GILGO UPDATE: Rex Heuermann Pleads Guilty

Summary

---

RedHanded Podcast: GILGO UPDATE – Rex Heuermann Pleads Guilty (April 9, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this gripping two-part episode, hosts Saruti and Hannah revisit the notorious Gilgo Beach/Long Island Serial Killer (LISK) case—culminating in the 2026 update that Rex Heuermann, long suspected of being the Gilgo Beach serial killer, has pleaded guilty to murdering eight women. The hosts blend meticulous research and their trademark dry humor to unravel the decades-spanning mystery, police corruption, and shocking developments including forensic evidence, the victims’ stories, and the culture of impunity that stymied the investigation for years. They also speculate on unanswered questions: Were there multiple killers? How did Heuermann evade justice for so long? Did his family know? And what does his confession mean for the many still-unanswered questions?

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Heuermann’s Guilty Plea: What We Know (00:30–04:03)

• The Key Update: On April 8, 2026, Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty to the murders of seven identified women and confessed to causing the death of an eighth, Karen Vergata. He won't be charged for Karen’s murder, but will spend life in prison.
• Reason for the Plea? Heuermann’s lawyer claimed it was to spare victims’ families a trial ordeal, but hosts express skepticism, pointing to evidence of Heuermann’s sadistic behavior (“this is the same man who phoned his victim's loved ones to taunt them”—Saruti, 00:44).
• Nail in the Coffin: Chilling documents found on Heuermann’s computer—what the hosts call a “manual”—detailed how to select, kill, transport, and cover up the murders: “an architect by trade, it seems that Heuermann kept a chilling planning document to, in the words of the prosecutors, methodically blueprint how to select, kill and dump his victims.” (Saruti, 00:51)
• Speculation: Were these instructions for a co-conspirator? Hosts doubt it, leaning toward Heuermann’s grandiosity and a need to relive and record his “brilliance.”

---

Revisiting the Gilgo Beach Murders: The Case’s Grim Discovery (10:18–29:25)

• Shannan Gilbert’s Disappearance: Sets off the investigation. Her panicked 911 calls—"There's somebody after me. Where are you?" (14:38)—become a haunting centerpiece.
• Discovery of Bodies (known as the “Gilgo Beach 4”): The investigation begins with a search for Shannan but uncovers a line of bodies along Ocean Parkway—at least 11 in total. Seven are identified: all young female sex workers, similar in appearance and background, wrapped in burlap and bound.
• The Outliers: Unidentified victims include Baby Doe (a toddler), “Peaches” (a Black woman whose torso was found elsewhere), an Asian male in women’s clothes, and Karen Vergata—whose remains were only recently identified.

---

Patterns, Theories & The Multiple Killer Debate (31:10–52:13)

• Pattern Recognition: The Gilgo Beach 4 share a clear MO, leading hosts to assert—“the victimology, the mo, the signature, and the dump site all point clearly to the Gilgo Beach Four being the work of one serial killer.” (Saruti, 34:35)
• Dismemberment & Deviations: Other victims were dismembered and scattered—a major break from the neat, burlap-wrapped Gilgo 4.
• The Multiple Killer Theory: Could the area be a shared dumping ground? References to other local serial killers (John Bitroff, Joel Rifkin) and infamous cases like Texas “killing fields” reinforce plausibility.

---

Police Corruption, Obstruction & Systemic Failure (52:13–68:13)

• Entrenched Corruption: James “Jimmy” Burke becomes chief of police, blocks FBI involvement, and covers up critical evidence—“Burke ran things at SCPD like a mob boss…” (Saroo, 57:55)
• Criminal Activity: Burke himself is later jailed—not for the murders, but for beating a suspect and orchestrating cover-ups. District Attorney Tom Spota and others are also imprisoned for obstruction.
• Culture of Impunity: A decades-long tradition of coerced confessions, intimidation, and stonewalling. Infamously, cops wore “97%” t-shirts to brag about their confession rate (65:42).

---

The Oak Beach Connection: High Society Parties & More Conspiracies (68:13–75:32)

• Secretive Community: Oak Beach was the site of sex parties attended by Long Island's elite—including cops like Burke. Hosts speculate whether Shannan was dosed and subsequently killed to cover up high-profile misbehavior, especially as she was reportedly terrified not of her client or driver, but of “they.”
• Dr. Peter Hackett: A suspicious local doctor who called Shannan’s mother and claimed to have been involved with her after she ran from Brewer's home. Later cleared by polygraph.

---

The Task Force’s Breakthrough & The Evidence Against Heuermann (83:24–108:23)

• Renewed Focus: With a new DA (Ray Tierney) and task force in 2022, leads are finally pursued meticulously.
• The Truck: Ties to Amber Costello’s murder through descriptions of a unique Chevrolet Avalanche and matching Heuermann’s physical description.
• Phone & Digital Evidence: Burner phones and a bizarre lattice of email accounts tracked to locations where Heuermann lived, worked, and contacted the victims. Taunting calls to victims’ families placed from “just 87 ft away from Rex Heuermann’s architectural office” (Saroo, 94:39).
• Digital Searches: Grim and incriminating Google searches about the case and graphic sexual content, including searches for CSAM (child sexual abuse material) and torture porn (98:42–100:02).
• The DNA Link: Mitochondrial DNA from female hairs on the victims match Heuermann’s wife. Male DNA from a pizza crust links to Heuermann himself (105:13).

---

Who Is Rex Heuermann? (108:56–119:55)

• Professional Facade: Successful architect, married with two children.
• Double Life: Lived in a run-down childhood home, maintained a secret basement vault, stockpiled hundreds of guns, owned a child-sized doll in a glass box resembling those left on victims’ graves. Locals found him “seriously off.” (117:33–118:58)
• Unraveling: Incidents of odd, aggressive behavior escalate as the investigation closes in.

---

Heuermann’s Family: Did They Know? (121:06–124:25)

• Wife Cleared: DNA likely transferred via clothing; she and the children were abroad during key windows. She divorces him immediately after the arrest and is currently dealing with cancer treatment.

---

Theories: Did Heuermann Kill More? Is There Another Killer? Why Did He Stop? (124:25–131:22)

• One vs. Multiple Killers: Evidence points neatly to Heuermann for the Gilgo 4 but is less clear on the dismembered outliers. Timing, victimology, and geography spark debate.
• Did He Stop? Unlikely: “Police seem to have moved in for the arrest because they were worried about the risk he posed to the public”—he may have been preparing to kill again, which is extremely rare for someone his age (129:42).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Burke’s corruption: “Burke ran things at SCPD like a mob boss from his wild sex addiction, drug addiction, extortion, illegal wiretapping, drunk driving, corruption, and so much more, it is bonkers.” (57:55, Saruti)
• On the police’s confession rate: “T-shirts that said 97% on them. I'm unwell.” (65:42, Hannah)
• On the digital “manual” found: “What else can you honestly call it?... it detailed how to clean, dismember and move the bodies of his victims.” (02:16, Saruti)
• On the prosecutor/DA mutual blackmail: “I've got something on him because he owes me for getting him in this position. And Burke's got something on Spota because he knows that he most likely lied when he testified in that trial for John Pius murder. So they kind of have this really twisted, fucked up relationship.” (68:13, Saruti)
• On the overwhelming weight of evidence: “If I was his defense attorney, I'd be like, looks like you're in trouble.” (102:25, Saruti)
• On the nature of serial killers: “Serial killing isn't technically like a type of criminal. It's a type of behavior.” (23:38, Saruti)
• On speculating about alternate killers: “Could point to one killer, could point to multiple. Like nothing here is definitive.” (47:00, Saruti)
• On the case’s bleakness: “It's just like a can of worms. They start looking and just body after body after body starts appearing.” (20:16, Saruti)
• On concluding the episode: “But that is, for now, everything you need to know about the Long Island Serial Killer case.” (134:30, Saruti)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Main case update & Heuermann’s plea: 00:30–04:03
• Introduction/revisit of the case: 10:18–29:25
• Victimology & multiple killer theories: 31:10–52:13
• Corrupt police investigation: 52:13–68:13
• Oak Beach, the parties, and speculation: 68:13–75:32
• Task force breakthroughs & evidence trail: 83:24–108:23
• Who is Rex Heuermann?: 108:56–119:55
• Family involvement: 121:06–124:25
• Case theories and the future: 124:25–134:30

---

Final Takeaways

• Heuermann’s confession solidifies years of suspicion, but significant mysteries remain: There may be additional victims, other killers, or unanswered questions about his methods and motives.
• The case is a chilling illustration of law enforcement failure and corruption: Systemic issues delayed justice for years—harmed both victims and the public.
• For true crime obsessives, the Gilgo Beach case is a dense, tragic labyrinth: Even with Heuermann’s conviction, the story is not fully finished. The hosts promise to keep listeners updated on any further developments.
• Memorable tone: A mix of grim detail, skepticism, and weary humor—typical of RedHanded—anchored in compassion for victims and sharp critique of institutional failure.

---

For a more detailed discussion of any specific point or for direct quotes, see the corresponding timestamp above. The episode’s recommended companion is RedHanded’s original two-part Gilgo Beach deep dive, included in the feed after this update.

Transcript

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Neighbor Gabo, then Doug. There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Saroo]

This year I was bracing myself for a huge trial, that of Rex Heuermann, the Gilgo beach serial killer. The case that we covered in depth last year in a two parter. But honestly, I needn't have worried because on Wednesday 8 April, in a Suffolk county courthouse, he pleaded guilty to murdering seven Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and Sandra Castilla. And also he pleaded guilty to intentionally causing the death of an eighth, Karen Vergata. In exchange for the guilty plea. Heuermann won't be charged with Karen's murder, but he will still spend the rest of his life behind bars. Heuermann's lawyer claimed that his client had decided to plead guilty to spare his victims families the ordeal of a drawn out trial. But given that this is the same man who phoned his victim's loved ones to taunt them after he had killed them, I find that quite hard to believe. This last minute change of plea is probably much more likely to do with the documents that investigators found on Heuermann's computer. An architect by trade, it seems that Heuermann kept a chilling planning document to, in the words of the prosecutors, methodically blueprint how to select, kill and dump his victims. Police found a word document on a hard drive in the basement of the house that Heuermann shared with his wife and children. In this document, spelt out in capital letters, they found a file outlining how to package bodies up for transport, as well as steps that he needed to take to avoid being caught. And also top tips to remove trace DNA evidence. The manual, because what else can you

honestly call it Even contained headings such

as supplies and problems with, for example, DNA listed as a top concern for him. There was also a section titled Body Prep, which if you remember this case will know that it is pretty grim because it detailed how to clean, dismember and move the bodies of his victims. While another part of the document called Post Event provided a sort of checklist to not leave a trail. These documents, which Heuermann had actually tried to delete, along with the DNA evidence that was found on that pizza crust that he had chucked in the bin, was just clearly too much. And I'm sure his lawyers strongly advised him that he needed to just plead guilty.

It would have been very, very difficult

for them to overcome this level of evidence. I guess the question people are asking now is why did he write this all down? Could it have been instructions for a co conspirator who hasn't been identified? Because remember, there was some talk of the fact that maybe he was operating as a team.

I don't know.

I doubt it. I think it's much more likely that this is just reflective of Huroman's grandiosity and the thrill he got from the entire process, from the planning, the stalking, the kill, and even the aftermath. Writing it all down is a way for him to relive it, but also document his genius and bask in the glory of his own brilliance. And ironically, that's exactly what ended up bringing him down. Now, before I let you guys get on with the re release of our Gilgo episodes to remind yourselves how this case went down, let's just touch upon his victims. Like I said at the start, he admitted to killing eight women, but it's highly likely that Rex Huraman murdered more.

And finally, just to let you guys

know, next week on under the Duvet, which is our Patreon exclusive show, we're

going to take a bit of a

deep dive into this peacock documentary series, House of Secrets, which is all about Huroman's home life. And seems that they've got interviews with his wife and even his daughter.

I'm really interested to see just how

life was for them, how it is that they had absolutely no idea that their husband and father was a serial killer for nearly two decades.

I'm about to sit down and watch

that documentary series now.

And like I said, we will be

reviewing it, recapping it, going into it all on under the Duvet over on Patreon next week. So if you're a patron, get ready. If you aren't, then maybe think about becoming one. You can listen to under the Duvet for as little as $5 a month and you can watch the video releases for as little as $10 a month. So, so check that out. And yeah, enjoy this recap. And with that, I'll leave you with our two parter on the Gilgo beach killings, a case that after decades can finally be Put to rest.

I'm Saruti.

[Hannah]

I'm Hannah.

[Saroo]

And welcome to Red Handed, where we are going to dive into quite a large case today. But before we do that, we have a very quick request for everybody. I know that since last summer when we were making this exact same request, we have had a lot of newbies join the fold. Our numbers have grown quite considerably. Thank you very much for listening. And so maybe you don't know what we're about to talk about. It's the British Podcast Awards.

[Hannah]

It certainly is.

[Saroo]

So just to fill everybody in on the history of the situation, obviously British podcasting is a little bit further behind than I would say it is across the pond. But we have had an awards for it for the past few years. Sadly, we've only ever been nominated once and we have never, ever won. In the true crime category typically tends to be dominated by the BBC and all of the other categories. By the BBC and by celebrities. Yeah, of course, there's nothing wrong with that. They can do what they want. But there is very slim chance of two people like us who started this podcast in our bedrooms, or sorry, slash, locked in a cupboard under some stairs with a ten pound microphone to ever win. So the one category we have won for the past two years has been down to nobody else, nobody on the judging panel, nobody else taking part in the awards other than all of you beautiful listeners. Because it is the most important award of all, the listener's choice. And that means it was voted for by you. And we won gold for two years in a row. The first year we won, we decided that we would do something crazy. I think Hannah's exact words were, if we win, I will get a tattoo of a listener's name on my body. Yep.

[Hannah]

I think I said face. But I quickly rejected.

[Saroo]

You did say face. You did say face. And then, unbelievably, we won. And Hannah did follow through. She didn't get a tattoo on her face, but she did get a tattoo of a listener on her body. And then the following year, we thought, we can't repeat this, but we did. Unbelievably, we won. And again, we offered you guys the choice of a bonus episode of your choice if we won. And also some other crazy thing you wanted us to do and you made us jump out of a fucking plane.

