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Today you're listening to Monster Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast and do not reflect those of Tenderfoot TV or iHeartMedia.

This podcast contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone.

Listener discretion is advised.

In this episode, we'll be talking about these victims in very graphic terms.

These details are crucial for proving the mistakes and missed opportunities that could have led to the perpetrators capture sooner.

These individuals deserve to be remembered not by the details of their deaths, but by the fullness of their lives.

They are Shannon Gilbert, Marine, Brainerd Barnes, Megan Waterman, Melissa Bartholemey Amberlin Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Karen Viergatta, Asian Doe, Sandra Castilla, Tanya Denise Jackson and Tatiana Marie Dykes.

I'm an ol P eight the Fairway.

I live on the Shannon Gilbert.

But you would help me?

How?

Please?

So much?

Okay?

And right well?

I had didn matter that night to Leanna forgave here what I really am?

Man.

If they can't find out, h what did you then?

Joe Bower.

On May one, twenty ten, Shannon Gilbert ran from Joseph Brewer's house and vanished somewhere in Oak Beach.

Nearly twenty months later, the remains were found in a neighboring marsh.

While medical examiners ruled Shannon's cause of death is undetermined, Suffolk County PD refused to release her nine one one tape for years, claiming it was quote evidence, well at the same time claiming her death was accidental.

Finally, after more than a decade of legal battles and public pressure, her nine to one one call was released in May of twenty twenty two.

But rather than clarifying the mystery, the recording only added fuel to the fire, sparking a renewed debate about what really happened to Shannon on that faithful night.

Stay please Yeah, there's somebody answering.

I'm sorry, there's somebody answering where are you.

There's somebody asswer it if it wasn't.

There, Okay.

What we know for certain is that Joseph Brewer and Shannon's driver, Michael Pack had tried to get Shannon to leave Brewer's house, but she refused.

Moments later, she ran out of that house and into the streets of Oak Beach.

Gilbert got lost in that marshland and died, the investigators pointing out Gilbert suffered from mental illness and substance abuse.

On the nine to one one call, you hear Gilbert claiming that someone wants to kill her and later running for help.

Listen, I'm gonna simplify everything right now.

It's a horrible accident.

It's tragic, which brings us to the inherent problem in solving any crime, because everything is subjective, even the true truth.

Consider Shannon's nine one one call.

Listening to the exact same evidence, people draw completely opposite conclusions.

Some here a woman terrified running for her life.

Your people are fallings of women?

Where in mores?

Are you ill?

Hell?

Why do I do this?

Three?

It was murder?

I don't care what anybody says.

This was murder, while others here a woman incoherent and mumbling, seemingly in the middle of a mental health crisis.

Are you in a house?

Yeah?

Whose house is it?

Hello?

Who is Mike?

What's his last name?

Who?

Mike?

Why?

Gilbert, who police say had a history of substance abuse and mental illness at times, seemed incoherent.

On the tape, Shannon was physically calm, but acting very paranoid.

Something freaked through out she looks free thought.

The problem with trying to solve any mystery is that all too often we filter reality through what we already believe.

Or want to believe.

Since the release of Shannon's nine to one one call, there's been little evidence to illuminate what may have happened to her.

More So, an independent autopsy performed by celebrity pathologist doctor Michael Boden, performed at the request of the family, only makes things murkier.

Boden's report rules that Shannon's cause of death is undetermined, the same conclusion of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner.

However, with one caveat, nothing in his analysis rules out the possible ability of homicidal strangulation, a vague enough assessment that seems tailor made for multiple interpretations.

And one of the most vexing questions of all is whatever happened to Shannon Gilbert?

More than half a decade of unanswered questions about how Shannon Gilbert died and whether or not her death is connected to the so called Gilgo.

Beach murders, And then there's one more piece of evidence that may shed light on Shannon's demise.

On July twenty third, twenty sixteen, Shannon's mother, Mary Gilbert had been found brutally stabbed to death by her own daughter, Sarah Gilbert, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was in the midst of a psychotic episode.

Whoa Moga Love that.

Sarah struggled with mental illness, which deepened in recent months, but Marine never stopped trying to help.

This tragic pattern of mental illness in the Gilbert family corroborates what police have always maintained about Shannon's final hours.

But if the nine one one tape supported Suffolk County's claim that Shannon's death was accidental, why was it withheld for years under the excuse of protecting an act of investigation.

