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00:12During the analysis of a hard drive recovered from the basement of the suspect, the task force
00:17discovered a word document titled HK2002-4. It was found in unallocated space, which means it
00:28was erased. But we were able to forensically retrieve it. The planning document is effectively
00:34a blueprint of how to be a serial killer. So look at it in real life. It's horrible.
00:41This is highly disturbing. His whole being is devoted to sex, torture, murder in the worst way
00:51that a human mind could imagine. This whole thing is just insane. It's like you couldn't literally
00:57ask for any more of a confession.
01:14The planning document is extraordinarily damning. What the investigators found was that it was
01:19created, not downloaded from the internet, it was created by the user. And investigators
01:26believe that the exclusive user of that device was Rex Howerman sometime between 2001 and 2002.
01:33This is right after Valerie Mack is murdered.
01:37It's particularly critical for the prosecution because it establishes the intent and the mindset
01:42of the perpetrator. The intent is crucial to establish premeditation.
01:49It begins with a four-category section with underlying headings. Based on the experience of investigators,
01:56they believe that supplies, references, the tools necessary to actually execute the murders,
02:02problems, specifically details, the things needed to avoid apprehension. DS is a reference to dump site,
02:09where the bodies would effectively be disposed of. And TRG is a reference to the targets.
02:17The target section references Megan with a question mark. Also, small is good.
02:24It's important to note that the known victims thus far are all small, petite women.
02:30When we first got access to this planning document, it was very disturbing. To the point that when I
02:36reported it, I did a disclaimer to the viewer to please be ready for what you're about to hear. You
02:43may
02:43not want to hear this. Supplies, foodies, acid, rope, hair nets,
02:53problems, DNA, bloodstains, foot shoe prints.
03:02The document very clearly lays out, dump site one, Mill Road. Valerie Mack and Jessica Taylor's remains
03:10were found close to Mill Road. Post event, destroy file, change tires, burn gloves,
03:21have story sets. As I read this, I have to say, it's strange. There's so many misspellings here.
03:29Rex is well-educated, an architect.
03:33He didn't spell well. He would make me listen to this tape recorder. When he would have me do proposals,
03:41you know, it obviously didn't spell well. Use heavy rope for neck. Light rope broke under stress
03:51of being tightened. Light rope broke under stress. That's disturbing because he's now speaking,
04:01allegedly, that this happened. He's learning. Who fucking hurt him that he had to do that to people?
04:09He was hunting them. He literally planned all that. More sleep and noise control equals more playtime.
04:19He was not interested in just killing them. There was more that he had planned.
04:25And where were they for that time? They were somewhere. When you look at the planning document,
04:34it talks about, for lack of a better word, a staging area, an area where the victim would be brought.
04:41And with regard to that, it talks about hanging plastic from either the ceiling or the walls,
04:47and how it was better to use pushpins as opposed to tape because tape leaves adhesive marks on the wall
04:56and the ceiling. Authorities returned to search the house about a year after the initial search.
05:01That search was likely prompted from the details provided in the planning document specific to the
05:07use of pushpins and tape. So they were specifically looking to see evidence of that.
05:15Where in a house that you share with your wife and two children could you conceal a crime like this?
05:27One summer, I worked for a lot of different architects.
05:31I was freelancing and Rex said, hey, I've got some work for you.
05:36He asked me to come to his house to measure it because he was going to do some renovations.
05:45So I took the train out to Massapequa Park and he picked me up at the train station.
05:56Here's the front door. You enter in here and here's the living room.
06:05We actually measured the whole first floor and the basement together.
06:10The kitchen is right here and the stairs leading down to the basement.
06:15When you go down the stairs, it was finished. There was carpet, there was a sofa, and there was a
06:23little bar. You know, it was a hangout area. So you can see how he would say, hey, why don't
06:30you come down?
06:31Some couch, you know, have drink and just hang out, you know, just chill out.
06:37Even then, the women walking down those stairs had no idea what was about to come.
