Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Con: Long Island Serial Killer Suspect Rex Heuermann Connected to More Deaths?

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

The investigation into the deaths linked to Rex Heuermann continues. Three cities are now re-investigating unsolved deaths in their area looking for connections to Heuerman. Other evidence found by investigators includes, computer searches showing disturbing titles of bondage, torture and  child pornography. The accused killer also drives a Chevy Avalanche described by a witness. He's caught on surveillance video buying more minutes for a burner phone. Investigators have determined a hair found on one of the victims is a DNA match to Heuermann's family.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Anne Bremner - Trial lawyer, Legal Analyst, Author: “Justice in the Age of Judgment”, www.annebremner.com, Twitter& Facebook: @annembremner, Instagram: @Anne_Bremner   Caryn L. Stark -  Psychologist, renowned TV and Radio trauma expert and consultant, www.carynstark.com, Instagram: carynpsych, FB: Caryn Stark Private Practice   Joseph Giacalone - fmr. NYPD Sergeant SDS and cold case investigator, Author: “The Cold Case Handbook” and “The Criminal Investigative Function: A Guide for New Investigators 4th Edition”, Twitter: @JoeGiacalone, www.josephGiacalone.com   Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan", Twitter: @JoScottForensic  Nicole Partin - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Twitter: @nicolepartin  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Welcome everybody. Welcome to CrimeCon number one. Thank you for being here. Woo! You know what? Isn't it great to be with like-minded spirits? You know, and people think this is a big boondoggle. That's not true. Everyone here, I believe, is seeking justice.

And whatever way we can, be it a podcast, putting up a missing flyer, endlessly emailing, calling, writing our Congress people. I don't know what they're doing in Washington, but I can say this clearly, not much, because crime is going up. It's not going down. That's what's supposed to be happening with all our tax dollars. Ain't happening. But a one-man crime wave. Long Island serial killer. Ann, you were with me. Karen Stark was with me. That's before I knew the rest of you awesome guests. At the very beginning, when we were out going to Gilgo Beach, looking at the scene, there is no way in H-E-double-L

that all of these are not connected. I mean, Joe Scott Morgan is joining me. He is a renowned forensics expert, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and star of Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. His wife and I came up with that name, by the way. Don't even try to take credit for that. Joe Scott, there is no way that a woman killed, wasn't it, Davis Park, in another jurisdiction, and some of her body parts are found at Gilgo Beach. There's no way she's not connected. And there's so many more. Guys, I firmly believe

that there are going to be victims in Vegas where he had a timeshare that he visited without his family. There and that compound down in South Carolina, his brother owns this huge compound. He also has land there, and they're trying to buy out the neighbors. For what? There's no way these cases are not connected, except maybe, maybe the first victim. I think that the fact that there are so many similarities relative to methodology, and also here's the key. In that area, it's so very specific geographically and isolated.

And the deposition of the bodies, when I think about, you know, what we classically refer to. Okay, wait, stop right there. Did you say the deposition of the bodies? You mean where they're dumped, I think is what he's trying to say. Is that what you're trying to say? Where the bodies are left. Yes, deposition. They were hidden, guys.

Tell them about the scrub out there, how thick it is. You can be standing in front of a body and not see it. Well, here's the thing. If you're attempting to hide a body, why not bury it? But my thought is that you would have to have a conveyance like a vehicle. You would have to understand. You mean an avalanche? Well, yeah, it is an avalanche. Yeah, that's the one that they have. You have to be familiar with the area and you have to be comfortable in that environment to drive in that area and to know this is a big thing when I'm looking at it. You have to understand traffic patterns when it is the quietest, when it is the darkest, and when it is essentially the most obscured because you don't want to get caught.

Guys, you're hearing what he's saying, and I want to tell you that I interviewed a sex worker who met up with the alleged Long Island serial killer, Rex Heuermann. They went to dinner at a prearranged location. He found her online like all of these other people, other women that are now dead. She got such a creepy feeling from him, and he kept insisting that she get in his car and go with him back to Long Island for their date. And she said, well, I'm going to take my car. And he went, no, no, don't take your car, and he never mentioned to her how she was going to get home.

