← Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno
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- [00:02]
A
This is Crime and Justice. I'm Donna Rotuno. If you love breaking down these cases with me, make sure you hit the follow button right now so you never miss an episode. Today's guest is largely credited for finally stopping a serial killer that terrorized the New York City area for decades. His story, however, didn't begin on the white sands of Long island, but rather on the gritty streets of New York City. Former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison joins us now. Rodney Harrison, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really looking forward to the conversation we're about to have.
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B
It's my pleasure.
- [00:42]
A
Thank you for having me, Rodney. First, let me tell our audience that you have a book out. It's called the Commissioner From Street Cop to Top Cop in the nypd. So tell us a little bit about what caused you to decide to say, you know what, I'm going to take all of my experiences, everything that's happened to me in this career, and put it down in writing. What made you decide to do that?
- [01:06]
B
That's a. That's somewhat of a unique question because I didn't want to do a book. I never had any interest in writing a book. But I will say that somebody approached me about putting a book together regarding the Gilgo beach investigation. And the truth of the matter is this. I can only speak on things that occurred during my time frame there and the partnerships that we were able to create while I was there. So it wasn't really something that I think a book can be created based upon that experience. But then I thought about it and I said, well, listen, I do have somewhat of a. Of a story that people may want to Hear Regarding my 30 years in the NYPD, my time frame prior or my life experience prior to me coming into law enforcement, and then how I was able to transition to Suffolk county and then add the part about the Gilgo beach investigation. And it was a little bit of an uphill battle. A lot of publishing companies politely declined. I think there was more of an interest of just hearing about the Gilgo beach investigation. Eventually, I partnered up with the editor by the name of Sandra Windell, and she helped me put this, this book together and self publish. And that's where we are today.
- [02:27]
A
Well, I think as fascinating as Gilgo beach is in the investigation and what led to the ultimate arrest, and it is fascinating, I do think, though, that your experience in one department in a big city and then moving to a place like Suffolk County, I think was. Is very interesting for people who understand the way law Enforcement works the way big city bureaucracy works versus these smaller areas. I think the experience that you came into it with was so helpful in terms of being able to put the pieces together. And I know before we came on air, you said to me that there were so many great people that made all of this happen, but those great people need somebody who's in charge. And do you think that your work in a big city helped you figure out the way to best take your resources, take the people that you had working, and put them together in order to come to a conclusion here in Gilgo Beach?
- [03:27]
B
Thousand percent. And, you know, that was one of the reasons that I thought that my NYPD story should be shared and some of the battles that I had to face regarding being able to transition out to Suffolk county and create a team that was able to bring closure to a decade old investigation. But, you know, I went from a place where I had negative interactions with law enforcement to a place where I wanted to be the best that I could possibly be in the nypd. And I think that with a combination of surrounding myself with really quality law enforcement officials allowed a trajectory for me through the NYPD to be able to reach to the highest rank as the Chief of department.
- [04:19]
A
Well, and for somebody like me, I live in Chicago, so obviously big city, big city police department, I'm a former prosecutor, so obviously dealt with that arm of law enforcement for a long time. And now on the defense side, of course, I'm dealing with police on a regular basis. And I think what people don't realize is the amount of experience you gain in big cities is just, just by sheer volume alone. Right. You have so much more experience in terms of how to deal with things than sometimes officers that work in smaller jurisdictions that just have not had the experience. I mean, sometimes you see police go into these very serious investigations and have never really handled anything extremely serious before. I mean, look what happened in Coburger. You know, you had officers walking into these murder scenes that have never dealt with murder. And I think that that really makes a difference, don't you?
- [05:12]
B
Well, I will say this. You could work in the nypd, you could work in Chicago, Louisiana, big municipalities, but it also depends on the individual. And you know, one of the things that I've always had a passion for is working in busy environments. And I worked in places in Brooklyn, in the Bronx, Upper Manhattan, where you had no choice but to learn. And those experiences, I want to believe, allowed me an opportunity to be interviewed for the position of police commissioner in Suffolk county as well as to be nominated and confirmed to become the police commissioner. So, you know, I didn't just go out there based upon a certain quality. I think my experience working in the city and then being able to transition to Suffolk county and implement a lot of the things that I learned because I wanted to stay busy helped me during that transition time. So listen, the department does of course help, but it also depends on the individual. And listen, you could work in Chicago NYPD and work behind the desk your whole career. The department, yeah. So that just because you work in a department doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have the experience to be able to accomplish something in another agency. So without sounding self absorbed here, my motivation, my high level competition to always be the best that I could be, I think really helped me to transition, create, have a partnership and a teamwork out in Suffolk County. And we did a lot of good things outside of the Gilgo beach investigation. We also made Suffolk county one of the safest counties in the state of
- [07:00]
A
New York, which is obviously, that's what I always say, that's the number one job, right, of law enforcement or our elected officials is to keep us safe. Tell me how you actually got your start in law enforcement to begin with. What made you decide to go down that path? Because with your skills you probably could have done anything and with your drive, you would have been successful. So tell me what made you choose police work?
