Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Long Island Serial Killer Suspect DNA LINKED to 5 VEGAS MURDERED LADIES?

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

The Las Vegas Police Department's DNA lab will be comparing Rex Heuermann’s DNA with DNA from the case of a murdered New Jersey mom.  Victoria Camara's results are expected in six to eight weeks. News12's Tara Rosenblum's investigation has identified four other Las Vegas cases that could be linked to the accused Long Island Serial Killer. Heuermann has had two time shares in Las Vegas. The cold cases identified involve young sex workers who were killed in similar circumstances to the Gilgo Beach victims.  Joining Nancy Grace Today:  Glendene Grant- Jessie Foster’s mother, Founder of M.A.T.H (Mother’s Against Trafficking Humans) FB: MissingJessie Foster: https://www.facebook.com/MissingJessieFoster/, M.A.T.H. (Mothers Against Trafficking Humans)   https://www.facebook.com/MothersAgainstTraffickingHumans   Bernarda Villalona - Worked in the Homicide Bureau with 1 of the prosecutors on the Gilgo case, NY Criminal Defense Attorney & Former Prosecutor, Villalona Law, PLLC., www.VillalonaLaw.com, @BernardaVillalona (FaceBook, Instagram, LinkdIn, TikTok, Threads) Twitter: @VillalonaLaw  Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills, CA), https://www.drbethanymarshall.com/, Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, Twitter:@DrBethanyLive  Sheryl McCollum- Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org, Host of new podcast: Zone 7, Twitter: @ColdCaseTips  Joseph Giacalone [Jack- a -lone] 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  Dr. Jan Gorniak- Board Certified Forensic Pathologist, Fmr. Medical examiner for Clark County (Las Vegas, NV)  Kristin Thorne- Investigative reporter for WABC Channel 7 Eyewitness News in New York, Www.ABC7NY.com/missing, host of Hulu’s true-crime show “Missing.”, @KristinThorne - on Facebook, Twitter, Insta, Threads, LinkedIn    Tara Rosenblum- Senior investigative reporter and 53 time Emmy Winner  News 12 in Long Island, Twitter: @tararosenblum,   https://westchester.news12.com/got-a-problem-you-should-turn-to-tara  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last days, we learned that the Long Island serial killer suspect, Rex Heuermann has been taken off suicide watch as Gilgo Beach victims say they believe his wife did know everything that was going on and in fact one witness placing her in the home during the time one of the victims was murdered. But breaking now, we now understand why the Las Vegas victims are now potential victims of the Long Island serial killer. What is the connection and how many more dead bodies can be chalked up to one man? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Also, Rex Heuermann, the Long Island serial killer suspect, refuses to give DNA. Wonder why? But a judge swoops in and demands, you will give DNA, Rex Heuermann. But let's just start at the beginning. Take a listen to our friends at News 12. 20 years since a gravel truck driver made a gruesome discovery along the West Coast in this grassy, deserted area outside Las Vegas.

She just was thrown like a piece of trash in the desert. You first hear it, it's unbelievable. It feels like a lifetime movie. The discarded body belonged to a young teenage sex worker originally from New Jersey named Victoria Camara. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, including a woman that has seemingly connected the dots between the Long Island serial killer and potential suspects in Vegas, and that would be Tara Rosenblum joining us from News 12 Long Island.

But first, I want to go to a special guest joining me, Glendene Grant. You may not have heard of her, but you will remember her name after you hear what she's got to say. Glendene is the mother of a 20-year-old young girl trafficked into sex work in Vegas, missing since 2006. She is the founder of MATH, M-A-T-H, Mothers Against Trafficking Humans. Ms. Grant, thank you for being with us. Oh, I appreciate you having me on Nancy. I appreciate it a lot. You know, it actually hurts me to hear you thank me after all you have been through. You know, I have a daughter and a son, they're twins and not much younger than your daughter when she was sex trafficked in Vegas.