Now, this is a woman that had had many, many dates, hundreds, maybe thousands, I don't know, and she got so skeeved out by Rex Heuermann, she wouldn't go. She didn't want the money that bad. Okay. So what Joe Scott Morgan is saying is correct. With me is Karen Stark, renowned psychologist located in Manhattan, but really all over. You can find her online at karenstark.com. And I always say Karen with a C, so you will be able to find her. The familiarity, and you know this, Ann Bremner, she's a high-profile lawyer out of Seattle joining us. The familiarity, like think about it. What if you had a dead body in your trunk? What are you going to do? You don't want to drive around with it and get caught. That would be my look. They still ask me for ID for a check at the grocery store. So you got to get rid of the body.

Where would you go? Somewhere you're familiar, right? Explain. Within the same vicinity, because it's so important that you're comfortable. Here's the thing, the main thing when it comes to serial killers, they are very crafty. They don't want to be caught, right? That's the thing. They need to be very, this is stealth. So they have to know exactly where they

are and how to do this. And as Joe Scott said, you have to do it at night and make sure, think about that area. I've lived in Long Island. She just reminded me of something. And people say, why do you interrupt? Well, because I will lose the thought and it'll be gone forever. When the sex worker was having her date with Rex Hererman, he said, how do you think the Long Island serial killer did it? So I need to shrink on that. I want to answer that. And he was saying, this is how I think he did it.

I think he dragged the body like in camo or something through this really thick scrub and swamp, kind of like marsh. And he described to her how he thinks the killer would have done it. He was basking and relaying the facts. And she told me to my face, she said, it was like he was reliving it, Nancy. It's not like he was just telling a story like we are right now. Like reliving it. Killing the ladies, dismembering some of them, and hiding their bodies.

Grandiosity. And this is one of those things, another thing about serial killers that I want to share with all of you, which is that they have huge personalities. They are narcissists. And so, as often as he could, and it's not just the one sex worker that you spoke to, Nancy, he loved to talk about the Gilgo Beach killings and what did everybody think about it. And he had that kind of an ego where he really wanted to get the acclaim for being that person without identifying himself. With me is CrimeOnline.com

investigative reporter Nicole Parton. Nicole, isn't it true that when Rex Heuermann was first booked, one of the first questions he said was, the press talking about it? Yes, absolutely. He wanted to know if it was in the media yet, how much media coverage he was getting. Was it making the headlines? He was very much interested in knowing if he was becoming a star already. And that even goes back to his coworkers that he worked with. Now that they're being interviewed, these people are saying the same thing about him. He loved attention.

There was a co-worker that he stalked, and he showed up on a cruise ship when she took her birthday vacation cruise. Oh, can you think of a cruise with Rex Heuermann on the ship? Yeah, exactly. Not the birthday I'm hoping for. Not the birthday we want. Okay. So first thing, when he gets to the jail, the media covering me? Really?

I mean, I'd be wanting to go, look, I got to get home to my children. No. I got to get out of here. But no, he wanted to know, is the press covering this? Guys, I still have two incredible guests. And Jackie, let me know when we can start taking questions. Oh, I haven't even gotten to Vegas. There's five bodies there that we know of, right, Joe Scott?

And South Carolina. Listen to this. The other day, Jackie and I were talking to a very dear friend of a woman, also a sex worker, who went missing. This was her friend and the friend of the victim's daughter. That weekend, the daughter was graduating high school, and she was going to get her nails done. Don't look at my nails, awful. A guy pulled up with her mother to the nail salon in a truck she believes to be an avalanche. She positively identifies Rex Heuermann as that man. And she remembers him because he was bragging that he had a place, was it the beach or the lake? He said he

has a lake, right? He had a lake house and he wanted her and her friends to come over. Ew, a sleepover with Rex Heuermann in the next room? No. And bragging about his money and his position to the daughter, and the mom drives off. She's never seen alive again. So, we've got five victims that we're looking into in Vegas, same MO, and they look the same as the other victims. Amazing physical similarities. And I believe multiple South Carolina victims. With me also are two incredible guests. Number one, my friend, my longtime friend, Ann Bremner. She is a very high profile trial lawyer out of the Seattle jurisdiction. She is a legal analyst, and she is author of Justice in the Age of Judgment. I mean, you have dealt with so many homicide defendants, and I'm not asking you to divulge any of their information or their names,

but what do you make of Huberman? So I come from the serial killer capital, I think, of the United States and Washington State. And we had Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer. My ex-husband, Sean Henry Brown, represented Ted Bundy. So, you know, Huberman is just so creepy, and he looks so kind of Wall Street, normal, Empire State Building, right? He does in some ways look so normal, but then he's so creepy. And that's kind of like Ted Bundy. I still see my ex-husband for dinner sometimes. He said that Ted was not anybody that you would think was okay, which I thought was interesting. He's not anybody that you would think is...