- [07:24]
B
Well, that statement, I appreciate those kind words. That's not true because initially I was playing college basketball and I was bringing home horrible grades. So in essence, I couldn't have done anything that I wanted to do. But on a serious note, I struggled when it came to schoolwork in my freshman year at Springfield College and I had to do a fifth year. And prior to that, by the way, I want to go back for one second. I had negative interactions with law enforcement growing up in Jamaica, Queens. And you know, when you're inside of that inner city community, there usually is a very, very small amount of people that go into law enforcement. It's not one of those professions that people kind of sort to look to go into. So anyway, I had to do a fifth year and my father, who was helping me with my college tuition, shared that he wasn't going to, he wasn't going to pay for my college anymore. So I could do one or one of three things. You could join the military, which I didn't want to do. He said, you get a full time job, which I wasn't ready to do that as well. Or you could Try this cadet corps, and it's an internship that's with inside the nypd. And you could go to college during the day and work at a precinct at night or vice versa. And you're assigned to do administrative duties. And you help out with a lot of different internal situations and events that sometimes goes unnoticed. When it comes to law enforcement agencies. And that cadet corps experience, I really saw the positives that police officers do and you saw the human side. And there was a cops and kids event. I shared this story quite often that I was asked to be a part of. And during the event there was some engagement and I was able to share my life experience and try to help mentor these kids that were maybe going through a difficult time. And we stayed in contact. I was able to engage them and make sure that they made good decisions in their life. And after that game, I said, this is something I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to go into policing because there is a role where we're able to help people. And sometimes the great work that the men and women do in law enforcement unfortunately does not get shared. And this was a great opportunity to help people. And going into this profession was probably the best decision I ever made in my life.
- [10:08]
A
Well, that's always the goal, right? To pick something that you love to do and kind of take me through what the course of your time at the police department looked like. Where did you start? Where did you move to? What roles did you play? Kind of tell our audience what your career in the NYPD was like.
- [10:29]
B
I started out in Astoria, Queens, 114 precinct. That's where I was rookie cop. I always wanted to be an undercover. There was a show called New York Undercover with Malik Yoba. I was fascinated by that show. And I went to become an undercover in Brooklyn north in 1995. My partner, Michael Stoney, was shot during a buy and bus operation. I was the undercover. He's what's called the ghost. He was following me. And we got into a shootout with an individual by the name of LeAndre Hart, who. Who was eventually apprehended. And that was something that kind of opened my eyes regarding thinking about going up in the rank because the leadership in narcotics at the time kind of put us in a very, very difficult and dangerous position. After that, I went to the 71 detective squad where I was involved in investigations and where I was able to solve many violent crimes. And that's where I really learned my investigative experience, which of course later on helped me during my transition to Suffolk county and looking into the Gilgo beach investigation. I'll kind of fast forward here, but I became a sergeant in the seven' three Brownville, Brooklyn, one of the most dangerous communities in the country. And I learned from some really quality street cops. And we were able to get a lot of guns off the streets and hold a lot of bad people accountable. I had continued success. I became a precinct commander in Harlem where I worked in the Two Way Precinct and the three two Precinct. I was, I don't want to say given opportunity, but I was thrown into Internal affairs for a short period of time. It was something that I did not look forward to doing in the beginning because it wasn't something that I necessarily was fond of. That position wasn't something where you were doing what I call street police work or investigations. But I tell you, unfortunately there is a very, very small percentage of. But there are cops out there that unfortunately embarrassed the badge. And it was a good experience seeing the great work of the investigators in Internal Affairs. I then after that went out to. Was reassigned to Staten island after the Eric Gardner incident. And I was assigned to kind of help bring down the tension out there, working with the chief out there. His name was Ed Delatore. After that, I was given the opportunity to become the Chief of Patrol. I was chief of patrol overseas. 77 precincts, 17 to 18,000 uniformed members of service. And we rolled out neighborhood policing, which helped strengthen the communities with the law enforcement. And this was after the assassination of Officer Ramos and Liu. I was the first black Chief of detectives in 175 year history of the NYPD. That was a great experience. And I was in 2020. And that's when we were faced with so many difficult things. One being Covid. Number two being the George Floyd protest that really caused the city to turn upside down. And my last stop in the nypd, I was the chief of department where I oversaw the whole agency, uniformed police. I ran CompStat and helped the city recover from such a difficult time. And running Compstat and a host of other policies and decisions on how to fight crime pretty much came from my office. And we really did a terrific job. In compliments to the men and women at NYPD getting New York City back on its feet.
