Police Off The Cuff/Real Crime Stories

The one year anniversary of the arrest of Rex Heuermann, new evidence.

Duration:: 1h 21m
Broadcast on:: 17 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

The one year anniversary of arrest of Rex Heuermann, new evidence. #rexheuermann #gilgobeach #sandracostilla Rex Heuermann, the accused Gilgo Beach serial killer charged in six killings is now being eyed by investigators for even more, nearly one year to the day that the Manhattan architect, husband, and father of two was arrested. Heuermann was arrested on July 13 and charged the next day on July 14. His dilapidated Massapequa Park home was turned into the epicenter of a massive search for evidence by state and Suffolk County police, Sherriff's deputies, and the FBI. Investigators believe many murders happened inside. "Rex is just a strange guy," said his next-door neighbor, Etienne. That search led to another of thousands of wooded acres in Manorville this year, bringing the previous charges in the deaths of four women up to six last month. "This year has been 21 years since she was taken from us - longer than the chance that she got to be alive," said Jessica Taylor's cousin, Jasmine Robinson. Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Sandra Costilla, and Jessica Taylor were all murdered. Mostly prostitutes, most of their bodies were found at Gilgo Beach along Long Island's South Shore. (WABC) 💯 Join our mission to uncover the truth in crime! Support Police Off the Cuff on Patreon for exclusive content and insider access. Click now and become a part of our detective squad: https://www.patreon.com/policeoffthecuff 💬 Did you like this video? Let me know in the comments below! ✅ Subscribe to Police off the Cuff right now! Click here: https://www.youtube.com/@PoliceofftheCuff?sub_confirmation=1 Or become a YouTube Member to get access to perks here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKo80Xa1PYTc23XN_Yjp8pA/join --------------- Welcome to the Official YouTube Channel of Police off the Cuff This is where the veil of mystery on high-profile cases is lifted through the sharp insights of seasoned law enforcement professionals and where real crime meets real analysis. This is your destination for exploring the complexities of true crime stories, illuminated by the rich experience and street wisdom of those who have walked the thin blue line. At the helm is retired NYPD Sergeant Bill Cannon, a figure of authority in the crime investigation arena, with a diverse background that spans across acting, broadcasting, and academia. Bill's profound knowledge and keen analytical skills, combined with his empathetic approach, make each story not just heard but felt. Phil's extensive investigative experience, coupled with his genuine passion and characteristic Brooklyn charm, adds depth and relatability to the discussions. ➡️ Here we navigate the intricate web of the nation's most captivating crime stories, offering not just stories, but an education on the realities of criminal investigation. Their combined expertise provides a unique lens through which the stories are told, offering insights that only those with firsthand experience can provide. Join us on this journey into the heart of true crime, where every episode promises a deep dive into the minds of criminals and the tireless efforts of law enforcement to bring them to justice. --------------- 📲 Follow Police off the Cuff on social media: Instagram ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/policeoffthecuff Facebook ▶️ https://www.facebook.com/Policeoffthecuff-312794509230136/ Twitter ▶️ https://twitter.com/policeoffthecuf 🎧 Dive deep into true crime with Police Off the Cuff Podcast. Join retired NYPD expert Bill Cannon as he dissects infamous cases with insider insight: https://anchor.fm/otcpod1 ☑️ Support Police Off the Cuff and help us bring you more captivating crime stories. Every contribution makes a difference! Choose your preferred way to donate: Venmo: https://venmo.com/William-Cannon-27 PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/policeoffthecuff1gma --------------- 📚 Disclaimer: This video may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. --------------- #PoliceOffTheCuff

"My dad works in B2B marketing. "He came by my school for career day "and said he was a big row as man. "Then he told everyone how much he loved "calculating his return on ad spend. "My friends still laughing at me to this day." - Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in, the place to be, to be. (upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome to police off the cuff, real crime stories. I'm your host, retired NYPD Sergeant Bill Cannon, a 27 year veteran of the NYPD. Good to be back up north in New York. I just arrived last night when I flew in from Florida. Different places, but both great places. Anyway, we all should realize that this, the 13th of this month was the one year anniversary of the arrest of this man, Rex Human. And as you can see in this thumbnail, new evidence piles up, how many more victims? So Rex Human, the accused, Gilgo Beat Serial Killer, charged in six killings is now being eyed by investigators for even more. Nearly one year to the day, well, if the 13th was one year, the Manhattan architect, husband and father, too, was arrested. That was on July 13th, 2023. His dilapidated mass of Pickle Park home was turned into the epicenter of a massive search for evidence by state. And suffered county police. Sheriff's deputies in the FBI, investigators believe many more murders happened inside. Rex is a strange guy according to his neighbor at the end. The search led to another of thousands of ordered acres in Manneville this year, bringing the previous charges in the deaths of four women up to six. Very recently, he was charged in June. This has been 21 years since she was taken from us longer than the chance that she had got to be alive, said Jessica Taylor's cousin, Jasmine Robinson, Maureen Brainard Barnes, Melissa Barteleme, Megan Waterman, Amber Castello, Sandra Castilla, and Jessica Taylor were all murdered. Mostly escorts, most of their bodies were found that Gilgo Beach along Long Island, South Shore. So now with all of this information, and we look back and we realize the unbelievable work that went into this, and this wasn't always the case with the Gilgo Beach case that stretches back to now we know, to 1993 with the murder of Sandra Castilla. So we're gonna do a little bit of an examination and look back at where we were and where we are right now. So hold onto your hats, hold onto your toupee, hold onto your service dog, your kids, your loved ones, you're about to enter through crime from a police perspective. You're about to enter the off the cuff zone, the police off the cuff zone. (dramatic music) - We have to use a common sense. - Yes sir, and the other cars don't intend and the grants might require that. - We still don't know before the trailer. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - You know commemorating the arrest of Rex Eumann on July 13th, 2023 is no small thing when we consider the bumps in the road that this case had and the emotion of all of the victims in this case and their families. And just very recently two more victims of Gilgo serial killer Rex Eumann have been identified. Jessica Taylor and Sandra Castilla. So we're gonna take another dive in this and see how we're updated and see what's new in this case and where is this case going? But first joining me today is retired NYPD Sergeant Professor at Alberta's Magnus College Law Degree and just all around a nice guy. Professor Mike Geary, Mike, welcome. - Hey Billy, good afternoon. Thank you for having me on, welcome everyone. - It's good to see you, Mike. And you know, now that I'm back up north, you know, I can reach out to you even quicker. You're always available, you know, you're always available. So Mike, you know, this case, you know, the perfect storm existed when they formed the Skilgo Beach Task Force in the way that it was ripe to be solved and the right people were put in the place and the science had advanced so much that all of the evidence that was sitting perhaps in a storage facility now was able to be utilized and now was able to be brought forth and the evidence used to identify the killer in this case. And I believe, and most of us all believe that this man here with his face there, the 6'6", 300 pound ogre as he was being described, as he was just indicted for two more murders in the Skilgo Beach serial case, none other than Rex Uemann. Mike, your thoughts. - Billy, it was a matter of a little bit of luck, leadership and the technology of both computers and cell phones and also DNA advanced so far that what was an insolvable crime, likely an insolvable crime was solved. You had police chief, you had Harrison, along with A.D.A. Tierney, they established the Gilgo Beach Task Force, that's leadership. They got the right people in the right spots and they gave them, they've built the funding and the ability to go forth and do what they had to do from the very beginning, go through all the old files and everything, so that's one thing, huge leadership. You've got a little bit of luck. A lot of that evidence that had been vouchored, invoiced and was in storage for up to over, in some cases, well over a decade, almost two decades in some cases, was still available, it wasn't lost, it was still a good enough shape that it could be tested