The question isn't simply whether Shannon Gilbert was murdered or died accidentally.

The question is why would Suffolk County Police Department continue to stoke the flames of conspiracy by not releasing the tape?

Try getting crazy and uh they.

Looked out the boat.

As for Shannon, regardless of whatever did happen that night, there's at least one truth.

No one can deny whether she died accidentally or by some other means, Shannon Gilbert is still a victim, a victim of prejudice, of apathy, and the corruption that allowed the Long Island serial killer and the likes of Joel Rifkin, Robert Schulman, John Bitroff, and so many others to keep on killing.

While we may never know the whole truth behind the tragedy of Shannon Gilbert, what's clear is that without her sacrifice, it's highly unlikely the police would have ever searched Ocean Parkway all those years ago, and the bodies of ten victims may never have been found, and ultimately, the alleged rex Huerman may never have been caught.

I'm Josh Zeeman, and this is monster hunting.

The Long Island serial killer.

While we might never solve the mystery of Shannon Gilbert, there was still that other mystery that continues to haunt us.

That lingering question I've asked myself so many times since that day back in July of twenty twenty three, when I first heard that Suffolk County Detectives I'd finally arrested the Long Island serial killer, the alleged Rex Hewerman, after more than a decade.

What took so goddamn long?

And now seeing the culmination of our investigation, it's time we finally answered that question.

As we returned to our evidence one last time, breaking news to bring you.

Police have made an arrest in the Gilgo Beach murders investigation.

Police and the County executive are holding a press coll Let's listen in.

I want the public to know that we have never stopped working on this case.

I want to thank the Suffa County Police Department.

I want to thank District Attorney Ray Tierney and his team, the New York State Police, the FBI, and all of the law enforcement.

Partners investigators saying how modern police work led to the arrest of the suspect.

Once we were able to attach the Avalanche inside of that massive equal box.

That was a moment where we said, okay, there's something here.

The official version of Catching Lisk suggests a case that was solved by old fashioned police work, cutting edge technology, and a combination of tenacity and teamwork.

And officials aren't wrong.

The Gilgo Beach Task Force did an incredible job.

An incredible job that is entangling one of the most bungled serial killer investigations in modern history.

And while they are endless threads as to what went wrong, we've uncovered one thread worth pulling on, one that helps him ravel the mystery of whether this case could have been solved sooner, which brings us back to our twenty fifteen interview with Dave Shaller, the roommate of Amberlyn Costello, one of the gill Go.

For I told the cops about everybody, you know.

There was one guy who came there.

He was a monster.

This guy was big.

I had to fight him to get him out of the house.

And he was driving a green h what how was I think called green avalanche?

A Chevy Avalanche truck.

There was only like a couple of weeks before, right before she disappeared.

That that guy was there.

So you believe that she had met him on some kind of outcohol or in call before.

The alcohol or include definitely, and that green Avalanche bro stands out in my fucking mind to this day because those cops, man, they reacted so like, you know, when I point that thing out, they were like, you know, you could see the fucking lump in that throat.

You know something about that guy, you know.

From Dave's very first interview with detectives, conducted days after Amber was identified in December twenty ten, he gave a description of a possible killer and his vehicle, a tip that the Suffolk County PD has since admitted was in their case files from the beginning, a tip which they claim had been overlooked.

David Shallard spoke with homicide detectives more than a decade ago.

Investigators had a description of a Chevrolet Avalanche in their case files since twenty ten.

But this wasn't just one clue seemingly lost in a sea of police reports.

We now know that Dave's description was corroborated by another witness, we presume, a neighbor who also saw quote a dark colored pickup truck coming from the direction Amber was last seen, prompting detectives to reinterview Dave Shaller.

Months later.

The cops came to Brooklyn and they pulled out a board with a whole bunch of trucks on it, and one of the trucks was green ass Avalanche.

He said, does any of these trucks stand out to you?

And I went like this to point it out, the Green Avalanche, and they both looked at each other with a fucking look on their face, like like an old fuck look like it was the fucking tip of the sentry.

That was it.

Tip of the century when that Dave Shaller gives not once, but twice, a tip corroborated by another eyewitness describing the same vehicle on the night Amber disappears.

In twenty twenty three, the author of Lost Girls, Robert Kolker, reported that detectives had entered the Chevy Avalanche into a vehicle database, but due to the vehicle's unique design with features of both a car and a truck, the search came up empty.