- [14:00]
A
And what are some of your best and worst moments on the job? When you look back and you say, okay, I spent a very large portion of my life serving the people, what do you say? These were the best things that happened and these were the worst.
- [14:15]
B
Being able to hold people accountable. I think that was one of the best things I was able to participate and be involved in when it came to policing. Some of the hard parts of it was I was taken away from my family, especially as I was in higher positions. I was very passionate about being around my daughters. They all played collegiate basketball. But I missed a lot of events because of my demands that came with being in leadership positions in NYPD.
- [14:49]
A
And so when you decided to retire, that was 2021 from NYPD. And then very quickly after that, you were tapped to become the commissioner in Suffolk County. Tell me what made you decide to take that on, because that was quite a job, given what you had been through. And what did you feel about leaving a big. Going to a smaller jurisdiction? Walk me through that a little bit.
- [15:15]
B
Yeah. So it's. It's. It's funny that you. You phrase the question that way, because once I left the NYPD in 2021, there was a change in administration. Mayor Adams came in, and of course, anytime there's a change in administration, they usually bring their own people in. So I kind of started packing myself, packing my bags, and getting myself prepared for my. My afterlife of the nypd. And my youngest daughter was playing college ball down at Wake Forest University. And once again, as I missed so many games, and I was committed to trying to catch more games going into the future, you know, one of my highest blessings was being able to train my daughter, go to all of her games, make sure she made her practices and her AAU games. And it was something that I was very, very passionate about, seeing her perform on the highest level. So we packed our bags, moved down to North Carolina, started looking for apartments just to be near her. And I got a phone call, and I was asked, would I be interested in going through the process of becoming the Police Commissioner of Suffolk County? There were some really quality candidates that were going for. A couple that had grown up through the ranks in Suffolk county that, believe it or not, might have been more qualified than me. But the county executive, Steve Malone, had a lot of faith in me. He had a real. He had two demands that he asked me. One was to implement reform. The other one, he asked quite often about the Gilgo beach investigation and make sure I bring my NYPD investigative experience to see if we could solve this case. And he kept a foot in my behind and made sure that whatever I needed to do to get the job done, that he would support me. And he was. So I was. I conducted multiple, multiple interviews with community people, politicians, elected officials, excuse me. And I was. Eventually, I Was nominated by the county executive, Steve Ballone, and I was confirmed by the legislators down in Suffolk county, and I was off to the races.
- [17:28]
A
So when they first called you and said, you know, we want you to apply for this, and you had all these other plans and you're going to North Carolina, are you saying, no way at first or right away? Are you going, I'm ready to jump back in?
- [17:41]
B
I actually at first said, no way? I said, nah, no thanks. And then I started talking it out with my family. And, you know, one of the things that I thought, this is very good that you brought this up, I actually said to myself, well, the one thing I could do, because Suffolk county, believe it or not, it's not as busy as the New York City police department, but it's the 12th largest police department in the country. But I also said that I could possibly still go back and forth to North Carolina and still be the police commissioner of Suffolk county, which is what I did. I would fly. My sky miles were off the roof because I would work during the day, fly down to North Carolina, fly back the next day, do another day of work, then on the weekends, fly back down again. Because I was really adamant about catching her games, and I caught a lot of them, in contrast to my time in the city where, you know, you're working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So that was one of the things that kind of changed the idea of me going back into policing and going out to Suffolk county to be their police commissioner.
