Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - SHOCK EVIDENCE: L.I. SERIAL KILLER KEEPS VICTIMS ALIVE FOR DAYS TO "PLAY" WITH THEM BEFORE MURDERS

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Rex Heuermann was initially arrested and charged in the deaths of the women known in the press as "The Gilgo Four": Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes. A year later, Heuermann faces additional charges of second-degree murder in the killings of two more women, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Castillo, who were found in the same area as the Gilgo Four. After his arrest, investigators seized several electronic devices from Heuermann, including a laptop containing a secret Microsoft Word document titled "HK2002-04," which they describe as a "blueprint" for the architect's murders. Even more disturbing, investigators believe that the alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann may have kept his victims alive for several days to inflict pain and torture. They have used the family's calendars to determine when Heuermann was alone in the house while his wife and children were away, comparing those dates to when some of his alleged victims went missing. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Nikkie Carbone - Former escort who went on a date with Rex Heuermann  Dr. Bethany Marshall:  – Psychoanalyst; Instagram & TikTok: @drbethanymarshall, X: @DrBethanyLive, Appearing in the latest season of “Paris in Love” on Peacock – BOOK: “Deal Breaker: When to work on a relationship and when to walk away”,  Bill Daly – Former FBI Investigator and Forensic Photography, Security Expert Joe Scott Morgan – Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, “Blood Beneath My Feet,” and Host: “Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;” X: @JoScottForensic Susan Hendricks – Journalist, Author of “Down the Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi;” IG @susan_hendricks, X @SusanHendicks“ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Shocking evidence emerging in the last days. Did the Long Island serial killer actually keep his victims alive? Alive for days to play with them. His words, not mine, in order to play with them before he murdered them. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Six women found dead, mutilated and dismembered on Long Island Beach. Investigators believe there is one thread connecting them all. Rex Heuermann, that's the thread. Now we said six, but I guarantee you

there are going to be more victims uncovered. Victims of the Long Island serial killer, a local architect, Rex Heuermann. In the last days, he has been officially charged with two more women's murders, not just the Gilgo Four. And I expect another to be named in the near future, that victim being Valerie Mack. But you couldn't make this up. Where am I getting this knowledge? I'm getting it from a document, a document that coincides with corroborating evidence, sightings of the victims, phone calls from the victims, train rides by the victims, victims that left and never came back. All of that extrinsic evidence coincides with a document, a very detailed document that was erased by the Long Island serial killer, the alleged serial killer erased by him. But as any computer expert will tell you, you can never erase anything on your computer. I also learned after researching and investigating this that

Rex Heuermann tried to not only erase it, but he also perfected it over years. He would toy with and tinker with this document as he perfected his mode of murder. but keeping a victim alive for days on end so he could play with him. Where am I getting that word? From his doc, his document, his so-called planning document that was found on his computer. First of all, listen to this. Alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann may have kept his victims alive to inflict pain and torture them for multiple days. Investigators using calendars for the Heuermann family to determine when Rex Heuermann has the house all to himself while his wife and children are not at home and comparing those dates to date some of his alleged victims went missing. OK, more rest, more playtime. And so basically what he's talking about is, well, the allegation and what we would allege is the more arrested the participants are,

the more you can get done. And he also talks about, or the document also talks about crime scene and if you're sleepy and spending too much time in a crime scene or your lack of sleep, your chances of making mistakes increase. So again, there's a lot of evincing of intent in that document. Okay. I really don't know what to say after that. And I like this guy. You're hearing the Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney speaking, but I just refer to the participants. You mean the murder victims, the lady murder

victims. And as we learn from Euriman's document, the smaller and more petite the lady, the more he liked it. He's a huge hulking guy, got away close to 300 pounds, towering. He was described by some witnesses as looking like an ogre, a participant in at least four days of physical torture, including suspending the women in the air from the roof and walls of his torture chamber. The participant, my rear end, here's a guy, this is how everybody else saw him. Now, this is how we see him today. Joining me in All-Star Panel to make sense of what we are learning, keeping the victims alive for days,