for DNA and the DNA technology had advanced so far what was impossible to get, now they can get that information. Also, you have the other technology, you have the cell phone technology and that was fantastic because all what was possible with cell phone technology, 20, 25 years ago, had advanced so much so that the Gilgo Beach Killer, although very, very formidable as an opponent, unfortunately was the victim of some good luck, excellent leadership and technology that changed the course of this case and went from an unsolvable case or at least unsolved completely, discarded in some respects all the way to, this is number one priority and you and I know and Phil know how quickly they went from, we're just gonna start and boom within like six weeks, eight weeks, they had a person of interest that seemed really as suspect number one, so three amazing important things happened and that's what we're here to celebrate, that is fantastic. - You know, according to law and crime side-bought, there's five shocking Gilgo Beach murder developments revealed as the evidence has piled up. Let me just play a little bit of this and we remember Attorney John Ray, just a couple of weeks ago, reporting some new information to the public and to the task force. - Horrifying torture of the people we know are now dead and many more yet to come. - The alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer, Rex Huermann has been called a monster, a human devil, even a cannibal. He's accused of killing six women in horrific ways and suspected of even more. On the one year anniversary of his arrest with new accusations coming out once again, we'll take a look at five shocking updates in this case and talk with forensic scientist Jennifer Shen about the strange and disturbing details. Welcome to the sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. It's been a year since a then little known Manhattan architect, Rex Huermann, became the man known around the world as Long Island suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer and since his arrest last July, the murder charges against Huermann have doubled, searches of his property have yielded masses amounts of evidence and prosecutors say he plotted his kills in a detailed manifesto. And just recently, he was accused in two more murders and his own daughter has been implicated for posting some very disturbing and graphic images or allegedly posting. We'll talk about that. Now, it's been a minute since we've talked about Rex Huermann and the Gilgo Beach case. So let's discuss some updates with you right now and we're gonna start with the arrest itself. And what is really remarkable police work that made this possible. On July 14th, 2023, after a 13 year cold case investigation, Rex Huermann was walking down a Manhattan street when police arrested him in connection with the murders of three women. So I'm standing here with my law enforcement partners in the Gilgo Task Force to announce the indictment of defendant Rex Andrew Huermann, 59 years of age. He's been arrested by the Suffolk County Police Department's homicide detectives and he's been indicted in a grand jury presentation by the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office for the murders of Melissa Bartholomew, Megan Warderman and Amber Costello. These young women went missing between July of 2007 and September of 2010. They were found in December of 2010 by the Suffolk County Police Department and then there was nothing, absolutely nothing. For the next 13 years, their cases went unsolved. Until today. Huermann was charged the next day with three counts of first degree murder and three counts of second degree murder. All of the six charges, they carry a sentence about the life in prison. Huerman pleaded not guilty to all the counts. He has maintained his innocence. But then we go to a half year later and he was charged again, this time with killing 25 year old Marine Brainerd Barnes, whose remains. - So that became what was known as the Gilgo Four when they added Marine Brainerd Barnes to that list. Initially, he was arrested and charged with Melissa Bartholomew, Megan Warderman and Amber Costello. And they knew that they were going to charge the Marine Brainerd Barnes case, but at first they did not have enough evidence. So once the evidence came forth, they added her and that became known again as the Gilgo Four. And no one was satisfied that that was going to be the end of this investigation. Everyone felt that, well, there's more bodies here. He's a serial killer. Right now you have him for four, there must be more. And sure enough, very recently in June, two more victims were added to Rex Huermann's dossier. If you will. And those two more victims are right here on the screen. Jessica Taylor and Sandra Castilla. And the amazing, amazing way that they were identified has everything to do with modern day technology, modern day DNA, which is just absolutely incredible. Something called mitochondrial DNA, which did not, we did not have the technology years ago when this occurred to use this highly enhanced investigative genetic genealogy. Those things that are now identifying bodies that are hundreds of years old, which is absolutely incredible. And I would like just to bring everyone's attention to the labs, Othram Labs, and the couple that own this lab, are David and Christine Middleman. And they are right outside Houston, Texas. I just want to play a little bit of who these people are and the technology they brought forth that has helped crack a lot of these cases. Here's what this has got as short as. This is no longer something you see on TV that solves some cases here or there. For all these cases that we're looking at here, these are the unsolvable cases before you guys came along. - Absolutely, just outside of Houston, Othram Labs is solving the unsolvable. - So when it comes to your laboratory, when it comes to your tech and legacy tech, what's the main difference? - So we're taking this really challenging evidence that's historically been unusable for testing, and then we're enabling testing, and then we're doing that with hundreds of thousands of markers, instead of say tens of markers of what you do in a traditional forensic test. The Othram team combines medical and genomic expertise to revolutionize how forensic DNA is processed. - If you go to like one of those consumer DNA companies to learn about your ancestry, it's like the tube, and you'll generate about 1,000 nanograms of DNA. At Othram, like we work off 0.1 nanograms. - So to your perspective, how small is it? How small are we talking? So the equivalent would be 15 female cells. If I touch David's shoulder right now, I've left hundreds of cells right here. - The labs run by husband and wife duo, David and Kristen Middleton. He handles the science, she does the business. - We're often the last hope. Every time they give you that last bit of DNA or the last bit of evidence, that is someone's last chance of being identified. And someone's last chance to get justice for what happened to the person that they lost. In 2018, we'd noticed that several cases had been solved, the Golden State pillar, for example, using this type of technology, but-- - But it was from a bunch of different pieces, right? - Correct. And you noticed that not all cases were being solved, and it really isn't justice unless you can provide it and apply it to every case. And that's when David said, well, there's no process to do so. And so he said, I'm gonna build it. I'm gonna build a forensic lab of the future. - Here we're building kind of a molecular library of that DNA, so we're getting many copies of it, breaking it up into itty-bitty pieces, in each of the pieces like a book in the library that describes some component of the information about that case. And what this is is the most powerful sequencer on Earth. - How often are you calling law enforcement and saying, "Hey, I think we've got to hit." - Every day, now, every day. So we've seen it all. We've worked on a body that was found in a sewage tank for decades. We've worked on remains from 1881, and these are things that weren't possible a few years ago. - Making the impossible possible, helping families in law enforcement find answers like in the 1974 abduction and murder of 17-year-old Carla Walker. - Took my whole family. We were still a close family, but it was never the same. - Authorum was able to process a tiny DNA sample from Carla's Broadstrap. Those results, along with some good detective work, led investigators to arrest Glenn McCurley in 2020. - I got a call around mere six o'clock p.m. And one of the investigating detectives said, "Well, we got 'em." And he told me, "Glenn, Samuel, McCurley." And I'd never heard that name. - Glenn McCurley was sentenced to life in prison for Carla's murder last year. - With the work that you've done, what do you think forensics is gonna look like in 10 years? - So I think we'll live in a world where there are no backlogs. - So you think that you think that this could prevent crime in the future? - I think it'd become a deterrent for crime. I would definitely think twice. I think if you've left DNA at a crime scene, it's a matter of time before someone like us or us processes that crime scene. - Mm-hmm. - Let's hope so. - It's just amazing, you know? And this is just now sort of scratching the surface of the abilities of Hawthorne Labs and other labs that do this type of work. Just absolutely incredible. And