- [18:48]
A
Well, and obviously, commissioner's the big job. And, you know what. You know, what had been happening in Suffolk County. You knew about Gilgo beach, right? I mean, you have somebody talking to you about it right away when you first are going to apply for this job. So it's obviously on your radar when you first get there. What changed about what was happening in that investigation prior to your arrival and then after you got there? What do you think was the biggest change? What were you able to do yourself to get us to where we are today, which is a plea of guilty and a confession and case being solved, obviously.
- [19:24]
B
So let's go back and regarding how much I knew about Gilgo, the truth of the matter is this. I really didn't know too much. I knew there were a bunch of women that were discovered on Ocean Parkway. Were they connected? Were they not? Was it a dumping ground? What was the situation? At one point, there were thoughts that the Suffolk county police department was involved with the killings, One of them being the former chief of department out there. So I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I didn't know who to trust. I didn't know where the investigation was going. I didn't know who I could bring in. I was trying to bring other people from the NYPD to maybe possibly help out with the investigation. There's no way I could have done it by myself, which unfortunately, I was unable to do that. So the first, one of the first orders that I, that I took into place was to speak to who was leading the investigation. And it was an individual by the name of Kevin Byer. He was the detective lieutenant from the homicide squad out in Suffolk County. And when I first met him, he didn't come across like a New York City investigator. He was kind of shy, baffled, quiet. I wasn't sure if this was the person that I wanted to tap into to help me get this investigation going in the right direction. Who was he aligned with? I mean, listen, there was so many rumors and speculations going on. I wasn't sure who can I use to put in charge of the investigation. So I sat down with Kevin Byra and we probably had like about a three hour, two to three hour meeting. And I grilled him. I asked him all types of difficult questions. I asked him, where were the bodies discovered, what time they went, when did they go missing, what type of evidence do we have, what, what technology has been used, what sciences have we cultivated regarding DNA and other types of evidence that possibly could have been recovered from the crime scene? And he knew every answer cold, didn't look at a piece of paper, was just rattling things off. And I was saying to myself, well, the one thing I'm not going to do is bring somebody else in. This is my guy. You know, if I have to bring somebody else in to oversee this investigation, they have to start from scratch. And that means I will not. This case has to be put on the back burner just to bring somebody up to speed. So I had Kevin Byer as the guy tag. You're at, Kevin, we're going to go forward with this investigation. The problem is they only had one person assigned to the case. And that person was kind of like not necessarily assigned to this case on a regular basis. If something, another case came up, the Gilgo beach investigation would be put in the back burner. So I, I thought it was important to put a team together with, inside the Suffolk County Police Department. Let's, let's put a team of investigators inside the, the police department assigned to Gilgo. Then my second question was all right, well, what law enforcement agencies are working on us? And they were like, well, nobody's working with us. I know Geraldine Hart brought in the FBI at one time, but when she left, they were excluded. And the FBI was brought into the investigation early on back In, I think 2013, 14. And the chief of department kicked him off there. Kicked him off the investigation. So when I. This is actually a funny story, but when I reached out to the FBI and told him, hey, listen, we're starting a task force, the told me, they declined. They said, we're not working with you guys.
- [22:55]
A
Wow.
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B
And I actually laughed. I said, I said, listen, you guys at FBI, you guys help out every law enforcement agency. I mean, that was the, the blueprint in nypd, FBI, and working with anybody else, dea, atf, and a host of other federal task forces. You, you, you know, like, what are you talking about? And said, no, we've. We've tried to work with you before and we've been excluded from the case and we're not going to work with you anymore. So I had to find a way to reassure that they were not going to have that problem no more and they weren't going to be excluded from the case and they'll be totally involved. And I reassigned the investigation outside of the homicide task force to another office over at the Suffolk County Police Academy. I also, and people don't know this, the state police do not get enough credit regarding this investigation. Steve Udes, who was the major over there, really had a. Actually, I'm not sure if it's a major, but he had a high title in the state police. And you know, the assigned a female investigator who is high quality. And they didn't just give us some type of schlep to fill a seat over in the task force. They gave us one of their best people who, believe it or not, was extremely instrumental in identifying who Rex Sherman was. So between the FBI, between the state police working with Ray Turney, who was a great partner, and the sheriff office under Earl Talon, we were able to put a nice team together, assign them to a different office and make sure the rejuvenated investigation, see what steps were missing, what information they had already and how can we run with it and make sure that they prioritize this case every day and every week. We will hold them accountable to make sure certain things were done, which was something that they probably were not used to. So, you know, anytime you challenge anybody in life, be it people that work for you, your children, family members, co workers, you know, you get to see how you hold them accountable. And the job, I want to believe, was performed at a higher level because of those weekly meetings.
