrats who say the Larsen-backed slate of committee candidates is sprinkled with longtime Republicans who appear to have switched their registration to wrest power from the local ruling party.Larsen said of the Republicans failing to nominate a candidate that “the election is really decided in June for the foreseeable future.”Burke-Gonzalez, in November, won reelection for a two-year term, in another uncontested general election, but a New York State law, which lined up local elections with the national calendar, truncated her term to one year – and put her right back on the campaign trail.This week, Larsen wrote off the possibility of him running with a third party, which would have been possible in the event of a Burke-Gonzalez win in the June primary election: “Democrat only,” he told The East Hampton Press.The candidates, Burke-Gonzalez and Larsen, will face off at a debate at LTV Studios in Wainscott on May 13 at 6 p.m. Express News Group Consulting Editor Joseph P. Shaw will serve as the moderator.***North Fork Scouts are busy this year making Southold a better place, starting just steps from the side door to Town Hall. Mattituck High School Junior Madison Tomaszewski is planning a Celebration Garden in a neglected space just outside of Southold Town Hall as part of her Gold Award project, while Brendan Boyle of Southold is placing first aid stations at a number of preserves throughout the town as an Eagle Scout project.Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that regarding Madison Tomaszewski’s Celebration Garden, Southold Supervisor Al Krupski told Town Clerk Denis Noncarrow to get ready for a slew of applications for weddings at Town Hall.“Quite a few weddings take place here already,” he said. “This serves as an example to younger girls, to see the kind of things they can do to help the community.”Regarding Brendan Boyle’s project, Southold Land Management Coordinator John Sepenoski told the Southold Town Board this week that Boyle’s first aid stations will be placed at Ruth Oliva Preserve in East Marion, Arshamomaque and Pipes Cove preserves in Greenport, Paul Stoutenburgh Preserve in Southold, Downs Farm Preserve in Cutchogue and Laurel Park in Laurel.***Suffolk County sheriff’s deputies are testing out high-tech guns that will be mounted on police car bumpers to fire GPS darts onto suspects’ vehicles’ during high-speed chases.The new technology, known as StarChase, already led to the tracking and arrest of a drunk driver who refused to pull over, authorities announced yesterday.Brandon Cruz reports in THE NY POST that the program was launched several weeks ago and is being piloted by the department’s DWI enforcement unit — the first agency in the county with access to the tech.“We have seen dozens of people try to evade arrest causing dangerous situations for themselves, our officers and the community at large,” said Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. “With our DWI team equipped with the StarChase GPS technology, it will help them apprehend subjects during high-risk events by safely giving our officers access to their real-time location, speed and direction,” the sheriff said. Once a driver makes it clear they have no intentions of pulling over, police are authorized to shoot the adhesive GPS tag onto the back of the fleeing vehicle, authorities said. It isn’t clear what the dart guns’ maximum range is.The dart then latches onto the car, giving officers and dispatch the ability to monitor the target’s real-time location, speed and direction without having to chase them through the streets.Once the driver believes they got away and comes to a stop, the tracking officers are then able to swoop in and make the surprise arrest.The system, according to officials, boasts an 85% success rate across a range of offenses — from drunk driving and stolen vehicles to human trafficking and narcotics — and could possibly find itself implemented in police vehicles across the county to use beyond DWI enforcement.With the new pilot program launching just weeks ago, Suffolk County joins neighboring New York City and Old Westbury cops in Nassau County who both implemented the tech back in 2023.***The president of the LIRR expressed optimism yesterday that a deal could be reached to avert a railroad union strike less than a month away. Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that ahead of a planned virtual conference with LIRR labor leaders Monday, Long Island Rail Road president Rob Free said he "absolutely" believes a settlement to the three-year-long contract dispute is within reach.The two sides have already agreed on raises totaling 9.5% over the first three years of a new contract — terms already accepted by most Metropolitan Transportation Authority union workers. But the five LIRR labor organizations are demanding a fourth year at 5%. The MTA has countered with an offered 4.5% raise in the fourth year of the contract, but tied it to productivity increases and work rule givebacks."We want to talk to them. We're almost there," Free said at a Jamaica news conference. "Three years we're in agreement on. We're talking about a fourth year, and I don't think we're that far apart in what the raise would actually be."The five labor organizations embroiled in the contract dispute represent nearly half the LIRR’s union workforce, including locomotive engineers, signal workers, machinists, ticket agents and electricians.The unions have said the 15% in total raises they’re seeking is necessary to keep up with the rising cost of living, and with raises given to other union workers throughout the railroad industry. The LIRR’s offer, the unions have said, would amount to a pay cut.Free said Wednesday that paying higher-than-expected wages would create added costs in the MTA’s operating budget, which is funded in part through riders’ fares. "Who’s going to pay for it?" Free asked.Jeff Klein, general chairman of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 589, the union representing LIRR electricians, said he, too, remains optimistic that a deal can be made, but believes that raises...