48 Hours - The Gilgo Beach Serial Killings
Episode Date: September 21, 2023The bound bodies of four women are found along a desolate stretch of beach. Disturbing new details about the architect police say is a serial killer. "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty re...ports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee
when she received a call from California.
Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing.
The young wife of a Marine
had moved to the California desert
to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park.
They have to alert the military.
And when they do, the NCIS gets involved.
From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS.
Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music.
It is a case that has haunted the public for more than 13 years, and many feared that the Gilgo Beach murders may never be solved.
The officer located a body.
It seemed to be wrapped in burlap, which didn't make any sense.
The crime scene gets expanded.
I'm called, and chief, we found another set of remains.
They find another one, and another one.
We were dealing with a serial killer.
They're available, they're vulnerable, and very petite.
This killer has a type.
Right. Does he want the petite
body because he wants to feel
more empowered and more in control?
I want the world
to know, like, my sister mattered.
I want answers.
I just want answers.
An arrest more than
a decade in the making in a serial killer case that's baffled law
enforcement and the public.
Fifty-nine-year-old Rex Huerman pled not guilty.
I dropped my phone.
I couldn't believe it.
So just who is Rex Huerman?
An architect who ran a company called RH Consultants and Associates.
Rex!
Hello!
Hi! How are you doing? Good to see you.
When a job that should have been routine
suddenly becomes not routine,
I get the phone call.
Rex Heurman is a mystery man.
Rex is capable of presenting himself
one way to one person, one way to another person.
My first memory of Rex was that he was very big, imposing, scary, angry.
He was bullied.
He was bigger than everyone else.
The kids would gang up on him.
And Rex was very smart, too.
He's a smart person, very smart.
He liked to shock people.
He was interested in power games.
Rex loved hunting and he loved guns.
Going out, shooting, hunting, that was his passion.
All petite, all bound in burlap bags.
The burlap on the bodies, that points right at a hunter.
It was DNA collected from a pizza slice
he tossed in a Manhattan trash can
that came back as a match with hair found on the victims.
That's where we obtained his full profile
from the pizza crust left in the box.
In terms of speaking to my client,
the only thing I can tell you that he did say
as he was in tears was, I didn't do this.
Everyone's just trying to put the pieces together.
I want to know what I missed.
I think we all want to know what we missed. Thank you. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand,
lies a tiny volcanic island.
It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn,
and it harboured a deep, dark scandal.
There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke
Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left
deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching,
nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it,
people will get away with what they can get away with.
In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse
and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island
to the brink of extinction.
Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+.
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Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty.
Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals.
However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own.
She's going to all the major groups within
Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast
Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney,
I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list.
She was addicted to the game she had created.
She just didn't know how to stop.
Now, through dramatic interviews and access,
I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals.
Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now.
Not far from this quiet stretch of Gilgo Beach on Long Island, New York,
investigators uncovered the hidden remains
of four young women.
The mystery of who they were and how they got here
might have stayed a secret,
if not for a woman named Shannon Gilbert.
In the early morning hours of May 1st, 2010, 23-year-old Shannon, working as an escort, called 911.
State police?
Yeah, there's somebody after me.
The call came from a neighborhood not far from Gilgo Beach.
These people are plotting to kill me.
Shannon starts running, knocking on doors.
Where are you, Shannon?
She screams.
And then nothing.
Shannon was gone.
Hello?
Hello?
Hello? Hello?
Canine searched the area exhaustively for Shannon Gilder.
Dominic Varone was chief of detectives at the Suffolk County Police Department.
Months passed without a sign of the missing woman.
And then in December 2010, near Gilgo Beach,
a police officer and his canine named Blue
found human remains.
Everyone assumed it was Shannon Gilbert.
But it wasn't Shannon.
Stunned searchers would go on to discover the remains of four other women.
The women were identified as Maureen Brainerd Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
Like Shannon, all were in their 20s. All were online escorts. All petite.
Three of the four were wrapped in burlap the kind you
can find in hunting stores they became known as the Gilgo for it's really
really hard because I miss her so much 48 hours has reported on this case since
2010 over the years we've secured exclusive interviews with the family
and friends of the Gilgo Four. Missy Kan will never forget the wintry day when she got the
devastating news. The detectives came to my house and just said that Maureen has been
positively identified as one of the victims on Ocean Parkway.
Her sister, Maureen Brainerd Barnes, a mother of two, was the first to disappear on July 9, 2007.
She was very smart and very creative.
She liked being a mom?