Do you think they just didn't take this clue?

Seriously, there's a lot we don't know.

I was told they ran a search and the search didn't come up with anything, but new records get filed in strange ways, and whole new classes of car get invented in that time, cars that aren't a truck and cars that aren't car.

It's very possible that the Avalanche was just not signedable through the search that they did.

It's possible that after running the search, they just back burnered it and they got away from them.

But how could they not take such a concrete lead seriously?

Well, it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback.

We didn't take Dave's clues seriously either, so why did we miss it?

Well?

Back in a previous episode, we mentioned how Dave and Amber supposedly pulled what's called the angry boyfriend scam on a John supposedly Rex, a scam that led to a brawl at Dave's house sometime.

Before Amber disappeared.

Now, according to police, Amber gets a text from that same John later that night saying that was not nice.

Do I get credit for next time?

But John doesn't want to go back to the house because he's afraid of quote Amber's boyfriend.

Now, Dave says it wasn't actually a scam, just that he and Rex had gotten into a fight regardless.

That's as far as this first story goes.

But then Dave tells us a second story about the night Amber disappeared.

So this guy kept colling and she kept talking all sorts of jazz with him and stuff.

She said, he wants me once for the night, once and for the night.

Did he throw money at it, yeah, fifteen hundred dollars.

I remember telling her it's a lot of money.

It doesn't sound right.

And she was comfortable with him.

I remember that the level of comfort she had with him was strange.

I didn't feel right about it.

So it was always little stipulations.

You had to pick her up around the corner.

I said, well, I can't the guy you know pick you up in front of the house.

And they were all just like red flags.

She didn't care.

She left that night just the clothes on her back, no peris, no phone, no nothing, which was odd of itself too.

And that night I'm just playing it in my head and I'm like, I don't understand what happened that night.

But here's the point.

Dave wasn't one hundred percent sure that the two Johns were connected, but he also said it was weeks between that earlier fight and the night Amber went missing.

It was only like a couple weeks before, right before she disapeared, that that guy was there.

We thought, there's no way this elusive killer who took all these precautions wouldever show his face to Dave and then come back weeks later to snatch Amber.

But now it seems it wasn't weeks later, it was the next day, which makes this fight with this angry John far more relevant.

Well, this guy went from normal to three hundred and sixty degrees, you know, I mean, just when fucking not started throwing shit around my house.

Because now we know why this killer, allegedly Rex, would do something so risky, because his ego had been bruised because Amber had not only tried to scam him, she had humiliated him, and now he was going to make her pay.

What's even more damning recently released court documents suggesting that detectives did know was the next day, making the fact that they had missed this connection all the more frustrating.

Schaller's hold investigators a decade ago that he came face to face with Rex Ywerman quote.

I gave them the exact description of the truck I mean, come on, why didn't they use that?

The point is, if they had followed the avalanche tip, then God forbid, more victims could still be alive if they had made the arrest back then.

In twenty twelve, Dave Shaller publicly admitted that he was quote too high to remember that day, which may account for the time discrepancy.

Yet he still maintains it was weeks before.

Regardless, his avalanche clue and the detective's reactions spoke volumes, so much so they even took the time to create a truck lineup on a board.

Yet after striking out with this database, the tip was theoretically forgotten.

Benefamation came in at the beginning of the investigation in twenty ten and twenty eleven, along with what was really thousands of tips, and unfortunately it gets lost and buried.

But Suffa County had more than just a potential description of the Long Island serial killer and his car.

As you remember, they also had a potential location of where he lived and worked.

Let's bring back former District attorney in Suffolk County, Tim Ciny.

Tim, you know a lot more about this than I do.

What's going on here?

Certainly Massapeka was on the radars early as twenty twelve, and the FBI was able to pinpoint the areas that the killer was connected to, both in the Massapico Park as well as Manhattan.

But even without the FBI's help, detectives knew about Massapequa Park from the very first interviews they did with Melissa Bartholemew's mother Lynn.

When I had Melissa's phone records, there was a lot of calls in and out from Massapequa, which I don't have those records because the police confiscated my book of all my investigation.

Tell me about what happened with that.

Please.

They came to Buffalo to meet with us, and we were telling them about my book and all the investigating we did.

You know, we went to Verizon, we got all her phone records, and so they were like, well, can we take a look at this book, and we showed it to him and that was the last time it was in my hands.