to quote, play with them. Before I tell you more straight out to renowned psychoanalyst, Dr. Bethany Marshall, author of Deal Breakers. You can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Bethany, I would not refer to these ladies as quote, participants that needed more rest in order to participate in their murder. You know, Nancy, using a word like participant really minimizes the suffering of the victims. And we know about these psychopaths and Rex Herman in particular, that the way he achieves sexual arousal is to inflict pain and cruelty. That is his MO. And he likes to demean. That's what psychopaths do. That's why he called up the families and he kind of taunted them because that was a way to achieve arousal as well. So there is no way. Wait, wait, wait,

Bethany, before I get to him calling some of the victims, family members and taunting them by saying, I raped her. I raped her. I killed her. Okay. That's a whole nother can of worms. Can we get back to the four days of torture that coincide with the times his wife and children would be away for extended periods of time. He needed a full on

nearly a week to torture these ladies, suspending them from the roof. You know what? Let's make it real. Let's make it real. Listen. First off, with regard to Jessica Taylor, you know that her body was recovered on July 26th in 2003 off of just west of Halsey Manor Road in Manorville. She was found on her back. She was decapitated, and her hands and arms were severed just below the elbows. Notably, a tattoo that she had had been obliterated with a sharp object. Let's analyze what we just heard. I'm going to bring in everybody,

but first I want to go to a special guest. Join me, Nikki Carbone, who actually went on a date with Rex Heuermann. We have met before. Nikki, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it. When you were hearing, for instance, what happened to Jessica Taylor, found on her back, decapitated her arms and hands over her head. A tattoo had been cut off of her skin. You know, you were that close, Miss Lady, to the same thing happening to you yeah can you tell us what happened on your date uh looking back now it's still kind of like crazy to me because i i feel like i got very lucky but um so i met him at the steam room in port jeff in like 2015 he initially i knew he was from Espequa

and he was an architect and he wanted me to go directly to his house. He didn't want to meet in public, but I did not want to do that. I ended up actually before going showing somebody his picture and letting her know where I was going to meet him in case anything happened

because I always did it just to be safe. And when I got there I first impression he is a freaking monster he is huge like six five I think and like very kind of overbearing like uh like his grip everything kind of seemed very overbearing we sat down uh we started having dinner uh I don't know how, like, I'm pretty sure he brought it up, but I don't know how he like casually brought up serial killers. And we talked about a couple of them. But like the one that stood out the most and bothers me now hearing what happened to the women was he talked about the serial killer that used to bring women to Alaska on a date and then hunt them.

And he also talked about Jeffrey Dahmer. So like the few serial killers he brought up, very creepy. And then he asked like, have you heard of Long Island serial killer, Gilgo Beach? I said, yeah, we, everyone who lives here knows about it. We started talking about the Gilgo Beach murders. But the difference was when we talked about other serial killers, it was like very much third person, just like stuff you read out of books, actual stuff. When he talked about Gilgo, it was like completely different.

Like his body language changed. The way he was talking about it wasn't somebody, it was almost like he was reliving it. And like, I hate to say it, but almost, I don't know how you say it, but sexualizing it. Like, it seemed like he got off on talking about it. And like the impression I got from him was that like, he was somebody who like, wants the media circus and the attention and to be like a known serial killer like he I don't see any other reason why you would talk to a potential victim about the murders beforehand so it was very the whole thing he brought up I remember Shannon

specifically and that's why it bothers me so much. She is not connected because you said, do you think Shannon Gilbert is tied to the Gilgo Beach? And I said, I don't know. And he said, I think she is. Absolutely. And then he talked about that a little bit. But she's still saying outside to him. And that's one of the biggest things about the case that bothers me. Nikki Carbone with us. You know what know what Nikki after we finish our program I'm going to hook you up with Dr. Bethany Marshall she's at drbethanymarshall.com and I'm going to hook you two up via cell phone Nikki when you were hearing that these ladies were kept alive and like suspended from the ceiling and tied up and tortured.