She loved being a mom. But life as a single mom living in Norwich, Connecticut, was difficult.
Missy didn't know it, but Maureen had turned to escort work,
and that July went to New York City for a weekend to make money.
On her way home, she called Missy from Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan.
Attention, please.
I could hear the commototion from the train station. From
the time that she called me it was poof she was gone. She reported Maureen missing.
Eventually officers would tell Missy that after her sister's disappearance
someone had used Maureen's cell phone to make a call from Long Island. It wasn't known then, but those two locations,
Long Island and Midtown Manhattan, would become important clues in the hunt for a serial killer.
Nearly two years to the day that Maureen vanished, 24-year-old Melissa Bartholomew went missing in July of 2009, also from Midtown Manhattan.
Lynn Bartholomew is Melissa's mother.
How often do you think about Melissa?
Every single minute of the day.
It just didn't happen to the girls. I mean, it destroyed all of our families.
Melissa moved from Buffalo to New York
City to work as a hairdresser. At some point, she also began working as an escort and then
disappeared. About a week after she went missing, Melissa's then 15-year-old sister, Amanda,
started getting calls from Melissa's phone. We agreed not to show Amanda's face.
She answers, you know,
Melissa, where have you been?
And this voice is saying,
oh, this isn't Melissa.
Stephen Cohen was the family's lawyer at the time.
He was taunting Amanda,
and he said, do you know what I did to your sister?
I killed Melissa.
All I can say is he's sick,
and he's going to make a mistake, and we're going to catch him.
Those calls from Melissa's own phone
may very well have been that mistake.
When police trace them,
the calls place the person they believe to be Melissa's killer in Midtown Manhattan.
The following year, Megan Waterman, the mother of a three-year-old girl, disappeared from a hotel on Long Island.
Part of you is like missing. It's just like something's always off.
We spoke with Megan's daughter, Liliana, in 2020.
I would do anything to bring her back, but I can't, and it just like frustrates me so bad.
Megan's family says the 22-year-old was a creative but troubled young woman
who loved fashion and was devoted to her daughter.
What would you say to your mom if you could?
I would just want to tell her that, like, I love her.
I just want her to know that she has a special place in my heart and no one can ever replace her.
Like the other two women, Megan disappeared in the summer.
On June 6, 2010, she was working as an escort on Long Island.
No matter what her job was, she was a person, and she needs justice.
This haunting video from a Holiday Inn Express is the last time she was seen alive,
moments before she went to meet a client.
she was seen alive, moments before she went to meet a client. Cell phone records later placed her phone in a Long Island neighborhood called Massapequa Park.
Amber Costello was the last of the Gilgo Four to disappear.
She lived here just seven and a half miles from Massapequa Park.
She used to say she was 4'11", but she wasn't. She was like 4'9". You know, I mean, she was small.
Amber's friend and former roommate Dave Schaller spoke with us in 2011.
She was an amazing person. She really was.
He says Amber was addicted to drugs and used sex work to support her habit.
But as amazing as she was, was as tormented as she was.
After Amber disappeared, police say Schaller told them about her clients.
He described one of them as looking like an ogre and having a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.
On the night she went missing, Schaller says, a client offered Amber $1,500 for the night,
six times her hourly rate. This guy was so relentless. He called several times. He was
on the phone with her for quite a while each time. He says the client got Amber, an experienced
escort, to do something she never did, leave without her purse or cell phone
and meet him in his car. I walked out the front door with her. She gave me a hug. She's like,
I love you. And she left. It was nearly midnight. Schaller says that when Amber left this house,
she walked down the street and he never saw her again.
this house. She walked down the street and he never saw her again. Schaller told us that he didn't see the client's face that night, but suspects he had seen him before. So this is a
guy you might have seen? Yeah, this is somebody that I've seen. I might be one of the only people
who knows who he is. It would be more than a decade before Schaller's description
would lead to a break in the case and a prime suspect.
To see a timeline of how the case unfolded, go to 48hours.com.
Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?
Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts.
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The shocking developments in a murder case gone cold.
My co-worker called me and she said,
did you hear what happened to Rex?
And I'm like, no.
A husband, a father, an architect stood before a judge
charged as a serial killer.
She says, it's Rex.
I said, no way.
This house was a main focus
and they brought out a lot of evidence. I just didn't think it's Rex. I said, no way. This house was a main focus and they brought out a lot of evidence.
I just didn't think it was real. A Long Island community is still a crime scene tonight.
I even thought to myself, it's crazy that there's two Rex Hewermans out there.