They just said, this is now evidence.

Yet despite having a description of this monster, his Green Avalanche and Massapequa Park, they continued to let the tip slip away over and over again.

Recently, we spoke with Gus Garcia Roberts, the author of Jimmy the King and former investigative reporter with The Washington Post at the time of Rex's arrest.

What was the official.

Line from law enforcement about the revelation that this tip was in the files?

We started calling, you know, everybody who we knew had been investigators on the case at that time, in those early days, and just asking him, you know, are you familiar with this Chevy Avalanche tip.

The kind of consensus that we heard from these investigators was that they had no recollection of there being this tip involving a Green Avalanche, never heard of it, don't know what that is at all.

That was the answer.

Tyranny, who became DA in twenty twenty two, explains why the tip got buried.

When they're getting that, that's lost within a sea of other tips and information, and at the time there wasn't really any coherent leadership at the top.

Of course, Tierney isn't wrong blaming the previous DA Tom Spoda and his sidekick, Police Chief James Burke, as it's been reported, instead of investigating the Gilgo case, Burke has detectives spying on professional and personal rivals for both himself and SPODA and then came Burke's assault of a prisoner and cover up.

But maybe the most damning reason critics point to with spodin Burke's blatant obstruction of the FBI.

Burke was heavily criticized by other law enforcement officials for his handling of the case.

Over a decade ago, he refused.

And blocked federal law enforcement from working on the Gilgo Beach serial murder case.

In twenty thirteen, we interviewed former Commissioner Richard Dormer about his initial meetings with the FBI.

Just days after the tenth body was found.

Day came up to Suffi County.

I think it was three or four of their analysts sat down with our task force, and they had very good ideas on how the investigation should be conducted.

I mean, let's face it, they're the experts in this thing.

This was unusual, yeah, I mean it's not every day that the Suffi County PD would investigate a case like this.

Once Dormer retired in twenty eleven, the FBI's assistance was either minimized or flatly refused, even a request by federal agents to track lists personal phone by using his burner phone was denied by SPODA.

The bad blood between the Burkes BODA regime and the FBI came to a head in December twenty twelve, when two detectives sent a memo requesting a third meeting with the BAU Again.

Here's Robert Kolker.

Someone in the Suffocunty Police Department invites the Behavioral Now Unit to come out in person, and when they show up, Spoda has them turn around and fly back home.

He said their work was redundant.

They were turned away on the airfield.

And all of this happening in the shadow of Burke's assault on prisoner Chris Lobe for stealing a Duffel bag of quote nasty porn.

In fact, this memo requesting the FBI's help was dated December seventh, twenty twelve.

Just one week later Burke assaulted Chris Lobe, suggesting the powers that be were trying to contain the fallout from this violent beating when they sent the FBI packing.

The federal authorities should be in this case.

Apparently they'd been boxed out and told stay away by Suffolk County.

Cases like this is when you have everyone working together instead not saying keep the FBI away from this.

We don't want them.

What that makes no sense.

While working with the FBI might have led to a suspect sooner.

In truth, profiles don't actually solve cases.

It's usually gumshoe detective work.

Just look at David Burkwoit's who was caught by way of a parking ticket or Bundy an expired registration.

Profiles usually just tell detectives where to look.

Yet Suffolk County already knew where to look in Massapequa Park.

The same could be said for this highly touted geographical box, which was ultimately unnecessary because detectives already had everything they needed to solve this case right from the start, and yet they didn't.

Here's both Robert Kolker and Gus Garcia.

Roberts the one source I talked to who remembers the avalanche tip from.

Way back when.

What he did not say was we really racked our brains.

We searched high and lowe, We went looking for that avalanche on every square foot of Suffolk County, and then we just threw up our hands and walked away because we had other things to do.

What he said was they ran a search and they couldn't find it clearly that it did more than that, because the investigating cops were coming back to Dave for confirmation of this lead, So that must have been taken seriously at some point.

It's maddening, honestly, the case is so botched that you can't blame people who kind of arrive at the assumption that has botched on purpose.

So why didn't Suffolk County police catch list sooner?

It's a question that's haunted us from the very first moment the alleged recked Huerman was arrested.

But now having scrutinized Dave Shaller's interview, we can finally search for the devil in the d tales as in, specifically, why was this clue never followed up on?