I wasn't surprised at all. Why do you say that? That I wasn't surprised the way he talked about everything. It's he came off to me as somebody that would enjoy that. And then hearing the autopsy report for like Shannon and other people. It just, it made a lot of sense, especially taunting the families. And it's scary. I think the only reason I remember, I was too scared to walk to my car alone, because I didn't know if he would like, come to my car, and he was a massive guy. So I ended up having somebody meet me literally literally like at the door of the steam room.

And I feel like that's the only reason I got as lucky as I did. Now, Nikki, the steam room was the restaurant, correct? Yeah. And I'd like to point out to everyone that I've spoken to Nikki well over the course of the past year, and her story has remained the same. In fact, the minute details have not changed. Let me understand this, Nikki, you got such an overwhelming feeling. You were afraid to walk to your car after dinner with Rex Herriman. Yeah. I didn't know if he would follow me. And like everyone knows he's massive. So, and at the time I was like probably 125 pounds. So yeah, I didn't, I didn't even feel safe. He's the only time

I ever in, in my entire life went on a date where I remembered reading about a magazine, how you could go to the bar and order a drink and they'll escort you to an Uber or Lyft or escort you out. And I remember thinking about that on the date and I never, I never, you know, had that thought come to my mind. Like he, he was terrifying because the way he spoke about it, wasn't somebody who just was interested in serial killers. Nikki, I remember you telling me something about, he kept trying to get you to go with him and you were putting him off and he kept explaining how he could get you out there, but he wouldn't talk about how you could get back home. Yeah, he didn't want me to take. That was the biggest thing.

So at the towards the end of the date, he asked if I was going to go back to his place with him and he had shown me a white envelope, but that was sketchy to begin with. But he asked me to go back to his place. But his biggest thing was he didn't want me to take my car or anything. And he wanted my phone off. And I was like, how am I going to get back? And he's like, Oh, we'll figure that out later. Like that wasn't like something he talked about. And when I was like, Oh, no, like, I'm not leaving my car. I'm I don't feel comfortable driving out there. Like you could tell he was like visibly annoyed and like aggravated that he like made the effort to come meet me out there.

And I wasn't going back with him. Now, where was the steam room restaurant located? Was it anywhere near Penn Station? No, no. I live in Suffolk. So he met me in Port Jeff, which is I want to say like 30 minutes from Massapequa maybe. But I had never gone to Massapequa or been in the area. So I didn't feel comfortable going straight to his house to begin with.

And then after the fact, I was like, I don't want to drive at night. I don't know the area. And that's when he was like, oh no, we'd go in my car. Why would we take two cars? Like insisting that it be one car. What was his response when you would not go in the end when he realized you were leaving and you were not going to go with him? He, what else can you do? He's in a public place. He's not going to, you know, make a scene. So

all he did was he gave me like a really firm hug, like an awkwardly firm, like very aggressive kind of hug. And you could see on his face you could see in his body language he was visibly like aggravated like he looked angry that i wasn't going and i didn't walk out the door until i knew my friend was waiting outside body after body after body is found on the beachy shores of Long Island, New York. But authorities think there could be more. There are absolutely more. Straight out to Susan Hendricks joining us, investigative reporter and author of a new book, Down the Hill, My Descendant to the Double Murder in Delphi.