I want to hear your reaction to the potential link between the Long Island serial killer and bodies of young sex workers found in your area. Oh, well, it just blows the scalp off again. It gets us going again, hopeful that there might be answers, praying that Jessie is found. You know, at this point, you know, having her missing for 17 and a half years, you know, I bounce back and forth from, you know, maybe she's still alive to, you know, you kind of hope she's not after all this time,

if it's, you know, horrible things are happening to her. And then back to, you know, I just don't feel that she's gone in my mother heart to not seeing any other options. So anytime something like this comes up, we get anxious again, we hope that this time we will have the answers that we need. And then we just keep going. We keep going on. You know, we have, I actually lost another daughter in 2021. And I have four daughters. So now I have just my two daughters and my grandkids and my husband. So we form a very strong bond and we won't stop until we get some kind of answers. Joining me in addition to Tara Rosenblum, News 12 Long Island, Kristen Thorne is with us, investigative reporter, WABC 7 Eyewitness News. Tara, I want to talk to you about potential links between the suspect,

Rex Heuermann, suspected of being a serial killer in the Long Island area and Vegas. First, take a listen to our friends at News 12. News 12 learned late Wednesday afternoon that the Las Vegas Police Department just got the green light to conduct a direct comparison between suspected Gilgo Beach killer Rex Heuermann's DNA with the DNA recovered from Victoria Camara's body. Sources tell us the DNA testing could take six to eight weeks to complete, and that it could expand to include four other cold cases that we've reported on in recent weeks, all involving young sex workers in Las Vegas who were killed in similarly suspicious circumstances as the Gilgo Beach victims. Okay, straight to you, Tara Rosenblum,

News 12, Long Island, hit me. Okay, Nancy, thanks for sharing those clips. That was actually all information that we broke first on News 12 and shared throughout the country because immediately, you know, we had prosecutors calling this the most consequential homicide investigation in Long Island history, as you know. But my team, literally 24 hours after his arrest, set out to determine whether or not other police departments across the country would be able to say the same thing. We set our sights on Vegas early on because we know that he's owned two timeshares there dating back two decades. First thing we needed to find out, as you and I have spoken, Nancy, is how many cold cases there are in the department. We combed through online records because they didn't have a tally

and determined there were 266 active cases. Okay, whoa, right there, right there. You think, and I even hate to say this, it's so cliche, in Sin City, for Pete's sake, they would have an up-to-date toll of how many people are missing I mean Glendene Grant that's just got to rub you the wrong way your daughter has been missing since 2006 and I think Tara's going to tell us that's around the time that Heuermann was there and they don't even have a tally of how many people are missing are you kidding me Glendene what what what the hay's going on out there?

Oh, it drives us crazy, Nancy. We literally have to be the ones that contact the police on the most cases. And we give them tips that don't always get looked at. I have to say, though, in the last year or so, maybe a little longer, we've had a new detective on the case that I'm so grateful for. He contacted me. He asked to new detective on the case that i'm so grateful for he contacted me he asked to be put on the case he remembers jesse's case from the get-go he said that he was a rookie when she went missing so it's always stood out to him and he also told me that they were born in the same year

so he has a connection so well that's some good news that there's new a new detective on it but tara rosenblum i want to get about three inches up their tailpipe. You had to go in and amass the numbers yourself? We did, Nancy, and out of those 266 cold cases, 61 of them, this is by our count, involved women. So the first thing we needed to know, how many of those are sex workers? We were looking for similarities to Gilgo Beach. So we went through one by one. Glendene knows. Her and I were in touch. We went through one by one and reached out to family members, tried to develop law enforcement sources.