when we apply it to this case, and we realize that DNA from this woman, Sandra Castilla, who was murdered in 1993, and her body found outside of Southampton in Eastern Long Island, and then other parts of her body were found in Gilgo. And she was identified Rex Ewan's hair, a hair underneath her body, and the hair from his ex-wife was also found. And that's how he has been charged with this murder also. And that was the biggest blockbuster information we got in June that they added a murder from 1993 to Rex Ewan who would have been 29 years old at that time. And which is also scary because now we know, wow, that goes back, what, 31 years? - Yeah. - And did he start then, or did he start before that, Mike? - Yeah, that's the intriguing thing about this. This DNA is so good, and the science is so good. And author and lab is so good at what they do that, you know, it goes back over 30 years that they're able to do this. So it begs the question, if there's a body that they found that maybe they didn't really think about a bone or, you know, skull or something like that. They didn't know anything else, they couldn't identify it. We know there's a girl, I think, her name is Peaches. There's somebody called her that because she had a tattoo. There was a little child, there was an Asian gentleman, short-domainative Asian gentleman that they found. It gives hope to their families that maybe, if you can go back 31 years and be able to do testing and get positive results, that maybe for their loved ones that are, you know, we're missing for 35 years or 25 years that haven't yet been attached to a human that there may be justice for them. It's a fantastic thing. It gives everyone a little bit more hope. And it keeps, you know what, it keeps the public interest, it keeps the politicians interested in it, and it keeps the funding for the Gilgo Beach Task Force in play and also having the personnel right there so that this isn't a slowing down and a slowing dismantling of the squad. You've got these people together. They've been working hard for over two years now. And, you know, they got the technology and it gives a lot of hope to a lot of other people and it's fantastic. So, I would imagine somewhere between now and when Mr. Huerman goes to trial, probably maybe next summer or something like that, maybe next fall, that there may be at least one more fingers crossed, that maybe there's at least one or two more families that get justice for their loved one through the work that Arthur Lab does with DNA, just fingers crossed. - You know, these pictures that showed him, which were recently recovered also, a news nation put them out there. I'm gonna play a little bit of this, but this puts them out in Manneville at a gun club. - A gun club close to where two dismembered bodies were found. This isn't a remote part of Suffolk County, New York. I wanna take you to this. You can see Huerman at the gun range. Now, a shooting instructor now coming forward, saying Huerman was a gun enthusiast who regularly competed at the Peconic River Sportsman's Club. Now, police already visiting this gun club, we know asking for the records there since the two dismembered bodies were found nearby in Manneville Woods. Now, investigators believe Huerman was at the gun club the day before Jessica Taylor disappeared. And Nicole, we're also tracking this right now, an attorney connected to victims in the Gilgo Beach murders, holding a news conference today, making many assertions, including that the Huerman's family may be involved. This is despite police saying the family was out of town at the time of the murders. Now, Huerman, the married father of two, was first charged in the murder of four women, known as the Gilgo Four. We know though, just last week, he was also charged in the deaths of Sandra Castilla and Jessica Taylor, who were found dead in those woods near the gun club, bringing the total to six victims. He's now accused of killing. Of course, we'll keep tracking this, Nicole. - All right, Natasha, thank you. I'd like to welcome in now, Missy Maris, legal analyst and trial attorney for some more legal perspective on this case. Missy, thank you for your time. First of all, let's start with these photos. How damning are these, you know, 2006 photos showing Huerman at a gun club, just a few miles away from where remains were found? - Isn't it so interesting how the electronic footprint is placed such a central role in this case? So now there's photographs from 2006, placing him in Mannerville, right around the time of when these remains were allegedly placed there. So this is really, really something for the prosecutors to focus on. 'Cause keep in mind, obviously, you have aged forensic evidence because these crimes were committed so long ago. And so when the forensics are being done contemporaneously now, even though there's been great developments, from the prosecutor's perspective, putting him in the area is certainly something that's going to be very impactful for the case. - You know, Mike, from the police perspective, that means everything because that means he was familiar with that area. - He resigned to that area several times. And again, that puts the bodies in that area, it puts recheum in that area. He was known in that area. He felt comfortable in that area. That means everything, your thoughts. - Oh, absolutely. Because that's not a small, maybe indoor range. That is a large outdoor range. There's a lot of wooded area. It's far away from any other buildings. And apparently he was there often, you know, it could be five, six times in the course of 10 years. Who knows, 10 times? But he's familiar with the area. He knows how to get in that range. Out of that range, he knows how wooded it is out there, how deserted it is. He knows that that place is probably, you know, somewhere in the evening, it shuts down. He knows that there's probably nobody around that area, whatsoever, because there's no other reason to be driving around that area, unless you're going to the range. So knowing that it's a deserted area, you put him in that area. He can never say now that, "Oh, I have no idea where Manneville is." Really, you know, I'm from over here. That's over there. I'm not sure where it is. I've never been there. No, we actually have proof of you on that range in that area on a specific date and time. That shows familiarity with the terrain. That's excellent to help convince as part of circumstantial evidence. It helps convince a jury that he could absolutely be the person who put the two bodies in that area. 100%. All right, so then now I want to talk about the second thing that Natasha mentioned there. The fact, you know, John Ray opting to hold this press conference to release this information. What are your thoughts about that? Well, I watched the whole thing. And I was pretty stunned because this was really, really focused on Victoria Heurman. She's a 27-year-old daughter of Rex Heurman. And he's a defense attorney. So we know that the prosecutors from all the charging documents that we've seen have made a very specific point to say that Rex Heurman, part of his modus operandi, was to engage in these horrific acts while his family was out of town. Prosecutors have said time and time again, his family, there's no evidence that they were involved. But this defense attorney made a very bold statement, specifically relating to Victoria Heurman. And to back it up, he used what she was reading online and art that she created, and art that she looked at of other creators, which can only be described as disturbing. But to make that leap and the insinuation that she was involved in Rex Heurman's acts, that is really, that's a big statement to make. So I was a little surprised that the defense attorney went that far to say that, especially since prosecutors have been so clear on the link between Rex Heurman's family and the burgers, which is nothing. - Which is nothing, and I do want to say that the families continue to maintain their innocence. Is there a possibility at some point that his family could potentially be implicated in this? - Well, there certainly isn't. It's important to understand what it means to be an accomplice. So an accomplice is anyone who was involved in the planning? - So folks, we've spoken about this before, and even though the police have cleared Rex Heurman's family from then satisfied that they weren't involved in this. Others from the outside have insisted that they are involved, that they have evidence that you know, John Ray, attorney John Ray, has signed affidavits of people that swear that they've done certain things. But even with all of that extraneous information, Ray Tierney, who is the Suffolk County District Attorney, says no, the families that are not involved were satisfied they're not involved. We're not looking at them. So to us and to many people that follow this case, we can't really take that too seriously because the arbiters of justice here and the people that are gonna put forth this case is the Suffolk County District Attorney in the Gilgo Beach Task Force, not some defense attorneys on the outside looking in. Mike. - Billy, John Ray's a very colorful guy. We've had him on the show. People know him from the Shannon Gilbert case. Now, he's very, very colorful. He's like, he's very provocative in what he says. He wants to serve the pot a little bit. But what he calls evidence, the word evidence, is not evidence, it's just stories and