- [25:12]
A
It's really extraordinary when you think about it, because with the amount of time that passed, and even though work on the case was being done, so much time had passed, other things come up. And we've been listening in the news recently about the fights between FBI and local jurisdictions, and we're talking about the Nancy Guthrie case. And everybody's wondering, you know, why won't everybody just work together? And sometimes it just has to do with who's the person in charge and what those relationships look like. And if you can put them back together again, obviously, everybody rowing in the same direction makes a huge difference in terms of your ability to actually solve crimes.
- [25:50]
B
That county issue, that's law enforcement throughout the country regarding collaborating with other agencies. And listen, there's a part where if you're an investigator, you have this ownership. I could solve this case by myself. That's how, you know, that's how it works. I know when I was a detective in the 71 squad, and somebody was going to share that they were going to have other people work with me from other agencies, I might have taken offense to it as well. But as I learned and as I grew within the nypd, those partnerships are extremely valuable. And a lot of cases can be solved if you work together and make sure there's a partnership and there's no egos involved in who's going to take ownership of this, of that, of that investigation that's going on.
- [26:35]
A
Well, let's hope there's a lot of people over the. Throughout the country listening to say that, because I think that's really important point. Talk to me about what changed when the Shannon Gilbert tape was released. How did that change the course of this investigation?
- [26:52]
B
You know, believe it or not, it really didn't change anything with the investigation. I think a lot of people, unfortunately thought that Shannon Gilbert was involved with the. The deaths of the other 10 bodies that were discovered over an ocean parkway. But the one thing that people may not realize, that her body, unfortunately, was discovered about five miles. Yeah, excuse me.
- [27:20]
A
I said it was miles away, right.
- [27:23]
B
About four to five miles away from the other. Other bodies and on the opposite side of Ocean Parkway. Now, does that mean that it still can't be a connection? But there were a lot of other things that kind of. That I was able to get a better understanding to show that she wasn't necessarily part of the murders that occurred under the hands of Rex Sherman, listen, I had one of the first things that I did when I went out there was sit down with John Ray, which was the family's attorney, and nobody sat down with John Ray. Everybody thought that he might have not been the most squared away individual, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. And that just shows you the level of passion of trying to hear from anybody and everybody. That's the first thing. The reason why I played this Shannon Gilbert audio was because I wanted to show anybody that the Suffolk County Police Department, we're gonna start doing things differently. We're gonna be a lot more transparent. We want people to feel comfortable to come forward. Unfortunately, the Suffolk County Police Department, due to prior administrations, kind of had a negative image and people might have been intimidated to come forward. So once I heard the audio and I found out that it wasn't going to be detrimental to the investigation, I thought it was important that I shared it with the public at that time.
- [28:40]
A
Yeah, I think it was. I think. I don't know. It was something that either brought it back to light or it made people reengaged in this. Because this story has become, you know, quite a big one. I. I just came back from CrimeCon from last weekend, and this was definitely something that was discussed at length out there. And, you know, this is something people have really been paying attention to, especially given the fact that after so much time, it was. It was solved. When did you realize that Rex Heuerman was actually the guy?
- [29:09]
B
The investigator from state police did a. What's called a TLO check and the TLO check of a green avalanche. Is there anybody that has a green avalanche in one of the cell site boxes that was created? One was in Mass Piqua. The other one was in midtown Manhattan. Once that she went through the case file, looked at some of the information that was going on, and that one of the sex workers, Amber Costello, one of her clients, drove a green avalanche. He was, according to her roommates, was an ogre, big, fluffy hair, Woody, these big type of glasses. Once she was able to identify Rex Sherman, that was like the end of March, early April, I didn't still jump at the situation. Well, this is our guy. Because he was just a client. Like, you know, we didn't automatically assume that this was the person involved. And I wanted to continue the investigation just to make sure that we continue to cover our bases. Last thing you want to do is throw all your eggs in one basket and think that Rex Shearman was it. Come to find out, he was just a client. So that's when afterwards, I still did the Shannon Gilbert audio Megan Waterman video over at the Holiday Inn in Hawpag. I shared that. And we continued to take a look at other leads that were going on. But there was a component where we wanted to start diving in deeper into Rex Sherman. And we saw some of the things that he was involved in regarding every time his family went out of town, he would involve. He was engaging in sex workers. Some of his Internet searches, some of his other really disgusting things that he partook in, that allowed us an opportunity to say, oh, you know what? We have to take a closer look at this individual and see if he is our guy. So we started focusing a lot more into Rex Sherman. So to answer your question, I would say probably when the Internet searches started coming back and we saw some of the disgusting things he was involved in, I was slowly and gradually saying, well, this person may be our guy. Maybe we need to start working on getting some type of DNA off him and seeing how that can hopefully nail us into him being our perpetrator.