And of those, I was able to identify five cases with striking similarities to the Gilgo Beach cases. I mean, we were knee-deep in this. We were comparing autopsy records. We were putting in FOIL records. And just yesterday, we had some breaking news late in the afternoon that we shuffled to get on. And we found out that sure enough, the Las Vegas Police Department, they got the green light for their DNA lab to conclude a direct comparison of suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Tureman's DNA with the DNA recovered in one of the cases that we had highlighted early on that involved the murder of a New Jersey mother,

Victoria Kamara, who for two decades, her family has been looking for answers. Her daughter was barely one when she was found dead. I spoke with her yesterday. She is now 21 and just really hoping that this results in justice for their family. Okay, hold on. You have just thrown us all a bombshell, a grenade. I read your report late last night and it's amazing. Not only your reporting and all the work the investigative work you had to do to report what you reported but the content of your report it's happening it is happening Vegas PD now has to go ahead to make DNA comparisons from what they have found on these women in Vegas to

Rex human sitting as I said earlier getting three hots and a cot in a Suffolk County jail. Now, you just heard Tara Rosenblum bring up the name. And now I want to follow up with that. Take a listen to our friends at News 12. In his first interview since Heuermann's bombshell arrest, a three-decade veteran of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reveals the chilling reason the suspected serial killer is also being investigated for possible ties to a string of unsolved murders that he probed as a detective in the cold case unit until his retirement two months ago. I can just say that there are similar circumstances between these three murder victims. They were sex workers and they disappeared and they were found out in the desert. Phil Ramos told me three cases he knows of have similar methodology to the Gilgo Beach murders. The women he wouldn't name disappeared between 2003 and 2006. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Tara Rosenblum has done so much investigative work. Explain what, break down what we're hearing right now, Tara.

But Victoria Camara disappeared and was discovered, actually, we just marked the two-decade anniversary of her murder. She was discovered off a remote road, a desert road outside Las Vegas by a gravel truck driver. And there have been few leads. The case, her family believes, I initially spoke with her cousins and then yesterday, just yesterday, spoke with her daughter who lives in the Bronx here in New York. The family spread out throughout the tri-state,

but they believe because Victoria Kamara was a sex worker, that the case did not get the attention it deserved. And when we were, not only, Nancy, by police, but by those of us in the media, do a Google search. You won't see her name come up until after the arrest of Rex T. Orman. And so we thought to, you know, compare the autopsy reports here. And just like the Gilgo 4, right at the top, it says that she died of strangulation. Those autopsy reports are a very similar read. And obviously, police thought the same, because now they've

gotten the green light to do this DNA comparison. And my law enforcement sources tell me this is not something you can just do on a hunch or do it random to make a direct comparison with the DNA. So something had to have prompted this. There's something that we're trying to figure out and hopefully will come to light that allowed this process to happen. And then what's going to happen now is they think what will happen next is that they're going to do the DNA comparisons on the four other cases that I've identified with striking similarities to our Gilgo cases as well. So five in all. Joining me, you're hearing Tara Rosenblum, News 12 Long Island, also with us.

In addition to Tara and Ms. Glendene Grant, her daughter goes missing in 2006 when we believe Heuermann was in the Vegas area. Kristen Thorne with me investigative reporter WABC channel 7 Eyewitness News also she's the host of Hulu's true crime show missing I mean it's amazing to me that you ladies are digging up all this investigative research and then the cops are deciding to do a DNA comparison but you know what unlike so many I don't believe this is the time to say everything that the cops have done wrong in the past. I want to focus on what's

happening right now and how we can crack this case. Go ahead, Kristen. Well, I think, look, Nancy, getting the DNA and having the judge step in and say that he's going to have to submit to this cheek swab is going to certainly allow law enforcement around the country to have, you know, they could have access to that DNA. Obviously, they can't just go in and grab it. They have to have a reason why they should be able to compare it. I think that these cases that Tara uncovered in Las Vegas are very interesting. I think that, look, you know, unfortunately, there are a lot of bad people out there who do a lot of bad things. And so we will have to look at, you know, this is why the DNA is so critical, right? It's the one

way to show pretty much 100%, if not 99.999, that this person was involved. So I do hope, I'm just happy, Nancy, as the families have said, and I know with math there as well, that what's important about all of this, these cases have gone unnoticed. That's one of the purposes of my show with the purposes of my show with missing. These cases deserve to be heard

and they deserve to have these attention on them. And I am sorry that we as a society have not listened to these cases for so long. And I'm happy that even if this DNA does not match these cases, that these cases are now being looked at and are being taken seriously. Guys, the connections between Rex Heuermann and the Vegas murders. Right now, Tara has identified five women whose cases are eerily similar to what happened in the Gilgo cases. I want you to take a listen to our cut 168. News 12. A 21-year-old escort who reportedly advertised on Craigslist vanished from nearby Henderson and was discovered dead later that month in Illinois. A spokesperson for the family of Lindsay Marie Harris told me her parents are asking for privacy and that any speculation regarding a link to Rex Heuermann is premature, but added they are confident police will leave no stone unturned.