presumptions. Nothing becomes evidence until it can be corroborated through a police investigation and say, okay, in that statement, we can prove this, we can prove that, we can prove that. Okay, we got it. Okay, it's a really, really reliable statement. That goes into the evidence category. What he's talking about is art that the creative side of Ms. Sherman, where she's creating art, she's looking at other people's art. She has a picture of herself online where there's all kinds of interesting lighting and stuff like that, not just a regular full on shot, facial shot. This is creative stuff by young kids. And to jump from saying that shows that she has a disturbed mind, and she is really part of this because she's taking pictures and looking at pictures and creating art and looking at art that kind of eerily looks like some of the mirror, some of the crime scenes, perhaps, in the Gilgo Beach case. That is the height of irresponsibility. And I hope that people don't even think that it's evidence. It's just irresponsible, defamatory presumptions by someone who should know better. And that, as they said, that attorney said on the video, his MO, his modus operandi, how he operates is in secret. You know, statistically, like 90% of all serial killers act in secret. It would be really odd for him not to act in secret to be acting in conjunction with somebody else, because once two people know something, it's no longer a secret. So, yeah, it's terrible what they did to that poor girl. You know, we can't talk about people's tastes and art and things like that, and try to connect that to, without anything else, connect that to a crime, this horrible, totally terrible, irresponsible, I hope people don't even listen to Johnny Gray. - Absolutely, folks, this police off the cuff, real crime stories, if you like real crime, true crime, from a police perspective, you're in the right place. And if you're not subscribed, go on YouTube, hit that subscribe button, give us a thumbs up, ring that bell and share us with your friends and family. If you wanna contribute to us financially, we have a Patreon with four different levels. We also have a YouTube channel membership with count of five different levels, and you can contribute to this show that way. You know, Newsday did a wonderful video of, from the time, Rex Ewan, and sort of a collage of what's happened in this case in the last year, and going back a little further. - Gilgo Beach, one of Long Island's most serene stretches of shoreline, now synonymous with a pseudo-killings that haunted the community for 14 years. - I've been asked about the theory that it's one serial killer. Facts of the case indicate one person. - What is now very clear is that the area in and around Gilgo Beach has been used to discard human remains for some period of time. - Melissa or Felamy, one day, and then they found another body, and then another body, and then another body. - This is the man police say used Gilgo Beach as a dumping ground for his victims. Six-year-old Rex Sherman from Massapequapart. - Rex Sherman is a demon that walks among us, a predator that ruined families. - Heurman is charged with six murders and is a suspect in a seventh. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Right now, investigators are looking to link him to other cold case killings. - Every case, every person who's tragically murdered in Suffolk County, they're in play. - Now prosecutors are taking us inside the accused killer's manifesto, what they call a murder road map in the details and how he tried to avoid arrest. - These young women went missing between July of 2007 and September of 2010. For the next 13 years, their cases went unsolved. Until today. (tires screeching) - After more than a decade, police make an arrest. Right here where I'm standing in midtown Manhattan, July 13th, 2023. - This is surveillance video showing the moment the view rests on a crowded city street. Hours later, we got our first look at the accused serial killer. - This is the suspect in the Gilgo Beach murder case being led to court, sources tell Newsday, his name is Rex Heurman. For the longest time for 13 years, we have no idea who the suspect may be. And then last July 13, police unveiled his name and now we had a face to go with this suspect. - As technology advanced, so did the investigation. In 2022, DNA evidence and digital forensics began to piece together the puzzle that led to Heurman, investigators scraped DNA from pizza crusts and stray hairs to tie the victims to him. Burner's cell phone data in a 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche were also key in the investigation. - A significant break in the case was the Avalanche and the fact that this guy, you know, he was described by witnesses in Ogre. He matched the description of the Ogre. It was his physical size where he lived, where he worked. Then you start looking into him and then you start getting burner phones. We had up to seven burner phones. He's using these fictitious email addresses. - Heurman was first identified as a suspect in Amberlyn Costello's death in March of 2022. Investigators linked him to a pickup truck reportedly seen by a witness in 2010. According to the indictment, detectives found credit card payments and phone calls made by Heurman in the same area where someone used burner phones to contact several of the victims before they disappeared. Detectives also said they found searches on other serial killers and sex workers, sadistic torture related pornography and child pornography on a burner email account investigators tied to Heurman. (dramatic music) A key breakthrough came in 2023. The surveillance team had observed the pizza box and were confident that the DNA profile would be consistent with the defendant because he left that material inside the box. And so the Google swap just erases all down. Over the years, police slowly released other evidence. - For a long time, there was no news that came out of the Skilgo Beach investigation. And then Jerry Hart really cracked that open. - A significant piece of evidence found at one of the crime scenes along Ocean Parkway. A black leather belt embossed with the letters H.M. or W.H. was recovered during the initial stages of this investigation. - You know, Mike, I wanna comment upon that because I think that, you know, in New York City, you know, and I was in the Detective Bureau for 16 years as a boss. And the Detective Bureau in the New York City Police Department likes to use the public and the press to help them with cases. And for many, many years in the Google Beach case, they did not do that. And this former Suffolk County Police Commissioner, Geraldine Hart, who was a former FBI agent, she's an attorney also. She put this piece of evidence out that there was sitting dormant in an evidence locker for 12, 13 years. What good was it doing there? Let's put it out there. See if anyone recognizes it, you know? And that started maybe opening up the eyes to, well, there wasn't even a task force yet, but when the task force was finally formed, I believe in 2022, they were like, well, we're gonna put all our minds together, reread this whole case, pick out everything, and we're gonna share information with the public because we're gonna use the public to help us because what's better, 25 people in a task force or 3 million people that live on Long Island that potentially could know something. Don't forget the famous expression that came to Vogue in New York City after 9/11. It was, if you see something, say something. And that applies to a case like this. And here we have Geraldine Hart, and she was the first one that started to do this, and then maybe it opened up their eyes to continue to do this. - We believe that the belt was handled by the suspect and did not belong to any of the victims. - One of humans, grandfathers was William Huberman. Investigators say Maureen Brainard Barnes was bound with the belt. - I think the way the information has come out over the years by me is just kind of little bits of evidence being presented. - In 2022, Soviet police released a video showing victim Megan Waterman in a hot-pock hotel just before she vanished. - Based on what we know, right now, we believe she didn't leave the hotel that night to meet her killer. - And even since the arrest, how we keep just kind of learning a little bit more of the stories that we're getting out with, these little clues to how things are gonna progress has had people even more fascinated by it. People really trying to look ahead, you know, who's next? Is he the sole killer of all the victims at Kilgo Beach? - This is a planning document, and it was utilized by Uriman to methodically blueprint and plan out his skills. In June, prosecutors revealed what they called humans manifesto details and how they say he selected, killed, and disposed of his victims. - He talks about potential D.S.'s, which we allege are dump sites, and the dump site being Mill Road. If you look at the case, Jessica Taylor was left on Halsey Manor Road. That bisects with Mill Road, and Valerie Mack was found in the vicinity of Mill Road. The crime scenes, the similarities are there. You can certainly say, at this point, defendant is a suspect in that case. - Investigators found the document during the search of Uriman's home in March. They say he created it in the year 2000 and modified it over several years on a hard drive in the basement of his home. - The exact method by which