Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll find out about a state assemblyman’s campaign to make the Metropolitan Transportation Authority disclose when bedbugs are found on buses or subways. We’ll also get details on the Gilgo Beach murder suspect’s sudden guilty plea.
A state assemblyman from Brooklyn has had bedbugs on the mind for years. Assemblyman William Colton, a Democrat whose district includes the Bensonhurst neighborhood, wants the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to disclose — within 24 hours — whenever bedbugs are found on buses or in subway cars. He says the agency once reported such information but stopped during the pandemic. He has repeatedly introduced bills to require disclosures from the M.T.A., and the Assembly passed the most recent version last month. The bill is now before the transportation committee in the State Senate. “This is extremely important — bedbugs are a problem in New York City,” he told me. “Riders have to have confidence that public transit will be able to deal with problems.” Colton, in a news release, accused the M.T.A. of being “resistant” to alerting customers when an infestation has been detected. Passengers “should not have to add ‘Will I bring home bedbugs?’ to their list of concerns as they go about their daily life.” He told me that for several years before the pandemic, the M.T.A. reported each bedbug incident “on a regular basis — which line it occurred on, even the bus number and what steps that had taken.” “Usually, they would take that bus or that train out of service, and the problem was dealt with,” he said. “I think they would probably fumigate it.” Then the M.T.A. stopped posting the information online, he said. The result, he said, is that “we don’t know how many instances there are.” An M.T.A. spokeswoman would not comment on Colton’s bill. Last year New York dropped to No. 15 on a list of the top 50 cities with bedbugs compiled by Orkin, based on residential and commercial bedbug treatments — “suggesting fewer reported bedbug infestations,” the company said at the time. Chicago was No. 1. New York had been No. 2 in 2024. Still, bedbugs have crawled into the city’s psyche for years. In 2009, based on 311 calls, there were indications that infestations were approaching the levels of the 1950s, before the bedbug population was largely wiped out by DDT. But how many come from buses and subways is something of an open question. The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene says that bedbugs are more likely to live in places where people spend longer periods, like homes, hotels or other places where people could sleep. Most sightings in transit settings are isolated cases, the department says, although it is possible for bedbugs to turn up in buses or subways if they are carried aboard on clothing, bags or luggage. Buses and subways, by themselves, are not places where bedbugs thrive, the department says: Bedbugs need regular access to a person to feed on. Colton is undaunted. Bedbugs “jump from one person to another,” he said, and people with bedbug bites “are embarrassed.” Bedbugs do not cause or transmit disease, although bedbug bites can lead to infections. Colton said that he had never lived through a bedbug infestation, but someone on his staff had. “It turned out, because she didn’t find out the problem existed” for a while, that “it spread to adjacent apartment in her building,” he said. “It was a very expensive problem.” She had to replace a lot of bedding and a lot of clothing, he said. She also had to hire an exterminator. “We can’t document if bedbugs happen on a subway or a bus or somebody’s office or somebody’s home, but it’s logical, if there are bedbugs in the city, there’s going to be a problem on the transit system,” he said. WEATHER Today will be mostly sunny with a high near 53. Expect mostly clear conditions tonight, with a low around 41. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING Suspended (Passover). QUOTE OF THE DAY “He’s shown a lot of composure and professionalism.” — Justin Olsen, 26, who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn, on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first 100 days in office. The latest New York news
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A case that began 15 years ago when the police discovered four bodies in and around a remote beach was over in 20 minutes in a Long Island courtroom. The man accused in what became known as the Gilgo Beach killings pleaded guilty on Wednesday, bringing an unexpectedly sudden end to a case that took investigators more than a decade to solve. The plea by the suspect, Rex Heuermann, came in Suffolk County Court at what had been scheduled as a routine hearing anticipating a trial set to start in the fall. But Heuermann pleaded guilty to all seven murders, as well as an eighth that he had not yet been charged with. “Do you feel it is in your best interest to plead guilty?” the judge asked. “Yes, I do,” replied Heuermann, 62, nodding as he spoke. His lawyer, Michael Brown, said later that the decision to plead guilty was Heuermann’s. “There came a point in this defense where Rex said, ‘I want to plead guilty,’” Brown said, adding that Heuermann was motivated by a wish to spare the victims’ families from enduring a lurid trial. Heuermann also wanted to save his own family “from that ordeal.” Brown was asked if his client was sorry. “I hope so,” he said. Kevin Catalina, the Suffolk County police commissioner, said that while Heuermann appeared “calm, serene” and “almost grandfatherly” in court, he had been exposed “for exactly what he is: a sadistic, soulless, murderous monster.” The police discovered four bodies in 2010 in the Gilgo Beach area on the South Shore of Long Island. They eventually found the remains of 16 people, including one woman who had been killed as long ago as the 1990s. From the start, some investigators believed it was the work of a serial killer. But the investigation was marred by dysfunction, disarray and corruption. Then, in 2022, after prosecutors had formed a task force, an investigator used a witness’s description of a Chevrolet Avalanche to search a database for vehicles by make and model. They found one that in 2010 had been linked to Heuermann, an architect who had lived most of his life on Long Island. His name had never come up in the investigation, but he was 6-foot-4 and heavyset. That matched the description of a man who had rushed out of one victim’s house shortly before she disappeared. METROPOLITAN DIARY Memory trick
Dear Diary: I was waiting for the bus on Amsterdam Avenue and standing close enough to hear two friends talking. One woman was explaining to the other that she had discovered a way to remember short notes she read. “I read it,” she said. “I repeat it. I recite it. I write it.” “I love that!” I said, moving in closer. “Could you say it again?” As she did, I wrote it in my phone. The bus arrived. “Come on,” the woman with the advice said. “I’ll ride with you.” She waved to her friend, and we got on the bus for the trip uptown. — Jane Seskin Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