And why did Suffolk County superiors not know about it?

Or did they?

And if so, why was that clue filed away?

Was it the result of incompetence or something more?

In reality, these are questions only Gilgo detectives can I answer.

Or at least a detective.

We spent more than two decades.

Commanding one of the most demanding cold case squads Joe jackalone.

Coming from this line of work, this is a mistake that you cannot afford to make.

I mean, this is something where you had the clues readily available.

In my experience, I think this would have been an automatic reach out to the New York State Police, tell them we need this done.

How many green avalanches in Massapequa and I want all the driver's license photos on my desk by the time I get back.

The Chief of Detectives himself probably would have called the state Police superintendent said I need this done now, please.

I don't know people saying I'll come on, Joe, No, listen.

A couple of the detectives that I worked for, this case would have been wrapped up in twenty four hours.

Don't you think this clue would have been at least forwarded on to the sergeant and lieutenant absolutely?

Remember even in Suffocunty, smaller departments to chain the command always exists, but.

It's a lot shorter.

What's the percentage that it would have went up to Chief of Detectives at that time?

It should have been one hundred percent.

It's just Suffolk County where something like this doesn't happen very often.

And yet, according to one unnamed source who started overseeing the case in twenty eleven, it was quote beyond weird that he wasn't made aware of Shaller's statement.

In another article from Gus Garcia Robertson, the chief of detectives, Dominic Varon states, quote, I'll tell you right now, no suspect vehicle was on our radar when I was still there, which is why we pushed Gus for his thoughts.

On Varonns statement, I don't think he is lying, because I think if he was lying about it, he would probably be smart enough to know that something like this would emerge that would call into question why he was saying that.

But what if Veron truly didn't know about this ogre and the avalanche.

What if these detectives who questioned Shaller over and over again withheld this clue from their superiors because they were instructed to by the man who would later become their boss, James Burke, who along with DA Spoda, was plotting their takeover of the Suffolk County Police Department, a plot that begins with that very strange fight you might remember, a fight over one serial killer verse two.

Suffix Police Commissioner Richard Dormer and DA Tom Spoda publicly clashed over the Gilgo Beach body's case before a legislative committee.

First, the Commissioner reiterated his theory, we still believe it's one killer.

Then the DA quickly shot that down.

There's no evidence that all of the remains found are the work of a single killer.

And Spoda denounced the commission for going public with his theory.

It really truly is disturbing.

It just makes a very difficult investigation even more difficult.

Ten bodies, no suspects, moneral They are ten ten wins.

In hotpog.

We now know this public argument was just one piece of Burke and Spoda's Macabellian plan to have Burke installed as the new police chief so that he and Spoda could take over the police Department and with it, all of Suffolk County.

But first, according to Robert Kolker, they had a force out Commissioner Dormer and the man who appointed him, the county executive, Steve Levy.

In the spring of twenty eleven, when Tom Spoda is publicly lambasting the police commissioner, he also is inches away from engineering a slow motion takeover of the police department, and that begins with neutralizing his big rival who has the power to appoint the police commissioner.

Newly unsealed federal court documents revealing a shocking plot to take down self at county executive Steve Levy.

According to the papers, Thomas Spoda was working with James Burke to get Levy out of office because they saw him as uncontrollable.

Uncontrollable because, as gus Garcia Roberts reveals, they knew there was no way Steve Levy whatever point James Burke to police chief considering his checkered past.

James Burke was Chief of Investigators for the DA's office under Tom Spoda, and Steve Levy was the enormously popular county executive.

Burke really would not have survived the vetting needed to be a commissioner.

So James Burke kind of leads this extremely shadowy investigation of Steve Levy, which probably involved blackmail, and the guy who rises up in that vacuum and becomes county executive is Steve Bolone.

The very first thing that Bologne does, against advice from others, is he appoints James Burke to be police chief.

So, going back to the start of this takeover with SPODA trying to publicly humiliate Dormer.

Could Burke be telling Gilgo detectives hold tight, he's going to be police chief in nine months, but don't pass up any leads to Chief of Detectives Dominic Vverome, because he's Dormer's guy, and God forbid they solve the case under his watch.

Yeah.

I mean, honestly, I find that compelling.

I think that makes a ton of sense.

He would not want this case to be solved under his enemies jurisdiction.

It would completely undermine the selling point that Dormer and Levy were poor solving crimes.