[Hannah]

Yep. I still haven't recovered. Yeah, emotionally.

[Saroo]

You can go watch the video of that horrifying experience, which actually I didn't mind too much. I wouldn't do it again, but it was fine on YouTube this year. Third year, we would love to go for a hat trick because it really did. The last two years we've won. Make people in the industry, make people in Britain, make people across the world take notice of what we were doing here at Red Handed, which isn't exactly the flavour that, you know, the corporate podcasting industrial complex seems to like, because, yes, there is already such a thing and we would just love to win again this year. The competition does seem to be a bit more stiff. We're up against in the listener's choice quite a lot of celebrity fronted podcasts, including a podcast who have won, I think five Christmas number ones. So they are big and they have a big fan base that is quite enthusiastic. So we don't know if we're going to win again, but we would absolutely love it if we could. So please, please, please, if you wouldn't mind, take two seconds to head on over to Britishpodcastawards.com vote and vote for Red Handed, then go to your emails and please verify that vote.

[Hannah]

You.

[Saroo]

You do not have to be British. You guys always ask and we encourage your diligence and your conscientiousness, but you do not have to be British. We do and we are, I promise you. So go vote for us, if you wouldn't mind. And then go please find the Google link which will be in the episode description to vote for the episode you would like as your bonus episode. The month that we win, if we win, which you will get as an extra special treat. And also whatever crazy thing you would like us to do this year, which I believe the number one is currently spending the night in a haunted house.

[Hannah]

Yes. And I know for a fact that in the production office there have been a lot of research calls being made.

[Saroo]

Oh, no.

[Hannah]

To which haunted houses you can actually stay in. I believe one of them is the Rams Inn.

[Saroo]

That sounds terrifying.

[Hannah]

I've watched a ghost adventures about that. So they do let you stay in there. So that might. I think it's up in Yorkshire somewhere. Cumbria maybe. So the wheels are returning, so. And of course we will film it because we don't do scary things without getting some content out of it. So if you want that to happen, just go to britishpodcastawards.com vote. We'd love a hat trick. It's the only way we can stick it to the map.

[Saroo]

Exactly. So, yes, we would love it if you could do that for us. And yeah, just pause this podcast right now, go do it, come back and then settle in for what is going to be a Very unsettling few hours with us.

[Hannah]

Yes. Somewhat of a red handed tradition now is that we will get wind of a true crime case that everybody is talking about and then we'll stay up really late for two weeks getting it all together. And that is what we have done again, this time for you, everybody is talking about it. And by the time you have got to the end of this episode and the next one, you'll know more about it than anybody else. And you can bore everyone to death at the pub.

[Saroo]

Absolutely. Because that is exactly what I have been doing while I have spent the last month researching this episode. And I am ecstatic that for once I get to talk about it with legitimate reason for the next four hours because we're doing a double record and you guys can hear it over the course of the next two weeks. So let's get it into it on the 13th of July, 2023. So just a few weeks ago, a 59 year old man named Rex Heuermann was arrested outside of his midtown Manhattan architectural practice by a swarm of plain clothed NYPD officers. He was taken into custody and charged with the murders of three women, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Their bodies were found on a quarter mile stretch of Gilgo beach on Long Island, New York 13 years ago. In the months that followed that discovery, police uncovered the remains and partial remains of a total of 11 people scattered along Ocean Parkway, a desolate highway that runs down the southern shoreline of Long island, including Gilgo Beach.

[Hannah]

In the decades since the remains were found, the case of the Gilgo beach killings, or the Long island serial killer, or LISC to those in the know, has become an obsession for the true crime community. And it's easy to see why. Because however you cut it, this is the unbelievable story of a modern American serial killer. We all said it would never happen, but it's happening right now. Police corruption beyond belief is there as well. And the eventual meticulous detective work that finally led to last month's crucial arrest.

[Saroo]

And as soon as this arrest was announced, we wanted to get this story out for you guys as quickly as possible. We've been doing it more and more recently with cases like Delphi, with cases like Alec Murdoch. But there's been so much to wrap our heads around that we wanted to do it right, not just fast. Because this arrest, like in the Delphi case, was in and of itself a total shock since we have gone years with next to nothing coming out about this investigation.

[Hannah]

And while the evidence against Heuermann is very Compelling. It's probably as close to a slam dunk as it's possible to get. But it is hard to get away from the fact that his arrest has still left so many questions unanswered. Questions like this. Why did it take so long to catch this man? What conspiracies lay at the heart of the Suffolk County Police Department? Are these victims Heuerman's only ones? Is he really the only killer involved? And how, after all this time, a decade, and all the theories and missed opportunities, did the police finally land this arrest?

[Saroo]

Now, if you don't know what the hell we're talking about, because you do not know this case, don't worry. We are going to go through quite literally everything. And since this is an enormous saga spanning decades, stretching over county lines, with at least 11 victims and very possibly more than one killer, this is going to have to be a two parter. So let's get started.

[Hannah]

On the 1st of May, 2010, 3, 911 calls were made by a 24 year old woman named Shannon Gilbert. These calls lasted a total of 22 minutes. And in them you can hear a distressed Shannon repeatedly claiming, someone's after me. Shannon, who was an aspiring actress originally from New Jersey, was working as an escort. And that night she had gone all the way from Manhattan to the upmarket gated community of Oak beach on Long island for a job. Shannon had been involved in sex work for a while. She knew the risks. Most people do. So she'd taken a man named Michael Pack with her. Pack has been incorrectly labelled as Shannon's pimp by a lot of media outlets. He wasn't. Shannen didn't have a pimp. She found her Johns through Craigslist and Backpage. She paid Pac to be her driver and act as her protector.

[Saroo]

And the very fact that she took Pak with her that night and the fact that she was willing to go all the way out to Long island signalled that this was no ordinary job. There must have been the promise of a big payout. But something went wrong. And at 4:51am, Shannon called 911.

[911 Operator]

They please. Stupefy. Yeah, there's somebody after me. Sorry, there's somebody after me. Where are you? There's somebody after me. Okay. Where are you? There's somebody after me. Where are you, ma'? Am? I don't know. You're driving right now. I'm inside a house. What house? I don't know where I am. No, I can't. What's your callback number you're calling from? Please Are you in Suffolk county or Nassau County? I'm in Long Island. Where on Long island are you? No. No. No. Stop. No. Where in long island are you in suffolk county, nassau county? County? You on the line. Stop. Stop it. Please. Please stop. Please. You shouldn't go. No. Time to go. No. Please. Why? What are you going to do? What are you going to do to me? You going to kill me? I'm in the middle of nowhere. We're in Long Island. We're out near the water. You stop. No. Stop it. Please. Hello? Hello? Please.

[Saroo]

Yeah, it basically just goes on like that for ages. But the two men you can hear are Joseph Brewer and Michael Pack. And basically all they keep saying again and again is, what's wrong with you? Please just leave. Please leave. And Michael Pack keeps trying to get into the car, but she keeps saying, somebody's after me. Somebody's after me. Somebody's after me. So Shannon had fled the home of her client, Joseph Brewer, and was seen running down the street on Oak Beach. Shannon banged on doors, begging neighbours for help. One of these neighbours was Gus colletti. On the 911 call, you can hear Shannon shouting at Gus, help me. Help me. Help.

[911 Operator]

Shannon.

[Saroo]

Gus says that she then ran from his house and hid under a boat in his front yard. At this point, Gus says he saw an Asian man, obviously Michael Pack, driving a black suv, who seemed to be looking for Shannon. When asked later by police if Gus thought Shannon was scared of this man, he just said she was scared of someone. Shannon then bolted from under the boat and the car took off after her. At 5:21am, Gus called 911,

[911 Operator]

location of emergency. Yes, this. I live at Oak beach in the Association. There's a young girl about 14 years old running around here screaming, and there's some guy trying to follow her. You have a description of the girl or the boy? The girl is about 14 years old, got blonde hair, very small. The boy, I can't tell. He was into, like a suburban black. They just went past the gatehouse where the entrance is. All right, we got somebody over there. I'll be watching. Okay, bye.

[Saroo]

And Shannon continued to run, banging on the doors of other residents. But by the time police arrived at 5.41am, there was no sign of Shannon Gilbert anywhere. And she was never seen alive again.

[Hannah]

And you can hear in the call like she is all sorts of fucked up, like she's slurring like nobody's business.

[Saroo]

Yeah, and we are going to talk more about Shannon Gilbert and these calls later. But, yeah, there's no denying in those calls that she's not totally okay. Not just scared, but something else is going on.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Hannah]

Shannon's family, naturally, were beside themselves and they kept the pressure on the police to find her. But nothing much seemed to be done. Then on the 10th of December 2010, an off duty police officer decided to take his cadaver dog, Blue, out to Gilgo beach for a training exercise. Out of your blues, who do you think would be the best cadaver dog?

[Saroo]

My Blue.

[Hannah]

Big Blue. I didn't want to lead the witness

[Saroo]

Big Blue for sure, but this is proof Blues are top dogs. Big Blue, actually, he's a fucking big Alsatian, is out there with this officer, Bigger Blue.

[Hannah]

So he takes Bigger Blue out onto Gilgo beach for a training exercise. That day, the officer and Bigger Blue found the body of a woman. Sure that it was Shannon Gilbert. The officer called it in. But much to everyone's surprise, it wasn't Shannon Gilbert. And neither were the next nine sets of human remains uncovered by authorities along that very strip of shoreline over the next five months.

[Saroo]

It's just like a can of worms. They open it up, they start looking and just body after body after body starts appearing. And one thing I do want to make clear, because people hear beach, especially Gilgo beach, and they think Long Island, N.Y. in it's hardly like a rural place. Like, how could these bodies have laid there for that long and nobody knew they were there? Well, Gilgo beach and the stretch of shoreline that is off Ocean Parkway. So Ocean Parkway is the highway kind of dips off the main road. No street lights along that strip of highway or shoreline. And the beach is like marshy. It's rough, it's desolate. There is no reason anyone would go there for like, you know, a little swim. It's not a nice place. It's very, very rough, wild terrain. And as you'll find out by how long some of these bodies were there, nobody was going there.

[Hannah]

One by one, seven of the 10 victims found on Gilgo beach were identified. To this day, we still don't know who three of them are.

[Saroo]

If we had recorded this five days ago, we would be saying six out of ten had been identified. So this case is moving quickly. By the time you listen to this, it may be out of date again. And, you know, we'll just come back to it and do updates whenever it's relevant. So bear with us. So like we said, we now know who seven of the victims were, but three of them we do not. What we do know, however, is that all of these remains and all of these bodies had been periodically dumped off the road Ocean Parkway over the course of 15 years from 1996 to 2010. But how could we possibly know this if we don't even know who all of the victims are? I hear you scream. How, for instance, could we know how long the unidentified victims have even been missing if we don't know who they are? Well, hold on to your hats. We know it was over at least 15 years because of a nasty twist in this story. But put a pin in that for now. We will come back to it. First, let's go through the victims. The bodies of 24 year old Melissa Barthelemy, 22 year old Megan Waterman, 27 year old Amberlynn Costello, and 25 year old Maureen Brainard Barnes were all found in December 2010. So pretty much as soon as blue, Bigger blue finds Melissa Barthelemy, she's the first body to be found. The other three are found in quick succession.

[Hannah]

And these four women were all wrapped in burlap, bound with either duct tape or belts, and they were buried almost perfectly, equally spaced out, 500 foot apart on the same stretch of Gilgo Beach. All four of the women were also sex workers. They all used Craigslist or back page to advertise themselves. They were all petite, under five foot and no more than £100. All of them had green or hazel eyes and they had all vanished in the summer months. Maureen was the first one to go missing in 2007, with the other three all last seen in the summer of 2009. Their similarities in life and death and the proximity of their remains in a cluster led to Melissa, Meghan, Amber, and Maureen being given the name the Gilgo beach four. And it seemed obvious that they had all been victims of one serial killer. Because there are more than three.

[Saroo]

Yes, though I believe the FBI have changed the rule now. I think it's only two. And I think some people were like, well, why would they do that? And it's interesting, it's because serial killing isn't technically, serial killer isn't technically like a type of criminal. It's a type of behavior. So if somebody has killed two people in two separate events and they're doing things like keeping trophies, they're doing things like planning the next attack and they're in their cooling off period, it does seem redundant to not call them a serial killer.

[Hannah]

Yes, that's true.

[Saroo]

So I believe some of the rules have changed on that. But yeah, absolutely. I think everything you just spelled out, it would be beyond belief to think that these women were not all the victim of one killer, of one man. So then the police continue to search that area off Ocean Parkway and the following spring. So in 2011, the partial remains of two more women were found. 20 year old Jessica Taylor and 24 year old Valerie Mack. One of Jessica's arms, her hands and her skull were found just under a mile up the shore from where the Gilgo beach four had been discovered. So again, like, Gilgo beach is like one part of this massive stretch off Ocean Parkway. So I know what I'm about to describe to people, like in terms of miles, distances apart, like, it's confusing, please go look at our social media. And we have put up a very comprehensive map of what we're about to explain because it is important. So, yes, partial remains of Jessica, her arms, her hands, her skull found just under a mile up the shore from where the Gilgo beach four were. And then about another mile and a half further up the coast, authorities found Valerie max, right foot, hands and head. Jessica and Valerie were not physically dissimilar to the Gilgo Beach 4. They're both young, they're both in their early 20s, they're both white, like it could fit a pattern. They were both also sex workers. And their remains are turned up on the same stretch of shoreline. What's a mile to a mile and a half away from these bodies. It's still very, very close. But we do have to point out that there was one major difference. The remains of Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack were not in pieces due to decomposition. Both of these women had been dismembered. And the reason they were both identified so quickly, despite police only having their partial, heavily decomposed remains to work with, was because both Valerie and Jessica's torsos had been found years before in the early 2000s. So they've already got their DNA on file. And those torsos had been found 45 miles away from Gilgo in a place called Manaville, another area of Long Island.

