Massapequa, its residents proudly proclaim, is a cop town.
Perched on Long Island's idyllic South Shore, it is just an hour's journey via train from Manhattan. The community is home to New York Police Department (NYPD) detectives, multi-generational police families, officers from Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and members of myriad other law enforcement agencies.
And when body parts started to be discovered in 2010 on Gilgo Beach - not far from where local teens work as lifeguards and families gather in the summer - it became clear that a serial killer had been active on Long Island for years.
The rumour mill went into overdrive. Was he local? Was he still hunting? And was he, after operating for so long without getting caught, perhaps even wearing a badge?
The 2023 arrest of architect Rex Heuermann put to rest those theories - and his admission in court this week to the murders of eight women has brought even further closure to Long Island police, they said.
It's a great relief, said Craig Garland, a retired NYPD detective, Massapequa resident and Little League baseball organiser. There were people out there trying to pin this on a cop and... it brings great closure to the law enforcement community at large [that] this wasn't a cop that was a serial killer.
Heuermann, a 62-year-old married father-of-two, was arrested in July 2023 in Manhattan after authorities obtained his DNA from a discarded piece of pizza outside his mid-town office.
His daily commute from Massapequa Park to New York City took him right past the local police bar Johnny McGorey's, a popular pub directly next to a rail station where officers drank and discussed the hunt for the murderer as Heuermann made his way to and from his unkempt house just a few streets away.
When bodies started being discovered, members of the homicide unit were our Friday night regular guys, said McGorey's owner Joanne Fountain, describing them as shook after the gruesome finds.
The case of Gilgo Beach plagued law enforcement in more ways than one.
As an administrator and someone who was a cop, it was very frustrating that it took so long to discover... [who's] responsible for these murders, said John Azzata, Nassau County's retired head of homicide.
The situation wasn't helped when Suffolk County Police Chief Jimmy Burke, then in charge of the Gilgo Beach investigation, was arrested in 2013 on sensational charges involving sex toys, pornography, coercion of witnesses and a cover-up.
But the scandal was perfect fodder for armchair sleuths and conspiracy theorists, and the Long Island serial killer mystery persisted until Heuermann's arrest on 13 July 2023.
As police breathed sighs of relief that he was an architect, those living in Massapequa were astonished, Livoti said. Whoever thought this guy was living next door to anyone?
At Massapequa's St Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, Rev Gerard Gentleman noted how the community moved quickly from shock to generosity and empathy.
While police may feel vindicated, however, and while Massapequa – and wider Long Island – might feel safer, Azzata pointed out that even a guilty plea will only do so much for the loved ones of the murdered women.
People say they get closure - there's no closure, he said. You may get justice, but victims' families never get closure.