Like as a woman sitting down with Ted Bundy, that you would know he was a creeper. You would know immediately? He was a creeper. You would know immediately. He was a creeper, which surprises me because so many women went with him, remember? He probably had over 100 victims all over the United States, Colorado, Washington, Florida, Utah, everywhere. And they all went with him. So that to me is just so scary. And this guy looks creepy but also normal in a way to me. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Guys, I had the opportunity. Oh, I wish you could have met these ladies. And you can meet them. I got to sit down with, did we have two or three? We had three victims, right, that lived. And I remember speaking to another victim with Dr. Oz. These ladies are so much like us. I mean, they didn't see anything coming. They didn't know anything was wrong. They wake up and somebody's standing over them that starts to club them to death. It was horrible. It changed their lives forever. They lived. But I find it really

interesting that you sit down with Bundy and you just know, this guy in law school, something is way off. Guys, with me, and hey, everybody on the panel, jump in, except you, Joe Scott. You just shut the hay up. You're just here for your good looks. With me also, a guy, I don't know if you've met him yet, Joseph Joe Giacalone, former NYPD sergeant, cold case investigator, author of The Cold Case Handbook and The Criminal Investigative Function, a guide for new investigators, and you can find him at josephjacalonis, crazy spelling, dot com, G-I-A-C-A-L-O-N-E, but it's pronounced Jackalon. This is your neck of the woods, Gilgo Beach, and beyond, really. Davis Park, where the other woman was killed,

and then her body parts are found on Gilgo Beach. You have so much knowledge. Just let it out. I'm not going to even limit you to a question. Go. Yeah, there's a number of cases that could be included in this. There's a number of dismemberments. So we have Peaches from Hempstead Lake State Park. We have Valerie. Okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Drinking from the fire hydrant too much at once. Slow it down. What? So we have Hempstead Lake State Park with Peaches. We have Valerie Mack.

Peaches is a victim. Valerie Mack and Jessica Taylor were also found dismembered in a place called Manorville. And then we have Fire Island Jane Doe. How far away is Manorville from Gilgo Beach? There's dead dismembered away is Manorville from Gilgo Beach? There's dead dismembered ladies at Manorville. That killer was called the Manorville Butcher. I believe the Manorville Butcher is in fact the Long Island serial killer. They're one and the same. Well, it's about 40 miles from Gilgo. But when you do these, when you plot these cases out,

it's all in an oval and Heerman's house is almost right in the middle of it. So if anybody lived on Long Island, I've been there almost my whole life, it's pretty clear to see once you map them out. And one thing cops don't believe in is coincidences, and I certainly don't believe in them. My theory has been there's been one person from the very beginning. And it's a person that has changed his MO not for any other reason other than the technology that became available to him. Okay, wait, let me just take that in. He changed his MO because first the Manorville Butcher was dismembering all of his victims. Then the later victims, the Gilgo Beach victims, were not all dismembered. That's the change in the MO to which you are referring, is it not? Correct. Okay. And the reason is, and this is what you

yelled at me for last time, but it's important to understand. My theory has been that the girls who were dismembered were streetwalkers. Do you call them girls? Ladies. Women. What do you like me? Better. Is it he, she, she, men? And what does it matter to you that they're streetwalkers? Why is that your problem?

Streetwalkers is actually... And plus, who says streetwalkers? Well, there... Who says streetwalkers? There are different types of sex workers. There are streetwalkers. There are escorts. There are women who run the hotels. There are the online girls. There are escorts. There are women who run the hotels.

There are the online girls. They're all different categories. So it's not used as a derogatory term from an investigative standpoint. It's used to determine. You know, when somebody says, I don't mean this in a bad way, but then they're going to say something bad or no offense, but it's always offensive. I've never been accused of having a filter. So it is what it is, right? So in the policing aspect of it, you look at this and say, well, why were these girls dismembered and the others not? Well, because he picked them off the street. He ran the risk of being identified. Somebody could have said, I saw her get into the car or truck with this guy. And I mean, and you think about Rex, he definitely stands out. I mean, was he like 6'5",

300-something pounds? He's not somebody that just blends in. So I think the killer was worried about that, so he decapitated him. He cut their hands off. So their bodies were found in one location, and the rest of their remains were found in Gilgo. So there's the connection between the two.