- [31:33]
A
So then you make the determination that you're going to arrest him. Now, here's a guy who lives in Suffolk county, but he lives on Long Island. He's going back and forth to Manhattan for work. You're aware of the fact that he has dozens upon dozens upon dozens and dozens of guns. And how do you make the decision that you're actually going to go in and get them? And how do you want to do that? How do you want to make sure you keep people safe? Because a lot goes into that.
- [32:01]
B
So it was a team decision. And, you know, yes, he had not dozens and dozens yet. He had 97 registered guns. After all the search warrants, he had close to 300, which is another story. But, you know, once we said we're going to move into him, once we found out that there was a DNA match from some of the bodies that were discovered over on Ocean Parkway, we kind of tried to figure out, all right, what's the best way to move on him? Do we want to knock on his door and pull him out? And we ruled that out because we knew that his wife would have requested a lawyer. And one of the things that we wanted to do was see if we could talk to him through the arrest process. So we said, maybe we'll grab him on the train, but then there's so many things that could go wrong on the train station, on a train. And we knew that he commuted back and forth from Massapequa to midtown Manhattan with his daughter sometimes. So that's another situation where she might have called the lawyer, and then we wouldn't have necessarily. Then he would have absolute right to counsel. So one of the investigators I actually think was Kevin Byrus said, hey, let's get him by his. By his job. And my biggest fear was, I didn't know because he had so many guns registered to him. Is he going to be carrying? Is it going to turn into a shootout? Like, what's going to happen? So we figured out a nice attack plan, nice strategy, and we eventually figured out a date. And then Rich Zacharys called me up and shared, hey, well, listen, we're gonna. We're gonna move on him now because we're scared that the information's going to leak out. Rich Zacharys is the partner to Ray Turney, who's a rock solid guy, investigator that did a lot of gang takedowns in the city. And we moved in, and we told him that he was under arrest. His response was, for what? We cuffed him, we told him for the Gilgo beach murders. And the only thing that came out of his mouth after that was, well, he wants a lawyer. And to me, that response pretty much was the nail in the coffin.
- [34:03]
A
Yeah. Because he wasn't saying, what do you mean? I'm not involved in this. It wasn't me. Although he has a right to remain silent. I will put that caveat out there.
- [34:13]
B
Well, I'll ask you a quick question. If the Chicago Police Department came in your. In your house right now and said, hey, listen, you stole a bike from 23rd street or whatever, you know, whatever street is out there, you're gonna sit there and say, absolutely not. It wasn't me. What are you talking about? Get off me. He's being charged for the death of women on Gilgo beach, and all he says is he wants a lawyer. No resistance, no claim of innocence. I'm sorry. Once I saw that he stayed quiet, I. I knew this was our guy.
- [34:45]
A
For all those potential jurors out there, though, in any case, you have. You can't consider that. But you're. I. I agree with you philosophically, I agree with you in terms of, you know, our system and his right to remain silent and all those things. I'll say. I just have to caution that as the. As the defense attorney in me. So, I mean, there was so much that's.
- [35:08]
B
That's a law enforcement, I guess. Guess we'll say
- [35:13]
A
Paul Morrow gets mad at me every time I say on one of our shows. And I say, no, you don't, you know, you don't make any statements to the police. And he goes, no, you talk. So we, we always fight about that one. There's a lot of damaging evidence here. Obviously, you have the car, you have the DNA, you have all of the writings and musings and searching. Walk us through some of that because there's a lot of damaging evidence here. I mean, he had like playbooks about how to do this.
