Rex Heuermann stood in a Suffolk County courtroom Tuesday and told a judge his words would "have no meaning." For once, the 62-year-old architect was right. Seven consecutive life sentences, three without the possibility of parole, landed on a man who spent nearly two decades murdering women in the basement of his family home on Long Island while his wife and children were away on vacation.

The sentencing in Riverhead, New York, brought an end to one of the most disturbing serial murder cases in modern American history. But the proceedings themselves proved almost too much for the people who loved his victims. At least one family member fled the courtroom after prosecutors laid out the contents of Heuermann's handwritten planning document, what Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney called a "shopping list for murder."

"I can't," the person said before leaving.

A four-day blueprint for killing

The planning document, recovered from a hard drive and presented by prosecutors, described a meticulous four-day scheme for luring women to Heuermann's home in Massapequa Park, Long Island. It included reminders about controlling noise levels, getting adequate sleep before what he called a "hunt," and timing, down to the second, how long it took to dump victims' bodies at Gilgo Beach. He made notes for future reference.

One line read: "If too tired, it causes problems." Another: "small is good", a reference prosecutors said reflected his preference for targeting petite women. The document also referenced what Heuermann called "play time" with bodies.

Grisly photographs of the basement where victims were killed were shown in court. The Washington Times reported that prosecutors described the space as a "kill room" inside the family's own home, a house Heuermann shared with his wife, Asa Ellerup, and their two children for more than two decades.

Tierney did not hold back about the kind of predator Heuermann was.

"This is a hulking individual going after small women. He is a coward."

Suffolk County Judge Timothy Mazzei was even more direct. The Washington Examiner reported that the judge told Heuermann before handing down the sentence: "You are a disgusting, despicable, and small man, and you are a coward."

Eight women, seventeen years of murder

Heuermann pleaded guilty in April to seven murders. He admitted to an eighth, the 1996 killing of Karen Vergata, age 34, as part of his plea agreement, though he was never formally charged in her death. The victims ranged in age from 20 to 34, and all were sex workers killed between 1993 and 2010.

They were Sandra Costilla, 28. Valerie Mack, 24. Jessica Taylor, 20. Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25. Melissa Barthelemy, 24. Megan Waterman, 22. Amber Costello, 27. And Karen Vergata.

Heuermann pleaded guilty to killing all eight women in what prosecutors described as a pattern of strangling victims and leaving their remains in remote areas of Long Island. The case went unsolved for years. Investigators eventually built their case on DNA evidence collected from a discarded pizza box, cell phone data, and internet search history, much of it found inside the Massapequa Park home, as Breitbart reported.

Ellerup, Heuermann's wife, has insisted she knew nothing of the crimes committed under her own roof.

Families face the man who destroyed theirs

The victim impact statements delivered Tuesday were raw and unsparing. Liliana Waterman, the daughter of Megan Waterman, was three years old when her mother was murdered. By age twelve, she had lost her mother, her grandmother, and the grandfather who raised her. She never knew her father.

She broke down in tears addressing the court:

"Was she in pain? Was she scared? Was she thinking of me? What were her last words? I knew she was trying to build a better world for me. Was this somehow my fault?"

"Those are questions I will never have answered because of the man who took her life," she said.

Ruth Ramos, sister of Sandra Costilla, had her statement read by the prosecution. She described Costilla's son Zac as "the center of her world" and said his mother's death caused "irreversible damage" and emotional stress that followed him through life.

Kimberly Overstreet, sister of Amber Costello, branded Heuermann a "raging, murdering sex addict." Just The News reported that Melissa Cann, sister of victim Maureen Brainard-Barnes, called Heuermann a "coward who preyed on vulnerable, innocent women." Amanda Funderburg, sister of victim Melissa Barthelemy, called him a "repulsive monster."

Karen Vergata's sons, Paul and Eric Darty, were present in the courtroom. Their mother's murder in 1996 was the one Heuermann admitted to but was never charged for, a fact that must weigh differently on a family that waited three decades for any reckoning at all.

A hollow apology and a courtroom eruption

When Heuermann addressed the court, he offered what the prosecution described as an apology. "I am responsible for all that was said in this room," he said. "The words I say will have no meaning."

He claimed he was sorry. A family member shouted back: "No you're not!"

As Heuermann was escorted from the courtroom, a woman yelled a profane threat. Others in the gallery shouted "ogre!" at the convicted killer. The courtroom had reached its limit.

Heuermann's own attorney acknowledged, as the Washington Examiner reported, that the guilty plea was intended in part to spare his family, including Ellerup and their two children, from the ordeal of a lengthy public trial. That family fled their home after his arrest three years ago, when Heuermann was first unmasked as the Gilgo Beach serial killer.

Muriel Henriquez, a former office manager at Heuermann's Manhattan architectural design firm, told the Daily Mail she was "gobsmacked" when she learned of his arrest. She had worked alongside him in the early 1990s, the same period when the killings began.

The DA's message to the families

Outside the courthouse, Tierney praised the victims' families for their composure and courage. He called their impact statements a "very tough act to follow when I got up in court." Attorney Gloria Allred also spoke on behalf of victims' families outside the building.

Tierney directed his closing remarks not at the press but at the people who had waited years, in some cases decades, for this day.

"I want to wreak their revenge by going on and having great lives by being happy, by being fulfilled, by being satisfied. They stood by their loved ones and did a wonderful job and now its a time for them to heal and to go on and realize the tremendous potential that they all have because they are absolutely extraordinary people, so that is my greatest wish for this case."

He thanked the investigative task force and two special agents whose work helped close the case. He hugged the victims' families after sentencing.

Cases like this one, and others where horrific details emerge only at trial, remind the public that the justice system's grind, however slow, exists for a reason. The families who sat in that courtroom Tuesday did not get their loved ones back. They got something smaller but still worth having: a man held to account, in public, with no ambiguity left.

Several open questions remain. Which specific murders correspond to the three life sentences without parole versus the four with parole has not been publicly clarified. Whether Karen Vergata's admitted killing was included in the seven life sentences, or stands outside them, given no formal charge was filed, is also unclear. And the identity of the family member who fled the courtroom has not been disclosed.

What is clear is the scope of what Heuermann did. Eight women. Seventeen years. A family home turned into a crime scene. A planning document that read less like a confession and more like an instruction manual.

Rex Heuermann will die in prison. That is the one thing about this case that requires no further debate.