That's a strong connection. The Manorville cases, half in Gilgo and half in Manorville. And Peaches was found in the barrel, like a bucket kind of thing. And her baby was found in Gilgo. Okay, wait, wait. This is important. Will you say that again? Where was Peaches found and where was the baby found?

Peaches was found in Hempstead Lake State Park, which is in Nassau County, which is the county over from where we're talking about. And her infant daughter was found in Gilgo Beach. See, the location of the disbursement of the victim's body parts, when in combination with the Gilgo Beach bodies, they're clearly connected. I mean, how can it be? You know, Joe Scott Morgan, jump in, Karen Stark, Ann Bremner, Nicole Parton, incredible experts and reporters. Please jump in. Nancy, yeah, listen, to Joe's point, thank you, to Joe's point, here's what's significant for me. With the dismemberment cases, those that have been recovered, you need privacy in order to facilitate this.

This is not something you're going to do in your front yard or on the side of the road. Please say it in regular people talk. If you're going to chop up a body, where are you going to do it? Not in your car. And not in the front yard or, you know, you have to have... Would you even do it in a motel? You have to have privacy. Would you even do it in a motel?

Because I would be afraid I would leave too much evidence. I suppose you could maybe in a bathtub. We've had cases where that sort of thing has occurred over a period of time. Here's the key. You have to have a kit with you in order to do this. If you're doing dismemberment. You mean like Dexter? Be honest with you, I've never watched a full episode. Forgive me. It got me through my pregnancy. Go ahead. You have to have a kit. So you're going to have to have tools, sharp instruments, particularly saws in order to facilitate it. And as you go along as in the universal sense, not you, but as they go along,

they acquire knowledge as they do this. And what's really key here is that you go from actual dismemberment, which is a form of a true form of desecration of a human remain to where they're almost, the bodies are being memorialized in his own way where they're wrapped, they're being wrapped at this point in time. So there's like a progression and a change relative to how he's treating the bodies. And that's something that you has to be taking a long, long look at. That's really interesting, Joe Scott, you know, because he was the first, I mean, I knew it from an instinctive level, instinctual level, but he first voiced it, verbalized it, and the cult mom Lori Vallow case, the way the two children were treated,

Tylee was basically, excuse me, JJ was basically hermetically sealed and preserved. Tylee, her 16-year-old daughter, was literally rendered like an animal at a slaughterhouse. All that was left of her was a bucket of human fat and tissue singed. Now, I don't know what that means because I'm not a shrink. I'm just a lawyer. But the way the bodies were treated differently that Joe Scott just brought up is really important. It's really important because, again, you're talking about a serial killer and people are not real. They're objects to him. Absolutely. So the whole idea of wrapping them in burlap, like you're giving a gift or they're not living. Wrapping in burlap as a gift or they're not living. I think of wrapping a burlap as a gift. I think of that as something bad.

Well, think about Nancy. It's not a real person. You're just like wrapping it up like a doll, really. Like not something that you see as alive because they don't have feelings. They don't have empathy. So people aren't real to them. It's easy to kill that way. Ann Bremner, speaking of the authorities or the experts that say,

well, it's not the same person because of the different MO, that's technical legal term BS because Ted Bundy changed his MO. I mean, he started off in a VW Bug going, hey, I lost, or some crap like that. And then you get the girl close enough and it would be just like that to grab, she's in the car. Or he would lure her into the car and go, could you help me get to so-and-so? Then there was the fake broken arm. By the end of it, he was just clubbing people, going into their place and clubbing them. Completely different. One victim of Ted Bunny's was like 14. Yeah. And they even think there was one, yeah, that young in Tacoma where he had a paper route. And he, I mean, sometimes he used like a crowbar. He had a paper route in

Tacoma where he grew up and where he went to law school. But he sometimes would hit him with a crowbar, knock him out so fast, like in between sororities and fraternities at the University of Washington, Central Washington University. Like Sammamish, he had two victims, remember? Gianna Sott and Denise Naslund. He had a broken arm and he wanted some help to put a boat, I think, on his car, something on his car. Very nice women went with him. Sometimes he would need help.