[Hannah]

Valerie had Last been seen in the summer of 2000, Jessica, the summer of 2003. Both of their torsos had been found wrapped in plastic in the pine forests of Manorville within weeks of them disappearing. So at this point in mid-2011, the body count sat at six. But we are not even close to nearly almost being done. On the 4th of April, the same day they found Valerie Mack's partial remains, authorities also discovered the body of an unidentified female toddler between the ages of 16 and 24 months. And because they had no idea who this baby was, they called it Baby Doe.

[Saroo]

Oh, this case is bleak. Bleak, bleak, bleak, bleak. If you just go Google images of Gilgo beach or off Ocean Parkway, it is bleak and desolate as this fucking case is. It is grubby. There is a fucking baby out there. It is absolutely miserable. And to this day we don't know who Baby Doe is.

[Hannah]

And then we have an unidentified Asian male victim whose body was found dressed in women's clothes. Investigators guessed that this man could be anywhere between 19 and 35.

[Saroo]

Then seven days later, on the 11th of April, 2011, near Jones Beach State park, another set of partial remains, this time belonging to a black female, were discovered. These remains were less than four miles down the coast from Gilgo Beach. And just like Valerie Mack and Jessica Taylor, this woman's torso had also been found years before. In 1997, her torso had been stuffed into a black plastic bag and dumped in a bin. Not in Manorville this time, but 11 miles away from where her partial remains were found in a place called Hempstead Lake Park. Authorities didn't know who this victim was, so they named her Peaches due to a tattoo of a distinctive heart shaped peach with a bite out of it on her left breast. And unbelievably, Peaches was also identified as being the biological mother of Baby Doe. So fucking grim.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Saroo]

And the other thing that is so grim about this is, so Peach's torso is found in Hempstead Lake park, which is not near the shoreline. It's like inland. Her arm and like some jewelry and like partial remains are found four miles down the road from Gilgo beach, but again on that same shoreline off Ocean Parkway. Baby Doe is about miles away from her. So whoever did this didn't even have the fucking decency. And I say this in the most irrelevant way because they're both dead at this point and this person has killed them, but moved the baby away from her and dumped the body miles away up the coast, like none of it makes any sense. And there's no way. I can't see any way in which that baby's body moved on its own. Somebody dumped them separately. And it's just like the final insult in death. It feels like it does feel like that.

[Hannah]

So, yeah, it's a lot. And try not to feel too terrible about it because we're not done. Still, there's more to come. We've got one more victim to discuss with you. On the same day investigators found Peaches, they also discovered a skull near Tobe beach, almost exactly halfway between where Peach's partial remains had been found and the Gilgo beach forebodies had been buried. And it was at this point a retired homicide detective had contacted the task force and told them about a pair of severed legs wrapped in plastic that had washed ashore on Fire island back in 1996. And fortunately, these legs were still in a freezer at the medical examiner's office. And when they were compared, the skull and the legs were a match. And just a couple of weeks ago, 27 years after fire Island Jane Doe's legs were first discovered, the police were able to identify her.

[Saroo]

Yeah, I had to go through the script control f Fire Island Jane Doe replace with her actual name because this is unbelievable. This literally happened like, I don't know, a few days ago.

[Hannah]

So Fire Island Jane doe was actually 34 year old Karen Vergata, a sex worker who was living in Manhattan. She called her dad on his birthday, Valentine's Day 1996. And then she vanished.

[Saroo]

But like we said, to this day, Peaches Baby Doe and Asian male have still not been identified. And it would be 18 months after Shannon Gilbert vanished after making those 911 calls and almost a year to the day after the first body was found on Gilgo beach that the police finally found Shannon's body. Shannon's remains were found out on the marshes near where she was last seen on Oak Beach. And again, guys, I totally get it. What I'm saying might be hard to keep track of, and I know that we've just pummeled you with a lot of information, but it is very important. And essentially what you need to know is that all of the remains discovered between 2010 and 2011 were found in basically a straight line on this shore just off Ocean Parkway. So from Peaches at one end of the line to Karen Vergata's skull, the Gilgo Beach 4 Asian Mail, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mac, baby Doe. And finally at the end of the line, the location on Oak beach where Shannon Gilbert was found. It's all one line. The only deviations from this near straight line are the locations of where Peach's, Valerie's and Jessica's torsos were found years before the rest of their remains. And this line along the shoreway is maybe four miles from one end to the other. And like I said, we've posted a comprehensive map on our socials marking all of this. So go check it out. It will definitely help make things a little bit more clear if you are confused.

[Hannah]

So now, by 2012, Suffolk County Police had 11 bodies on their hands. Nine women, one man, one baby, all found on the same stretch of shoreline. I'd be panicking.

[Saroo]

You would, wouldn't you? That's not what happens.

[Hannah]

On the face of it, it obviously appears that all of these bodies are connected. They have to be. But whether or not all of these victims are linked is one of the most enduring mysteries surrounding this infamous case. Some people were convinced that all of the victims, and possibly countless more, which we will get to in next week's episode, are all linked to one prolific serial killer. While others say that the Gilgo Beach Four are definitely the work of just one killer, but that the mo, victim types and disposal methods of the rest just don't fit the same pattern. And therefore the south shore of Long island must have been a dumping ground for multiple killers. And I can see that argument, yes,

[Saroo]

honestly, I can argue this, but both ways. And I flip flopped again and again whilst researching this case and rewritten this bit of the script multiple times. But ultimately I have landed on the fact that I think it's just too early to definitively say one way or another. I just don't think we have enough information to say that. And I think while people will be like, come on, it just makes sense that it's one killer because of, like, Occam's Razor or whatever. Like four miles of one bit of speech, like multiple bodies dumped there. Like, how could you think it's anything else? I don't know. I think trying to force a conclusion at this stage could either leave a killer on the street or allow one to walk away from court a free man. But it is interesting to theorise, so let's give it a go. Like we mentioned earlier, the Gilgo Beach 4 all fit a very specific pattern. Their appearance, the way they met their johns, using things like Craigslist and Backpage, the time of year they vanished. They all went missing in the summer months. They were all wrapped in burlap, the bindings, and the way their bodies were disposed of, it all Matches. It even turned out that some of The Gilgo Beach 4's loved ones had received taunting phone calls from a man with a Long island accent using the victim's own phones. I know. We're going to get to it. It's horrible. So the victimology, the mo, the signature, and the dump site all point clearly to the Gilgo Beach Four being the work of one serial killer. That is, in my mind, irrefutable. One person did those four killings.

[Hannah]

Then when you look at Peaches, Karen Vergata, Valerie Mac and Jessica Taylor, the latter three, we know were also sex workers. Obviously, we haven't identified Peaches, so we don't know and could fit the physical preference type of the Gilgo Beach Four killer Peaches, though we don't know if she was a sex worker. And crucially, she was black. But more importantly, all four of them were dismembered, and their torsos or legs, in the case of Karen Vergata, were left wrapped in plastic, totally out in the open. And their remains were spread between places like Manorville, Hempstead park and Ocean Parkway. The killer of The Gilgo Beach 4, on the other hand, hid his victims. He covered them in camouflage burlap and laid them out neatly in a row. One set of behavior points to a killer trying carefully not to have his victims found. The other set seems to point to someone much less concerned with discovery and

[Saroo]

just, you know, to refute anybody who's like, well, how can you say dismemberment and scattering body parts is not somebody concerned with discovery? The only reason I say that is because the Gilgate Beach Four were not discovered for a very long time. And even when they were discovered by Blue and the officer who was with him, whose name I don't actually know.

[Hannah]

Irrelevant.

[Saroo]

Irrelevant. They were discovered purely by chance. They had laid there like Amber Costello had only been missing for a while. But the first victims, they had been there for a very long time. The torsos that were found in Manorville, they were just found by a dog walker. So they were very much not buried. Or if you'd gone to the effort to dump them in the woods, why wouldn't you bury them? It's almost like they were like, I'll dump them in the woods, but I'm okay if somebody finds them. I don't know. I don't know. And you could argue with me on that. It's just how it seems to me. So what we're saying is that you can group the Gilgo Beach Four together, they were clearly killed by one man, the Long island serial killer or Lisk. Let's. Let's all agree on that. Then you could group Peaches, Karen Vergata, Valerie Mack and Jessica Taylor together and say they may have been murdered by another killer. Let's call him, as some are, the Maneville Butcher. That leaves the three outliers, Baby Doe, Asian male, and Shannon Gilbert. None of them were dismembered like those we're attributing to the Manorville Butcher. In this particular theory, none of them were covered in plastic or burlap and none of them were bound like the Gilgo Beach 4. But I think it stands to reason to say that whoever killed Peaches also killed her child. It doesn't make any sense that somebody else killed the baby and then dumped the baby in the exact same place. So if we're saying there are two killers in this particular theory, then that would mean the man at Ville Butcher also killed Peach's baby, Baby Doe. Now, we don't actually know how Baby Doe died. All we pretty much know is that her body had been wrapped in a blanket. Now, Asian male's cause of death was a savage beating. And he is interesting because he's the only man out there, for a start. And he's also died in a completely different way. You will see a lot of reports out there saying that The Gilgo Beach 4 was strangled to death. I haven't seen conclusive evidence of that. So I don't know. I don't know on that front, but Asian male was definitely beaten to death. And if I had to group him with one set or the other, I would put Asian male with the Gilgo beach fort and say that he was probably also killed by Lisk. And this is, I grant you, it's speculation. The only reason I'm saying that is purely due to the proximity of his body to Gilgo Beach 4. He was found right next to the Gilgo Beach 4 cluster. Again, is it a coincidence that another killer killed him and then dumped his body right next to four other bodies? Possibly, but let's go with this theory. The other reason that this theory might fit, and I say this is a big might in fucking italics is because search terms found on Rex Heuermann. So the man who's been arrested for being Lisk. Search terms found on his computer did include Asian male, twink, tied up porn. But again, Asian male wasn't tied up. It's one search term that we've been made privy to. Is it enough? I don't know. It's Definitely not a smoking gun, but it could fit. And as for why he if Rex Huram and Izlisk beat Asian Mail to death, and why he didn't bind him or kill him in the way that he killed the other victims and, you know, didn't, like, bind him and bury him in burlap, etc. It could be because he's a man and he doesn't fit with the other victims.

[Hannah]

But I would say that there is enough about the manner of his death and where he's found that, like, I agree with you. Like, it makes much more sense to link him with the Gilgo Beach 4 than it does with the others.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Hannah]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Anyways, only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Hannah]

Some have also speculated that it could be that the only reason that Asian male was beaten to death was that Lisk only discovered that he was a male after they became intimate and then killed him in outrage. Maybe. But we also know that he searched Asian male twinks.

[Saroo]

So, yeah, it kind of is like it's one or the other. So I don't know. Or it's neither.

[Hannah]

I don't know. And you know, could it be rayjet himself for homosexual desire? Some sort of rabid, internalised homophobia? It's possible. But everything is possible. Everything happens. The only niggle we could find about Lisk having killed Asian male is that Lisk was very methodical. He carefully laid out the Gilgo Beach 4. That strip of shoreline was probably like a little trophy garden for him somewhere. He likely drove up and down all the time to relive what he had done. It does seem odd that he'd bury four victims who all fit a certain type in a very neat line and then dump a totally different kill right alongside them.

[Saroo]

It irks my mild levels of OCD that I'm just like, why would you lay out 4, 500ft, perfectly spaced apart, and then just randomly dump one more body that doesn't fit the pattern, like, right next to them? I don't know.

[Hannah]

Maybe this is such a leap, but let's hear it. I'm reading Dan Schreiber's book, right?

[Saroo]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

And in it he talks about there's a Zen concept of the rough corner.

[Saroo]

Right.

[Hannah]

So in every Zen garden, there will be one corner that you leave completely to the elements and it acts as a balance for the neatness of everything else.

[Saroo]

How interesting.

[Hannah]

So maybe.

[Saroo]

And look, let's just leap all over the fucking place if we're going for this. Rex Heuermann is an architect. They are people who are thinking about space, who are thinking about balance, who are thinking about composition. I don't know. We are jumping all over the fucking place.

[Hannah]

Yeah, but go and read Dan's book. It's great. It's called the Theory of Everything Else.

[Saroo]

But, you know, this is all we can do at this stage because this is all of the information we have. So, you know, why not? But questions, questions, questions. So we've gone through all the victims now, except for the last outlier, Shannon Gilbert. Much to the fury of her family, Shannon's death was ruled accidental. The Suffolk county police claimed that she had run out onto the marshes and drunk, high and paranoid, and drowned. How they concluded that Shannon had drowned when they only had her skeletal remains, given that they found her 18 months after she went missing, is beyond me. They haven't got her lungs to check. Like, how could they know? How could they know? And a private autopsy carried out later at the request of the family found that Shannon had a damaged hyoid bone. Now, this could be indicative of strangulation. Again, without the soft tissue there to be able to see bruising, etc. It is not definitive, but it could be indicative. And many people point to the fact that Shannon was also partially undressed and that her clothes were strewn around the marshes. A sign of foul play, perhaps.

[Hannah]

Although we can also believe that Shannon was running from someone. She was genuinely terrified for her life. And because she was probably high or having an episode of some sort, she was able to run barefoot onto the marshes.

[Saroo]

Like, if you see these marshes, if you see video of people going out onto the marshes to see where Shannon died, there is a documentary which you can watch. It was up on Channel 4, but they've taken it down. But it is on Amazon prime now called the Killing Season. It's the people who made Cropsey.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Ah.

[Saroo]

But, yeah, go watch it. It is very good. They're jumping around all over the place too. But, yeah, they go out into the marshes and you look at the floor of the marshes, like the ground of the marshes, and it's like there is no way. Anyone who wasn't terrified and or high could put barefoot onto that ground.

[Hannah]

And look, we don't know for sure if she was high. As Saroo said, we only have skeletal remains, but she doesn't sound 100% lucid in those 911 calls. Shannen did also have a history of mental health challenges and drug abuse. So perhaps she'd been given drugs, she was overwhelmed, and she ran away. And maybe while she was out on the marshes hiding, she started to get hypothermia, which could explain the removal of her clothes because of paradoxical undressing.

[Saroo]

But in reality, we just don't know how Shannon died. Some say whether she was murdered or not. Shannen, despite being the reason for the list case ever coming to light, is not connected at all. Because, yeah, Shannon is the linchpin in this. If she never went missing, if she didn't call 911, if they didn't know where she had been when she vanished, that officer and Bigger Blue would never have been on that beach doing that exercise.