We're not suggesting that Burke instructed detectives to bury the Green Avalanche tip, but just not to share any leads in the off chance it would lead to a suspect and a win for Dormer.

It's a theory that Rob Trum, a former detective now Suffolk legislator, has corroborated in interviews just after Human's arrest.

I think what happened was, and I know this firsthand, was I've talked to retired inspectors in chiefs.

They were unaware that the car was there.

They were unaware that there was a six foot bore male as a suspect.

They were not being told.

This, adding further corroboration to Trotta's comments.

When Burke took over his chief, he immediately fired Veron.

But why at that point didn't detectives finally action the Green Avalanche tip?

More so, why did detectives who kept reinterviewing Dave Shaller for more than a year and a half suddenly stop?

The cops stopped coming for some reason.

When's the last time other cops were in contact with you?

It's been a long time.

It's been a long time.

Three year, four years, Yeah.

Three years or so.

I actually left the message for them like two years ago.

Never got back to me back in twenty fifteen.

Three years or so meant twenty twelve, which coincides with Burke replacing Commissioner Dormer on January first, twenty twelve, and just like that, his takeover is complete and the tip of the century is buried even deeper.

Here's Robert Kolker.

I think Burke makes a bad situation worse.

You have a department that already is kind of paralyzed because Spoda is taking control of it, and then Spoda puts the worst possible person in charge of that department, someone who isn't going to lift a finger to try and find this killer.

And then Burke beats up a witness in front of a handful of other people, and suddenly they have to spend the next year trying to shut everybody up, and it's all downhill from there.

It's a frying pan into the fire situation, and it takes years to recover from.

He was gone by twenty sixteen, and then this task perce didn't come in until twenty twenty three.

Tragically, we may never know the answer as to what really happened to the Tip of the century and why it was lost for so long.

As for finally catching list, you might say the biggest step the Gilgo Beach Task Force ever took to overcome the mistakes of the past was also the simplest.

To start digitizing their files.

First thing we did was digitalize it.

I mean, you have thirteen years of investigation.

If you don't digitalize it, if you don't make it searchable, then you have to manually go through literally reams of paperwork.

So then you go through it.

Less than one month after the task Force started digging into their files, they came across the tip that Dave Shaller had given them eleven years ago.

That investigator started this assignment in February of twenty twenty two.

In March of twenty twenty two, this same New York State Police investigator reported that a potential suspect had been identified.

This suspect was res Pureman.

The tip that had been there all along, presumably right in his first few boxes.

They pulled off the shelf right on top of the proverbial pile.

But even after more than a decade of this malfeastans that allowed rex Hureman to roam free, and even with Tom Spoda and James Burke serving prison sentences, as gus Garcia Roberts tells us, the mistakes of the past were tragically unlikely to be learned from.

There was this kind of willful ignorance after Burke was brought down, as Voto was brought down, like Okay, now we're going to be a regular law enforcement jurisdiction again.

But I think it would be naive to think that that's not something that's continuing.

The cops are still in Suffolk County among the highest paid in the nation.

They're extremely powerful.

The voting block that the police have is really unique out in Long Island because holder of NYPD lives out in Long Island.

You combine that with the Long Island departments and you have a really powerful, massive moneyed voting block that hasn't changed.

And that's what led to the rise of James Burke.

Right, was this political power that the police had.

So considering that that hasn't changed, I don't see the police impunity changing.

This case was investigated through five Suffolk Police Commissioners, three Suffolk das, and two Suffolk County executives, and the breakthrough came after looking at existing evidence.

So I've been asked, could this or should this case have been solved earlier?

Well, you know, as I've been saying, I took office in January Accounty.

In September twenty twenty five, the Suffolk County DA ruled a major victory in the upcoming trial against Rex Huerman when the judge ruled to allow d evidence obtained through cutting edge technology known as whole genome sequencing.

Since New York State doesn't have the death penalty, Hureerman could face life without the possibility of parole, but if he's convicted, his DNA will be entered into COTIS, the FBI's national DNA database, and if that profile matches unsolved murders in death penalty states like South Carolina or Nevada, where heroman owns property, he could face capital charges.

D A.

Tierney has said there's.

No plea deal on the table, but in cases like this, there's always that possibility.

This case inches toward trial.

Rex hwer Men is accused and the murders of seven women.

This is a case that has taken so many years to get to where we are, and there are still so many questions.