Back to you, Tara Rosenblum. You were the first person that told me that, that Heuermann obviously was working out of Missouri and that he even had the excuse me, out of Springfield and that he even had this identifying moniker to place him there? Sure. So I'm not, you know, we're still looking into it. Just yesterday, we were actually Googling and saw a bunch of businesses with Heuermann. So we don't know if he has family connections to the area or exactly what, how many times he's visited the area. But when we were looking into the case of Lindsay Marie Harris, she disappeared in 2005, literally a month after Heuermann bought one of his timeshares in Vegas. And then when we look further, her severed legs, I know it's gruesome, they were discovered, her body parts were not together when they were discovered, but her severed legs were discovered eerily

similar to our Fire Island Jane Doe, who was just identified as Karen Bregada. And then when we were rereading the bail application, Nancy, on page 17, we saw that with a Tinder account that he set up, he used an email account, Springfield Man, that was registered to the name John Springfield. And something else we found particularly eerie, when they were removing evidence from the house, from his Massapequa Park home, we had cameras out there. And one of the items that they removed was a portrait that looked almost identical to Lindsay Marie Harris. So I know I've spoken to now agencies, law enforcement agencies in three states. They're all over this. We don't know if this will turn out to be a coincidence or not, but certainly the family is happy that her story is back in the headlines. And joining me right now, the founder and director of the Cold Case Research Institute and star of a hit podcast, Zone 7, Cheryl McCollum, you can find her at coldcasecrimes.org.

Cheryl, jump in. Nancy, you've got folks now that are looking seriously at these victims, and some of the similarities are the strangulation, dismemberment, their bodies were wrapped, torso seemed to be... Hold on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. Let's slow it down. Strangulation, bodies wrapped wrapped they were dismembered uh hold on i want to

talk about the rap for just a moment remember the gilgo four are wrapped in camo burlap and a sex worker told me you were there tara when this happened a sex worker told me that she had had a dinner with Heerman. She didn't go on a date with him after the dinner. But he was hypothesizing about how the Gilgo killer affected the murders and disposals. And before it came out, as I recall it, I don't know about the timing, but I do know he was talking to the sex worker and he was describing camouflaged burlap bags and how the killer must have dragged them through the marshes to where they were. So when you say wrapped, it can be in plastic wrap. I believe Karen Vergara's legs, severed legs are found in plastic at Davis Park. It can be wrapped in burlap bags. It can be wrapped in sheets of plastic.

What? Right. Claw. Yes. So it's the wrapping. And I'm working up to throwing all this to Dr. Bethany Marshall. The wrapping of the body. Okay. So strangulation. Don't leave me yet. No, no, no. I'm working up to throwing all this to Dr. Bethany Marshall, the wrapping of the body. Okay, so strangulation.

Don't leave me yet. No, no, no. I'm coming back. I'm still with you. Strangulation, wrapping the body. The body is dismembered, discarded out in a rural area. Go ahead. Discarded in a rural area, and most importantly, they're with additional victims in close proximity.

So you're looking at several things that could now be a signature. The wrapping, the dismemberment, how they're placed. Now, one thing that is critical for me is when you hear everybody talk about there's no coverage. People didn't know about this victim. You don't even know her name. That tells me this is not a copycat. This is somebody singularly working. So I told you day one on your show that I believed that there would be other victims in other states.

