Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘No Witnesses’: Gilgo Beach Murder Suspect’s Best Defense Strategy in Serial Killings Case

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

The 51-year-old New York man charged with murdering three women and dumping their bodies at Gilgo Beach in Long Island appeared in court Friday. Shocking details of how Rex Heuermann allegedly planned out the killings and remained off investigators’ radar were revealed in court documents. Heuermann is also suspected of a fourth murder. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy breaks down Heuermann’s potential defense strategy with criminal defense attorney Julie Rendelman.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Save 10% on your entire POM Pepper Spray order by using code LAWCRIME10 at https://bit.ly/3rkw6gnLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller

that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Rex Yorman, I'm an architect. I'm an architectural consultant. I'm a troubleshooter. Born and raised on Long Island. Okay. Been working in Manhattan since 1987. The arrest of a serial killer over a decade in the making, and police finally have their suspect in custody. We sit down with criminal defense attorney Julie Rendellman to discuss possible defenses

for the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer. Introducing the next generation of pepper spray. Meet Palm, a new maximum strength self-defense product with a patented modular design, revolutionizing the self-defense industry. whether you're carrying the unit on your keys, snapping the unit on your backpack, your keychain, or carrying the unit in your pocket. Palm is the perfect everyday carry accessory. Palm's patented flip-top safety prevents any accidental misfire,

and its maximum strength formula provides you with the necessary range and capacity to bring peace of mind to you and your loved ones. Quality, safety, performance, peace of mind. Learn more at Palmpeper spray.com. Welcome to Sidebar here on Law and Crime. I'm Anjanette Levy. On Thursday, authorities arrested and charged, 59-year-old New York architect Rex Heurman with murder

in connection to the killings of three of the four women who became known as the Gilgo Four. Heurman is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder for the 2009 murder of Melissa Barthelmy and the 2010 murders of Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. He is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance, and death of Maureen-Brainard Barnes, but no charges had been filed in that case just yet.

Kerman was actually interviewed last year for a show on YouTube entitled Bonjour Reality. Take a listen. You know, after all those years, what do you think is the most important qualities a person in your position dealing with the DOB must have? Patience. That's funny. I was hoping you would say that. yeah um patience and i don't like to use the word tolerance but sometimes you have to yeah and it's not just with the city it's also with the client because most clients they don't understand what i have

to do why i have to do it what it takes to get done yeah and when you're dealing with somebody in the city whether it be a clerk at the counter who has to end up and enter data entry, or if I'm dealing with the borough commissioner of Manhattan. You need the patience, because who knows what the person before you did, sometimes they have very bad days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've actually gone to the commissioner's office, sat down in his waiting area at 11, 11.30 in the morning, and a little after 5 o'clock, I heard him finally holler out.

Is Rex still there? That's how long I waited. Oh, God. Because that particular client, I had to see the commissioner. They were the only ones who could give us an answer. The investigation of the Gilgo Beach murders started back when an escort named Shannon Gilbert went missing in 2010 after leaving a client's home. While searching for her, they found a body and then another and then another, finding

a total of 11 sets of remains. The Gilgo four remains were found. within a quarter mile of each other on Long Island's south shore in December of 2010 all four were in burlap sacks in 2011 six more sets of remains were recovered some of the women were last seen dating all the way back to the year 2000 and some partial remains were linked to another person's remains being discovered back in 1997 most of the women were sex workers in addition to one male victim and a female toddler these killings shook the Long Island community over a decade ago, and then the killings seemed to stop.

Finally, in 2023, the police arrested Rex Hewerman, who they believed to be the killer. For almost 10 years, the investigation went cold, but back in 2020, authorities released a key clue and ID'd a victim. Using advanced forensic DNA technology, Suffolk County Police identified Jane Doe No. 6 as Valerie Mack, who went missing back in 2000. The key clue found was a black leather belt with the letters W.H. or H.M. Embossed on it. Then at the beginning of 2022, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison made it a priority to investigate the Gilgo Beach murders. In March 2022, Rex Heurman was first mentioned as a possible suspect. Investigators used cell phone evidence and credit card billing to reveal Heurman was in the

general location of the burner phones that were supposedly used to communicate with the victims. Authorities also found some unsettling internet searches on Heurman's computer that included child pornography. The police surveilled Heurman for almost a year. Finally, they had a breakthrough in January of 2023 when investigators got a sample of Heurman's DNA from a piece of pizza crust that he threw in the trash outside of his office in Manhattan. The analysis of the DNA was matched from Heurman's pizza crust and a strand of male hair recovered from the bottom. of a burlap sack that one of the victims was found wrapped in. Here's Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney discussing the investigation. Our partners in my office, we use the grand jury to continue to investigate and we executed over 300 subpoenas, search warrants pertaining to this

individual to find out more information. One of the things that we did is we followed him because We wanted to get an abandonment sample of his DNA, which we were able to do. We also got DNA samples, abandonment samples from his family. This really supported our decision to keep our investigative focus secret because we knew that one person would be watching, and we didn't want to give him any insight into what we were doing, and we also didn't want him to know just how close we were getting. So we maintain the grand jury secrecy, and we maintain the integrity of our investigation.