He would drop books and say, can you pick those up for me? Then he'd hit them with a crowbar. All through Seattle, Tacoma, even down to Oregon. Then he went to Utah, went to law school in Utah. Then he went to Colorado, remember? And then he went, escaped twice. Once through a light fixture and once jumping out of, yeah, jumping out a window of the law library. Law library at a courthouse. Yeah. Pitkin County. Out the window. Yeah. And then to Florida. And my ex-husband said,

he had a conversation with him and Ted said, where would I most likely get the death penalty? And John Henry said, Florida. And that's where he went wow Nancy there's something else that you want to talk about in regards to the the photos from the search warrant where they showed the tub taken apart in the house yeah because they're looking to see if anything was cut up in there and anything might have seeped through the caulking or the tile grout and that kind of thing I don't think anything happened inside of his house those wait I want to dissect what he just said too many nosy neighbors over there. Joseph Jackalone, former NYPD author.

So I was thinking when they were tearing apart Rex Heuermann's house, and do I feel bad about his wife and children having to go back in the house and it's all torn up? Yes. But I feel worse about all the dead people. Exactly. I mean, really. When they were taking out the tub, I was thinking, but I did not want to criticize the police. I'm like, well, you know what? You're a few years too

late on taking that tub out. But you're right. And they were right. I was wrong. Because if any of their blood had seeped in, and it does, bodily fluids can do that. It could still be in the tile to this day. You can never fully clean up a crime scene, even if you set it on fire. So ladies, if you're thinking about killing your husbands, you know, don't worry about it. You're not going to be able to get away with it totally. No, but the reason is, I always tell people, if you made a milkshake one day and the top came off and the milkshake went everywhere, you know, six months later, you pull the dish out and there's a spot of chocolate milk on it. You can't, you always miss something. And the reason why they pull that out is they're going to do their blood tests.

They're going to do the thing. I mean, listen, you might find, you know, their blood, the family, because they live there, of course. I mean, that's just what, but here's the other thing that no one's really discussing. They also called the medical examiner to the storage facility. Now, oh yeah, we haven't heard very much, there's only one reason to do that, right? So they might have found something, whether it may be blood, you know. But you can answer that out, right? Someone might have cut themselves putting something away. But they found something to say, let's get the ME to take on what it actually found there.

Nicole Parton is with us, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Nicole, let's talk about a lot of us in the room already know the history of the case up to right now I want to look forward what's happening now I believe authorities are looking at Vegas five different people five different women yes and and South Carolina bring everybody up to date with your knowledge. They're investigating in South Carolina because Heuermann purchased 18 acres of property there in a very secluded area. 18. And on that property that he purchased, there are many bodies of water, little lakes and ponds, very secluded rural area. And so obviously they're investigating there. Is

that a place where he took victims? And it goes back to the avalanche that you've spoken of so much. That avalanche was also found on the property in South Carolina. So we have the Las Vegas five victims, but we have a huge investigation now in South Carolina because of his property. In addition to that avalanche. You know what's odd about, well, everything you just said is odd. But did you hear her say the Vegas five? It sounds like the Gilgo five. Okay, go ahead.

The search warrant for the South Carolina property lists things like pieces of a leather belt. And remember, that was one of the first pieces of evidence that was shown, that stamped leather belt with the initials on it. Still around or with one of the dead victims. Yeah. So they're looking for pieces of a leather belt. They're also looking for the stamp that was part of the search warrant for South Carolina, looking for things like condoms, looking for things like weapons and more burner phones. All of that was included in the search warrant for his 18 acres in South Carolina. Trying to just take in everything she's saying.

The Chevy Avalanche, which, as I recall, was discontinued manufacture in 2013 so if there is a Chevy Avalanche somewhere that means it could be the Chevy Avalanche that was used during some of the killings that's the significance that's why I keep talking about their manufacture date Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Long Island serial killer, I believe is going to be the Vegas serial killer. I believe is going to be the South Carolina serial killer. And I believe he is one of the same as the Manorville butcher. And then it's going federal. What? And then it's going federal. Federal. Federal.