Rex Hureman's trial is expected to begin sometime in twenty twenty six, and we'll be there to cover it.

As of this recording, he's been charged with murders, but the four other victims remain open cases.

Tatiana Marie Diyke's formerly known as Baby Dough, and the victim once called Asian Doe fall under Suffolk County Karen Ergatta and Tanya Denise Jackson ak Peaches or Nassau County cases.

It's still unclear whether NASA has enough evidence to move forward with indictments.

It's also believed that authorities have identified Asian Doe, but still haven't released his name.

And then there's Valerie Mack.

Six of the seven murders who Reman is charged with were believed to have taken place in his home, except for hers, which raises the possibility of another kill site and potentially more victims, a theory suggested by former police Commissioner Richard Dormer all the way back in twenty fifteen.

I've always expressed a feeling that there may be more bodies out there, and that he may be using another dumping ground.

I believe he hasn't stopped.

Okay, he needs this, his psyche needs this.

Does he have a new dumping ground?

I would say yes.

Another outstanding question is whether we're going to learn more about James Burke's alleged obstruction in the Gilgo case.

It's assume Human's defense is going to introduce Burke, or at least his past deeds a trial in an effort to so reasonable doubt as to whether Human is solely responsible for the crimes.

As for Burke, he's been making headlines of his own in recent years.

James Burke was once the highest ranking uniformed officer in the Suffolk County Police Department.

Today, the former police chief pled not guilty to charges of public lewdness and indecent exposure after getting caught in an undercover stink in August.

Disgrace Foreign Police chief James Burke, released from jail in twenty nineteen after serving just forty months for assault and instruction of justice, was arrested again.

In twenty twenty three after.

Allegedly soliciting sex and masturbating in front of a plane closed park ranger at ten am in the morning at a Long Island park.

The former police chief was arrested just a few miles from Gilgo Beach.

Prosecutors say he tried to solicit a sex act from a male undercover officer.

He is said to have pleaded with officers to spare him the humiliation of an arrest, even asking do you know who I am?

As for convicted and disbarred district attorney Tom Spoda.

After his release from prison, he worked as an administrative clerk under the supervision of hot shot criminal defense attorney Anthony Lepinta, who had previously defended him in court.

It's been reported that Spoda's duties are part of his work Release.

Program Suffix, former district attorney, has been released from a federal prison.

This comes less than three years and to Thomas Spoda's five year sentence.

As we've reported, the eighty ti year old was convicted in twenty nineteen of trying to cover up then Suffolk Police chief James Burke's beating of a handcuffed suspect.

Systemic corruption takes a notoriously long time to undo, not years, but decades, and by all indications, the convictions of James Burke and Tom Spoda haven't had the kind of impact many of us had hoped for.

Case in point, James Burke, a convicted felon, still receives a taxpayer funded pension of one hundred and forty five thousand dollars a year.

Thomas Spoda one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars a year, and that's not even counting the nearly four hundred and thirty five thousand dollars Burke walked away with in twenty sixteen for unused sick in vacation time.

Here's Jimmy the King author Gus Garcia Roberts with his take.

I think that people are always surprised to learn that he's still gets a pension, if I remember correctly, one hundred and fifty grand a year.

How can that be?

I mean, you're talking about a guy who single handedly helped bring down Suffolk County Police Department.

Not only that, but all the other cops involved in his conspiracy still get pensions too, including people who are convicted of felonies.

In that case, I think once that gets moral light and people understand that, then maybe outrage will grow.

Nor does it seem like the Suffolk County Police Department has truly reckoned with this long complicated relationship with sex workers.

If anything, the problems still persists.

Just four days before writing this episode, a former Suffolk County detective played guilty, admitting he worked as a pimp and a prostitution ring that ran on Long Island from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty four.

Former Sufi police officer George Tremigliosi was among three people who pleaded guilty.

Today, they are accused of running prostitution brothels.

It's being called a massive betrayal of public trust.

A suspended Suffolk police officer facing new charges of rape and sexual abuse.

This comes after he and three others were charged with running an alleged prostitution ring.

Tremigliosi, who will be sentenced to two years incarceration for promoting prostitution, was an eighteen year veteran of the Suffolk County and Police Department and had won Cop of the Month six times.

Seems as much as things change, they stayed the same.

Last summer, I went to my first pretrial hearings in the Gigo Beach case, and I remember the murmur that went through the crowd as Rex was let into the courtroom.

