For years, the families of the Gilgo Beach victims waited for answers.

On Wednesday, some of them finally had the opportunity to stand in a courtroom and speak directly to the man who admitted responsibility for taking their loved ones away.

Among them was Amanda Funderburg, the sister of Melissa Barthelemy, who delivered an emotional statement that reflected years of grief, trauma, and unanswered pain.

“Look at me while I’m talking,” she told Rex Heuermann during the sentencing hearing, urging him to meet her eyes as she described the lasting impact his actions had on her life.

Funderburg was only 15 years old when her sister was murdered in 2009. In the aftermath of Melissa’s disappearance, she endured a series of disturbing phone calls that authorities later linked to Heuermann.

Speaking in court, she described years of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and emotional suffering.

“I was forced to live with crippling anxiety, depression, PTSD, and a destroyed nervous system, constantly staring at my phone,” she said, recalling how the caller used her sister’s phone to torment her after the murder.

Funderburg was one of 13 relatives who addressed Heuermann during the hearing, many of them confronting him for the first time since his arrest in 2023.

Heuermann, a 62-year-old architect from Mᴀssapequa Park, New York, admitted in April to killing eight women between 1993 and 2010 as part of a plea agreement. He was sentenced to multiple life terms in prison.

Several family members used the opportunity to honor their loved ones and remind the court that the victims were far more than the labels often attached to them.

Melissa Cann, whose sister Maureen Brainard-Barnes was among the victims, condemned Heuermann’s actions.

“There is no honor in this,” she said. “You’re a coward who hid behind a mask. You hunted and murdered to satisfy the darkness within you.”

Nicolette Brainard-Barnes, Maureen’s daughter, was only seven years old when she lost her mother.

“I was a little girl and I needed my mom,” she said. “Like every Sєx worker, my mother was an entire human being. You make me sick, and I don’t forgive you.”

Jasmine Robinson, cousin of victim Jessica Taylor, expressed a similar sentiment, saying that no prison sentence could truly compensate for what had been taken away.

“Nothing will ever make this right,” she said.

Authorities said Heuermann remained unidentified for more than a decade after the final killing before investigators arrested him outside his Manhattan office in 2023.

According to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, investigators believe most of the murders took place inside a basement “kill room” at Heuermann’s home while his family was away.

The Gilgo Beach murders haunted Long Island communities for decades and became one of the most closely followed serial murder investigations in the United States.

The case has also drawn renewed public attention through a documentary series that included interviews with Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup, and daughter, Victoria Heuermann.

However, reports that family members were compensated for participating in the documentary drew criticism from some relatives of the victims.

Elizabeth Meserve, the aunt of victim Megan Waterman, expressed frustration over those reports, arguing that the focus should remain on the victims and the families who have lived with unimaginable loss for years.

For many relatives, the sentencing was not about closure, because closure may never truly come.

Instead, it was an opportunity to reclaim their voices after years of pain and uncertainty.

The hearing also served as a powerful reminder that every victim had a life, a family, and a future that was taken away far too soon.

While the legal process may be over, the impact of these crimes will continue to be felt by the families who have spent years carrying the weight of an unimaginable loss.

And for many of them, their loved ones will always be remembered not for how they died, but for who they were.