In addition to those Gilgo searches, he was searching compulsively searching pictures of the victims, but not only pictures of the victims, pictures of their relatives, their sisters, their children, and he was trying to locate those individuals. So finally on July 13th of 2023, the owner of the New York City-based architecture and consulting firm, R.H. consultants and associates, Rex Horman was taken into custody. He seemed to be an unlikely suspect. Horman is a husband and father of two.

Hureman claims he is not the killer. He was remanded without bail. Hureman has entered a not guilty plea through his attorney and his next court appearance is set for August 1st. We, of course, will have that covered for you. Joining me to discuss ways in which this case could possibly be defended in a court of law is Julie Rendelman. She is a criminal defense attorney in New York City, also a former prosecutor, and a good friend of law and crime and sidebar. Julie, welcome back to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. I'm always great to see you.

You've read the bail application in this case. How strong of a case, do you think the state has here? Based on everything we've seen so far, assuming it is true, the prosecution has an incredibly strong circumstantial case against the defendant. Julie, in this case, we have cell phone evidence. We have DNA evidence. And in this day and age, the cell phone evidence is almost becoming the DNA evidence of 15, 20 years ago.

These cell phones can be traced to people. They can be tracked to certain people. How do you fight this? So it's difficult. And remember, we're dealing with not just cell phone, cell site, cell towers. We're also dealing with the fact that there are burner phones, that they're able to link between this defendant. And I believe it's three of the alleged victims. And so you have more than just some scientific, you know, arguments in terms of that he was near cell tower, or he was near when we're one of the victims or all of the victims were found. Because one can easily argue that he. he lives near them. How is it that they're going to be able to explain that he had burner phones as well that link him to each of those victims? Now, the argument is for a defense attorney is A, it's the prosecution's burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the crime, not that not that he just had contact with each of these individuals. And B, as a defense attorney,

poking holes in that and establishing even if you can accept that he had contact with the victims, you're still missing that link proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he is the person. that committed the crimes against each of these young women. He is charged in the murders of three of these women at this point in time, but there are many more bodies possibly connected to this case. Do you anticipate possibly more arrests? Well, we've actually heard, I believe, from law enforcement that there's an expectation that there will be another crime solved, and it sounds like he's the person of interest

in that case. The interesting thing, Angenet, is whether or not at the end of the day, and we've seen this before with other serial killer cases where an individual is eventually convicted of one or more of these crimes and they eventually confess to other crimes in order to avoid a heftier sentence or just in a sense come clean and continue to be in the spotlight as we know some serial killers like to do. This guy's kind of interesting to me, Rex Heurman, because he's somebody that's going into the city, every day. He owns an architectural firm. He's an architect. He's somebody who's, I guess, known somewhat in the community. So obviously this can happen. I mean, it happens. Not all, you know,

murder suspects or defendants are the boogeyman. But if you're, you know, the defense attorney in this case, which you are a defense attorney, Julie Rendellman, put yourself standing next to this guy in court. How do you go about defending him? I think the first thing is being able to establish to a jury that I don't have the burden to prove anything. It's the prosecution that has the burden to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in regards to each and every charge. And then I think the second thing is, you know, while many of us agree that circumstantial evidence can be even stronger than direct evidence, there is at this point no witnesses that can identify this defendant as the person who committed these crimes. And so the idea is to really poke holes in each piece of circumstantial evidence. For example, the DNA that's recovered, was there any contamination?