these murders were committed, in excruciating detail, in that document, is in some cases identical to the methodology used to murder the six victims. - It's a list of items that someone might need if they were to commit a killing and dispose of a body. It's a list of things not to do. - Through that planning document, it details pre-prep stage, prep stage, post-prep stage, and a lot of considerations. In one of the sections, they talk about hanging tarps and plastic, don't use tape, use push pins. - So all of this is just tremendous, tremendous evidence. Because remember, we were told that this document was found, it was encrypted, and it was a word document. So he also, besides the fact that he used this document to plan what he was going to do, he also used it to remind himself of the methods to use so as not to get caught, to thwart the police investigation. So as a piece of evidence, this is an incredible piece of evidence. - Billy, he's a very formidable foe. He was looking at the FBI, that book, My Hunter, trying to see how the FBI would go about investigating a serial killer. He had his list, that manifesto, the do's and don'ts. Do get enough sleep, don't do this. Do use disposable gloves, don't do that. I mean, that shows you that he had the time, and when he was thinking about selecting, killing, and then at the end, cleaning up the crime scene. Wear booties, wear a hair net, it was even stuff like that. That's how specific it was. He was trying to figure out every single possible angle that he possibly could not to leave a bit of DNA or any clue whatsoever. Strangely, if that belt belonged that Maureen Bader Barnes was tied up with was from his grandfather, that would show a ridiculous lapse in judgment. But he's a human being, and he has had lapses in judgment. But he was very formidable, and he was very controlling, very careful, and that is what kept him from being caught. Not that the task force, now he didn't have a task force early on, but he was making sure that no matter how the cases were investigated, he would make sure that there was no genetic blueprint of his fingerprints, nothing at all, scientifically to connect him to the killings. That shows you just how smart he was in doing what he did for all those years. - Well, it under the things to remember, sound travels burned outside control the amount of air in and out to control the noise made. Get sleep before hunt. Too tired creates problems. To what hunt? What was he hunting for? - Well, human beings, human beings, he was hunting. Hit harder, too many hits to take down, consider hit to the face or neck, next time for take down. How disturbing is that? More sleep and noise control, more play time. Use push pins to hang drop clothes from sealing that tape. The reason that is because you can leave your fingerprints on tape, and that's what he was concerned with. Use heavy rope, and he's spelled heavy, H-E-V-E-Y, for neck, light rope broke on the stress of being tightened. I mean, just absolutely horrific, the things he's underlining, and things he's telling in this document, basically admissions for when he gets caught. - So what we wanted to do is we wanted to see if we could find areas where we have evidence, adhesive tape or evidence of where pins are being used. We think we found some of those locations using infrared light as well as the naked eye. The document features a series of checklists with tasks to complete before, during, and after the killings, as well as practical lessons for, next time. Among the dozens of entries written, there are reminders to clean the bodies and destroy evidence and to get sleep before hunt. - Well, that planning document also talks about be careful. Don't charge gas. Be careful with regard to anything you purchase being traced back. There's an effort, we allege, through that document that shows these items that he's buying, he's specifically making sure that you can trace it back. - One section titled "Things to Remember" appears to highlight lessons from previous killings. Prosecutors said such as using heavier rope and limiting noise in order to maximize play time. - There's some evidence of him, you know, having gone back and read Tuesday articles about one of the killings. He certainly seemed to be studying other serial killers, but also studying law enforcement and trying to find ways to avoid being caught. He studied books by John Douglas, a prolific serial killer profile. - With regard to that specific book "Mindhunter," it is in that planning document. It's our allegation that the defendant was utilizing that book not to gain insight into his own conduct, but rather to see what the conduct of law enforcement is. Rex Huerman of Massa Pico Park was back in court in Riverhead today, now charged with killing six women. The new charges, the 2003 murder of Jessica Taylor and the 1993 killing of Sandra Castilla. Taylor's remains were found along Ocean Parkway and Mannerville. Castillas were discovered in North Sea. - This year has been 21 years since she was taken from us, longer than the chance that she got to be alive. I can't express what this day means after waiting and hoping for answers. - You look at all of the six victims, so many similarities. Young women who were at a tough point in their life and were really exploited, so sad stories. - Castilla was reported missing in 1993. This really expands the case because the Gilgo IV certainly were in the 2000s, but this really expanded the scope and the timeline of the investigation. - Now to think that, again, it goes back to 1993 with Sandra Castilla, and to think that it may have started before that because Rex Huerman was 29 in 1993. And according to serial killer expert, Dr. Gary Bukato, most serial killers start when they're about 26 years old. So if that is true in the case of Rex Huerman, he may have started three years earlier or more than that earlier. So that is why it's so important to keep this case alive and keep the investigation alive, to try and find more cases that can be tied to this monster, as Rodney Harrison described them as. - Yeah, Billy, the DNA technology is the best tool that criminal justice has police agencies have because it's expensive to use, but it is absolutely 100% sure when we're looking at the video about the Othon Labs, Ms. Middleton-Christine was asked, "Will this prevent crime?" Well, it may not prevent an initial crime because a lot of crime is done out of passion, jealousy, rage and all these other things, but it can surely prevent subsequent crime. So serial killers may be a thing of the past. You may not be able to stop a person because from doing a killing in the beginning, the first one because they're not thinking about it, they're thinking they're just maybe they're enraged, whatever their motive is, they're not thinking, "Oh my God, my DNA." They may not think that way, but you certainly will prevent any subsequent killings and that's fantastic. So you hope that with the advances made that it continues and that you can give justice to so many cold cases, cold case files that you have. So long as there's a little bit of hair, a little bit of skin cells, a little bit of blood or anything like that, just need one little slide and that's all it's needed. So it will give hope to a lot of people. Many families will be grateful for that even though justice may come decades and decades later. But if you are a police detective, you're a homicide detective, you live to help the victims and get justice for the victims. So even if it's delayed, it is at least justice. So it's fantastic and that plus the cell phone technology is amazing too. Those are two fantastic features of the Gilgo Beach case that are putting people like Rex Sherman behind bars where he belongs. - Absolutely. Recently, Ray Tierney was on WPAX. I wanna play a little bit of what he had to say. - Once again, this massive search inside the home. So what can you tell us was found and why you decided to go back in that second time? - So there was a number of investigative steps that we felt we needed to take. Chief among those were the search out east, which we did with the dogs and a number of other agencies, as well as going back into the house. We've again, we're collecting a lot of evidence. We're going through that evidence. A lot of that evidence is going to be trace evidence, blood DNA, that type of stuff, which we're searching for. So we'll just have to wait for the forensic scientists to go through that evidence. And among the evidence that we had previously found, which caused us to do that was chief among them was the planning document, which we allege is a document where the defendant invents his intent to murder the six charged crimes. - And based on that document, we learned serious disturbing details of how he was making notes, basically, on how he wanted to kill again and what he would change and what he would do to the women that he was allegedly torturing. Based on that document and what else you found in that house, do you change your stance on what you believe his estranged wife knew? - No, I think that if there's one thing that's been consistent throughout the case is that there's no evidence that the defendant active in concert with anyone else, all of these crimes appear to have been committed by him and him alone. In addition, when you look at all of the six charged murders, we have been able to establish that, the wife and the family were out of town when these incidents