Oh, yes. From Vegas to South Carolina and probably beyond. Tara Rosenblum, were the Vegas victims wrapped? Were they in close proximity? And where were their bodies dumped? And is there COD, strangulation, or asphyxiation? Sure. So we know in the case of Victoria Camara, that is the autopsy report that they were able to release. The cause of death was strangulation. And four out of the five of these cases that we're following, Nancy, involved these women being wrapped in plastic or cloth. Okay, Cheryl, you're right. Four out of five of the Vegas victims were wrapped. What about the fifth one, Tara? I don't have the

information on that one, Nancy. We're still waiting for a public document request to get more information on that. So the fifth one may very well have been wrapped up as well. Wow. Okay. Also with me, in addition to Dr. Bethany Marshall, is Joe Giacalone, former NYPD, author of the Cold Case Handbook, and Bernarda Villalona, high-profile lawyer who worked in the Homicide Bureau with one of the Gilgo prosecutors.

You can find her at ViaLonaLaw.com. Okay, Dr. Bethany Marshall, I'm ready. I'm braced. Hit me. Well, Nancy, what all this tells me is that the way Sherman killed was very ritualized, very methodical. I was thinking about people who love coffee. They will often say, I go to this certain store and then I smell the coffee and then I take them home. Then I grind the beans. Then I have my special espresso maker. That is a lot of work for a cup of coffee, but go ahead.

Well, think about the work involved in finding a sex worker and this particular effect, a ritualized offending profile, which I think is very sexualized. He starts at the shooting range. You know, he gets off on shooting things and practicing being a marksman. Then he goes out hunting. And all of this is a precursor it's like foreplay to killing these poor women then he buys the place in vegas so he has proximity to sex workers and pause pause pause tara didn't he buy more than one right places the records that we've been able to obtain show that he's owned two timeshares dating back over the past two decades. And one of those timeshares, we have Glendene Grant with you as a guest today. She has told me that the area

where one of those timeshares is located is a known area for prostitution and where sex workers congregate. Okay, whoa, I'm getting so much information. I'm drinking from the fire hydrant right now. Dr. Bethany Marshall, go ahead. Well, hey, there's sex workers all over Vegas, but he chose the area with the most disenfranchised, vulnerable young sex workers. Let's just be honest about that. If this was a high class call girl, you know, at, you know, Paris or one of the big, big hotel casinos, he wouldn't have been interested. He picked on vulnerable people. But if we go back to the ritual, I could spend hours on it, but sort of breaking it down, it begins with hunting, the procurement of guns, the pouring of the concrete in his home to have this vault to keep the guns and maybe bodies. It's very

sexualized. It's tinged with sexual excitement and being around women who are sex workers in Vegas. And I think that the strangulation, unfortunately, may have been while he's performing some sex act on them, putting them again in a vulnerable position. Once they're dead, he makes use of their bodies for a prolonged period of time. It may be like a hunter that goes out and, you know, hunts and gets a deer and then he goes and gets it butchered and then he puts it in the freezer and then he has a steak night after night. You know, these bodies are valuable to Sherman long after he kills them and they're valuable because he controls them, he dominates them. Maybe he masturbates

on them or has sex with them or whatever he does with them. It's incredibly profoundly exciting to him. You know, think about all the serial killers who keep body parts in their freezer or, you know, in a pot of boiling water on the stove. They like proximity to the body parts. But when you have dozens of legs and torsos and heads and arms piling up, what are you going to do with them? You're going to resort back to what you know. And he was a hunter. And what he knew was wrapping animals in burlap and disposing of them places. So I mean, not that he would dispose of an animal that he had hunted, but he knew of ways to dispose. And I think he dismembered for multiple reasons. The control over the body by methodically dismembering it was a sexualized act. So he prolonged that. But then when, again, so many body parts are

piling up, you have to do something with them. In Vegas, it has deserts. It has vast, vast areas of land where nobody goes. So that's also a perfect place for him because he can dispose of the body parts. And Nancy. Vast areas of land. Go ahead, Tara. To piggyback that, I thought something really telling. This week I was in the jail because we just marked the one-month incarceration milestone of Rex Heuermann in Suffolk. So I went to see what a cell looked like, what the conditions were like.