Mary Schell and Muriel Henriquez worked with Rex Heuermann and couldn't wrap their heads around the news.
We never thought he would be that kind of person.
It's shocking.
In July of 2023, nearly 13 years after the Gilgo Four were discovered, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison made the announcement.
Authorities believe Rex Heuermman is the Long Island serial killer.
Rex Shearman is a demon that walks among us.
A predator that ruined families.
The man he calls a demon is a 6'4 architect.
He's charged with killing Melissa Barthelew, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello,
and is the prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainerd Barnes.
What has my client told me? He told me he didn't do this.
Heuermann was living about 20 minutes from Gilgo Beach in Massapequa Park, the very same town where
Megan's phone last connected with the cell tower.
And Heuermann worked here at his architectural firm in Midtown Manhattan,
just blocks from where Maureen disappeared,
the same area where several of the threatening calls to Melissa's little sister were made.
The cause of death with regard to the three victims is homicidal violence.
A married man, Huerman, lived in this run-down house and has a daughter and stepson with his second wife, Asa.
Asa, who was born in Iceland,
would take the children to see her family there in the summers.
It was during these trips and others police believed that Heuermann killed the women.
You never got any kind of hint of another life?
No.
Uriel Henriquez worked at Heuermann's company, RH Consultants and Associates,
and spoke exclusively to 48 Hours.
She recalled a gift he gave her in the summer of 2007.
This is a sweater he asked his wife to bring back from a trip to Iceland.
Muriel, who says she was touched at the time by Huerman's thoughtful gesture,
now wonders if his wife's absence that summer
gave him an opportunity to kill Maureen Brainerd Barnes,
who disappeared on July 9, 2007.
How do you feel about this sweater now?
I'm definitely not going to wear this sweater now.
Still, she says she saw nothing alarming
about the Rex Heuermann she saw daily.
A little bit of a nerd in a way.
He liked to talk about himself, what he knew.
I mean, not a narcissist, but a little bit of a, you know, I know everything kind of guy.
Pompous.
Pompous.
She remembers him running to and from job sites, eating fast food on the run.
Pizza. That was his number one thing.
Police say they found nearly 300 guns in a basement vault.
Police say they found nearly 300 guns in a basement vault.
When she heard that police had recovered almost 300 firearms from a vault in Heuermann's basement,
she was surprised only by the number.
She knew him as an avid hunter.
Going out, shooting, hunting, that was his passion. What was it about hunting he liked?
I don't know. I guess he liked the idea of having a prize.
Stalking prey?
Stalking prey. And winning.
He liked to win.
And while she says it never occurred to her that Heuermann could be dangerous,
she does remember a time when his tracking skills unnerved her.
It was her 40th birthday, and she had booked a cruise vacation.
Where are you going?
I'm going to be in the middle of the ocean.
You're not going to find me in the middle of the ocean.
He said, oh, yes, I can.
Muriel didn't think much of the comment until the second day of her trip.
There was a white envelope under my door.
It was a note from him.
The note said, I told you I could find you anywhere. He had photos from hunting trips.
Mary Schell worked with Heuermann in the summer of 2010. It was the same summer that both Amber
Costello and Megan Waterman vanished. He would talk about, you know, the meat in particular,
that bear meat could keep in the freezer for months.
Hearing authorities now say that some of the victims were wrapped in a burlap
that hunters often use was chilling.
The burlap really got to me.
Since Heuermann's arrest, Mary has written about her experience with him.
She's also talked to other former female employees who said they weren't always treated with respect.
He would have one of them clean the toilet if he thought the cleaning person hadn't done a
good enough job. A woman in the office? Yes. He more than once commented on women's bodies.
If someone perhaps had gained some weight, you know, that kind of thing.
John Parisi grew up with Huerman.
He says Huerman was bullied as a child.
I remember meeting Rex when I was in first or second grade.
He was a loner. Not many friends.
The children were super mean to him, made fun of him and teased him. But John says he never saw
Hueyman fight back. He was big enough that if he got upset and started swinging, he would hurt somebody. But he never did.
As Heuermann got older, John points out, things didn't get much better.
It was rejected by many girls.
We all go through that awkward stage growing up,
and it seemed like that awkward stage stayed with him longer than usual.
stayed with him longer than usual.
Still, he says many in the community find it hard to believe that Huerman is the notorious serial killer,
living a double life for more than a decade.
People were saying, oh my God, I can't believe we have a serial killer in our town
and we grew up with and we walked amongst the killer.