[Hannah]

So interesting.

[Saroo]

They thought they were looking for Shannon and they thought they found her, but they uncovered this. So I don't know. While I personally don't think that Shannon was killed by Lisk or the Maneville Butcher, if we continue with the theory that there are two killers, I do think that Shannon could still be connected. But we'll come back to that later.

[Hannah]

For now, let's run with this idea that there are multiple killers. How likely could this really be? Well, we already know at least one other serial killer of sex workers who was active in the area at the same time. His name is John Bitroff. He was a married carpenter and father convicted in 2014 for the murders of two women, Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNeamey. And he was suspect number one in the death of a third woman called Sandra Costilla. These murders took place between 1993 and 1994. And guess where John Bitroff lived? Disneyland? Paris? No. Maneville.

[Saroo]

Yeah, man, you couldn't make this up. And, like, they caught him, and like I said, they only convicted him of the murders of two women. He was absolutely suspected in the murder of Sandra and God knows how many other fucking women. And also, do I need to remind everybody who else was a fucking serial killer in Long Island? Mr. Bloody Joel Rifkin. And he was caught in 1993. So again, the timeline isn't a million miles off. So we already know that there are multiple serial killers active in the area. And Long island is not a huge place.

[Hannah]

No.

[Saroo]

And the idea of a shared dump site between multiple killers is also not ridiculous. It's happened before. The case of the killing fields in Texas, where since the 1970s, dozens of bodies have been discovered on an overgrown field by a stretch of highway in League City. And these have been attributed to multiple different killers. Also, like, there are so many places, if you just Google top places where bodies get dumped. I mean, I'm currently listening to the prosecutors fucking 10 part episodes we're up to now on the case of Adnan said Leakin park bodies get dumped there because people know if you want to dump a body, that's where you go dump them. And Adnan also knew that no matter how much he says he didn't. So, yeah, I think, like, the idea that killers dump their bodies in the same place is not particularly like a rarity.

[Hannah]

And like, it worked. They were there for fucking ages.

[Saroo]

Exactly. And also I think we have to look at the sheer prevalence of serial killers because that also points to the fact that there could easily have been multiple killers. We've already named at least two. And now throw in Rex Heuermann if he's guilty. There were at least three active overlapping in Long island at the same time. But let's look at the prevalence of serial killers. According to the FBI, they estimate that there are currently 25 to 50 serial killers active in the US at any one time. That's horrifying. And I suspect that that is a gross underestimate whether we'll get to like, you know, another killer like a Gacy or a Bundy or something who are racking up into the 20s, 30s kill count like that. I don't know. Yeah, but multiple serial killing is not that uncommon. Now the FBI will also say that, you know, that's around 1% of overall homicides are serial cases. So yes, that does make it look like it is very rare. But it is conservatively believed that 4% of female homicides in the US are serial in nature. So that is quite interesting and quite terrifying. And that percentage of victims who are victimized by by serial killers only increases when you talk about those victims being sex workers. So again, if you're finding sex worker after sex worker after sex worker on this stretch of shoreline, could point to one killer, could point to multiple. Like nothing here is definitive. On top of this, I found a report on murderdata.com which actually the URL will make you laugh. It made me laugh. It still makes me laugh. But it is actually they're doing great work and basically They've plotted all of the unsolved female homicides in the area surrounding New York, Nassau county and Suffolk county in Long Island. So basically the two counties that sort of span this particular case and also thrown in New York, because we know where Rex Hurriman worked and found that the cluster of murders similar to the Gilgo murders stretches far wider and encompasses far more victims than the 11 victims of on the Beach. So of course there could have been multiple killers in the area.

[Hannah]

Though we do have to say that none of this is definitive. And all of these 11 victims could very much be the work of one killer. And for a lot of people, that just makes more sense than there being two, maybe more people involved. If you consider the evidence in a linear fashion, you could even explain away the big difference of dismemberment. Let's look at who was dismembered. It was early victims like Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, Karen Vergata and Peaches. They were cut up and their bodies were scattered. Bits of them were wrapped in plastic. Later victims like The Gilgo Beach 4 were all intact and covered in burlap, which actually promotes decomposition, unlike plastic. So it could easily be the same killer who first tried harder to cover his tracks when disposing of victims and then evolved with experience. And it also could be that as the years passed and the partial remains he dumped in Manorville were easily found, but those by the Shore and Ocean Parkway weren't, the killer may have decided all of the effort of dismembering his victims bodies just wasn't worth it.

[Saroo]

And this is the thing again. I know we're talking out of both sides of our mouth because we're like, hey, maybe dismembering the bodies and spreading them around Long island makes it harder for them to be discovered, but he also leaves them in very open places and doesn't bury them, which makes it easier for them to be discovered. So which is it? I get that it's not clear. I think all we can say is if you look at them in a linear fashion, as you mentioned, the change in MO could be linked to the passage of time and his evolution as a serial killer. But then again, typically organized killers go from more organized to less organized as they devolve. So as time goes on and as they kill more people, they typically get more sloppy over time. So it would be unusual that a killer went from scattered body parts out in the open to bound, neatly laid out burlap victims, because maybe he thought chopping them up and spreading them around all over the place would make it harder for him to be discovered. But when they start to be found, maybe he's like, oh, this is a terrible plan. Let me not go through the effort of chopping them up. Let me just bury them in one place and wrap them in burlap, I don't know. So you could say that the bound, neatly laid out burlap victims is him becoming more careful and more organized over time. But that's not typical. That's not what you typically see with serial killers. And as for the different types of victim, from white to black and one man and one child, again, this doesn't necessarily disprove the single killer theory. While a serial killer may have a preference, and in this case it would be for petite white women, there is nothing to say that serial killers won't deviate from that preference. Look at Dennis Rader, Richard Ramirez or Gary Ridgway. So for now, let's park the single killer or multiple killer question and get back to the investigation, which you can't see, but I'm putting in massive fucking air quotes because the very last thing that the Suffolk County Police Department was doing at the time was investigating.

[Hannah]

And now we're going to introduce our favourite character in this story. A few days after Shannen Gilbert's body was discovered, a new chief of police was placed in charge. His name is James Jimmy Burke. He started off by declaring that Shannon's death was an accident and then basically just proceeded to cover everything up. Those 911 calls that Shannon made that we played you at the top of the episode, they weren't released by the police until 2022. The police department just spent years claiming that in the calls, Shannon didn't sound distressed, which it's opposites day, apparently. And the department stood by these statements even after those three harrowing calls were made public. But that is just the tip of the dirty, dirty poo coloured iceberg. Former officers from Suffolk county describe the regime there under Burke as a system of paranoia and fear akin to the KGB during the Cold War. And one, Peter Fiorello said, every place has corruption, but on a scale from 1 to 10, it's an 11.

[Saroo]

And I think that's not even telling you enough about how fucked up the SCPD were at this point. So the FBI obviously naturally tried to get involved with the list case. 11 bodies is serious business. And expert profilers from the BAU came to Suffolk county to assist the department. But Jimmy Burke and Tom Spoter, the then da who had inserted himself right into the middle of the investigation for some reason blocked the FBI at every turn. There are stories that they wouldn't even let the FBI read any of the reports. Apparently Spoter and Burke would sit in a room with the FBI saying we'll just read you what we think you need to know. But why? Why would a police chief and DA up to their eyes in dead bodies not want the help of this elite team from the FBI?

[Hannah]

I think nothing would prick my ears up more than I'm just going to show you some of it.

[Saroo]

Yeah, they're literally like, you can sit over there and I will read you what I think is important. Like of course everyone was screaming, cover up. What the fuck is going on? But the question is why? Why were they doing this? Why were Spoter and Burke doing this? Who would not want a case like this cleared? Like the pressure, the fucking stress of 11 bodies. People in Long island were terrified because there is a killer, at least one killer on the loose. Why would you say no to the resources of the federal government? And I only actually thought about this and discovered this during the research of this case. Because serial killer hunting, if we want to call it that in America has changed drastically since 9 11. Interesting, because up until 911 the BAU, the FBI, they were very concerned with serial killers. That was like one of their main things that they did. The BAU was almost known as the Elite Serial killer catching team. But after 9 11, resources and priorities shifted. And the FBI have since then been a lot more focused on terrorists than serial killers.

[Hannah]

That is interesting.

[Saroo]

So resources, funding, time, priorities, everything has been shifted away from that. And it kind of makes sense because we have like a lot of very public terrorist attacks happening in the US and in Europe. Serial killers have been on the decline despite, you know, the statistics we gave you earlier, which I hope doesn't scare you because yes, it is only 1% of killings that are linked to serial killers, unless you're a woman, in which case is 4. But do you know what I mean? It's like they have had to look at spending their time on other things like anti terrorism. So in that case, when the FBI like even this warrants us looking at this serial killer, why would you turn them down? Enter major suspicions of a cover up. And pretty soon graffiti started to appear all over Long island pointing the finger at Chief Jimmy Burke himself being Lisk.

[Hannah]

And you might be saying, whoa whoa, whoa, come on, it can't really be the chief of police. And in any other case we would agree with you. But not this time, Delilah.

[Saroo]

Kinda. But yeah.

[Hannah]

And while we now have Rex Heuermann in custody with a solid case against him, we don't think Burke is Lisk. But he is about as dirty as a cop can get. And how he came to be chief of police given that during his career he'd been picking up sex workers while on duty in his cop car without even securing his gun, which actually went missing during one of his little trysts. All of that is pretty shocking. They must have a real recruitment problem on Long Island.

[Saroo]

This whole story is beyond fucked up.

[Hannah]

Burke had also been in a sexual relationship with a woman named Laurita Rickenbacker

[Saroo]

who I had to put her name in. Loretta Rickenbacker.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I can't even love it. Place where that would remotely come from.

[Saroo]

Long Island.

[Hannah]

Loretta Rickenbacker with her name was a convicted sex worker and drug dealer. And Burke himself had arrested her multiple times.

[Saroo]

So, you know, just keeping everything above board.

[Hannah]

Yeah, the separation of church and state is. Anyway, it was strongly suspected that Burke was using his authority to shake down street dealers and taking the contraband to enjoy with Rickenbacker. And when all of this came out, Burke wasn't even demoted. He just lost a few days of holiday and then was eventually promoted to the top cop on the force. Over 2,500 other officers, making it the 11th largest police force in the United States at the time. That is outrageous.

[Saroo]

There is no end to how outraged you are all going to be. We are all going to collectively be over the next 10 minutes. Because this whole thing, it is unbelievable because Burke ran things at SCPD like a mob boss from his wild sex addiction, drug addiction, extortion, illegal wiretapping, drunk driving, corruption, and so much more, it is bonkers. So, no, I personally wouldn't put murder past Jimmy Burke. In fact, Burke isn't just a passing character in this story who we wanted to tell you about because, you know, it's interesting and a bit saucy. No, no, no. I read an entire 450 page book all about him by journalist Gus Garcia Roberts called Jimmy the King. And I would definitely recommend it. And I think I've forgotten who the review's from, but the review at the top of the front cover says, if Martin Scorsese wrote a film about corrupt cops, this is that story. It is so unbelievable that it reads like a film script.

[Hannah]

Wow.

[Saroo]

Because how Burke handled this particular case of Lisk, how he ever came to be chief, how he survived for so long at the top, and all the depraved shit he was up to is a crazy story in and of itself and absolutely very importantly, relevant to the Lisk case. So let's start with a stolen duffel bag and how it was the beginning of the end for Jimmy the King in December 2012.

[Hannah]

So after all, 11 bodies had been discovered off Ocean Parkway and the whole of Long island knew that there was a serial killer quite literally on the loose. A 26 year old heroin addiction called Christopher Loeb stole a bag from a car. He opened it up hoping for something he could sell, but he found handcuffs, mace and a gun. So it looked like this duffel bag belonged to a cop. But there were also some more colourful items in said bag, including butt plugs, sex toys, pornography and several child sexual abuse images. Loeb maintains to this day that in the bag were DVDs on which he saw sex workers being tortured. Was it real? Was it roleplay porn? Did this material even ever exist? We don't know and we'll never know. Because Loeb, terrified of what to do with the bag and its contents, hid it at his poor mum's house.

[Saroo]

Yeah, and Loeb, like, if you listen to Unraveled, there are interviews in there with Loeb talking about this. And again, like, how much of what he's saying is true, how much isn't? It's hard to know. We'll never know, like you say. But he basically says, imagine finding a bag. I think there were also some outlets that said there was even a badge in there. So he knew which cop it was. Finding all of that and then finding what he says he finds, like torture images, child sexual abuse material, and he's like, where do I go? Hand this in. He knows this is wrong, this is fucked up. I want to report this, but if you know it's the Chief of Police's bag, you're just going to walk into the police station and tell them, they're going to fucking arrest you.

[Hannah]

Yeah, right.

[Saroo]

So he doesn't know what to do with it is what he says.

[Hannah]

However, within days the cops had found him anyway. And what was essentially a SWAT team blasted through his mum's house and they arrested Loeb for taking the bag. Even Chief Jimmy Burke was there, which was highly unusual, given at this point it was just a simple case of bag theft.

[Saroo]

Yeah, and obviously the reason we'll never know what was in there is because they take the bag and they're not very diligent with documenting what's inside. So the chief even led on the interrogation of Christopher Loeb when it became clear that the bag Was, of course, his. Now, according to Loeb, when he called Burke a paedophile in this interview, Burke exploded and beat the shit out of him while he was handcuffed to the table. And according to Loeb, Burke even got other cops at the station to take turns beating him, with Burke referring to them as his palace guards.

[Hannah]

That is gross.

[Saroo]

This man is fucking on one. Burke was out of control. Now, Loeb claims that one of these police officers, while he was beating him, even told him he was going to rape his mother. And Burke threatened to murder Loeb with a hotshot, which is a fatal overdose of heroin that could be made to look like an accident. Now, after this incident, Loeb basically tries telling everyone what happened to him, but the media just claimed that Burke was a bit of a perv, but harmless.

[Hannah]

I'm yet to meet a harmless pervert.