I admit I wanted that thrill of seeing a real life monster in the flesh.

And yes, Rex was huge, his massive hand shackled behind his hulking back.

But what I saw instead was the true paradox of Rex Hureman, because for someone so big, so massive, all I saw was someone so weak and so small, too weak to fight the rage that he gave into two, weak to overcome the revenge he fantasized about, too weak to seek help, and so instead he chose to inflict pain, that same pain he once felt now onto so many others, onto the victims, onto their families, onto their parents, sisters and brothers, and worst of all their children, thus perpetuating the cycle.

Unable to fight the monsters, you might say Rex chose to become one, but then we'd be giving him too much credit, wouldn't we.

Here's doctor Joni Johnston.

We think all Rex human a monster, meaning he's otherworldly.

Then he's not like us.

We can never be like Rex hero because we're rural people.

And the opposite of that is true.

I used to work in a max security president and I'm going to do many murders and I've never gone away being like, Wow, this guy seems so powerful.

He's like, no, You're given this person unnatural power, even if it's evil power.

And you're saying that this person is so unique that we can never understand this person.

It's like, yeah, we can.

You know, this person is somebody who was unable to do in life what most of us can do, which is learned to cope without hurting other people.

This is not a hard person to understand.

Doctor Johnston was right, because there's something about that day Rex was arrested.

You don't know.

The minute I saw that photo of Rex, I remembered that interview we did with Dave Shaller and this description of the man he thought killed Amber, the man he called the Beast, or Frankenstein, most importantly, a monster.

That's when I knew we'd fallen into that age old trap, believing that List is something more an elusive boogeyman, an evil genius, something he obviously was not.

In fact, if we realize back then just how easy he was to understand, how he was just like us, fallible, impulsive human, then who knows, maybe we could have caught him all those years ago.

Here's Profiler Mark Saffreck.

I think we give too much credit to these offenders.

We want to try to make Choirman out to be like this super villain.

Right.

He seems to be careful, like I got to destroy data, I've got to wipe my hard drive, I've got to burn all this evidence.

But hey, let me just keep all the newspaper articles in my safe.

We see this a lot when offenders just think they're untouchable.

He's got a air literally on almost all of his victims that belongs to someone in his family, him, his wife, his daughter.

He's deceived law enforcement for seventeen years.

But I think there were a lot of other things that went along with that.

I think he could have been apprehended much earlier on But I don't think that he survived seventeen years because he's a super super smart guy.

In the end, what allowed Rex Hureman, the alleged Long Island serial killer, to get away with so much for so long had nothing to do with how much he researched or studied, or how carefully he planned.

Wasn't that he used burner cell phones or chose the perfect dumping ground, or that he even changed his mo but allowed Rex to get away with it wasn't anything he did.

It's what we did, and almost everything the police did.

Whether it's bitter irony or just dumb luck.

The only thing Rex Hureman, the alleged Long Island serial Killer, ever did right was to pick the perfect place to commit his crimes.

Suffolk County, Long Island.

Ready to keep listening, Remember you can binge the rest of the season right now with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts Plus.

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So head to Apple Podcasts search iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.

Hunting the Long Island serial Killer is a production of Tenderfoot TV.

And iHeart Podcasts, hosted, written and executive produced by me Josh Zemon.

Produced and written by Caitlin Colford, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay, our executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV.

Matt Frederick and Trevor Young, our executive producers on behalf of iHeart Podcasts.

Original music by Alex Lasarenko, David Little and makeup and Vanity Set Our supervising producer is John Street.

Editing and writing by Daniel Lonsberry.

Additional voiceover provided by Rachel Mills.

Additional production provided by Ghost Robot, Sound design, mix and master by Daydon Cole.

Cover design by Byron McCoy.

Interns Arnetta Fontinat, Shelby Hanson, Alec Walker and Fox Williams.

Ana Television Networks LLC.

Audio from the Killing Season used under license copyright twenty twenty five a Anda Television Networks LLC.

All rights reserved.

Special thanks to the team at United Talent Agency, the Nord Group, Brad Abramson, Todd Leebowitz, Rich Perrillo and Jigsaw Productions, Rachel Mills, Zachary Mortensen, Jen Beegle, David Baker, Joe Jack Alone and Evan Krause, as well as the teams at iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot TV.

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