Another classmate of Horman's, actor Billy Baldwin, took to social media when the news broke, tweeting, it was mind boggling.
Rex, hello.
How are you doing?
The awkward Long Island teenager grew up to be a confident and seemingly successful architect. Antoine Amira
met and interviewed him in 2022. Born and raised on Long Island. Okay. Been working in Manhattan
since 1987. There's nothing in my interview that made me think that this person in front of me is a dangerous person.
Antoine is a hotel food and beverage manager in New York who loves real estate. He has a YouTube interview show where he handpicks guests whom he thinks are interesting and accomplished.
I'm an architect. I'm an architectural consultant. I'm a troubleshooter.
Antoine says Heuermann was well known for his skill at helping companies and individuals get building permits.
When a job that should have been routine suddenly becomes not routine, I get the phone call.
Gotcha.
What really stood out for me was he was very, very, very smart.
And known, says Antoine, for his ability to find loopholes in the rules.
He was pleased when he was doing it.
That he could outwit the system.
That's it, folks. That was Rex.
But Antoine says he remembers it was hard to get Heuermann to crack a smile.
It's selfie time.
Selfie time.
Not even during the signature sunglasses selfies he takes with every guest.
Two, three.
Can you smile?
That is.
Can you spy that dish?
If police are right, Rex Uriman was able to hide a life as a serial killer.
And if he did, his habit of eating pizza on the go would turn out to be his undoing. For more than a decade after the discovery of the Gilgo 4,
Rex Heuermann's name never appeared on a suspect list until a new task force was formed with Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison and Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney.
In February of 2022, we formed the task force and then a mere six weeks later, Rex Uerman was identified for the
first time. A suspect in six weeks? So how did they do it? It turns out that buried in the original
case files were a number of critical clues that the new task force was finally able to connect.
Remember Amber's roommate, Dave Schaller?
She's like, I love you.
You know, she gave me a hug.
And she left.
He had told police about one of Amber's clients
and his vehicle.
Just a large, built man,
and that he was driving this first-generation Chevy Avalanche.
A first-generation Chevy Avalanche. A first-generation Chevy Avalanche,
with a description of an ogre-like man and the make and model of his truck.
Police took a closer look at Amber's phone records from 2010.
Schaller had told them that before Amber disappeared,
there was one particular client calling incessantly.
He called several times.
He was on the phone with her for quite a while each time.
Police back then knew the client was using a burner phone.
That's a prepaid phone that anyone can buy and use anonymously.
And they knew that Maureen, Melissa, and Megan
had all been in contact with burner numbers right before they disappeared.
In 2012, with the help of the FBI, they determined that most of those calls connected to cell towers inside a small area of Massapequa Park.
They called it the box.
So how large an area is that box? It's, you know, a couple of blocks
within Massapequa Park. The new task force began the search for a large built man who also lived
in that small area and owned a Chevy Avalanche at the time of the disappearances. Was there an aha moment when all of a sudden his name came up? Once we were able to
attach the avalanche inside of that Massapequa box, which then attached to Rex Heuermann,
that was a moment where we said, okay, there's something here. The task force now had a prime
suspect, and when they looked at Heuermann's personal cell phone records, they found that his phone was in the same area as those burner phones when they were used to contact a victim in Massapequa Park or in Midtown Manhattan.
It was always consistent.
Tierney says this was also true for those awful calls Melissa's family got from that man using
her phone back in 2009.
He said, do you know what I did to your sister?
And he said, well, I killed Melissa.
The task force says that it confirmed that Hureman does in fact use burner phones.
Investigators say he had two different burner numbers in 2022,
and they say they watched him put money on one of those accounts here. And according to court
papers, the team also documented three email accounts using fake names, including John Springfield, Thomas Hawk, and Hunter 1903,
and all linked to those burner numbers.
And prosecutors say that Heuermann was using a burner phone
to send these selfies to solicit and arrange for sexual activity.
One of those accounts linked to Heuermann, prosecutors wrote,
was used to conduct, quote,
thousands of searches related to sex workers, sadistic, torture-related pornography, and child pornography.
There was a lot of torture, porn, and depictions of women being abused, being raped, and being killed.
Investigators also say that while they were busy watching Heuermann, Heuermann was trying
to watch them conducting searches on the task force and the Gilgo victims.
Not only pictures of the victims, pictures of their relatives, their sisters, their children,
and he was trying to locate those individuals.