[Saroo]

I mean, yeah, they're just like, oh, you know, he just had a bit of pornography in his bag. But we're just going to ignore everything else that you're saying and just say he's a bit colourful, but, like, whatever. And the police establishment looked very much the other way. It was only Years later, in February 2016, after a massive FBI probe. And the probe only started because some cops within SCPD finally had had enough of Burke and started speaking out about what he was doing and also what he had done to Christopher Loeb. And after this, basically, Burke at last did have to admit that he had violated Christopher Loeb's civil rights, you know, by beating the shit out of him while he was handcuffed to a table. And also admitted to knowingly conspiring to conceal evidence of it. And after this, he was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

[Hannah]

Woof. Yeah, I mean, I don't like him, but that would be horrible.

[Saroo]

And I'm shocked that it happened.

[Hannah]

Yeah, me too.

[Saroo]

So, just a little reminder in case you're lost in this timeline. The Chief of Police was jailed during the time that Suffolk County Police should have been investigating a serial killer. And While they've got 11 bodies on their hands. And it only got worse because it didn't end with Burke.

[Hannah]

In 2019, the Suffolk County District Attorney who we met earlier, Tom Spoter, and former Anti Corruption bureau chief Christopher McPartland were both sentenced to five years for helping cover up for Burke. They were convicted of witness tampering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. And they are still in prison to this day. But why, why, why, why would a DA risk his career and, let's face it, his life to protect A chief of police as reckless and as out of control as Jimmy Burke. Well, to understand that, we all need to take a little trip down memory lane. Let's hold hands. No one get lost. On 21st April 1979, there was a 13 year old boy called John Pius Jr and he was found dead in the woods behind Dogwood Elementary School in Smithtown, New York. He'd been suffocated by six rocks that had been stuffed down his throat. The investigation was a botched one. Police barely looked for any clues or questions. The boy's parents or his neighbours who had allegedly been sexually abusing Little John. Even back then, Suffolk county cops had a reputation.

[Saroo]

At that time, the department had a 97% confession rate for murder suspects. A number far, far, far, far higher than any other homicide squad in the country. Basically, the only way they closed any of their cases was with a confession. They didn't do any investigating. They were just like, we'll pick him, get him in. And you can guess how they got their confessions. This number was so high that of course, allegations of duress and torture used to extract confessions seemed hard to ignore. Examples include a man who claimed that he was beaten with a slab of concrete and another who said cops held his penis over a paper shredder while they questioned him.

[Hannah]

That is deranged.

[Saroo]

They were deranged. And this shows you how far back they were deranged. So of course they weren't fucking investigating Lisk because they had no suspects to fucking torture. It is insane. But the cops from scpd, they weren't even trying to cover this shit up. They were proud of their tactics and of their records. Apparently they'd even walk around when they were off duty wearing T shirts that said 97% on them.

[Hannah]

I'm unwell.

[Saroo]

They're unwell. They're fucking sick in the head. It is like a little sociopathic fiefdom. Jesus that just went from generation to generation to generation. So SCPD always knew that they could get a confession. Nobody was watching them, nobody was checking their tactics. All they needed were some suspects. And nothing was different with the case of John Pius. And eventually, these cops pointed their dirty little fingers at four local high school Michael Quarantano, Peter Quarantano, Thomas Ryan and Robert Bresnik.

[Hannah]

The prosecutor assigned to the case was none other than a young, ambitious, but already very corrupt Tom Spoter. He knew that the evidence against the boys was weak. All he had was the clearly coerced confession of a minor who had been barred from seeing his Parents or a lawyer. All Spoter really needed was a witness and bingo, more materialised. He was a 14 year old local school kid too. It was James Jimmy Burke.

[Saroo]

It's unbelievable. It's so fucked up. So, yeah, Tom Spater is a lot older than Jimmy Burke. So he's 14 and Jimmy Burke is like in his 30s at this point.

[Hannah]

And it was already known that at the tender Age of 14, James Jimmy Burke was already a minor drug dealer and quite a major thief. Burke testified, saying that the boys had admitted to the murder. So Spoter got his conviction and he and Burke began a twisted relationship that would last for decades. By 21, Burke had joined the police force and with Spota backing him, he made very quick work of climbing the ranks. Spoater was corrupt, sure, but Burke was depraved. And we're not sure if Spoton knew just how dangerous Burke would become in general, or to him specifically, or if he thought that he would always be able to handle him. He's much older than him, remember. Either way, both of them were sent down. And accusations that the Suffolk County Police were not taking the Lisk murders seriously was laid out for all to see.

[Saroo]

And this is the thing, I really think that Tom Spoter thought, here's this kid, he's helped me out once. How else can I use him? I'll put him in a position of power, like Chief of police, and then the two of us will run this whole fucking show. And I've got something on him because he owes me for getting him in this position. And Burke's got something on Spota because he knows that he most likely lied when he testified in that trial for John Pius murder. So they kind of have this really twisted, fucked up relationship. But I don't think Spotor knows that he has let a snake into his corrupt little gang. But the question is, was Burke covering it all up? So we're talking now about the Lisk case because he was involved in the murders himself, as some claim, or was he doing it because he and Spota were up to all sorts and they just didn't want the FBI anywhere near their precinct? Probably the latter. But there is another interesting plot twist to this case. Remember Shannon Gilbert and how she'd gone to Oak beach the night she died? Well, Oak beach is a notoriously secretive community full of wealthy and incredibly well connected people. In the Unravelled podcast, they even talk about the guy who had like, developed that whole gated community, built the bridges and the underpasses so low that even buses couldn't come down them because he didn't want the poor people coming down there. So it is a very, very exclusive little community where everybody looks after each other because nobody wants the house of cards to come falling down. And the wild sex parties thrown and attended by many of the residents of Oak beach involved drink, drugs and sex workers. And it was incredibly common knowledge. And countless high profile people have been linked with attending these sticky soirees, including Jimmy Burke.

[Hannah]

And if you listen to the 911 calls made by Shannon the night she disappeared, she keeps saying, they are after me. And it doesn't seem like Joseph Brewer, the man whose house she was at, or Michael Pack, both of whom can be heard on the call trying to get Shannon to leave, are who she's scared of. Because even when they are there, you can hear them on the other end of the phone. Shannon keeps saying, they are trying to get me.

[Saroo]

Yeah, like, wouldn't you just say they're here? Her demeanor doesn't change when you can hear Joseph Brewer and Michael Paak's voices. She still makes it sound like she's scared of somebody else she's trying to get away from. And I know some people point to the fact of why does she keep running away from Michael Paak? Maybe he was who she was scared of because Gus Colletti says that he saw an Asian man and that she hid under the boat and then ran away from him. I do think that points more to Shannon Gilbert having some sort of episode or drug related episode, because Michael Paak, it doesn't really fit the model of, like, him being the killer. He goes back the next day with Shannen's boyfriend Alex to go look for her. Why would you do that if you killed her? Like, it doesn't really fit for me.

[Hannah]

So did Shannon go to this party, get dosed with drugs, and then get freaked out by some man or men there who she was afraid of? We're not saying it's Jimmy Burke, but it could be. And if you regularly have drug fueled sex parties with sex workers that most of the people there don't give a shit about, is it beyond belief that at least one girl has died out there? And if you have high profile people and cops in attendance at these sex parties, were they cleaning up and dumping the remains? This theory could even explain Baby Doe because if you listen to the podcast series Unravelled, there are interviews with the girls who worked that particular area. And one particular quote will stick with you. Here it is. It took a part of you every time they Always wanted more and more, even suggesting involving children. And that's of course about these sex parties that were going on at Oak beach all the time. And sure, it is just speculation, but Shannen did die and she died out there.

[Saroo]

This is the thing. It's obviously rampant speculation, but the fact is very high profile people were known to go to these sex parties. And are they the kind of people to give a shit if a sex worker gets murdered at one of these parties?

[Hannah]

Probably not.

[Saroo]

And when you have an open door policy for probably anybody can come to these, as long as you've got the right, like credentials, who's doing any vetting on who is a sadist and who's got, you know, fucked up tendencies of what they're going to end up doing there. There's also drugs involved. Are you telling me like it's beyond belief that one girl has died out there and if they have, the cops are there to fucking clean it up? I know, I sound like a conspiracy theorist.

[Hannah]

No, but it also sounds very root of evil, though.

[Saroo]

It does, doesn't it? It really, really does.

[Hannah]

Which, like, if you haven't listened to it, what are you doing?

[Saroo]

I know we haven't shut up about

[Hannah]

it for about four years, but yeah, it's that very like decadent vibe of these high society people who get essentially the less dead in to do whatever they want.

[911 Operator]

Yep.

[Saroo]

And somebody cleans up after them because everybody's lives and reputations and livelihoods are tied to this secret not being outed. So anyway, let's get back to Shannon. So like we said about the drugs, her maybe having some sort of mental break running out there. There is a person of interest who came to light in the aftermath who might make you consider whether Shannon took the drugs by choice or not. Because obviously one of the big questions is, well, did she just take the drugs because she hated what she was about to have to do? I don't know. But this person is certainly very, very suspicious because two days after Shannon made those 911 calls, but before her mum Mari knew that she was missing, someone called Mari and asked her if she knew where her daughter was. It turned out that this call was made by a doctor from Oak Beach, Dr. Peter Hackett. He was Joseph Brewer's neighbour. Joseph Brewer is obviously the client who had paid for Shannon to come there that night. And Dr. Hackett is a fucking weird guy. There's like one scene of him being questioned by like the media and he pretends to have a heart attack. He's so weird. I can't Even tell you so. Hackett, when he phones Shannon's mum, Mari, told her that he ran a halfway home for wayward girls and that Shannon had come there a couple of days before. He said he gave her some medication and that she freaked out and ran off. Hackett then vehemently denied ever speaking to Mari until his telephone record showed that he definitely, definitely did call her. Mari began pursuing a legal case against Dr. Peter Hackett, saying he had offered to help Shannen, possibly when he had seen her either running from house to house, being scared, or he was at the party himself and he had given her these drugs and then she had, you know, had some sort of negative reaction to them and he had just tossed her out and it was his negligence that had led to Shannon's death. Now, as we all know, a civil case has a much lower bar that needs to be met than a criminal case. So Mari was sort of doing the best she could to get some justice for her daughter because fucking Burke isn't doing anything. But Mari Gilbert died before the case could be settled. And this is just yet another jaw dropping tragedy linked to this nightmare never ending. Bleak, bleak, bleak, bleak, bleak case. Because Mari Gilbert was stabbed to death by her other daughter. And Shannen's sister, Sara Sahra, was not very well.

[Hannah]

She'd been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and hospitalised several times. But her addiction to ecstasy made it hard for Sara to recover. And the discovery of Shannon's remains absolutely played a role in pushing Sara even further over the edge. In February 2016, she drowned the family dog in the bath at her mum's house. After this, her son Hayden was taken away from her and she blamed her mum, Mari for that. And on 23 July 2016, after asking Mari if she was an evil God, Sara stabbed her own mum 227 times. The civil case against Dr. Hackett died with marijuana. The police also cleared Hackett, Pack and Brewer using polygraph tests. And Shannon's case, just like the other 10 murders, went cold, due in no small part to Burke and all of the bullshit going on at scpd. The Gilgar case was then taken over twice before a new task force took charge in February last year, 2022. And within just five weeks, they had done more than had ever, ever been done in the previous 13 years. But Blue ball's for you, I'm afraid. You have to wait until next week to hear all about how they finally got to the arrest of Rex Heuermann. And you'll know all about it, because you'll be back here next week, same Time. Same place for part two. Woof.

[Saroo]

I'm exhausted. It is so much, guys. I know. It's so much. And we've given you so many little, like, side tangents of this case, but it's got to be done because this is a whopper. So, yeah, like Hannah said, we'll be back next week to talk to you about.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first first date?

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Saroo]

I'm Saruti.

[Hannah]

I'm Hannah.

[Saroo]

And welcome to Redhounded, where Mabel is chewing up and a shirt on the floor underneath me. Hi, Mabel. I know.

[Hannah]

A desperate attempt to keep us quiet for the next hour of it.

[Saroo]

What are you trying to tell me apart from chewing my earphones? Are you trying to tell me that the people should vote for us in the British Podcast Awards Listeners choice? I think so. I think that's what Mabel is trying to tell us.

[Hannah]

So don't do it for us.

[Saroo]

Do it for Mabel.

[Hannah]

Do it for Mabel Elizabeth McGuire.

[Saroo]

Mabel gets 50 treats from me over the course of the next year if you vote for us in the Listener's choice for the British Podcast Awards. Guys, I know we've asked this of you multiple times before and you have delivered every time because we have won gold for the last two years. Mabel, those are my feet. And you have delivered and we would love you to do it one last time. We're not going to enter the listener's choice again after this year because quite frankly, it's just a lot of work and we probably going to do something else next year. We might still do something crazy and just like do it for charity or something. So go and vote for us@the britishpodcastawards.com vote and we'll go spend a night in a haunted house and film the entire thing and also give you a bonus episode of your choice in the month that the Podcast Awards rolls around, which I believe is September.

[Hannah]

So that sounds right.

[Saroo]

Sounds about right. So go do that and remember to verify your vote. And now let's get on with today's episode because there is so much to get through and we're going to pick up exactly where we left off last week. It goes without saying, look at the title Good People. It is part two of whatever we have decided to name this. Go listen to part one, otherwise this will make even less sense than last week's episode probably made. Hidden plus. So we're going to pick up exactly where we left off last week. The Gilgo beach murders or Long island serial killer case had long been ignored within the Suffolk County Police Department. First came Jimmy Burke, who was placed in charge of the investigation and made chief of police a few days after Shannon Gilbert's remains were found. He actively obstructed the investigation, removing the FBI from having any involvement in the case, not following up on any leads, and outright shutting down any detective work. Why did he do all of that? Was he, as some have suspected over the years, involved in the killings? I don't think so. Burke was involved with the shady world of sex work on Long Island. He slept with sex workers, he was a drug addict, and he went to those weird sex parties on Oak Beach. And he was probably involved in a lot of underhanded criminal activities, which is likely why he wanted the FBI as far away from his patch as possible.