Yeah, it's going to be taken out of the hands of Suffolk County. It's going to go federal. Although I like the new people at Suffolk County. Remember the old Suffolk County. It's about leverage leverage though, Nancy, because once the feds get in, the death penalty's on the table. Agree, but wait a minute, wait a minute. Who was it that was having sex with hookers? James Burke. Excuse me, sex workers. What? James Burke. Chief Burke, the Suffolk County Chief of Police. And I don't know,

he didn't want the feds in on this. You know why? Because they would have found out he was having sex with sex workers and didn't want to blow up his empire. And it all came to light when somebody stole a bag of sex toys out of the back of his car. Isn't that how it went down? I mean, really? So you don't want him in charge of a murder investigation where all the victims are sex workers. So he's out. And now there's a new one in who I think is pretty good. Rodney and I were sergeants together. Yeah, he's very good.

And then actually when he first came out, he took a big chance. He said this first day there, he went to Gilgo and said, we're going to solve this case. And did. And he said he would. there he went to gilgo and said we're going to solve this case and yeah yeah and he said he would and he did you know he absolutely said he would ask me a question hi my name is karen i'm actually from suffolk county and i was going to ask about jimmy burke to joe does he have any connection to rex huerman eric has a lot of things but he's i don't think he's the killer involved in this. There's no connection so far from what we've heard to Rex Herman. The only thing that we know is that there was lots of corruption going on that prevented a lot of this investigation from happening because they were more interested in saving their own behinds instead of actually doing police work.

I don't think that's what he was interested in. I think he was interested in continued sex with sex workers and not getting caught and getting paid by the government. You're talking about the former chief, right? Yeah, well, unfortunately for him beating the suspect, Chris Loeb caused the federal investigation which then the district attorney got involved

with and then was the cover-up of the conspiracy and that was the real workings behind it. Now remember, Burke only came in a year after this case had already started. So, you know, he's not the chief that was involved when this thing first started. I don't think the chief of police had anything to do with the murders. I think he had a lot to do with throwing off the investigation because he didn't want to be investigated for being with sex workers. Do you think that's right? Well, he took the best investigators he had and put

them in places where they can find out if the feds were talking about him instead of putting them on the case. That's basically what happened in that whole thing. I mean, when you look at how they solved this case pretty quickly, taking over the task force, they find, I mean, the information was in the case folder for them to- I mean, the Chevy Avalanche was parked in front of Heuermann's house forever okay where is my question hello do you think Rex told anybody I mean 35 years I couldn't keep a secret for five years and do you do you think his brother we haven't heard anything about his brother and I know it's early but what are your thoughts on his brother we haven't heard a lot about or or if he really told anybody I can tell you this much brother

has not been arrested yet yet which tells me would anybody agree or disagree I don't think the brother has been accused. Of course, I'm sure they're looking at him as having anything to do with the murders. Now, should he have known if bodies were being buried on his property? I don't know, but I can tell you this much. That's an excellent defense. I didn't know. So, unless they can tie him directly to a murder or the disposal of the body, he is at this juncture without blame. Hey, jump in. You're the high-profile lawyer.

And Nicole Parton, remember, you have the facts. He did sell the avalanche to the brother. So the brother did have possession of said avalanche. Nicole Parton, do you think you said, hey, is that blood? Because I don't. I don't think so. But it was on his property that that avalanche was recovered. And he owns the adjoining property there in South Carolina, the brother. And they got to keep the leverage angle of this thing too. They don't start locking everybody up because everybody gets a lawyer, and then nobody can talk to anybody, so they keep everybody at bay until they either figure out they're involved or not.

Then they say, okay, here's the deal. This is what happens. You either talk or you go to jail, and that's how these cases unfold. Wait, you mean they don't arrest everybody and then let them go when they feel like it? Right. Yeah, no. Darn. We don't really care for lawyers in this kind of thing,

so we want to make sure that we stay them as far away as possible. Because as soon as you label somebody a suspect, that's it. Absolute right to counsel attaches. And good luck ever talking to them. But I want to add that family members often have no idea what's going on around them. So perhaps, but in most cases, the family members are not involved. Well, Gary Ridgway was married three times and his last wife, the Green River Killer. And the Green River Killer in Seattle, I think he pled guilty to 48 deaths.

But he had three wives and his last wife said it was a perfect marriage. Perfect marriage to a serial killer. A perfect marriage. Yeah. And then Ted Bundy, of course, had a long-term girlfriend that never knew. And she turned him in at the end, but many, many years she had no idea. And BTK. Okay.