06:45We were kind of working our way around the perimeter of the room, probably 10 feet away. From the sofa
06:51was
06:52this area I'm calling the vault. He was standing, literally, his back was to the door of the vault.
07:03And he said, you can't go in there. I always remembered that because, I don't know, something
07:13struck me when he stopped and said that to my face in such a stern voice. It really kind of
07:21caught me
07:21off guard. The vault would have offered a level of privacy and to some degree a level of noise
07:29cancellation that would have provided an ideal environment for the components of this crime.
07:37When we executed the search warrant in the house, we went back to the basement.
07:43And using infrared lighting, we were able to establish a cordoned off area where we
07:48saw this adhesive tape had been placed. It really just reiterated what that planning document specifically
07:56talks about with regard to staging areas.
08:00From the pictures that we've seen from the house raids, what I realized in the last year and a half
08:10is that there's a staircase that's in the vault that leads out to the backyard.
08:18So he had access from this room to the backyard.
08:26If you look at all the aerial photos of his house, you can see the basement doors. They're directly
08:31underneath his kitchen, directly in line with the stairs that go down to the basement. He was able to
08:42move things around in a discreet way.
08:50It becomes apparent that there's a high possibility that these women, that he may have held them for
08:57a period of time in a room where he was able to hang a drop cloth, where he was able
09:04to test all these
09:06different torture methods on them. And they probably knew they were going to die because no one could help them.
09:13It's very scary for me to look back on those times and think how close I was to somebody so
09:20evil.
09:25In July of 2003, he allegedly took Jessica Taylor, got together with her on a Monday night
09:37and dumped her body on a Friday night. So he had her at the house for those four days.
09:48On his Blackberry schedule, you can see that he has appointments at the DOB, the Department of Buildings,
09:56meaning, allegedly, Jessica Taylor was still in the house and he would go off to meetings.
10:06He was still in the house and he was still in the house.
10:06Given the evidence in this case, one of the things that we argue is significant is that,
10:10with regard to all of the victims, the defendant's family were out of town during the commission of
10:16the crimes. That would have, unfortunately, given the defendant unfettered time and access to the
10:23victims at a time where, you know, no one else would be around.
10:30If I went back to his house, I don't think I'd be here right now.
10:34For years, I've told everybody, everybody, I said, I went on a date with the Go Beach killer.
10:41I knew it was him and nobody believed me, which again goes to show how little people
10:47believe things from people in that industry.
10:55I was a felon at a really young age and nobody wanted to fucking hire me
11:00at all. It's at McDonald's, but you can't pay for rent and a kid on McDonald's.
11:05My friend showed me the website sugardaddies.com, so I ended up becoming a sugar baby.
11:14So I met Rex Hummerman through the website in 2015. Initially, he wanted me to come to his house.
11:22He was like, why don't you just come over? It'd be a lot more relaxed. He didn't want to meet
11:27in public.
11:28But I got him to agree to go to the steam room in Port Jeff.
11:34When we sat down, we talked like basics, like, what do you do for a living? Where do you work?
11:42And then he asked if I knew about the Go Beach killing. And, like, I'm from here, so of course
11:47I have.
11:49The way he talked about it seemed odd. Honestly, it felt like he was, like, sexually getting off to
11:57talking about serial killers in Gilgo. You know, when someone's blood pressure is high and their face
12:03starts turning red and their palms get flushed and they, that's what he looked like. It was so weird.
12:10He honestly was in a rush to try to get me to his house. I was like, I really don't
12:15want to be
12:15driving at night in an area. I don't know. That was, like, my polite letdown. And he was like,
12:21why would you drive? No, no, no. We'd take one car.
12:25He was, like, very aggressive, like, very pushy about it. And then he seemed, like, angry. Like,
12:30he was mad that I didn't want to go home with him. It scared me. I was, like, super uncomfortable.
12:38He had gone through that process with the earlier victims and he hadn't gotten caught yet.
12:45He got away with it for so long.
12:49He lived his dual life. He had the front-facing life where he was
12:53the architect who worked in the city, had his own business. And then he had this
12:58aspect of his life that he kept secret.