And during that interview with Sheriff Toulon, I asked him point blank, do you think, because he's been involved in the task force, obviously, since the get-go. And I asked him point blank, do you believe that rex hewerman had a hand in these five cases we're talking about in las vegas nancy looked directly at the camera and said yes how can we place him there take a listen our cut 172 news 12 property records obtained by the turn to tara team show the successful architect bought a timeshare in Las Vegas in 2004 at Wyndham Vacation Resorts that he later sold for $51,000 in 2013. And public documents also show he still owns another timeshare here at Club Soleil. Joining us now, Joseph Giacalone, former NYPD Sergeant Cold Case Investigator, author of The Cold Case Handbook and The Criminal Investigative Function.

Joe, thank you for being with us. What's your take? Thanks, Nancy. Yes, law enforcement is doing exactly what it should be doing. You have a suspect in a major case here in New York. You're fighting now to get the DNA to put it to CODIS because of New York's rules. They don't follow the Maryland v. King Supreme Court decision that allows police departments to put DNA in upon arrest. New York State still requires it upon conviction, and that's what the holdup is

in a lot of these cases. So Las Vegas has a specific reason, so they have some sort of DNA that they want to match up, and they were able to convince the judge they may have been able to do this. So that's why we're headed to that direction. And listen, this is part of Cold Case 101. You try to find cases that are connected to yours because each one of those cases could hold a piece to another one. And law enforcement now is doing exactly what it should be doing. You have an invigorated police department in Suffolk County. You have this task force with the New York State Police and the FBI. You have some good quality investigation going on in a short period of time.

And everybody across the country, wherever this guy lives now, is very excited and their eyes are wide open and they're willing to do this. And that's sometimes all you need is that fresh set of eyes to break something open. I think you're right. Guys, I want you to give a DNA sample. Gee, I wonder why, but a judge would hear none of it. Take a listen to our cut 175 from WCBS. New tonight, now a judge has ordered Gilgo Beach serial murder suspect Rex Heuermann to submit a DNA sample. Heuermann's attorneys tried to block the move, arguing prosecutors failed to show probable cause,

connecting him to a DNA sample taken from a pizza box. But according to court documents, the judge said there is enough probable cause to believe Heuermann committed the crime that he is charged with. No word on when Heuermann will submit to a cheek swab. To Bernarda Villalona, who worked in the Homicide Bureau with one of the prosecutors on the Gilgo case. She is now a high profile defense attorney joining us out of New York. And you can find her at VillalonaLaw.com. Bernarda, what about him jumping up claiming he would not give a DNA sample? Oh, don't worry about that, Nancy, because what the prosecutors can do is get a force order where they actually force him and hold them down to try to get a DNA sample from him. So that's going to happen. So you're going to do it the easy way or the hard way. Right there. Believe me, I am not worried about him claiming he won't

give the DNA because they did exactly what you just said. You can't just throw somebody down and stick a Q-tip in their mouth. You have to have a court order. Then you can throw somebody down and stick a Q-tip in their mouth. And in this case, Rex Heuermann, I think it's very telling he would not give his DNA. Why not? If he's innocent. You know what? If somebody said to me, Nancy, I think you're a killer. Give me your DNA and say, fine, take it. I'm not a killer. But he refused to give it, Bernarda. It tells me volumes. They're going to use his refusal also against him as consciousness of guilt at the time of trial. I will argue that as a prosecutor. Like, look, ladies and gentlemen, there was a court order to have him swabbed.

And he refused to be swabbed. In fact, we needed to get an order to get him swabbed. And why did he want to be swabbed? Ding, ding, ding. Because he knew that his DNA would be a direct link to these homicides, ladies and gentlemen. But also, Nancy. Japan. Nancy, he's dominated everybody in his life, his wife, his children, his neighbors, the sex workers. He's used to dominating.