occurred. So which would give the defendant unfettered time to commit these acts. - You know, Huermann was initially charged with the deaths of those Gogo 4, right? That was the first press conference you had about a year ago. But since then, he's been charged with two more. And now you're back there looking for more evidence, right? We know about the blueprint and the big question here is could there be, since there were a lot of other murders along Long Island, how many more potential victims to be tied to Huermann? What are you looking at here? - Yeah, so as prosecutors, you know, we don't talk about what we think happened. We talked about what we could prove and we speak through indictment. So as you said, initially he was charged with three out of the four Gogo 4. Later, he was charged with the murder of brain or bones, the fourth victim in that group. And then subsequent to that, he has been charged with Sandra Castilla and Jessica Taylor. And as we've said all along, the investigation is evolving. It originated with the Gogo 4. Now it's moved beyond, you know, and to not only the other bodies on Gogo, but as well as other bodies in Suffolk County. And I think the latest indictment events is that because Sandra Castilla was not on Gogo where a portion of Jessica Taylor's remains were found. - So you're saying it is possible that there could be potentially more victims tied to him as the case progresses? - Where again, we're going to keep on working. There are, the investigation is a large sprawling in both scope and time and we're going to work through it and we won't have any comment until we're able to, if we're able to lodge additional charges. - Are you looking at Rex Heurman as a potential suspect in the bodies that were found in Mannerville near the Brookhaven Lab? - You know, again, the way we look at cases is we start from the prime scene and we work our way back. We don't come in with any preconceived ideas about who may or may not have done it. So each body is a different crime scene. We start at that crime scene and we work our way out and we don't talk about it until we're ready to make a charge. - Yeah, and hypotheticals, right? Nobody wants to hear about the hypothetical, but I guess that there's a big question about the timeline, right? And when this all potentially began in the age of some of these workers, and now you've interviewed hundreds of sex workers who have claimed to have had encounters now with Heurman, which date back to more than 30 years ago. So could this have all began? I know it's a hypothetical again, but could it have began 30 years ago? - Well, I mean, I think, you know, the allegation is, the earliest one is Sandra Castillo, which is 1993, which puts us back in that timeframe. So, you know, anything is really in play, but again, it's the evidence which dictates and it's what we can prove, not what we think. - I want to ask you, based on what was discovered in Heurman's house, all of the evidence, including that blueprint, what surprise do you most? - I don't think anything surprised me. I think the thing about these cases is really, anything is on the table, and you just have to go in, again, with no preconceived ideas and just follow the evidence. And, you know, all of, I would submit that all of the investigative steps we took were necessary and were dictated by, you know, what the previous investigation revealed. We first identified Mr. Heurman as a suspect, and that's all he is, is a suspect at this point, March 14th of 2022. And we've been, you know, working ever since to try to establish more evidence. - Yeah, and I think going back into the home, surprised many, right? Because you spent a number of days in the original time you were there. Did you get everything you needed from the house or is there potentially another reason you'd go back in? - Well, I mean, I think the reason why we went back to the second time is because we gathered a tremendous amount of evidence, including a tremendous amount of digital evidence. - Yeah. - Many of that evidence was encrypted, so we had an unencrypted, and we had to evaluate it. So that took a while, the planning document, which is referenced in our bail letter, we discovered that in March of this year. And based upon that, we went back in based on what we saw from the earlier search. - Yeah, DA, we're almost out of time. I do, we're out of time. I just want to get real quick on what happened to the next court date. - So again, you know, unfortunately cases aren't light TV, especially cases like this, when we go on back to all the way to 1993. Tremendous amount of forensic digital and other evidence and documents, which we have to provide to the defense. We've been doing that, we're going to continue to do that. - Mike, I can't even imagine the amount of discovery for a case like this. And both for the prosecution and the defense, because the defense of course, has to go through this before they can competently represent Rex human, who of course, you know, we have to say is innocent, so proven guilty, but the amount of evidence, and we don't even know about the evidence that they've recovered from the storage facilities, that they also had warrants for. So they had, you know, his house, which they served two search warrants on. They had the storage facility. They had his office in the city. They had all those burner phones, which I'm all talking about, all different types of search warrants. They had the DNA, the pizza crust, that was compared with garbage thrown out in their house, which of course, they wouldn't need a warrant for, 'cause it's taken surreptitiously, and we love that word on the show, right? And yeah, his old, the truck, the Chevy Avalanche, the amount of search warrants, just the evidence that the search warrants generated of voluminous in themselves. And then documentary evidence, just incredible amount of evidence to think that, could it be that this case could be, I'm sure it's not gonna go till 2025, could it be 2026? Could they even put it off that long? Billy, I think it's possible. I mean, look, Ray Charity is head of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office. He's the DA, and you've got this task force, and they've been operating since of like January of 2022. You know, just think about all the information that they've gathered, all that they've taken. Not everything they've taken has turned out to be evidence, but they had to go through all those items, and they'd come up with tremendous amount of evidence that they're gonna use that's inculpatory to Rex Sherman. It proves that he did this crime, the crimes that have been committed. Mr. Brown, Mike Brown has his workout for him, because he does not have the task force. How is he gonna afford to get a task force together that can actually be, say, a bunch of retired detectives, like you and Phil, hire them, get like a half a dozen of them to go through all the discovery that's come in from the District Attorney's Office, and into now Michael Brown's office. He's gotta go through it all. I think you're right, this could go next summer, but it may not, it may not go, who knows? Up until 2026, it depends on how many continuances Michael Brown wants, and the judge is willing to grant. And I imagine in this kind of case, the judge will be very lenient, because A, here is not going anywhere. B, everyone realizes it's a tremendous amount of evidence, and it's not just a couple of witness statements. There's all kinds of electronic evidence, it's all kind of DNA evidence. And Michael Brown is gonna need some sort of DNA specialist to go and maybe try to figure out what are the grounds that you can attack, the viability and the reliability of the evidence. So I expect that the earliest this is gonna go, would maybe be close to next Christmas 2025, but you're right. Who knows how long this is gonna be, but the amount of evidence is overwhelming, and I'm sure Michael Brown is shaking his head every time there is a dump of evidence, especially after the last two. Ms. Taylor and Ms. Castillo's, because now that's in addition to the four others that he had. So this is gonna be a while, people should be patient, because you wanna do this right, you get one shot at it and you wanna do it right. And Ray Tierney is taking his time with it, they're methodical, they're slow, they're uncovering things very slowly. Like he said once before, going through all that evidence before, especially with the computers, you've got, and stuff is encrypted. It's encrypted with technology dating back to the early 2000s, and so you've got to get encryption devices that could actually handle that dated material before you even can retrieve it. It's just, and then you've got to interpret it, it's a remarkable amount of evidence. So I think probably, like you say, it's gonna be quite a long period of time before this actually goes to trial. - Absolutely, you know, about 10 months ago, we had Sheriff Errol Toulan on. I just wanted to play a little bit of this great asset to this case, great guy, 40-something year correction career. I think it's 43 years. Like Professor Mike said before is that I was a little bit astounded when Rodney Harrison came in, and one of the things he said, I believe in his Newsday interview, and I'll refer to that, is that he was very surprised when he did an overview of the case, and he found out that there was only one detective assigned to the case, and he was still catching other cases. So