Where's the question? And BTK. Ah, right there. Hello. I was wondering how would they track someone's burner phones if they throw them away? I love this part. The forensics of his burner phones. You hit it, Jacqueline.

Yeah. this was a big blow for all those drug dealers out there because they think that they've been anonymous for all this time. But the only thing I can definitely tell you is don't take a selfie with your burner phone. That's really not a good idea. But this is what Rex did, right? He took several

things and then he also went into the store and paid more for minutes which then adds is you know and from what we believe it was a credit card so once again now it's no more a burner phone so there's a lot of times it's just mistakes but now they have the technology they can narrow these things down within a few feet and be able to tell you what cell tower it hit what time it hit and it's it's been pretty amazing i said there's a lot that opened up a lot of eyes in the underworld when they when they broke this thing about the – because he has seven of them, I believe.

And another thing, you can take the victim's cell phone data and see the burner phones calling in, like when you get an incoming call. And then they start noticing the same number. And not only that, you can extrapolate and figure out where a call is coming from. And some of the calls, for instance, the one that was taunting the victim's family, he would call and say, hey, where's your sister? I did X, Y, and Z to her before I murdered her. It was made right above Penn Station. In New York, you got Penn Station, which is Amtrak. You got Grand Central, which is more local. But Penn Station was what he would take to get home. All right. To Gilgo Beach. And that's what gave them the box, too, when he went back to Massapequa with the phone and the

last ping was in Massapequa. So this was all, they had this in 2011. It's pretty amazing. So they had the ping, they had the towns, and they had the description of him and the truck, and it took 10 years to find it. Hey, guys, look at Joe Scott Morgan. What is going on in that head? Okay, you're sitting there having forensic thoughts, I think. Hit me.

Relative to the tracking, I think that it's essential because not only do you have the sequencing of him going out and buying a variety of different phones, but what's fascinating to me is that when you utilize an item like this, these millstones that we carry in our pockets everywhere we go, even if it is a burner phone, if you're reaching out to the sex workers and communicating with them vis-a-vis these things, then you're going to have their data. And look, the police are not blind to this. They're going to dig into, if they can get a victim identified, and that's the most important thing, you get the victim identified, the decedent that you have, and then you begin to track back through their history. You have a lot of these sex workers that are in the realm of the escort world. So they live and die by whatever device, whether it's a computer or whether it's a phone, whatever that, and you're going to leave this digital footprint along the way. And any kind of communication that they might have with this individual is going to, when you marry that up with the physical evidence that you actually find at the scene, this location data, it can be really hard for the defense to overcome, I think. And the sex workers don't change phones.

It's their business. So you get the constant phone number, the same number, and when you start putting that pattern together, and that's what backs you into these kind of things. But you have to be looking for it. That's a really good point, guys. How often have you changed your phone number? I've had this phone number since I started Court TV with Johnny Cochran, God rest his soul, in 1997. The same phone number.

And if I change it, well, I'm not going to change it. So that's a really good point Jacqueline yes hi my name is Brittany I'm from Columbus Ohio and I actually have two questions so since Rex seems to like to brag and kind of talk about it do you think at any point he will end up confessing and kind of you remind me so much of my daughter I don't know what you're saying. She talks so high that only dogs can hear what she's saying. Oh, my God. What? You have to yell like all of us.

Do you think Rex will end up confessing or talking about it since he seems to like to brag about what he's done? Does Rex chance of confessing? I don't think so unless the feds. Rex confessing to this. What are the chances? I think it's zero unless the feds come in and make the case because the feds can then hold the death penalty over his head. See, New York State, even though you have the death penalty, you need the feds now to step in and do it. So if they- Or you got South Carolina and Vegas.

Right. Well, like I said, all they need is that one. I mean, technically, I think I can make a federal case out of it right now, just because you had girls come from Philly and Jersey, so that transportation, I think it's a Hobbs Act. Well, wait a minute, and plus what about wire? Oh, yeah, I don't know that it crossed state lines. Yeah, but the Hobbs Act, I think would be the, yeah. If you use a phone or email or something, it crosses state lines, the feds can get you.