The circumstantial evidence was building,
but investigators also had physical evidence from the Gilgo Four,
including one male hair that was found in the burlap
used to, quote, restrain and transport Megan Waterman's body.
And they wanted to see if they could link it to Heuermann.
Police tailed Heuermann,
and when he threw out this pizza box in this trash can
here in Midtown Manhattan, they pounced.
The pizza, which was, you know, obviously very significant.
Tierney says that Heuermann's DNA that was found on that pizza crust was consistent with a DNA profile from the hair
found with Megan Waterman's body. And that DNA profile is only found in 0.04% of the population.
That was a remarkable day.
It was, you know, the weekend, and, you know,
you get the report and you read it,
and then you read it again, and then you read it a third time,
and then you read it a fourth time,
and then you start making calls.
With the DNA, the search histories,
and the burner phone evidence, the team felt it was time.
When we decided to take down the case, you know, it was a sudden decision.
We did see him contacting a number of sex workers using a burner phone,
which obviously is concerning.
Playing clothes officers arrested him around the corner from his office.
I don't think he had any clue. I don't think he had any clue.
I don't think he had any clue that we were on to him.
Police spent 12 days looking through Heuermann's home,
pulling those guns out of the basement and digging in the backyard.
They say it will take some time to comb through what they have now, and they were tight
lipped about what they found. Has the search been fruitful? Great question and answers yes.
Can you elaborate on fruitful? You said yes.
There have been items that we have taken into our possession. That makes it fruitful.
that we have taken into our possession.
That makes it fruitful.
And one more big piece of evidence taken into possession,
a first-generation Chevy Avalanche Heuermann once used.
And it was sitting on property he owns in South Carolina when they recovered it.
We were able to seize that Chevy Avalanche,
pursue it to a search warrant,
and we're certainly going to analyze that.
But there were female hairs found on some of the victims' bodies that don't belong to the victims.
So who do they belong to?
What do you make of the evidence against Rex Heuermerman? Join the conversation now on social media.
After Rex Huerman's arrest, his quiet neighborhood in Massapequa Park was overrun by investigators and media, focusing intense scrutiny on the Ramshackle home and its remaining residents.
His stepson, Christopher Sheridan, daughter, Victoria Heuermann, and his wife of more than 25 years, Asa Ellerup.
and his wife of more than 25 years, Asa Elorup.
Their life going forward is always going to be the wife or the children of suspected serial killer.
That's what it's going to be from now on.
Attorney Bob Macedonio represents Asa Elorup, who has since filed for divorce from Hureman.
He says she was as stunned as anyone by the accusations.
She had no idea ahead of this going on.
The allegations are shocking. Nobody wants to think that they've been living with,
sleeping next to a serial killer for the past 25 years.
As it turns out, Asa may have inadvertently helped focus the investigation on her husband.
Investigators say they've identified strands of female hair that were found on two of the victims.
One hair on Waterman comes back to his wife, or the DNA profiles are consistent,
and then the DNA profile from Costello is consistent with the wife.
Although prosecutors have evidence that Asa was out of town when those murders occurred,
they will have to explain how those hairs got on the
victims. Suffolk County D.A. Ray Tierney says it could be as simple as transfer. You live at home
with a spouse. A little bit of your hair falls on your shoulder as well as your spouse's. Then you
go out and you interact with the third party and that hair gets on them. Asa Ellerup has not been charged or named a suspect in any of the murders.
You don't believe that Rex Heuermann's wife was involved in this in any way?
There's no evidence to indicate that, no.
Along with the public scrutiny of Asa,
there's also been support from people that perhaps know all too well what she's going through.
Carrie Rawson, the daughter of serial killer Dennis Rader, who named himself BTK, tweeted,
Asa and her kids are also victims. I can tell that they are going through hell.
And from Melissa Moore, the daughter of Keith Jesperson, a serial killer known as the
happy face killer for taunting authorities with letters signed with a happy face. She reached out
immediately to myself and we put her in contact with ASSA. At a press conference, Macedonia
announced Moore set up a GoFundMe page for ASSA, which raised over $50,000, money he says will largely
go to medical bills. Asa is battling breast and skin cancer. And because Rex Heuermann was the
sole provider for the family, Macedonio says she will soon lose her health insurance.
Asa would like me to express her thanks for the support she's received.
She's going through a very difficult time. Asa's children have also paid a heavy price. Her daughter, Victoria,
who worked for her father at the architectural consulting firm, and her son, Christopher,
are both now unemployed. Asa struggles to support them, says Macedonio, while she's also trying to figure out how to start over.