Susan Hendricks, thank you for being with us. This document has emerged, clearly indicates that the defendant Rex Heuermann, the alleged Long Island serial killer, would keep his victims alive for days on end, in his words, playing with them, in my words, torturing them until he finally killed them just in time for his wife and children to fly back into town. Yeah, Nancy, it's good to be on. And seeing that list is so disturbing. And it's great to hear from Nikki. I also watched a prior interview you did with her about that gut instinct to think, wait a minute, his posture is different when he's speaking about the murder, almost in first person. And the police commissioner, I believe,

said it best, saying Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us, a predator that ruins families. And some of the most disturbing, and there's a lot to choose from, as you know, Nancy, on that list. One is hit harder, use heavy rope for neck, light rope broke under stress. So think about the family members going back thinking one of the victim's sisters said, I want to know what were her final moments like? Was she in pain? And then seeing this list come out that the light rope broke, that they need heavier rope. As sick as you may have thought this case to be, it appears it's even more disturbing now looking at that list. In the last days, two new victims have been officially named. Names we knew before, but now it's official. There is enough evidence, including DNA mitochondrial evidence to connect human to

these victims. Straight out to Dr. Bethany Marshall. You can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Bethany, listening to the injuries on Sandra Castilla, specifically the, I believe, postmortem after death injuries to her face, torso, breasts and vaginal area. It fits directly, which I'm going to get into later, snuff films and porn films that were discovered on this document belonging to human that he perfected and then tried to erase. I want to ask you, what does this type of mutilation on a lady's breasts and vagina and her face, what does that mean psychologically? This is sexual sadism. Sexual sadism is a disorder where the perpetrator cannot achieve sexual arousal or orgasm without inflicting pain and cruelty on another person. And typically, they don't just like mock or tease. It's really vaginal mutilation, breast mutilation, mutilating the person's face. I mean, it's a little tricky

because he also didn't want her to be ID'd, right? So he was trying to rip off her tattoos with a knife. But primarily, he was trying to keep himself in a prolonged phase of sexual arousal for as many days as possible. And as long as that victim was alive, he could stay aroused. Now, why sadism? So no matter how beaten, battered, bruised, cut up the victim was, he kept her alive to continue his word, not mine, playing with her and seeing a lady beaten and cut up that way, sexually aroused Rex Huriman. Yes, because his brain is wired differently than ours. He cannot achieve sexual satisfaction, excitement, pleasure without inflicting cruelty.

And there's some neurobiology to this and that these perpetrators, they can't they they experience under arousal in every area of their life. Nothing excites them other than inflicting cruelty. And I know about like sex addicts in my practice or if we think of sexual addiction, people with sexual addiction want to stay aroused continually. So they'll often watch pornography, but they'll avoid ejaculation because they want to stay in that aroused state. Now you take that to sadism, sexual sadism, the same thing is actually happening, but while mutilating, while dangling the woman from the ceiling, while looking at the pain in her eyes. This is why sexual sadists often, the mode of homicide

is strangling while looking in the woman's eyes because they want to see the fear. It's not exciting for him to kill her up front. It's only exciting for him to toy with her. And the use of the word play, it's really minimizing the heinous nature of the crime. And I'm so sorry for all these families who have to hear these details. It's not only torture to the victim that was inflicted, but it's continual torture inflicted on the families and on society. In the last days, two more lady victims have been added to the list of the Gilgo Beach victims, victims of the Long Island serial killer. Not only that, but the stunning realization that the Long Island serial killer kept his victims alive for days on end, torturing them through a variety of modes, including hanging them from the walls or ceiling in his basement dungeon.

These attacks and these prolonged days of torture coincided with times his wife and children would leave to go out of the country, typically. Joining me in All-Star panel, but brace yourself, listen to this. Uriman had a significant collection of violent bondage and torture pornography, which was dating back to 1994. And that material was very similar to the condition that the two latest victims were left in. In addition to that, it is alleged that the pornographic images that were accessed by Yerman are consistent with the crime scenes of both Sandra Kaseya and Jessica Taylor. You understand what he's saying, Bill Daley? Bill Daley joining me, former FBI investigator and expert in forensic photography, security expert. Bill, thank you for being with us. And he is joining us from this jurisdiction Long Island. Did you hear that? They can take the porn torture films that Heerman was into, the snuff films where somebody's actually killed or replicates killing them, and they can overlay