13:02With the literature discovered in his home during the execution of the search warrant,
13:06it seems as if the suspect has a deep fascination with violent crimes and with serial killers in
13:11particular. We know that he was fixated with Mindhunter. Mindhunter was written by retired special
13:20agent John Douglas. John was a pioneer in establishing the behavioral science unit,
13:24and he is known as being a linchpin in the development of behavioral criminal profiling.
13:32The book Mindhunter provides insight into serial killer behavior and techniques used by violent
13:38criminal offenders. John Douglas famously wrote in that book that if you want to understand Picasso,
13:46you have to study his art. If you want to understand the criminal personality, you study the crime.
13:53I think this suspect liked being thought of as an artist. And it was an art form that he had
14:00to perfect.
14:01He was looking at the way serial killers kill and also how investigators go about
14:10tracking down and convicting serial killers.
14:13And he makes it a point to denote certain pages to really pay attention to. And if you
14:19have access to that type of internal information, you can definitely square up how you execute a series
14:28of murders like this to minimize the spread of evidence, including DNA.
14:33Body prep. Wash body inside and all cavities. Remove ID marks like tattoos. Remove marks from torture. Remove
14:45head and hands.
14:48For the other six victims, four of the six were dismembered. Out of all of those four,
14:57not only were they dismembered, some body parts were recovered along Ocean Parkway. Others were
15:03recovered in Amstead Lake Park, Fire Island, Manorville. Typically, the perpetrators undertake that,
15:11it's a lot of effort, in order to frustrate and confuse investigators and to delay the identification.
15:18That's the key.
15:19Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has always been clear that this investigation is still going.
15:25They're not stopping until they investigate every single lead that they could possibly have related
15:31to this case. And so we knew there were going to be more charges coming.
15:40Today, the District Attorney's Office filed a superseding indictment charging the defendant
15:44with two additional murders. Those charges pertain to the 1993 murder of Sandra Castilla
15:52and the 2003 murder of Jessica Taylor. The task force believes that the planning document was utilized
16:00by Uriman to methodically blueprint and plan out his kills with excruciating detail. We allege that
16:08this document evinces the defendant's intent in committing the charged crimes. I did not suspect
16:16that Sandra Castilla was going to be connected to him. That wowed me. I was suspecting
16:24Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack. The reason is, we have known for years, because police have said,
16:30that Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack most likely had the same killer. Sandra Castilla kind of came out
16:37of nowhere, but the significance of that cannot be understated.
16:42There were two hairs from Sandra Castilla's remains that are of particular significance
16:46in this case. One was a female hair that was recovered from the victim's right arm,
16:52and one was a male hair that was recovered from a tape lip of one of the shirts that the
16:58victim
16:58was wearing that was pushed above her head. They found a female hair on her right arm that did not
17:06belong to her. They believe it closely matches who they call Witness 3. Witness 3 is the woman that
17:15Rex Herman was living with in 1993. From a defense standpoint, I don't know what strategy I would use
17:24to explain that away. The totality of the evidence is extraordinarily damning.
17:37Good morning. It looks like there's just so much discovery that's forthcoming. You see here,
17:44the interns here have a box of, I don't know how many terabytes are in there, but this is,
17:49these are things that were disclosed this morning, and that's just on top of all that we've received
17:55to date. I think it's fair to say that it's an unprecedented type of case. Michael Brown is his
18:02lawyer. He's a good lawyer. Michael tried his first jury case against me, and he beat me. I stood,
18:09I stood in front of you folks a year ago, uh, and I said he wants his day in court.