[Hannah]

But during the FBI probe into Burke for the Christopher Loeb case, they turned his life inside out to convict him. And if there had been any hint of him being involved in the Lisk case, the FBI would have found it then. So we don't think he was involved. But he is, as we said last week, as bent as a copper can get. When Burke was eventually jailed, people thought, phew, maybe with a new person in charge, we might finally get some answers. But sadly, no such luck. And yes, new investigators had a lot of cleaning up to do following Burke into such a complex case. And it's not as if they got a clear and succinct handover.

[Saroo]

But strangely, the new police commissioner and the new DA following Tom Spoter's conviction just seemed to spend all of their time publicly arguing about whether they had one killer on their hands or multiple. And while that is a legitimate question, the way they were gunning for each other in full view of the public was alarming. Because now that they've arrested Rex Heuermann, you can see how any good defence attorney will jump straight on this public spatial. If even the officials couldn't agree if there was one killer or multiple, how can the jury be sure that Rex Heuermann is the guy we've seen this time and time again in terms of, like Any sort of serial killing case in particular. You never, ever want to introduce the idea that somebody else could be involved, because then it diminishes the possibility that your prime suspect is solely involved. So this is dangerous. Remember, the defence only needs to introduce beyond reasonable doubt.

[Hannah]

This public infighting was also absolutely a window into the serious dysfunction that was still plaguing the investigation post Burke. So while some people think that between 2017 and 2021, after Burke was out of the picture, the List case was this amazing high tech investigation, we gotta tell you guys, it just wasn't. And for some reason, they kept a lot of information secret. Information which could have helped them gain vital leads. For example, they only told the public about the now infamous belts that were found binding Maureen Brainard Barnes In 2020, 13 years after they had found her remains. And one of these leather belts had initials on it reading either hm, uh oh or wh. They also didn't clarify that the burlap on The Gilgo Beach 4 was duck hunting camouflage burlap. And a bunch of people hounded this nursery owner on Long island who actually ended up killing himself the day after Shannon's body was found. But there was no evidence against him whatsoever. Only the fact that he had easy access to burlap, possibly. Which, as it turns out, wasn't even the right kind of burlap in the first place.

[Saroo]

I know, and look, I know we're saying, like, it was ridiculous that the scpd, even after Burke kept all of this information that could have got them leaving, like, it's got a fucking belt with initials on it. Release that to the public, someone might recognize it. And the whole burlap thing, they never clarify what type it is. And look, before anybody messages us and being like, well, that guy was a bad guy anyway, I don't care. There was no evidence that he had anything to do with Shannon Gilbert's murder or any of those murders. And they even do it in the Killing Season, that documentary we mentioned last week. They go to Long island, they try find burlap, and the only place they can find it is at a nursery. And I don't mean like a kid's nursery, I mean like a plant nursery. And so, like, it must have been this nursery owner. Let's hound him. Let's get him, guys. And then he fucking kills himself the day after Shannon's body is found. And then everyone's like, oh, he did it even more. Look, he's killed himself. And I'm like, no, he's. He's not okay. And you guys didn't make it better. So on one hand I'm like, they didn't release this information. On the other hand, I'm like, the public can't be trusted with this information because they go and fucking hound people to do death. But Anyway, then in November 2021, a new DA, Ray Tierney, was elected. And he clearly stated that the List case was going to be his top priority. And you know what? I have to hand it to Ray Tierney. The new task force that he assembled sat down for their first meeting on the 15th of February, 2022. And a month later, on the 14th of March, they had Rex Heuermann on their radar. And a year later, they had an arrest. And look, we all know serial killer cases are the hardest to solve. And some people may have even balked at the question we asked at the top of last week's episode when we were like, why did it take so long to catch this man? Because people can be like, he's a fucking serial killer who killed people he had no connection to. That is hard to catch because I felt the same way when I heard people asking that. But honestly, looking at all of the evidence that SCPD had, this case could and should have been solved years ago if they had had a competent police force acting on it. As we go through the evidence that this new task force used to arrest REX HEUERMANN In 2023, you will see that a lot of what they used was already there. This unit have just done a very good job in piecing it all together and actually following up on leads. Even the DNA evidence that many people would tout and be like, well, that's the reason nobody caught him before was because of the DNA evidence. No, that could all have been tested for years ago. While, yes, DNA technology has massively improved over the years, the ability to run mitochondrial DNA testing on hairs, which spoilers. Has been pivotal in this case, has been around since the early 2000s.

[Hannah]

So if you know anything about this case, you'll be like, but the bail document. Why haven't they spoken about the bail document yet? Well, we're about to. We're going to go through the 33 page bail document that was released alongside Rex Heuermann's arrest last month because it is an example of great police work. And of course, Rex Heuerman deserves a fair trial. There isn't a person on earth who doesn't. But the evidence against him is extremely compelling.

[Saroo]

I hate his name. It's so annoying to say Heuerman, Heuerman. Heuroman What? And also, oh, my God, one of my friends whose baby shower I went to, like, a few weeks ago talking about baby names, and she's like, oh, I'm not superstitious. These are the names I want. But me and my partner are arguing about it, and her top name is Rex. And now I'm like, oh, no.

[Hannah]

Oh, dear.

[Saroo]

I know.

[Hannah]

That's the thing. Like, I don't think it's a superstition thing. It's more like the second you tell anyone, they're just going to tell you what a dog shit name it is.

[Saroo]

The minute you tell me, I'm going to be like, oh, he killed 12 women back in 08.

[Hannah]

My godson's name is Tet.

[Saroo]

You know what?

[Hannah]

You just gotta go for the obvious

[Saroo]

and then be like, yeah, I'm what And what? His name is Baby Gacy. Baby Gacy.

[Hannah]

This is Baby John Wayne. And they're having a girl in November, so just fucking call it. Dorothea Puente. Why not

[Saroo]

Ethnic?

[Hannah]

Or Rose West. Let's start with the truck. And Amber Costello. Because it is this connection that pointed the task force squarely in the direction of Rex. Horrible man, horrible name. Heuerman.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Saroo]

On the 1st of September, 2010, Amber Costello had a John come to her home and immediately. This is odd. Why would a sex worker allow a client to come to her own home? Well, as it happens, Amber and her housemate, Dave Shaw, had a ruse that they ran on some of these men. Amber would invite these potential clients to the house. Dave would then turn up, acting like an angry boyfriend and chase the men away. These men would already have paid up front. So Shawl and Amber got to keep the money, and Amber didn't have to have any of the sex. So they run this ruse on the man on the 1st of September. And he left after telling Shaul. Tell her I'll give her a call. Which is a bold move to say to the guy who's acting like the angry boyfriend.

[Hannah]

Yeah, right.

[Saroo]

And he sticks to his word. Because the next Day Amber got a text from this man saying, that wasn't very nice, I get a credit for next time. And so the pair arranged to meet that evening. Amber left the house and was never seen alive again.

[Hannah]

Shaw went to the police and described the man as white, large, about six' four to six' six, maybe in his mid-40s, with dark bushy hair and big oval style, 1970s type glasses. He also said that this man looked ogre like. Shaw noticed a dark first generation Chevrolet Avalanche truck parked in the driveway the night before when the man had come to visit Amber. And we know that it was the same man who was in the house on the 1st of September, that Amber went to meet the next day. And then she vanished.

[Saroo]

And we know this not just because of Dave Shaw's testimony, but also because of the mobile phone data. Amber had been receiving. Texts from this man from a burner phone. Messages had come in in the days leading up to her disappearance, and then they had stopped completely after she vanished. During the time that many of these messages were sent, the burner phone was in West Anteville and Massapequa park the day Amber disappeared. The same burner phone had contacted her to arrange the second meetup. And this time the messages had been sent while the phone was in midtown Manhattan. These locations will become very important later on, so please put a pin in these for now. We will come back to them. And on the evening of 2nd September, when Amber left to meet the man who'd been at the house the day before, the bona phone cell site location placed it in West Babylon, where Amber lived. So it clearly showed that this man lived and worked elsewhere. But he was in the vicinity of amber's house on 1 September when he'd been roused. And he was also in the vicinity when Amber went to the meet up the following day, from which she'd never return.

[Hannah]

And Dave Shawl, who was at home when amber left on 2 September, saw a dark truck, similar to the one from the night before drive past the house, coming from the direction Amber had just walked towards. Unbelievably, Amber left her own phone behind, so police couldn't track that. But this truck, the task force concluded, was driven by Amber's killer. And again, all of this information already existed. Dave Shaw told the police this way back in 2010 when Amber vanished. But no one bothered to follow it up. So the new task force checked for Chevy Avalanches registered in and around Massapequa Park. It isn't a common vehicle, so it did stand out. And they quickly found that one such truck had been registered at the time of the Gilgo beach murders to a Massapequa park local, Rex Heuermann. Someone who also just so happened to match Dave Shaw's physical description of Amber's killer. Heuerman is, in fact, six' six and huge. Oh, and he also just so happened to work in Midtown Manhattan. The location that the burner phone Amber had been contacted from often pinged.

[Saroo]

Using this, investigators were able to get in excess of 300 subpoenas and search warrants to dig up more potential evidence connected to Mr. Heuermann. And there is a lot that they found. So let's start with the phones. All of the Gilgo Beach Four had been contacted by different burner phones in the days leading up to their disappearances. After Maureen Brainard Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman vanished, each of their phones remained active for a while afterwards. Maureen was last seen on 9 July 2007 in New York City. Her phone made two outbound calls to her voicemail three days after she was last seen or heard from. Melissa was last seen on the 10th of July, 2009, again in New York City. Cell site records show that after Melissa went missing, her phone repeatedly moved between Massapequa park and Midtown Manhattan, where Rex Heuermann lived and where Rex Heuermann worked. Melissa's phone was also used to check her own voicemails after she vanished. And on five occasions starting about a week after Melissa was last seen, her phone was used to make taunting calls to her 15 year old sister, Amanda. In these calls, the man called Amanda by her name and even knew what she looked like. He asked Amanda if she knew what her sister was doing and called Melissa a whore. He then told Amanda that he had raped Melissa and killed her. And he also asked Amanda if she was a half breed. These calls were coming from Midtown Manhattan, and they all came in about the middle of the day. And the cell site locations place them just 87ft away from Rex Heuermann's architectural office. So he's calling Amanda, Melissa's 15 year old sister, on his fucking lunch break while he's at work. Now, we don't know the manner in which the Gilgo Beach Four were killed. We also don't know if Rex Heuermann did it. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. But this tells you whoever did this is a fucking sadist.

[Hannah]

Then we've got Megan Waterman. She vanished on 6th June, 2010. Last seen leaving a Holiday Inn in Hallpage. Her mobile Phone's last known location was on the night she disappeared. It pinged in Massapequa park, right near the residence of one Rex Heuermann. Fascinating, but horrible stuff. But all these phone pings really prove is that these burner phones and the missing women's phones were active in locations Heuermann might spend time. But he's also not the only person in midtown Manhattan, or in Massapequa, or

[Saroo]

in West Babylon, etc, etc.

[Hannah]

So the task force needed to place him there with the phones. But the problem was cell site records. So records of where Heuerman's own personal phone was pinging at the same time, for some reason, don't exist anymore.

[Saroo]

This is a thing. By the time the task force get to this, it's been over a decade, and I don't know how long mobile phone companies keep that kind of record for. If they had done it at the time, they could have got it. Now, apparently, they're saying those records don't exist anymore. And maybe it's different now, but maybe from back then they are just saying, we don't have those records.

[Hannah]

I mean, maybe, but they're not writing them down with a quill on parchment, are they? Like, I just don't believe that. Like, metadata isn't somewhere. But, you know, what do I?

[Saroo]

No idea.

[Hannah]

I'm just an idiot in a dress. However, all was not lost. Investigators matched up Heuermann's American Express records to show that wherever those burner phones and those missing women's phones were being used, Heuermann was always nearby at the

[Saroo]

time, spending money on his Amex.

[Hannah]

It's always Amex, isn't it? Like, nobody ever rings up fucking Barclaycard. And it's like, maybe just nefarious. People use Amex and also they have the best customer service. So if you're ringing anyone else, you're

[Saroo]

on the phone for 7 do.

[Hannah]

This is not sponsored by American Express. But we have another interesting point for you. There wasn't one instance where the phones of the missing women and the burner phones were active that Heuermann could be definitively proven to be in a different location. As we said, he's nearby every single time.

[Saroo]

Still, not enough. A good defence lawyer could tear that shit up. I take your point. So, good news. Investigators located a number of online accounts and yet more burner cell phones linked irrefutably to Rex Heuermann. There were two burner phones in particular, one that we'll call Burner A, which had been used to access Tinder under the name Andrew Roberts. Andrew being Rex Heuermann's middle name. And this Tinder account had been set up with the email address springfieldman nineol.com but the springfieldman9o l.com account had been created in January 2011 using a different name, Homer Simpson John Springfield. And it had also been set up using another burner cell phone that we'll call Burner B. So now you can see that Burner A and Burner B are linked to this Tinder account and linked to these email addresses because they've all been used in various ways to set up multiple different accounts, but they are linked. That is important. Burner B had also been used to set up another burner email, thwalk080672mail.com which we will from now on call the Thork email address, because that is a terrible email address to keep reading out loud. And this was created not under the name Homer Simpson, but as close as you're going to get to Rex Heuermann's version of Max Power. It was created under the fake name Thomas Hawke. And a search warrant for the Thwalk email revealed that this account had been used to conduct thousands of searches of pretty grim things. And I have very helpfully, Hannah, given you the list to read out.

[Hannah]

I know you have, but I've done the same thing to you so many times that this was coming my way eventually.

[Saroo]

It's horrible. I mean, it's like not the worst I've ever seen, but some of them are pretty horrible.

[Hannah]

All right, let's just get it done. Mistress Long Island Mature escorts. Manhattan girl begging for rape porn. Teen girl begging for rape porn. Pretty girl with bruised face Porn torture redhead porn. 10 year old schoolgirl.

[Saroo]

Fucking hell, this one's the worst one.

[Hannah]

Hentai. Plump pussy lips cut off porn. Skinny redhead, tied up porn. Short fat girl, tied up porn. Tied up and raped porn. Asian twink, tied up porn. Tide slave force. Fed cock, cum shot and crying porn girl. Hogtied torture porn. There's more. 10 year old blonde hair girl. Chubby 10 year old girl. Black girl. 10 years old girl with face beat up. Chubby 10 year old girl, crying. 13 year old schoolgirl, age 12. Child girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. Blonde hair girl. Young depressed teen girl. Oiled bodies, Preteen girl with makeup. And finally in at number 26, nude slave girls.