what was done and that porn, that torture porn onto these victims and it matches, which is another extrinsic piece of evidence proving guilt on top of the DNA. Yeah, exactly. And as we hear all this evidence mounting against the accused suspect here, it is a bit overwhelming. And I would probably say from an evidentiary perspective that the gathering of this evidence from a variety of scenes, crime scenes, conditions, some more recent, like the last two victims who were found more recent to their deaths than the ones prior, which only skeletal remains, is a daunting task. And I give tremendous credit to both the forensics experts and the other people involved in this case. Also, something else to keep in mind, Nancy, is that we talk about Gilgo Beach and being familiar with the area,

is that those bodies that were first discovered and why they kind of led led to the suspect along that beachfront, which is part of where Jones Beach is and Captree Beach, et cetera. It's a barrier island, a very remote area, particularly in off hours and certainly different times of the season. The other two victims we just mentioned, more recent victims, were actually found a distance away. They were found one out in Southampton, one in, I believe, Holbrook or perhaps Manorville. Those areas are some 30 or 40 miles away. It's quite intriguing the fact that he changed his modality. He changed from going to that beach location for whatever reason, perhaps thinking it was too hot,

and then decided to drop the remains in other remote park-like areas. But unfortunately, they weren't. Fortunately for the investigators, they were not that remote. They were found fairly recent after their deaths, the last two victims. And that helped, I think, bring together some of this forensic information, which is very, very compelling. Bill Dilley, when you state that Gilgo Beach was too hot, I'm sure you don't mean the weather, do you? No, I don't mean that. I mean, it can be in the summer, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that he may have felt as though he was using it too often. He needed to, the suspect needed to kind of change his modality and then look for other places. And that's why there could be other remains. There may be other victims out there who might be somewhat connected.

We don't know yet. And I believe that they may be over a period of time found. Oh, there are going to be more victims. With me, renowned forensics expert, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, star of a new hit series podcast, Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. Joe Scott Morgan, I've been screaming into the wind for years that the butcher of Manorville and the Long Island serial killer are in fact one of the same. And I believe that this one hair proves it because as Bill Daley correctly stated, some of these bodies were found elsewhere.

And regarding the change of modality, as he referred to it, I mean, many people say, oh, that couldn't be him because it's a different MO, modus operandi, method of operation, BS. Just look at, for instance, Ted Bundy. He started off pretending being still a law student, flagging women down in his VW. Then he'd pretend that he had a cast on his arm. Then he would lure them and kill them. Then he finally, in the end, was reduced to clubbing people with a log inside a structure. His modality, his MO changed. So that is not at all unusual. That's just very uneducated to say it can't be him because the M he creates lists of supplies needed for torture, dump sites, and targets. He also has notes on how to prepare for an abduction. The document details the identical methodology used on his alleged victims.

D.A. Ray Tierney points out the Gilgo Four victims were all skeletonized when found, but the last two victims were not. Tierney says the remains of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Castillo showed evidence of torture. Castillo's body showed evidence of mutilation and Taylor was dismembered. Just gonna let that sink in for a moment, Joe Scott. So now we can do an overlay. We can compare the snuff film,

murder, when you, I guess guess are raping a lady then you kill her or bottom line you kill her you kill the victim regardless what leads up to the death in the movie there were other torture porn movies videos that Huerman watched and the M.O. what was done to those victims is the same exact thing that was done to these victims, the real life victims. How do you determine that when a body has decomposed? Very difficult. One of the things that you're looking for, and you can go ahead and probably exclude any any of the remains that are skeletonized unless there were broken bones uh and that might

give you an indication there if there was any healing going on but in the short term when we talk about you know they're saying specifically that there's evidence of torture that's different than post-mortem mutilation n Nancy. So if they have evidence of torture, and I'm talking about evidence on the bodies, all right, that means that there has been a trauma response to any of the injuries. And what that means is we get a bruise, we get a cut, we get some kind of laceration to our body, almost instantaneously, there will be a response at a cellular level in our body. And we can pick up on that at autopsy, Nancy, just by taking those samples. Even to a certain degree, with decomposed