Is there any reason to think that anyone involved in the investigation had some axe to grind? Did they have a desire to solve this case and pin it on him because it had been unsolved for so many years and they needed it done? Because the community needed some closure. So I think that as a defense attorney, while it's an uphill battle, I think breaking down each and every piece of circumstantial evidence and poking the holes to say they haven't proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed these women. They may know that he knew them or spoke to them, but not that he killed them. I think you make a good point there because maybe they could say, look, when his wife was out of town, you know, you might not like it, but he was reaching out to sex workers. Yeah, the problem you have is that he's linked.

to not just one of them. He's linked to multiple victims in this case. And so that in and of itself, I agree, doesn't make out a proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But one of the things the prosecutor's going to do is say, let's put each piece of the puzzle on top each other. Let's put each piece of evidence. You have now the car. Maybe it's not an exact identity of the car, but it's a car that looks just like the car he has. That's what they're going to argue. And the defense is going to say, well, there's a million cars fit that description. The prosecution's going to say, well, this is a burly man, just like the defendant we have here. And the defense is going to say, there's a million burly men that live in Suffolk County or Nassau County or anywhere in the area. So each time the prosecutor makes a move,

the defense is going to have a response to that move. And the question is whether or not the jury's going to buy what the prosecution's selling to them in a sense or whether they're going to buy what the defense has to say. One thing you brought up just a moment ago was the fact that, you know, the defense will question whether or not somebody involved in this investigation had an axe to grind, whether or not they were feeling pressure to solve this case. We know the DA in this case said that he formed a task force to help solve this case after he took office in January of 2022. So he obviously is looking or was looking and is looking to solve all of these homicides. So do you go, when you go that route, do you say, you know what, we have this DA,

who kind of came into town and decided I'm going to I'm going to make my mark and we're going to figure this one out and we're going to do this. But how difficult is that type of thing when you do have the evidence we discuss that it is circumstantial evidence that the DNA, the cell phone stuff. And they've kind of alluded to the fact that there may have been contact between this guy and the family members of the victims at some point in time, almost like these. like a taunting type thing. Sure. I think, look, as a prosecutor, I always liked circumstantial evidence better than direct because that issue of credibility kind of goes out the window. And why do I say that?

Well, burner phone, it doesn't matter whether a witness testifies about that or not. You got the burner phone. The jury can see that burner phone, see the calls that were made. DNA also has that quality of not really relying on witnesses. However, the recovery of the DNA, leads questions in regards to who recovered it, how they recovered it, did it touch any other potential evidence? Did they want it to be this defendant and therefore they did something to make sure that his DNA appeared? Is there questions about the DNA recovered? I think it's on the burlap sack

that the victims were in, I think a piece of hair, is one piece of hair of hair enough to say this defendant committed each of these crimes? You know, it's a push and pull. with the prosecution and the defense. The prosecution is going to push one way. The defense is going to push or pull the other way. And at the end of the day, I think, look, I think the, again, when you put each piece together, we're headed towards a conviction, but the defense attorney is going to work diligently to try to at least get one juror, one juror to say, I don't know if it's enough. So we have a few things going on here. You can attack the evidence. You can attack the investigation and try to just target your, you know, arguments to one juror, maybe two, hoping to hang the jury.

Yeah, I think, by the way, I think as a defense attorney on a case like this, you're going to do everything. You're not just going to pick one area and say, oh, there was a rush to judgment. I think you're going to say there was a rush to judgment in terms of law enforcement and their desire to find someone responsible for this crime. But they're also going to go into the fact that there's pieces missing. i.e. an identification of the defendant as the person who committed this crime, which, by the way, some jurors don't like not having an eyewitness to identify someone. They can't accept that circumstantial evidence part of it, even when it's overwhelming. So I think as a defense attorney, you're going to come at it from every single angle to see if there's any areas you can catch

one or two jurors or maybe more that kind of say, you know what, the defense is right. We are missing pieces. There are reports, too, that he was keeping up on the case and doing internet searches and stuff like that. As a defense attorney, do you point to something like that and say, well, of course my guy was looking this stuff up. He lives in the area. He was concerned.

100%. I think that that's probably one of the weakest parts of their circumstantial case. I think anyone who lived in the area, or by the way, anyone who lived in New York, let alone more, particularly in that area, would be looking up the case, looking up the investigation, and trying to see what's happening. Now, the difference here is that you're not looking at that piece of evidence by itself. And that's when we start to talk again about the mounds of evidence, the mountain that you're building, because the prosecution is going to say, he isn't like everyone else. He was looking it up. He also was contacting the complainants, the victims, through his

burner phone. He has a car that matches. He looks like. the person. The cell towers link in there. So it's not just Google searches. It's Google searches plus all the other pieces of evidence that point directly towards him. Well, Julie Rendleman, we'll be keeping a close eye on it. This is a case that has captured the attention of people on Long Island, in New York, and really across the country. I mean, this is a long-solved mystery, at least now that police say they've solved part of for now. Thanks again for your time and your expertise, as always. Thank you so much for having me. That's it for this edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and

wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Janette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.