Suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann is being invested in the 1989 murder of Carmen Vargas, a petite sex worker whose bound body was found just a few miles from his Long Island home, prosecutors told The Post on Thursday.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office confirmed an investigation after Vargas’ family claimed the gruesome death bore “too many similarities” to the Gilgo Four slayings that the 59-year-old architect is accused of committing.
“I believe he did it,” Vargas’ niece, Felicita Figueroa, told The Sun on Wednesday of her aunt’s gruesome murder.
“I believe he did it when he first started killing,” she alleged of Heuermann, who reportedly worked in Freeport at the time, 11 years before the Gilgo Four’s bodies were found.
Vargas was 29 in 1989 when her body was found dumped on the side of the Meadowbrook State Parkway in Freeport, about 7 miles west of Heuermann’s lifelong home in Massapequa Park.
She was last seen by a mystery man who picked her up outside the family’s East Harlem apartment, according to her niece, who was just 12 at the time.
“She got into a dark car,” Figueroa told told PIX11 last month. “I could tell it was a white man with glasses.”
The family long suspected serial killer Joel Rifkin, who denied the murder despite copping to 17 others.
However, they immediately got suspicious when news broke of Heuermann’s arrest for the Gilgo Four — who, like Vagas, were all petite sex workers.
“There are too many similarities,” Figueroa told PIX11. “She was really little … She walked the streets.”
Vargas’ bound and beaten body was found 30 feet from the side of the suburban parkway, but would remain unidentified for three years before a match was made through dental records.
Detectives told the family that “whatever happened that night, she fought,” Figueroa told PIX11. “Because three of her teeth were knocked out.”
The location always baffled the family — until they started suspecting Long Island dad of two Heuermann.
“It’s too close to where he lived and where he worked. Where she was found is not far from Gilgo Beach, it’s right by Jones Beach,” Figueroa told The Sun.
“And what was my aunt doing all the way over there? She doesn’t know anyone from Long Island. We’re from Harlem.”
Heuermann would’ve been 25 at the time of Vargas’ murder, and was working for Greer Construction Company in Freeport in 1989, according to the reports.
Nassau County investigators confirmed the possible link is being investigated, along with other cold cases.
“We’re working with our law enforcement partners to review unsolved homicide cases that fit the alleged pattern of Rex Heuermann,” Nassau County District Attorney’s Office Communications Officer Brendan Brosh told The Post.
He referred The Post to county detectives, who did not immediately return a request for comment.
Heuermann’s arrest has also led to renewed investigations in cold cases in several states, including South Carolina and Nevada, where he owns homes.
He has pleaded not guilty in the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, and was named the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
His attorney, who has always protested the suspect’s innocence, did not immediately return messages seeking comment Thursday.