[Saroo]

Excellent. Yeah.

[Hannah]

I'm so glad I'm not a man.

[Saroo]

Yes.

Grim, grim, grim, grim. So that's done. So this Thork email address was also used to conduct in excess of 200 searches between March 2022 and June 2023. That is the exact time period between when the new Gilgo task force was set up under Ray Tierney and Heuermann's own arrest. So as you can see, as soon as this new task force sits down for their first meeting, he seems to be a little bit rattled. And these searches were all about things like serial killers. For example, he searches a lot about John Bitroff, who is the serial killer we mentioned last week, the disappearances and murders of Maureen Brainard Barnes and Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello and the investigations into their murders. There were also extensive and obsessively repeated searches for pictures of the Gilgo Beach 4 and their families, as well as countless very specific questions like why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by the Long island serial killer? Why hasn't the Long island serial killer been caught? The Long island serial killer investigation. How New phone technology may be the key break in case.

[Hannah]

Now, maybe you're thinking what we're thinking. Hold on a second. All the evidence shows so far is that investigators could map Rex Heuermann's movements using his Amex, not his phone, to the burner phones and the missing women's phones. And yes, you can link these burner phones and Thwark and Springfield man emails to some very, very weird searches, but it's just not really enough.

[Saroo]

And it doesn't necessarily make you a killer.

[Hannah]

No. So how are the new task force going to link all of these things and the murders irrefutably to Rex Heuermann? Well, he makes a mistake. He used his own card to pay for Tinder on Burner Phone A. And a selfie of Rex Fuehreman was sent from Burnophone B, the one that's linked to the Thork email. And that selfie was sent to a sex worker.

[Saroo]

That's the thing. It's not even just a picture of him. It's a selfie in the mirror from that phone to another phone.

[Hannah]

If you're going to the effort of two burner phones, like, cop yourself on a bit.

[Saroo]

You know, I also was listening to this defense attorney who was like, look, normally I'd say something that I read this bail document, and I'm like, if I was his defense attorney, I'd be like, looks like you're in trouble. And he was like, can you even really call it a burner phone? Because a burner phone is only a burner phone if it's not connected to you. If you're using it to Send pictures of yourself to sex workers and using your own personal card to pay for Tinder off it. Is it even a burner phone anymore? Which is a good question.

[Hannah]

On top of that, Rect Heuerman was also spotted by investigators who were surveilling him, going to a phone shop in midtown Manhattan and topping up both Burnophone A and B. So maybe you're thinking, well, of course he's Googling about the serial killer from Long Island. He's from Long island as well. Everybody would have been Googling the same thing. And as for the gross sex searches, again, as Saroo said, weird. Doesn't make him a killer necessarily. And if you are thinking those things, you would be right. But we have to consider the totality of the evidence.

[Saroo]

So let's go through it. He has a fascination with the Liszt case and more importantly, perhaps the victims and the victims families. And he had an interest in violent pornography, including csam, so child sexual abuse images. He regularly used burner phones and burner emails to contact sex workers. His home and place of work matched the movements of the murdered women's phones and contact burners. He drove a truck that matched what an eyewitness saw during the disappearance of Amber Costello. And he also matches a physical description of the man Amber went to meet the night she vanished. And that's not it. There's more. The DNA evidence.

[Hannah]

Multiple hairs were found on the Gilgo beach victims. One female hair was discovered on Maureen. Two female hairs were found stuck to the tape used to bind Meghan. And another female hair was again trapped in the tape used on Amber. At the time the bodies were discovered, technology didn't allow for DNA testing on hares like these because there wasn't any root tissue attached to them. So all forensics could say was that the hairs looked similar and they were probably from a Caucasian woman. Thankfully, though, the hairs were preserved. And in July 2022, under the new task force, they were retested for mitochondrial DNA, which exists in the hair shaft itself. So you don't need the root. And these tests were able to confirm that the hairs found on all three of those victims belonged to to one woman who was not one of the victims, nor was she related to any of them. And the police had a hunch that it might have been a hair accidentally left behind by the killer. Not that the killer was a woman, but that the hair may have belonged to someone close to the killer. And he had transferred the hairs to the victims from his clothes at the crime scene.

[Saroo]

So as soon as they got the confirmation of it not being a victim's hair. The police went and took a bunch of rubbish from Heuermann's bins. We've talked about this before. This is called abandonment evidence. They can legally do this. And they tested the female DNA from the hairs against the DNA profiles from the rubbish, and bingo. The hairs on the victim belonged to a woman who likely lived in Rex Huroman's house because her DNA was all over the rubbish. There was also one male hare found in the bottom of the burlap sack that Megan Waterman's body had been put in. The task force needed a clean match, so they followed heuermann. And on the 26th of January, 2023, standing outside of his office in midtown Manhattan, Heuermann ate a pizza and threw the box, complete with discarded crusts, into a public bin. Officers nabbed it and boom, it was a match to Rex Heuermann. And once they arrested him, they took his wife, Asa Ellerop's hair and tested that against the female hairs found on the victims. And once again, a definitive match.

[Hannah]

We already know that the task force had had Heuermann on their radar for a long time, but they waited until the 13th of July, 2023 before they moved in for their arrest. And that arrest, as we told you last week, was carried out in front of Huroman's architectural offices. Why they did it here, rather than a dawn raid at his home, became clear when we discovered that Heuermann, who had 90 registered firearms, actually had a stockpile of nearly 300 weapons in his basement at his home in Massapequa Park. So they weren't going to take that kind of risk.

[Saroo]

No, they say very clearly they were like, yeah, we were never going to go to his house because you're going to have some sort of fucking Waco situation with this guy.

[Hannah]

When Heuermann was arrested, he also had Burnophone B on him. And when he was accosted, allegedly, he cried and said that he didn't do it.

[Saroo]

Now, since he's been in jail, Heuermann has apparently been quiet and compliant. His defence attorney, on the other hand, has been very vocal about how his client is innocent. But honestly, like, the guy's got to do what he's got to do. He is a defense attorney, but good luck to him. The task force has already handed over to Heuermann's defense team 2,500 documents of evidence in the initial discovery phase. Apparently, it's something like three terabytes of evidence. Now. I Googled that and I was like, how many documents is that? And it was something bazillions. But then I realized like, a lot of it would also be pictures. So they've got a lot to sift through. And it's a lot of yikes because what was in the bail document is no doubt just scratching the surface of what investigators have against Huron. Like we told you guys when we did the Bryan Kohberger case, they do not put out their full case in the bail document. Why would they? They just need to put enough for the arrest to be okayed. This is just a tiny fraction of what they've got against him.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

And Doug. There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Hannah]

So who is Rex Heuermann? We've already told you that he's a 59 year old architect who owns and runs his own business in midtown. And he has done that since 1987. He's been married to his second wife, Asa Ellerup, for more than 27 years. But after Heuermann's arrest, Asa was granted a no contest divorce within days. Unsurprising, they have two adult children, 27 year old Victoria, who works at Heuerman's business, and 33 year old Christopher, who's got special needs. The family all lived in Massapequa park, an area of Long island popular with commuters for its rural feel, yet close proximity to New York City. The street that the Kueramans lived on is tree lined, quiet, residential, and there's loads of well maintained houses and perfectly pristine lawns. Rex's house was the one that stood

[Saroo]

out, and not in the way that you might expect an architect's house to stand out. He had actually bought the house from his mother in 1994 because it was his childhood home. And honestly, it's nothing short of a dump. The house is in such obviously bad condition that if you watch videos or look at pictures of like the front of it, even you can see that the porch is being held up by spare two by fours, like it is completely run down. And inside, the house was a mess, dated and lying in complete disrepair. The Only part of the house that seemed to have had any work time or money invested in it was the basement. Heuermann even allegedly took time off work to install a concrete lined vault down there. Now, a lot of media outlets have gone with the headlines, soundproof room found in Heuermann basement. But the police have rolled back on this due to the obvious subtext that it implies that he was holding or killing victims down there. And I don't know what the police know, but I don't think we have enough public information to say one way or another whether he was doing that. What he kept down in that basement is a load of weird shit that we're going to go on to discuss and all of his fucking guns. And the only other thing we can say as to kill sites and what he was getting up to in various houses is that this house in Massapequa park was not Rex Heuermann's only property. Heuermann owns homes in Las Vegas and South Carolina as well. Apparently he bought the home in South Carolina with his brother Craig, and they apparently planned to retire there one day

[Hannah]

when this house was being searched. Photographs from the scene did show that a medical officer was there. It would be unusual for a medical officer to be at a search if there were no human remains or suspected human remains to have been found. And it would make sense. It's pretty unlikely that the killer would take victims back to his own house, though, especially in a busy area like Massapequa Park. But his home in South Carolina is a lot more rural. The killer of the Gilgo Beach Four bound his victims. That would have taken time and space. So it makes sense that there was a meat point, a kill location, and the dump site off Ocean Parkway.

[Saroo]

The garden of Heuermann's home in Massapequa park, complete with a no warrant, no entry sign that he had propped up outside of his house has also been excavated and countless boxes of evidence have been removed, some of the most noteworthy being what police found in his cement basement, including a painting of a girl with two black eyes, the.272 firearms, and a child sized doll in a glass box. And this doll caught a lot of people's attention because it is alleged. And again, I honestly, guys, I cannot confirm this 100%. I have seen pictures of it. The pictures exist. I will share a link to the pictures and we will also post it on our socials. But it is alleged that following the discovery of The Gilgo Beach 4's remains, someone left a doll on each of the women's grave Markers. So after they were found, there's like little wooden crosses that are put up by the families that say their names on. And somebody apparently allegedly turned up and mysteriously left these dolls on these graves. Now, these dolls were apparently taken by the police because obviously they know people who come to the scene are just as likely suspects as they are, you know, well wishers. And if you look at these pictures of these dolls, it is hard not to see the similarity between these dolls and the one found in Heuermann's basement inside that glass box. Did he, before the police were able to take them, manage to take one of the dolls and keep it as a trophy? Purely speculation at this point.

[Hannah]

Police also scoured two storage units that were owned by Heuermann. And these storage units were in Amityville. And a fun fact for you, Rex Heuermann's home is less than three miles from the Defeo Amityville horror house.

[Saroo]

Honestly, you've got John Bitroff, you've got Rex Eurman, allegedly. You've got Joel Rifkin and the Defeo, like this fucking area. And I feel like in the Killing Season, the documentary, like Zeman, the guy who makes it, who also made Cropsey, like we said last week, he's from Long Island. It's like he's desperately trying to explain why so many serial killers or like mass murderers are coming out of Long Island. And like, obviously he knows it better than I do, but I feel like he's just kind of like, oh, it's the pressure of this, like, pressure pot of trying to keep up with the Joneses and being so close to New York and like, maybe. But it is weird. It is very inexplicable why there are so many in this one area.

[Hannah]

Maybe it's the fumes blowing over from the city.

[Saroo]

Quite possibly.

[Hannah]

So, yeah, lots of weird stuff going on on Long Island. But we have to just stick with Euromin today. An odd thing about him was obviously he's a reasonably successful architect. One would have to be to run an office in midtown. That shit's expensive. So why did he live in such a run down house? Some people have theorized that it's because of his upbringing. So he wants to maintain the house in the same way that his parents did. And perhaps that lets him hold onto or perhaps master some childhood trauma.

[Saroo]

Yeah, there's definitely like something going on with his dad for sure. Like, I don't know, there is a random YouTube interview with Rex Heuermann which I believe has been taken down now. But there are people reacting to it so you can still find it and, like, watch body language experts talk about it, etc.

Etc.

And it's really weird because there is no video footage of Rex Heuermann ever, ever, ever, ever before in his 59 years of life. But one video that was shot and filmed and put up on YouTube of him being interviewed about being an architectural man, that was shot, like, a few weeks before he was arrested. Now, there's people out there that suspect that the FBI themselves sent this guy in there to do the interview. Maybe. I don't know. He certainly seems to find a lot of things that Rex Herman is saying funny that are not funny. But then maybe he's just trying to be a good interviewer. But it was basically with this company called Bonjour Realty. Mm. And it is so fucking boring. And if Rex Heuermann wasn't arrested for being literally lisk, no one would ever watch that shit. But it's basically just guy goes in there and he's, like, questioning him, and he's, like, making all these jokes, comparing himself to a hammer. And he talks about his dad. And his dad was an aerospace engineer, right? And he says, you know, he put satellites into space, etc. And he taught me how to build furniture. And there's definitely a, like, shot shift in his behavior when he talks about his dad. Again, we're gonna have to wait years before we find out anything about his upbringing or his background. But I definitely got the feeling of I underachieved compared to my father. That doesn't make you a serial killer. A lot of people feel that way,

[Hannah]

but there's something going on there.

[Saroo]

And then when you put it together with the childhood house, I don't know.

[Hannah]

So perhaps it's that Rex was too scared to change the house, even though his dad is now dead and his mum doesn't live there anymore. But we're gonna have to wait years to find out. Until then, we just can't say for sure. Although less interestingly, it simply just might have been because whilst Rex had a good job and a successful practice, he wasn't in great shape financially. Asa even used food stamps to do the family shopping. And Heuermann and his wife owe 81,500American dollarydoos in personal income taxes to the state. Bizarrely, Kuermann has, over the years, also filed several lawsuits in New York, where he accused drivers of injuring him in collisions. It's worth a shot.

[Saroo]

I think that's his whole philosophy. And while some people have said that Rex Hurriman was so normal, we had no idea. Others did know that something was seriously off with this guy. For example, Rex Heuermann did things like steal oranges from Whole Foods. He regularly burned rubbish in his garden, which, according to the neighbours, was not something anyone in that area ever did. Two weeks before he was arrested, he also harassed a woman in the local park to the point that she actually filed a police complaint about him. And in 2006, he scared the shit out of an intern at his own business. Apparently he called this intern over to his desk one day saying, let me show you something. And then he played for this kid a video of a man in a police interview room shooting himself in the head. Heuermann allegedly found this whole thing hilarious and then proceeded to tell the shocked intern how many guns he owned. I mean, look, the oranges, the harassing the jogger in the park, all of this kind of stuff, it kind of happens quite close to his arrest. And you do wonder because he starts Googling about the task force basically immediately, as soon as they're formed. Is he under increasing amounts of stress because he's worried that they're on him? For the first time, there is a competent police investigation into this case. But the intern thing happens in 2006. So he is a weird guy. Apparently he was also a total fucking jobsworth.