bodies, that's dependent upon how far down the road they are at this point. There is hope, I think, in the ones that are more recent, where when I say recent, I mean recent in the sense that they were fresher, perhaps, than the bodies that had been out for a protracted period of time. And you're going to see evidences of things. I find it very interesting. You know, there's a couple of references that are made in here about trying to disguise this idea of restraint. You know, we have this hard point that they talk about in the house where allegedly these individuals are being suspended. Well, if they're being suspended, they're probably being suspended by their wrist,

hanging from the ceiling. You're going to get abraded areas around the wrist. You can get subsequent small broken bones or fractures in those areas. And if he is striking them, say for instance, with a club or something like this, or even punching them, there might be evidence that they have broken bones underlying that tissue. And there's even a trauma response in the bones at that point in time. It's just how soon did they get to these bodies that they'll have evidence of this, Nancy? The quiet village of Manorville in Long Island is rocked by a series of shocking discoveries up and down their shoreline. Six bodies dumped. Police believe one man is responsible and there could be more victims. It's not just that police believe it.

DNA proves it. Of course, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty in our jurisprudence, but it's going to be hard, very difficult to fight with DNA, not just on one victim, but on several of them. But query, what does this string of murder victims along with days on end where they are kept in captivity in order to torture them? What does that have to do with a book? Listen. to that book and stuff such as sexual substitution, torture, and also Stockholm Syndrome. And, you know, our argument, it's our allegation that the defendant was referencing that Mindhunter book not to gain insight into his own behavior to modify or change it, but rather to use it as

a means of improving his methodology and avoid capture by the authorities. To investigative reporter and journalist Susan Hendricks, how does The Mindhunter, the book, play into this mass murder, this serial killer? It is very sick. And apparently he used references in that book, meaning the painter and the artist, the painter being the victim. And it's clear how much he was obsessed with his own doing, what he did following the brutal murders and even calling, as you mentioned, Nancy, the victim's family members. I mean, Melissa's sister, Amanda, just 15 years old at the time, if you're not clear about this detail, calling her, she sees her sister's phone, thinks it's her sister, says, Melissa, no, it's him, allegedly, saying what he did to her sister.

Nothing seemed like it was enough. Not the torture, referencing the book, those long lists. And there were some parallels, in my opinion, to Delphi in terms of could a tip that was early on have led to his arrest? We'll never know. But one of the victim's roommates, Dave, Amber Lynn Castillo's roommate, Dave, called it in and said, listen, this guy creeped me out. This is the make and model of his car. And I recently saw him doing an interview saying, look, this was more than a decade later that maybe they could have caught him when they did. Oh, yes, you're so right, Susan Hendricks. A green Chevy Avalanche, which is no longer in manufacture, and it was parked outside of his house. Back to the book, The Mind Hunter.

Did Rex Hererman, the alleged Long Island serial killer, copycat what's in Douglas' book? Listen. You want to know who the painter is, look at the painting. And that is something that Douglas used to tell his investigators and that pertains specifically to if you want to know who committed the crime look at the crime scene and the condition of the victim and again if you do that in this case we would allege that the the the the crime scene and the victims match very much with a lot of, first off, the document that we found, and also a lot of the defendant's Internet activities and the bondage and torture type of pornography that he was interested in and obsessively searching.

Dr. Bethany Marshall, I need you to shrink that. So Heuermann is getting ideas from The Mind Hunter, the book. You know, Nancy, his whole life is organized around this perversion. And let's remember there are five perversions, exhibitionism, voyeurism, frauderism, which is rubbing up against an unsuspecting person in public, sadism, and pedophilia. And all of these perversions have something in common. That is that they are associated with compulsion. Compulsion meaning the person is constantly thinking about the perversion, constantly. This is a little bit like maybe an alcoholic learning how to make specialty cocktails, or maybe a pedophile becoming a a priest or learning how to be a school teacher,

where everything in that person's life is just organized around this compulsion that they have. Nancy, certain people we don't even put in psychology groups together because they pick up tips. You won't put people who have eating disorders in a self-help group together because they teach each other how to diet. So in this case, you know, having someone like Rex Hurman have this kind of material available to him is extremely dangerous. And the reason these serial killers, they pop up, they kill, they go underground for a while, they pop up, is that they're so busy studying and that they're so busy with their pornography that actually that kind of substitutes for the crime itself. In other words, that's sexually satisfying, too.