How is she getting through every day?
Honestly?
Yeah.
Minute by minute. She has no one else to turn to at this time.
Family and friends have been hesitant to have her come over because they don't want the media attention.
She gets followed wherever she goes.
She gets followed wherever she goes.
For the moment, she and her children continue to live in the house in Massapequa Park,
which the family says was excessively damaged during the police search,
seen in these photos provided by Asa's attorney.
It's a daily reminder of the unimaginable crimes her estranged husband is charged with and the investigation that continues
into what else he may have done.
Rex Heuermann, awaiting trial, is locked inside a Suffolk County jail in a 60-square-foot cell.
He denies killing Melissa Bartholomew,
Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
Their voice is now silent as the sand where they have been ruthlessly discarded.
How sure are you, as you're sitting here now, that Rex Jewelman is the Long Island serial killer?
So we're just at the beginning stages of this case,
but we would not have brought this indictment
if we weren't confident in our case.
He took away somebody's mother,
somebody's daughter, somebody's sister,
and not just one person, multiple individuals.
Heuermann is currently the prime suspect for the
murder of Maureen Brainerd Barnes
and for investigators
an obvious question still hangs
heavy.
If Heuermann is a killer,
are there other victims?
I mean, isn't there a real concern
that there may be other victims
out there? Always.
Who's to say that there's not more bodies out there
that we need to investigate?
In 2011, police did find other bodies along Ocean Parkway.
After finding the Gilgo Four,
there is victim number five, Jessica Taylor,
an escort who went missing in 2003. Another set of remains,
police called Jane Doe number six, is now identified as Valerie Mack, also working as an
escort. Number seven, to investigators' surprise, they found a toddler girl. Number eight, an Asian male dressed in women's clothing.
Number nine, a female skull belonging to Karen Vergara, an escort who disappeared in 1996.
Number ten, female remains from a victim cops nicknamed Peaches because of a tattoo on her torso.
Although her remains were found six miles away, police say DNA confirms Peaches is the mother of that toddler.
None of those victims has been linked to Heuermann.
Is it that you can't connect him yet, or you believe he probably isn't the person who killed these other individuals?
I don't know.
Investigations also spread to Las Vegas and South Carolina, where Heuermann owns property,
with detectives there taking a fresh look at cases of missing women.
And then there's Nikki Brass. I remembered him because one, he's massive.
And how many massive, like six foot five architects work in Manhattan with massive people.
You're going from brown and blonde. Now a hairdresser, Nikki claims she may be one
that got away. She told us she used to work as an escort. And while we could not substantiate her
story, Nikki claims she can't shake her memory of the night she says she was solicited for sex
by Rex Ureman and says she fled the restaurant where they met.
I had never gone anywhere and like felt fear.
My gut was telling me I needed to get away and I've never had that before.
Nikki says what she found most disturbing is that Heuermann himself brought up those bodies
bound in burlap by Gilgo Beach. He wanted to really get into it.
He asked me how I thought they could get rid of the bodies
without being caught in that area.
And I said, I've never been over there.
I've never even seen Gilgo Beach.
And his response was, well, it's really dark and desolate.
I'm John Ray, and I'm the lawyer.
Nikki is now represented by John Ray,
an attorney who is also representing Shannon Gilbert's family.
In December of 2011, investigators finally found Shannon here in the marsh, not far from Gilgo Beach.
But they don't believe she was murdered.
It's an unfortunate incident, but right now we believe that she just ran into the marsh and unfortunately drowned.
A former investigator told us that he believes Shannon was high on drugs that night and says her death was an accident,
something John Ray just can't believe. While he doesn't think Shannon was a victim of Heuermann, he does believe she was
murdered and points to that 911 call. It absolutely makes no sense that she's found where she is,
except that someone else put her there or killed her there.
While questions remain about Shannon's last hours, there's no question she's the reason so many families may finally be getting answers they have long waited for.
We spoke to her sister, Cherie, in 2011.
My sister, you know, didn't make that 911 call. I don't think that these other women
have been recovered either. Now investigators hope that with an arrest,
they can give the victims' families who stood with them a sense of justice and of peace. I've gotten to know the families and I'm inspired by them
and I'm impressed by their patience.
A local legend has it that this place, Gilgo Beach, was named for a skilled fisherman called Gil.
These silver-gray waters once his secret hunting ground.
Today, this beach area is better known for a relentless hunter of human prey, a serial
killer whose chilling presence can still be felt in the ocean air.