He's probably staring those detectives down thinking that he won't have to to give a DNA swab and think about what's going to happen in court. He's going to be one of those perps who just stares at the jurors, stares them down, tries to dominate them, thinks that he's going to get his way. So I think there's a psychological motive as well. He's been at the center of his own universe this long. It's just a rude awakening for him that he's going to be compelled to do something he doesn't want to do. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, Cheryl McCollum, we were hearing Bernardo Villalona describe it, but same thing in court. I think here we're in court when one defendant, and it was a murder case, would not shut the hay up,

would have constant outbursts, yelling, screaming, not letting anybody finish what they were going to say. I came in with a big roll of black duct tape because you know what was coming next, Cheryl McCollum. He would be gagged and duct taped to that chair. Well, it didn't take all that. When he saw that duct tape, he suddenly went silent but there have been many cases where a defendant refuses to give dna and you have to physically restrain them to get the dna and nobody wants that it's a bad look it's a bad look in front of a jury that you've got law enforcement holding somebody down but the reality is when the defendant refuses to give DNA or refuses to shut the hay up in the courtroom so you can't have a trial, what? We're just going to stop everything because they say, nah, not today.

That's not happening. Nancy, normally when this falls to me to do with a suspect, I walk in and behind me, I usually have three to four of the biggest officers I can find. And the deal is, this is going to go one of two ways. But at the end of it, I will get the sample. So again, visually, go ahead and let me just do it and let's both get on with our day. In this situation, what you're going to have when they talk about how he tries to use his intimidation and his stature and he's going to stare at people, let him. It will work against him. Oh, blah, blah, stare away.

It's going to work against him. Just like when we had the Wayne Williams trial. Let the jury see who this person actually is. Do it. And then imagine that big hulking guy described as an ogre by some. What was happening behind closed doors with a tiny, very slight in stature call girl, a sex worker, all alone with this guy. I bet you anything that the five victims out in Vegas were slight in stature. I mean, Glendale Grant is joining me.

Jesse Foster's mother, just 20 years old when Jesse was trafficked into sex work in Vegas. Missing since 2006, which, by the way, coincides with the time Heuermann was there. She is the founder of MATH, M-A-T-H, Mothers Against Trafficking Humans. Glendene, was Jessie a small, slight person? Yes, she was very tiny. She was barely 115 pounds. And I know for a fact that Lindsay Marie Harris was also the same size as Jessie. Their looks are very strikingly similar.

Oh, tell me. Tell me. You know what? When we describe one or the other of the women, because I've been in touch with her parents over the years, not lately, but at the beginning we touched base many times, you could describe one of the women, and we would have to figure out if we were talking about Lindsay or Jesse. You know, blonde hair, 5'7", 115 pounds, very petite in size.

The only difference is Lindsay's eyes were blue and Jesse's were hazel. So very, very petite, which also fits in Cheryl McCollum with the same MO. Go ahead, please. I just want to point something out, too, that he's a very different serial killer. When you have somebody like Bundy that goes out and hunts for vulnerable victims, Rex picked these women beforehand. He selected them. They came to him. So it's like fish in a barrel. So he has a very different MO in this situation that I think is critical for people to understand. Yes, he was a hunter. Yes, he researched and he stayed online and he, you know, made phone calls and that sort of thing. But I think this is a long process that he took enjoyment from beginning to end.

Guys, we're also hearing from victims' families angry that funds are being raised for Heuermann's family. Take a listen to our cut 176. This is Bob Macedonio, who is Asa Elrop's lawyer. Elrop, of course, is Heurman's wife. The GoFundMe page was set up by Melissa Moore, who is the daughter of the serial killer, the happy face killer, who in the late 90s was convicted of killing at least five sex workers in the Midwest. She was 16 years old when her father was arrested. She reached out immediately to myself, and we put her in contact with ASA,

and they have started the GoFundMe page. Like I said, 100% of the proceeds from that GoFundMe goes to ASSA. So what do the victims, the Long Island serial killer victims family, have to say about a GoFundMe being set up for the alleged killer's family? Take a listen to Our Cut 182 eight two picks 11. The sister of Shannon Gilbert phoned in to say she was upset Uriman's family has already received thousands. Me and a lot of the victim's families just feel like it's disgusting because we were never given that much support when our loved ones went missing. John Ray said Rex Uriman should not