- [35:43]
B
Yeah. So a lot of the stuff that was discovered was post my time frame in the. As the police commissioner, once again, since I left In December of 2023, a lot of information came and compliments the Ray Turney for keeping the task force and continuing the investigation to strengthen the judicial process, which put Rex Sherman in a place where he had to take a plea. But the thing that was the most important that led us to Rex Sherman was the DNA and sciences in this day and age is extremely important. It actually has made a lot of different communities safer because we've been able to hold a lot of other people accountable because the recovery of DNA of individuals and you know, there's only but so much video you could capture. There's only but so much fingerprints you could get. But saying somebody's DNA is on somebody's body and if there's no relationship there makes things very, very difficult for a subject or a perpetrator to try to defend themselves in any situation.
- [36:47]
A
Yeah, especially with that kind of passage of time too. The fact that you're able to have that and that that evidence is there and that's. It's astounding, really. Tell me what your response is to people who say his wife must have known about this, must have maybe been involved or had some kind of a knowledge of this. What's your response to that?
- [37:10]
B
The jury's still out. You know, I don't know how much she did or did not know. Did she know that some of his deviant behavior when she was out of town was. Listen, there were certain people that accused them being swingers and she was involved. You know, it's hard to believe everything that you hear. I will say this. He killing him. Rex Sherman killing eight separate women at different times. For him to be able to keep this away from people that live with him. I wouldn't be surprised if she might have if she didn't know. I wouldn't be surprised if she had some thoughts or some concerns that he was involved into something bad. I don't want to believe that she was just walking around aimlessly like her husband. Was a saint coming across as a father, as an architect or a building inspector. I wouldn't be surprised if she knew that he was into some type of activity regarding him being a mass killer, a serial killer. I don't. You know, I can't sit here and say that with any types of conviction, but I will say I wouldn't be surprised if she knew that he was involved in some type of creepy activity when. When. When he. When she was out of town.
- [38:32]
A
So the last body in the Gilgo situation that he pled to was from 2010, is that correct?
- [38:41]
B
Yeah.
- [38:42]
A
So we're talking about 1990 10.
- [38:46]
B
Well, it was 1993, Santa Castillo to 20 to actually 2011. And I'm not sure which one it was, but it could be Valley Mac or one of the. One of the Gilgo 4. But, yeah, that's. That's a long time frame. That's close.
- [39:01]
A
Right? And that. Well, not only is it a long time frame that it happened. Right. But now there's been a long time frame from 2011 to 2025 or 20, whenever he got picked up, 20, 23. Do we think there's other bodies, other places?
- [39:18]
B
You know, I shared my thoughts about this a few times, and that's 30 years that he was. Was out there. Last one that we know about, 1993-2011. I. Wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more bodies out there. And this is why I think that the task force needs to stay in place. I think there needs to be a deeper dive into sex workers in Long island or maybe even the state that may be missing and trying to track down their whereabouts, because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that are missing that are unaccounted for that may be connected to Brett Sherman. I don't want to sit here and go on a speech about how much that he is, or there are more bodies out there, but shame on law enforcement for not continuing the investigation to see if there's anything else connected to him. Listen, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't think he was forthcoming. I saw him smirk inside the courtroom when given the plea. I just have absolutely no trust in him. Just because he pleaded to these eight doesn't mean that that's it. And I think there still needs to be a further investigation into anybody that's connected to Rex Sherman.
- [40:45]
A
Well, I think that brings me to my next question. I know as part of his plea, he said he was going to sit down with the FBI Behavioral Analyst Unit. I mean, great. I guess, you know, there's no I guess, impetus on him to tell the truth. He can say whatever he wants and how to prove otherwise. Right. And what. Right. And what's the difference what he's gonna say, what he's right?
- [41:11]
B
No, I. I don't see him being forthcoming. I think he just said that so he could find a way to cooperate. But just. And by the way, I've never met the man, never engaged him. You know, that wasn't necessarily. That wasn't my job. You know, I leave that job to the investigators. But I just, you know, based upon some of the things that I've seen and how he's acted, I could just see him kind of going through the motions and not necessarily being forthcoming behind his mindset of why he killed these women.
- [41:41]
A
Well, sure, and the real reason people really do this in many cases, and maybe it's my jaded personality when it comes to these things, but is, you know, he wants to get whatever he can get for it in prison, right? Whether it's a better living quarter, whether it's more access to the foods he likes. He will try to barter that relationship, I'm sure, in some way. So my guess is that was really more about him than it was helping anybody learn anything about the mind of a serial killer. But again, that's just speculation on my part. So tell me, Rodney, what are you doing today besides talking about this book? You wrote this book. Tell me what's next.