That's a great question. Something that we really haven't mentioned relative to gilgo beach is you know there there are these four other victims that they had mentioned out of atlantic city at some point in time and my understanding is that they were the deposition of the remains is that they were approximating the same location and that they were laying in a specific direction. There was directionality. East pointing on the beach. And they're all in the same area. And I think there was

an old hotel there or something. It's gone now. Yeah, the Golden Key. Yeah, the Golden Key. A notel motel. Yeah, the epitome of that. Yeah. But it was a different kind of clientele. A whole other set of remains. But she asked about a confession, and you answered that. Did he answer your question, lady?

Yeah, there's no reason for him to confess unless they're going to hang a death penalty on him. Right there. Go ahead, sir. Hi, Nancy. My name is Dan. I'm retired law enforcement from California. And several years ago, I worked in Las Vegas as a rideshare driver. So the Las Vegas part of this case really interests me.

Geographically, what area was his residence in Las Vegas? And I may be able to use some insight. Oh, that's a really good question. And isn't, Jackie, didn't he have an email address that said Springfield guy? And somebody goes missing in Springfield as well. So I think we may actually have victims in Springfield area and somebody goes missing in Springfield as well. So I think we may actually have victims in Springfield area as well. Just throw that into the pot. What was the area? I don't know the exact area, but I know that his Wyndham properties were transferable.

And so they actually stayed at about four different condos from one side to the other. So he was moving around when he would make these trips out to Vegas. And I have been told, and I need to go to Vegas and look for myself, that one of the properties Nicole Parton's talking about is not far from the strip where these women would have been. I mean, guys, have you ever been to Vegas? All on the ground, there are, like, flyers with ladies, like, practically nude on them, call this number or this email. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. But you're right. Geographically, from what I've been told, he's right on the scene.

And they have his DNA now. They had to fight for it. So they have his DNA to match it up to cases. But that was about two months ago. They had to fight New York for it because New York is New York and said, you can't have it. So they had to go through the court system to get it. They're trying to match up DNA right now. And I think there may be a match, but we don't know that yet. One more. Good morning. I'm Kimberly and I'm from outside Buffalo, New York. My question is, they had all this evidence on wrecks, and it took them 10 years. Now, is it due to the fact of the occupation that these ladies had that they just, quote, unquote, didn't care?

Because cell phone records would have been the first thing that I would have looked at. Is it because they didn't care? Yes. They didn't care because they were sex Is it because they didn't care? Yes. They didn't care because they were sex workers and they didn't care. Wait. They didn't care because they were sex workers and the chief of police didn't want the investigation because he was sleeping with sex workers, allegedly.

Okay? That's why it took so long. But I don't think we have that problem anymore. So I think it's full steam ahead. Really good question. And you. Quickly, quickly. Hi, I'm from Greenville, South Carolina, and I'm all up in my husband's business.

So how is it that you can have, how can you live with someone for that long and compete? Is she a, I don't want to blame her at all, but I'm just saying, is she? How did the wife not know? Is that your question? Yes, ma'am. Okay, you're the shrink. Think about BTK, right? Think about, I think it was the co-ed killer.

But if you look at serial killers, there are some, that's the extraordinary thing. Because we think they're monsters, but many of them actually are in relationships, married. As I said before, families are unaware, and they're able to keep that going. Although they have no real emotions, they can on the surface come across as being engaged in a relationship, having a marriage, and I am not the least bit surprised about that. Not the least bit. I agree with her. What she said. I'm quoting the office. Okay. Lightning around. That means lightning, Joe Scott. Final thought. This is what I think. I want to know why was the ME at the storage facility? Was there some kind

of anatomical element there they were trying to identify is this some trophy is it something that he just picked up along the way and also have they found a kill kit is there a murder kit that he had that included saws or knives or anything like this ligatures that's what I'm interested in trying to understand on that note his wife spent her summers out of the country in Iceland and it's believed that a lot of these crimes took place when she was out of the country. I tell you this much. It'd be a cold day in H-E-double-L that David Lynch calls and said, I'm not coming home tonight.

Yeah, well, things happen, right? A lot of women don't know what's going on. Listen, there's been a lot of times you call up the wife and say, listen, we locked your husband up for picking up a prostitute, and the first thing is, well, he has a wife and I'm like well that's your problem I don't know what to tell you but there's a lot of stuff that goes around that people don't know. I just think we're going to see

a lot more victims and a lot more from all of these serial killers. They confess to some and there's so much more it's just incredible Thank you for being here This is an iHeart Podcast