that is a clear sign that there wasn't any immediacy to this, and he needed to inject that into the case, and by establishing again that test force, and I don't wanna beat this to death, but it was a great idea, and you bring everyone together, and like in a major homicide investigation, which of course was the most major, you sit everyone down, you sit all the players down, what do you got? And you let everyone talk, and you leave the egos at the door, and you take what everyone says as very important, and you work on what everyone says, the direction, and establish a direction, and obviously right away, because it took them six weeks to find out the owner of that green Chevy Avalanche. Six weeks after not knowing it for 12 years. Incredible, and again, they speak about the box, we spoke about that last night, with Commissioner Patrick Ryder, the NASA County PC, the box, and we can oversimplify that, but if anyone's ever worked with cell phone technology, you gotta be a miniature scientist to yourself, it's not an easy thing. So when they oversimplify it, and say, yes, the box, the massive people park, the calls were made from Freeport, he made calls using the victim's cell phones to their family from massive people park. It hit in Manhattan, he must have an office in Manhattan. All of these things, we all know, when we read that 32 page synopsis of 13 years of work, and we say, oh, this case was a cakewalk. There's nothing about this case that was a cakewalk, but when you put competence in charge, and you put a task force together, and you put very competent people together that are motivated, great things can happen. - And as you said earlier, no egos and no silos, which is so important in everybody feeling comfortable to share every little piece of information, or not, in some task force, I'm sure you're both of, you know, they may only share with one or two partners in the task force, not the entire task force, because someone wants to get the credit. For me, it was a matter of just doing our little part to assist the other four partners, because we had a very small role, but we were included because we do have sex workers, we did have a unit that interviewed sex workers going back to 2018, and so that expertise, that my step had, was able to establish now, as we move forward, because we have someone in custody, interviewing all the sex workers that are, and currently in our custody, all the sex workers that were previously in our custody, all the sex workers that may never come into our custody, who other sex workers may know, that there's a trust factor to say, you can speak to Sergeant so-and-so, or correctional officer so-and-so, because they're not going to hurt you, and so we're able to gather information, whether it's good or bad, or I should say not good or bad, but good or not useful, we can then at least present it to the task force, because that's where our expertise lies. - You know, Sheriff, I believe also that the sex workers, escorts, if you will, people that used to advertise on Craigslist, I believe it's a very small community, and that community speaks to each other. And as you can testify to, when that community gets incarcerated, even for a very short period of time, they may want to spill the beans, they may want to tell something. They, look, when I was on the street, even in homicide or in anti-crime, prostitutes on the street were excellent witnesses. They would give us information, and historically, that is the case, and people don't always realize that. And even in this case, a lot of people, like they get upset when you call these people, what they do, this was their job, they were sex workers. So we got to call it that we can't put a sugar coat on it and say, oh, they visit people, or they're going on dates. No, this is really, the common denominator is really, it's prostitution. But that's a very unpopular word these days, so you make it a little softer by calling them sex workers. But again, it's a very dangerous profession. It's a profession that many or most of these people are addicted to drugs or alcohol or some other thing to anesthetize their pain, and perhaps their life isn't going so well. And so using all of those things is what we call in the law enforcement world, intelligence and getting information that they have undoubtedly have tons of intelligence. And I asked you earlier, and I'm gonna ask you again now, on the air, how many people have come forward, and you don't actually even give a number, but people will come forward that say, oh, I went out with Rex Ewan and this is what happened. And if the person survived, then we know that Rex Ewan didn't kill every person that he went out with, or every sex worker that he called, or everyone that he met with, and nothing happened. But perhaps that didn't happen a lot of times. I don't know what your feelings are like. - You know, from our interviews, there were very, very few that claim to have met Mr. Herman, and even the ones that did make those claims, we're still vetting to make sure that the times were accurate, the dates were accurate, what they're saying is accurate. And so all that information is presented to the task force to see the accurate or validate the accuracy of what their statements are. And you're so right, many of these women are addicted to drugs, they have mental health issues. And you know, we've learned in our investigation because over the course from 2018 until now, you know, we've interviewed over 7,000 women. So interviewing that many women, and really interviewing period, not interviewing them specifically for Gilgo. Since Gilgo, since he's been arrested, we've interviewed a little over 100 women, both incarcerated and not incarcerated. But what we've learned from these women are how they communicate with each other, with using the last four digits of a phone number to say that 0001 is a person that will tip very well, or 0001 is an individual that's overly aggressive or has certain features during that particular act. And you know, if a woman says that a person is aggressive or violent or whatever the case may be, you have to take it that these women are engaging in a lot of acts. And if someone is making those claims, and we're still, like I said, vetting to validate these statements, you know, we have to take them on their face value because, excuse me, they are women that engage, they know it's violent, they know it's aggressive, they know someone that's a good tipper, and they know someone that's not. - Absolutely, Mike, have any thoughts on this? - Yeah, Billy, people don't realize it. Thank you, Sheriff, for saying that, and Billy, thank you also because a lot of people who may not be in law enforcement don't realize how valuable speaking two prostitutes are, speaking two call girls are, because they're out there late at night. They see a lot of guys who are just drunk, maybe they're just looking for a good time. They also may see a lot of guys who are really sick, perverted deviance, and they see cars coming by looking to pick up girls. They might not know the license plate, they might not look at the license plate, but they see the names, I'm sorry, they see the faces, they get descriptions, and if you actually just treat them as human beings, and give them at least a little bit of respect because we are all God's children, you can actually get them to talk to you, and you can do that. - I knew the priestly side of you would come out and listen to you. - Okay, that was the priestly side of you, Mike, but I love Sheriff Toulan, what a great name. I mean, he was on the show twice. I thought it was such a great idea that within the Gilgo Beach Task Force, they had the jail component that interviewed sex workers, interviewed escorts when they were incarcerated, and that information was shared with the Task Force. I don't know if they ever got any information that actually was extremely fruitful and led to other things, but nonetheless, it's a great idea that they did that. - Yeah, Billy, it's like another component of the case against Rex Sherman, any little bit of evidence. Remember what the Task Force was formed in 2022, and within just a couple of weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, they had that report of the Chevy Avalanche and the six foot five guy ogre, 300 pound ogre, it was sitting around this really important piece of paper had not been distributed, had been sitting in a file somewhere, probably stuck out a file in a box and thrown in a closet and locked. So a little thing, one small thing that can be corroborated, which helps, one small thing that gives a lead on somebody, the color of a car, remember, after they found that piece of paper, they had, they found the Google Earth image of the house and lo and behold, what was in front of the house was the Chevy Avalanche. So now you've got corroboration of this report that was made like say eight years earlier, it's fabulous. So whatever little bit of information here and there that Sheriff Toulotte and the correctional staff got from these ladies, that helps cement the case against Rex Sherman and that's important. No matter where it comes from, if it can be validated, it can be corroborated, it goes from being a story to being evidence and that's fantastic. - Absolutely, you know, one of the things I think that bothers many people, and of course, I'm gonna play a little bit of this, and this is of course the Shannon Gilbert case, and I'll play this and