- [42:23]
B
So I started my own company. It's called hall and Harrison Solutions. And I have an opportunity to travel the country and train other police departments regarding a host of different subjects, everything from leadership to investigations to implementation of a risk management strategy. So it's really a great opportunity to use my 32 years of law enforcement experience, everything from being a cop to an executive, and be able to understand how a police department can benefit from the things that I've seen and help them go forward in their jurisdiction. Working with the community, developing relationships, holding people accountable, and making the lives for the men and women in that police department better.
- [43:13]
A
Tell me about the work that you're doing as a public safety consultant to Mayor Mamdani. You know, given everything that's been going on in New York these days, especially with all of the anti Semitic issues that we are seeing pop up in New York on a regular basis.
- [43:30]
B
So I'm not sure if I'm not still a consultant for him right now, but at one time he did ask my opinion on his safety plan. He had a strategy when it came to identifying a better way of how do we respond to individuals that are going through a mental health crisis. You know, too often law enforcement respond and situations go the wrong way. And next thing you know, a police officer is using deadly physical force to stop this engagement with somebody that's going through this crisis. And his strategy, which I do like, and I've seen it work in other departments, is see if we get professionals, clinicians that have that experience to respond to these jobs. Now, there's a little bit of a risk here, and, you know, these calls need to be vetted. The individual needs to not have access to weapons and maybe be in a situation which is under control. So it's something that I kind of agreed upon where it being put into the role of policing in the nypd. But I think it should be piloted and put in certain precincts at first. And then if we see success, you know, slowly and gradually start rolling it out to other locations throughout the city. But it could definitely alleviate the police officers from going to these jobs. Meanwhile, you could have somebody that has that experience, that education, and be able to go and be able to get that person the help that they need. Because New York City unfortunately, too often have these mental health jobs that unfortunately take cops out of a situation from being able to handle other jobs that are occurring during their tour.
- [45:18]
A
Sure. I mean, that is such a. The mental health crisis is something that law enforcement is facing every day, especially in big cities. We see it in Chicago and when there's really no other option and no place to PR put people, if we're not going to incarcerate people and we're moving away from that, and there's no mental health hospitals. And trying to put someone in a mental health hospital has become increasingly difficult. It really puts this onus on the police officers to try to figure something out. And it's quite a drain on resources for officers that have lots of other calls that they're being called to. So I hope that there's some solution for that in all of our big cities. I would really love them to call you down in your private sector capacity to Pima county and maybe you can help them figure out what's going on down there, because it would really be lovely to see the Nancy Guthrie case solved in some way. What I found most fascinating, I think, in your book beyond, obviously the case, beyond the resolution of what happened in Suffolk county with Rex Heuerman. But I really found the way that you went into Suffolk County. And you really did find a way to deal with the bureaucracy and cut through the red tape and find a way to say, look, we're going to. We're going to deal with the unions. We're going to deal with all the things that we need to deal with to put this task force together and come to a solution, I think is a great thing for any police department across the United States to look at and follow. And any help you can give any of those departments, I think would be awesome. Is there any chance we'll ever see you back in the public sector?
- [46:58]
B
So I have no intentions of going back into the public sector. I have a great opportunity of training, starting my own business. I'm also a law enforcement contributor for cbs. I am now author, which I never saw that happening. But I'm sure I'll get a great chance to do some speaking engagements. But listen, I will say this. If I do receive a call from an elected official, the one thing I will not do is shy away from the conversation. I'll entertain them and then we'll go from there. So we'll see what happens. But listen, I'm open to anything, but right now I'm just in a blessed situation of having my own business and being closer to my family. I have two grandchildren now. I love being around them. And my youngest daughter still playing. Yeah, my youngest daughter is still playing professional basketball overseas and I get to fly out and catch her games. So when you're in these positions of being the top cop, it takes you away from a lot of things that I just shared.
- [47:55]
A
No question. Well, enjoy your family. Enjoy your grandchildren. Thank you, Rodney, so much for joining me. I appreciate your time.
- [48:03]
B
My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
- [48:08]
A
Thank you for joining me for another episode of Crime and Justice. Remember, we want to hear from you. Send us your thoughts, questions or theories, and we will answer them on air.