Now, as part of our processing of the electronic devices, the task force discovered a Microsoft Word document entitled HK 2002 through 2004. That was discovered on a laptop in unallocated space, meaning there was an attempt to erase that document. It was a locally created draft, which means the document itself was created on the laptop. It wasn't downloaded from the Internet. The document was modified. It was originally created in 2000 and it was overwritten a number of times and modified between 2001 and 2002. Translation, Rex Heuermann, the alleged Long Island serial killer, created a how-to, a detailed document regarding the prep, the hunting of his victims, what he did to them and how to get rid of them, their bodies and the evidence. He created that and he tried to erase it. Not only did he try to erase it, it was discovered by cyber experts, but he overwrote it, modifying it many, many times, perfecting it.

Just got Morgan is a forensics expert and death investigator. What does this tell you? Hey, just got Morgan. I've got sadly over 21,000 emails on my iPhone. I haven't erased them because one of these days I'm going to read them. I don't care who sees them. I don't care if my children or my husband go around with my cell phone. Don't care. But he tried to erase this document. Evidence of guilt in my mind. But number two, can you just see him when he was not in the middle of torturing a lady

and killing her or suspending her from the ceiling or mutilating her on his off time? How many times do you think you would go in and perfect that document? How can I do this better, more easily? How can I get away with this? How can I better hunt my victims? And the joy and the excitement, the sex excitement, he would derive from perfecting the kill document. You know, it makes me think about, you know, some of the master artists over the years where they do over paints. They see something that they just can't

quite get right. It's stuck in their brain. And suddenly, you know, some art historian will uncover something beneath that. As horrible as this is, he's learning as he goes along. And, you know, every time I see this guy and he's not convicted, I know that. But I'm thinking every time he hears this stuff in court and this continues, that drumbeat just continues, is he reliving this in his mind all the time? Because, you know, they talk about this, that they go back and fantasize about these sorts of things. How could I do it better? How could I remove, you know, any evidence that I was involved in the situation? And it's not about getting caught with them.

It's about trying, trying to outsmart everybody. You know, Nikki Carbone is with me, who actually went on a date with Rex Heuermann. Nikki, in the document that the cyber experts recovered, it talks, it's a planning document, remove marks from torture, Remove ID marks like tattoos. Remove trace DNA. Remove head and hands from victims. Package for transport. That's the body parts, the bodies. Package for transport. We'll need drop cloths, wipes, towels, props, toys, wood items. That's what happened to these victims. That's what was done to them.

That was your future if you had not gotten that instinct to get out of that restaurant. And what's crazy is the documents almost like reading them almost like verbatim matched the way he talked about it, like the hunt and not being seen in the area too long. Like, again, specific to Shannon was he said he hypothesized that it was getting too late. The sun was coming up. He didn't want to be seen with the body. So he was describing that to you, what he thought the killer did? Well, yeah, because he described how he thought they got rid of the body. What did he say? His hypothesis of the one was that somebody very tall could wear fishing gear, hunting gear, the rubber, and tread through the marsh with the camouflaged bags and you wouldn't be seen. Which is exactly how some of

the victims were hidden on Gilgo Beach, walking through all that scrub and swampy area. And speaking of wearing those clothes, we now have seen new photos of Rex Heuermann at a hunting club shooting a gun, which was about a mile from one of his victims. And as we sign off, I've also learned in the last days that there are Rex Heuermann t-shirts being made by a pizza parlor and they are for sale. I wonder how the victim's families feel about that. Thank you to all of our guests, especially to Nikki Carbone. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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