then we'll talk about it a little bit. (indistinct) - Hi. - Hi. - Is there any accident? - Where are you? - There's only accident. - Okay, where are you? - There's only accident. - Where are you now? - There's a girl. - I'm driving right now? - No, I'm driving right now. - I'm sorry. - Where's that house? - Where? - I don't know. - Where did you play 'em? - I'm sorry. - Where did you play 'em? - No, I can't. - What's your fault that number you're calling from? - Um, what's your number you calling from? - A little doctor, please. - Hey, just tell me you're not the kind. - Um, how do you know that one? - Where are you going? - I don't know how to play 'em. - Okay, let's go. - Let's go. - Let's go. - Let's go. - Let's go. - Let's go. - Let's go. - Let's go, let's go. - Suffolk County Police released that 22-minute 9-1-1 phone call from 24-year-old Shannon Gilbert the night she disappeared in 2010. And during the early morning hours of May 1st, Shannon traveled to meet a client. She called 9-1-1 when she believed she was in danger, she was found deceased, and the crazy thing is, is that she was not one of the women that Huberman is suspected of killing, but it was while searching for her that police uncovered the remains of Melissa Bartholomew, one of the original Gilgo IV. Then they found the other three, which pointed them to a possible serial killer. Again, Huberman has not been charged in connection with Shannon's death. It was declared an accident, though I should tell you, her loved ones do believe she is one of his victims. Now, she was a sex worker, like many of the other women in around the same age, so you can see why people are making the connection. And Huberman has been accused of living a double life. In the years from 2010, and maybe even earlier, until Rex Uriman's arrest last year, he was apparently believed to be living a double life as a New York City architect. He commuted to Manhattan each day from Massapequa Park, a suburb on Long Island, where he lived with his wife, Asa Elleroth, and their children, Victoria and Christopher. His wife, Asa, filed for divorce shortly after his arrest, and then revealed she was fighting cancer. And not surprisingly, his indictments and the horror of the charges against him are said to have turned this family upside down. But what was it, just last month? His family, specifically his now adult daughter, Victoria, came into the spotlight. Why? Because an accusation surfaced that she might not have been totally unaware of Huberman's darker side, as laid out by John Ray, who's an attorney that represents the families of some of the Gilgo Beach victims. Victoria, according to him, may have had some connection, or at least interest in her father's alleged obsession with brutal murders. - Rex Uriman's porn is matched by his daughter's tastes, his daughter's work. These people are in our society. They're cannibals, they're monsters, they're human devils, they're evil. The Horrimans are part of that pact. - So yeah, in a press conference on June 13th, Ray spoke to reporters and essentially accused the alleged serial killer's 27-year-old daughter, Victoria, of posting these very graphic images to social media. Most are way too disturbing to show you here, but he presented them to reporters and described them as quote, unquote, evidence. Ray's team seems to be trying to make the connection between Huarman's apparently deviant lifestyle and the culture that his daughter was allegedly immersed in. He says the images could implicate Rex Uriman's family members, especially Victoria, in his crimes, but to be very clear, there is no evidence, no evidence whatsoever that substantiates that. And no evidence that substantiates that those online pages, those Tumblr pages are even actually victorious. So I wanna make that very clear. Now with all that being said, and with all that background, let's talk with forensic scientist, Jennifer Shen, about what is a very disturbing case. Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on. Police, they've collected a mountain of evidence, thousands of leads, even well before Huarman was arrested. How do they even go about processing all of that evidence? - Now, serial killer cases, especially ones that have gone on killings have gone for decades, provide so much evidence and each time they find a victim, it's a unique crime scene with its unique evidence. So the thing that investigators are trying to do is connect all of the evidence from all the different scenes. So when you get a scene like this and you have so much overwhelming evidence, you just have to set out a plan. You start, for instance, with the cell phone and the electronic data and you start from one end and slowly work your way to the other. One of the things that's very, very important about these kinds of cases is that you work them independently so that there's no transfer of evidence between the cases. So you wanna be extremely careful in a laboratory setting. For instance, if you're looking at trace evidence, hairs, fibers, that sort of thing, there's no way that you can transfer evidence from one set of evidence to another, from two different scenes. Because when you find specific evidence at each different scene location and they are the same, for instance, if you find the same fibers with the same hairs, you can connect the bodies, connect the scenes and then eventually connect to your killer. So it's very tedious work and it has to be done extremely carefully and with a very good plan in place. - And from a legal point of view, it's so important because if you have a defense attorney that can point to an instance where there was cross-contamination or there was something from one victim's case to another, that presented to a jury can be really problematic, okay? But there have been some very interesting forensic findings in this case and I mentioned a lot of them. But for instance, you have partial remains of one woman that was found in 1996. The rest of her body wasn't found and identified until 2011. Then DNA testing linked her to an unidentified baby found on Gilgo Beach. So how is that done? How does that speak to the quality of the police work in this case? - So, you know, Mike, so amazing all this stuff and now that after all these years, we're finally getting the answers to this. But I would have thought, like many people thought that there was more than one killer to these Gilgo Beach. And now from looking at this case, over time, I believe that this is rec human, all of it. And because of the way the bodies were spread all over the place and many other things, it's really hard to believe that it was one person, but that's what it appears to be at this point. - Yeah, he had, well, we believe a long career starting in the early 1990s. Now, right now we're going back to 1993 with Miss Castilla. There may be a body out there that we haven't yet recovered for that's from earlier times. You remember 1993, as you pointed out, he's like 29, 30 years old. So he's in the prime of his life and statistically right around that late 1920s is the, late 20s is the time that a serial killer will begin killing. And so now he's in his, he's around 60 and he was still making all kinds of crazy inquiries online search terms showing he still had an interest. Maybe physically he's slowed down a lot and he's not nearly as busy as he may have been in the past but he still has that interest. And that's one of the things that made him very dangerous is because the Gilgo Teach Beach Task Force was actually watching with a search warrant all of the search terms, knowing what he was doing each night, making inquiries so they realized this is a dangerous guy and they took him down on that New York City street in Midtown Manhattan where they did. They didn't want to let it go any longer because they were afraid that he would realize that they're watching him and change his patterns. Maybe you run, you have no idea, but they were watching him, he was still a danger. What we can hope for is that if we can connect as many of these missing girls and any others that we don't know about to him, that would be justice for the families. And I'm sure there's a few out there, there's a few poor girls who have yet to have ever been found at all somewhere out in Long Island. - 100% folks at this point, we always talk about the victims, marine-brained bonds, Melissa Patelme, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello. And of course, the most recently identified victims which are Jessica Taylor and Sandra Castilla. And we pray for their and their families souls. And we just thought we would bring you up to date to the very latest of what's going on with this case. That continues to be every couple of months, new information coming forward, new evidence revealed. And this case is, after all, quite an interesting one. Mike, I think you already gave your final thoughts. So I want to thank everyone for tuning in this afternoon. This is a police off the cuff, real crime stories. We'll see you very soon. Actually, tonight at 9.30, I'm gonna cover the security blunders in the attempted assassination of presidential candidate and former president, Donald Trump. And I'm gonna have on NASA County Police Commission of Patrick Ryder, a security expert to come on and discuss it with us. So folks, have a great day. We'll see you tonight, hopefully, God bless. (upbeat music) ♪ One episode just sayin' it enough ♪ ♪ Get it left up, get it in the tube ♪