have a court-appointed lawyer. Mr. Ureman and Mrs. Ureman have plenty of assets. They have assets in several states. Now, we should point out that Rex Ureman has pleaded not guilty to three murders in cases where the victims were intact. To Kristen Thorne joining us, WABC Channel 7 investigative reporter, what do you make of victims' families now speaking out about the suspect's family getting thousands of dollars when nobody cared when their loved ones were literally slaughtered? Nancy, I can certainly understand the frustration. I think, look, GoFundMe is a new platform. It wasn't around when the other victims disappeared. I can understand how frustrating this must be for them. Nancy, I looked at the GoFundMe page this morning because I'm

trying to think who is donating to her. So it's raised more than $51,000 as of this moment. And when you scroll through the comments, mind you, there are 1,300 people who have donated. Most of these donations are very small, $10, $20, $25, sometimes $5. People are donating multiple times. Obviously, these are people that don't know her, but people are saying, you know, my heart hurts for this family. Asa is strong. We just wanted to say there's a lot of us who understand you're a victim too. Many, many people care about you. To me, I think this speaks more broadly, and I just find it very interesting that people who have no relation to her, know nothing about anything, are taking money, their hard-earned money, and giving it to her. I find the whole thing, I would love to talk to the psychology behind that. Bernarda Villalona joining us, high profile lawyer out of New York.

Ms. Ellerup immediately filed for divorce from Heuermann. Does that mean Heuermann cannot access that $50,000 off the GoFundMe for his defense? No, he's not going to be able to access that money because either way, that money has been earmarked for the wife well for the former wife of Mr. Heuermann so it won't be accessible to him. Also just to note that that in terms of the divorce itself is very interesting because she's going to be able to testify at trial against him because there will be no longer wife and husband privilege there. Now another bombshell has developed as it relates to Heuermann's wife, now ex-wife. Take a listen to our cut 181, picks 11.

Attorney John Ray, who represents the estates of Shannon Gilbert and Jessica Taylor, then dropped a bombshell claiming a witness told him sex workers went to the Uriman basement. Mrs. Ellerup was present in this tiny little home when that occurred. I have a witness, firsthand knowledge of that. The witness refuses to come forward. So the Ellerup family comes forward and says, help us, give us money. What about the victims who were chopped up? Okay, Cheryl McCollum, that's a whole another can of worms. We've been told that the wife and children were not there. Now there's an eyewitness stating they were on at least one occasion. Well, again, Nancy, the only thing that really jumped out at me early on is how fast she processed this information and moved to divorce you have a lot of people that when they're given any type of traumatic

information first they deny it then they get where they just can't really even process the reality of it before they get angry enough to move to divorce she did this in days so she had to have some information that this was believable and she accepted it within days that doesn't mean she has any culpability that doesn't mean she was an accessory but she absolutely believed the you know the pornography searches that he was able to kill somebody that he was able to dispose of that person by her actions you know, the pornography searches, that he was able to kill somebody, that he was able to dispose of that person by her actions. You know, Nancy, he may have already convinced his wife that it was okay to bring sex workers into the house, that there was something inferior about her. Maybe he told her, you're short, you're fat, you're dumpy. I'm not attracted to you. I'm attracted

to these other women. And she went along with it as abused women always do. So Cheryl McCollum is right, by the time all this news comes out, everything that has been sort of at the tip of her conscious consciousness, all of a sudden gets pulled together, amalgamated in such a way that she says, Oh, my God, maybe he is a serial killer. But you know, that GoFundMe page, it also tells me that she says, oh my God, maybe he is a serial killer. But you know that GoFundMe page, it also tells me that the children of Rex Herman still feel their dad might be innocent. They are not yet ready to accept this. And they feel that he's being victimized rather than the fact that he has victimized other people. So he may have had a very dominating relationship with the wife, brought sex workers in right under her nose,

taunted her about it, but maybe he adored and idealized the children. So they have a different relationship. If you have or think you have information regarding either Long Island, Vegas, South Carolina, anything connected to the Long Island serial case and or Rex Heuermann, please dial toll free 1-800-CALL-FBI, 1-800-225-5324. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.