[Hannah]

I mean, obviously being a serial killer is worse than a jobs worth. Yeah, but I just can't stand it.

[Saroo]

I know he is a total fucking jobsworth. Again, lots of people compare him to BTK Dennis Rader. And like Dennis Rader himself has even written a letter from prison saying that Rex Heuermann is the clone of him. We're going to talk about that later, but like, I literally do not think they are. Again, we'll come to that in a bit. But BTK also a total fucking jobsworth. So not saying everyone who is is a serial killer, but they're probably a bit of a wrong un.

[Hannah]

There's a Venn diagram.

[Saroo]

Yeah, there's a Venn diagram. So, yeah, Heuermann apparently got into constant altercations on the train he took from Long island to New York every day, telling other commuters off for doing things he deemed to be against the rules. That's the train you get every day. I have been on commuter trains where you get the same train every day and you look at the same people. Why would you start a fight on that train?

[Hannah]

I don't know.

[Saroo]

This is what I mean. He's not a normal guy. He was willing to put himself in these confrontational situations.

[Hannah]

I think there's a commuter train that goes from Brighton into London. And every Christmas, they have a Christmas dinner on the train carriage because everyone sits in the same place.

[Saroo]

Oh, that's nice.

[Hannah]

It is nice, isn't it? And now we come on to the Port Jefferson date. A sex worker called Nicole Brass went on a date in 2015 with Rex Heuermann. During this, Nicole claims that Heuermann just wanted to speak to her about the murders. She claims that he was misty eyed, like he was watching a videotape of the murders and enjoying every moment of it. Nicole completely freaked out and left. Clearly, this is all about power and control for Rex Heuermann.

[Saroo]

You see that? You see it, right? You see that? If this is him. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. There's only so long he can keep the darkness bottled up, the fucked up shit he can put on the front of being this family man. He's got these two kids, he's got his wife, he's got his business in midtown Manhattan, but every now and again it leaks out and he can't stop himself.

[Hannah]

So sure. As you can see, the evidence against Recht Heuermann is astonishingly strong. And it is probably, like we said at the top of the show last week, as close as you can get to a slam dunk.

[Saroo]

Now, let's discuss something I know has been contentious. Police found Rex Heuermann's wife's hairs on three of the victims, and Asa had been married to him for 27 years. So people out there are of course asking, was she involved? Now, personally, I think that is highly unlikely. Hares transfer easily. And if Heuermann did bring any of his victims to his house, again, we don't know it's a big if on that until we know more. But if he did, Hares getting on them would have been even easier. Also, the police have confirmed that on multiple occasions when the Gilgo beach victims went missing, Asa and her kids were either in Iceland, which is Asa's home country, or out of state. Asa and the kids went to Iceland for two weeks every summer without wrecks. And this seems to have been his killing window because. Come on, we told you guys already. The Gilgo Beach 4 all went missing in the summer months. They all went missing in July. And come on, it would be fake to pretend like there aren't cases in the past where so many times a serial killer has been arrested and the wife had no idea what was coming going on. I don't think she was involved. She's a Weird person. I'm not going to say she's not. She is, but it doesn't mean she knew what he was doing.

[Hannah]

No. Some people say that allegedly Asa said it is what it is when police told her that her husband had been arrested on suspicion of being the Long island serial killer, which obviously implies that she wasn't shocked and knew all about it.

[Saroo]

And again, like I say allegedly here because, like, we don't know for sure if she did say that, but she has said that since. And I'm like, stop saying that. Asa, your husband has been arrested for being a serial killer. Please stop saying it is what it is. But again, I don't feel like she has the strongest social skills. Right.

[Hannah]

And obviously, it's pretty probable that Asa knew that her husband was a bad guy. She was with him for 27 years, and they had kids, and I'm sure that she and her kids were victims of his as well.

[Saroo]

Yeah. I mean, if you're starting fights with people on commuter trains because they're not following the rules, imagine what he's like at home behind closed doors.

[Hannah]

And while I think the Ace is probably being quite unwise at the moment, mounting attacks against police and forensic teams for turning their house upside down, essentially saying that their rights are being violated. I can't really imagine how that must feel.

[Saroo]

Yeah, they basically, obviously, as you can imagine, the forensics teams have just gone in there and torn this house apart looking for evidence. And they have to do that. They have to follow their job. They have to do that. But at the same time, Ace is always like, my house has been destroyed. But I think it makes you look quite tone deaf to be saying that. Like when she says things like, you know, my kids video games have been broken into pieces, and they're like, well, John Ray, who's the attorneys for the victims, is like, how many pieces were the women that your husband probably murdered left in? So I don't think she's doing herself any favors.

[Hannah]

No. But another thing that we have to consider is that recently it was discovered that Asa is undergoing treatment for breast and skin cancer. So she's got cancer, she's undergoing invasive treatment, her house is being torn apart, and her husband of almost three decades has been arrested for being a serial killer. It's a bad time to be Asa.

[Saroo]

Yes.

So let's leave that behind. And let's now quickly come back to the point that we raised last episode. Are the 11 victims out on Ocean Parkway the work of one man or multiple? Now, we discussed this at length last episode. So we are not going to rehash it all here, but it is worth mentioning that Rex Heuermann, as far as we can see from the Bell documents, and granted, this is not all of the evidence that the police have against him, but in this Bell document, it suggests that he obsessively searched the Internet for anything to do with the Gilgo Beach 4, and therefore families. Again, I'm not saying this is everything. We don't know that he wasn't Googling the other victims, but if he was only Googling those four victims, it kind of makes it seem less likely that he killed the others. Because why wouldn't he care just as much about them? I don't know.

[Hannah]

Also, police have only recently released the identity of Fire Island Jane Doe we now know as Karen Vergata. But they have known her true identity for a while. Karen's dad died back in December 2022, and the police had told him that they had found his missing daughter after almost three decades.

[Saroo]

They kept it under wraps for almost a year that they knew who Karen really was.

[Hannah]

And we also know that they had been tracking Rex Heuermann for over a year. If the task force could have connected Heuermann and Karen, we might know by now. Again, we don't know what other information investigators have, because they are playing it all as they well should, very close to their chest.

[Saroo]

And then there is also the problem of it's not what you know, it's what you can prove in court. So even if the police suspect that Rex Heuermann is indeed responsible for all of the murders out there, minus Shannon Gilbert, because that just doesn't make any sense. That's too crazy to imagine that he was also at that sex party and killed Shannon Gilbert, but that he's responsible for all 10 other murders out there, they need to be able to prove it. Hence why at the time of recording this, the police still haven't even charged Rex Heuermann with Maureen Brainard Barnes murder, even though she's one of the Gilgo Beach 4 and clearly seems to fit the pattern. Especially given the fact that Ray Tierney has stated on the record that they believe the belt used to bind Maureen. Remember the one that we told you about earlier with WH or HM stamped on it, belongs to Rex's granddad, William Heuerman. I know. And again, if you've got to tell me, it's nothing to do with how fucked up his family were. Why did he use his granddad's belt?

[Hannah]

Again, it's a fruit of evil Shit, man.

[Saroo]

Yeah. And Maureen was the first victim of the Gilgo Beach 4 group. And the reason they haven't charged him with Maureen Brainard Barnes murder yet. But the other three, even though they clearly fit together as one, even though they know it's him, if he killed the others, is because there wasn't DNA or the DNA on Maureen was too degraded for them to be able to test. So I think if you introduce a weaker case into the mix, you stand to risk the whole thing falling apart. So they've clearly only gone with the three that they feel the most solid about. So whether the police think he killed all of the 10 victims or not will basically depend on whether you see them continuing to look for a killer for the others after they prosecute Rex Heuermann. Now, another question worth asking is why did Rex Heuermann stopped if the last victim was Amber Costello? She was killed in 2010? Well, firstly, we don't know that he did stop. The remains of the Gilgo Beach Four were discovered just three months after Amber was reported missing. So maybe Heuermann got spooked and laid low for a while after his dump site was found. Because I fucking knew that Dave Shaw saw him and saw his fucking truck, but the police just didn't pay any attention. They could have caught him three months after Amber went missing. But then again, we don't know that he got spooked and he stopped because he could well just have moved his area of disposal, changed his MO or altered the way he found his victims. If so, Rex Heurman, if he is the killer, may well have carried on killing over the past 13 years.

[Hannah]

However, saying that. Let's have a look at Heuermann's age. He was 59 when he was arrested in July 2023. If he only killed the Gilgo Beach Four, he would have been 46 when he started. And that's just way too old.

[Saroo]

It's so old.

[Hannah]

If he killed the other victims, the oldest one dating back to 1996, being Karen Vergata, he would have been 32. Typically, serial killers start to kill, on average in their late 20s. So 32 isn't a million miles away. And we also know that killers can stop when they have to. Dennis Rader, AKA btk, stopped killing for years when he became a father. And in some interesting parallels, both Rader And Heuermann were 59 when they were caught, and both of them had two kids. As Saroo said, Rader has actually written a letter from prison saying that he thinks Rex Huroman is his clone. But that is just a narcissistic witch by Dennis Rader.

[Saroo]

He just wants to be relevant. Anytime he has the opportunity to, like, rear his weird, ugly little head up, he takes that chance.

[Hannah]

And they are different because Heuermann went exclusively, as far as we currently know, after sex workers and dumped their remains on a desolate beach. Raeder killed a mixture of people, including entire families, in their homes, and he left them to be found.

[Saroo]

What's even more surprising with Rex Heuermann is that police seem to have moved in for the arrest because they were worried about the risk he posed to the public. It appears the Heuerman was once again, after 13 years, it would seem. But then again, we don't know, because nobody was fucking tracking him up until a year ago. In talks with sex workers using burner phones, was he getting ready to kill again? If he was, that is highly, highly unusual. Not because he took a big gap and then started killing again or was starting to think about killing again, but because in a study carried out by the FBI, they found that. That sexual homicide offenders tend to stop as they get older. Look at, like, d', Angelo, the golden secular. They find him, he's just a fucking old man who's, like, mowing his lawn. And he's like. When they arrest him, he's like, I've got a roast in the oven. Like, they tend to stop when they're sexually motivated because the prowess goes, the desire goes, and also the strength goes. And their ability to do it, like, is dampened. And this study found that by the age of 55, when it comes to serial sexual homicide offenders, less than 1% were still active by that age. 90% of these type of killer fit into the 1945 age group, after which they slow down and stop altogether. And the fact that the Gilgo beach four were all killed when Heuermann was already 46 makes him, if he is guilty, very rare. But also kind of suggests that that was his finale, his grand finale, maybe in his head. But it certainly adds more fuel to the fire of the idea that they were not his only victims because he was so old by that point.

[Hannah]

So what else might the police have? There was a very specific request for information on Peaches a few months ago. So much like Karen Vergata, some people are theorising that the police already know who she really was. And the thing is, identifying victims is the only way this case will be concluded whether Heuermann is responsible for all of the bodies or whether there is another killer out there. It is only by finding out who the victims are that we can be certain. And Peach's is an interesting victim, firstly because her child, Baby Doe, was found dead miles away from her. But both Baby Doe's body and Peach's torso were found wrapped in blankets. Websleuths have done some great work discovering that these blankets were on sale in Rockville Centre, a mall near Hempstead, which is where Peach's torso was found. So maybe that could lead to more clues as to her killer.

[Saroo]

And again, we're just going to keep saying this. Remember, remember, remember, the police are withholding a lot of information. Until very, very recently, we didn't even know that they had DNA from the Gilgo Beach 4. We didn't know about those hairs they had. The other interesting thing about Peaches is that if she was killed by the same man who killed the Gilgo Beach Four, allegedly Rex Heuerman, then it suggests that he used a different tactic to find her. Peaches. If we go with the theory that she was a sex worker, and I know we don't know who she is, but I don't think it's an outlandish theory given that basically everyone else out there was a sex worker. If we go with that theory and she took her baby with her to go meet this John, if we say that that's who killed her, that of course tragically does happen. If a sex worker can't find someone to watch her baby and she needs to work. But given this fact, it seems highly unlikely that whoever this man was picked Peaches up on the street. It doesn't seem typical that Peaches would have been out on the street with her baby. It seems much more likely that this was some sort of like pre arranged meetup. But in that case, how did they organise it? Peaches went missing in 1996. That's way too early for Craigslist and Backpage. They weren't really even mainstream until like the early 2000s. And so this idea that at some point Rex Heuermann, or whoever killed Kirk, if it was him, could have been finding his victims in a different way back then, does open doors to links between Heuermann and other cold cases like the Eastbound Strangler or Atlantic City murder case. Though at the time of recording, it does seem that the police have ruled out that possibility.

[Hannah]

So now we wait, and the wait will be long. Rex Heuermann is almost certainly going to go to trial. New York doesn't have the death penalty, so there's nothing prosecutors can take off the table. In exchange for a guilty plea. So if your choices are plead guilty and go to prison for life, or plead not guilty, go to trial and be found guilty and go to prison for life, you can bet your ass Heuerman will go to trial because there will be a chance. But that trial will not be happening for a very long time. But now you know all there currently is to know. And if there is more to know, we will tell you.

[Saroo]

We will indeed. We will keep you guys updated on what happens. But I think much like the Delphi case, much like the Bryan Kohberger case, but even more so because of the number of victims that are here, this is going to be a case that very, very, very slowly moves forward. So, yeah, we're just going to have to keep an eye on it and come back to it later. But that is, for now, everything you need to know about the Long island serial killer case.

[Hannah]

Yeah, let us know what you think if you've got theories of your own, and we will ever your obedient servants, decide for ourselves.

[Saroo]

Exactly. So we'll see you guys next time for something else. And yeah, stay safe. Be good. Be good. Bye.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[911 Operator]

Hey, everyone.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

Only pay for what you [e-mail].

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser's Partner]

liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.