18:14He still wants his
18:15day in court. He wants his trial. If I were Michael Brown, I know what I would do, and I
18:20would start to
18:21look directly at the DNA evidence and pull it apart. The strongest piece of evidence that they claim
18:28they have is a hair. DNA evidence is science, but the great mistake that people make is that science
18:36is the voice of God. It's not. There are thousands and thousands of people just on Long Island that
18:45potentially could be donors for those hairs. And then I would cast reasonable doubt on whether or
18:51not he was guilty. You have a search warrant when Rex was arrested in July of last year, and now
18:57the
18:5710 month later search apparently is going to yield three or four times the amount of discovery that the
19:03first search yielded. Does that make any sense to you? I would also attack the way the police conducted
19:10the entire investigation and picked the police apart. There were numerous leads that came into
19:15the Suffolk County Police Department suggesting that Chief Burke was involved in this. Mike Brown,
19:22he's always been clear that Rex had nothing to do with any of this. Any piece of evidence,
19:29he's going to rip it apart. It all goes into the narrative. It's, it's any piece of the puzzle that
19:36they can take and they can fit and they can argue that it's Rex Eurman. They've done that. And things
19:42that don't work for them, you don't hear about. We talked about surveillance. A year and a half of
19:49poll cameras at his house. The defense have made a very good point that all that was captured on that
19:55film was Rex coming home, playing with his dog, talking to his wife, nothing out of the ordinary.
20:04I mean, I think probably what he's saying about the poll cam is we don't see him murdering anyone
20:08else in the poll cam, which means he didn't commit these other, you know, I think that's,
20:11that's, that's what he's saying.
20:14Eurman has denied tons of media requests. So it's interesting that the one person he's decided
20:22to communicate with is a convicted serial killer, the happy face killer.
20:28I try to explain to other killers that are arrested and I write to them, I tell them how the
20:32system
20:33works. If you're arrested, it means that the prosecutor has enough evidence to take you to
20:38court and prove you guilty. I've recently got a letter from Rex Eurman from the Long Island serial
20:43killers. And I admit, I told him the same thing. Isn't that kind of an admission of guilt?
20:51Why is he writing to another serial killer? Is he seeking advice?
20:56I think so.
20:56Have you had a chance to review the bullet at Bestow that they talked about last month?
21:03You've already made that assumption that he's the one who drafted it and he's the one who created it.
21:09I don't know that. I don't know that. You have a document that's attached to a bail package
21:14from a computer they claim was in his home that's 23 years old. But that's all I know.
21:20The experts of the medical examiner's office, and these are folks who are experts in their field,
21:27they said that those hairs were unsuitable for nuclear DNA testing. Now all of a sudden,
21:35magically, we have a company in California that says, no, we're able to do nuclear DNA testing.
21:42I don't understand how the Suffolk County Crime Lab said it's unsuitable. And within a month or two,
21:48we have some magician on the West Coast that says it's my client. We're looking forward to trying this case.
21:56In 1993, and certainly at the time the bodies were discovered in 2010, the capability to produce full
22:01mitochondrial and nuclear DNA profiles from rootless hairs just didn't exist. The capability just wasn't
22:07there. Since then, technology and science have substantially evolved, and we can now get a DNA
22:13profile from a rootless hair through nuclear DNA testing. The profile that returned excluded 99.96 percent
22:24of the North American population. Rex could not be excluded.
22:30Even with DNA, believe it or not, you can't have 100 percent. There's too many variations. We have here,
22:41these are the, from the indictment, the list of all the breakdown of the DNA, right?
22:49Sandra Castilla, 99.96 percent of North American population can be excluded, but not Rex Heurman. 99.98 percent,
23:0299.96 percent. Nothing here is 100. And so what the defense is going to try to say is that
23:11this is not a match.
23:14Sandra Castilla increases the potential victims associated with the subject, and there are likely
23:20more. It showed he was likely killing as early as 1993 and most likely well before that. The brutal
23:28nature of Sandra's murder, as well as how the body was disposed of and posed and mutilated,
23:35suggests to investigators that this was not his first time.
23:40New information as the investigation continues into the accused Gilgo Beach serial killer.
23:45Police in both South Carolina and Las Vegas, where he owns property, are reviewing unsolved cases for
23:52any possible connection. There is extremely strong possibility that he's responsible for a number of
24:01other deaths in other areas of the country. There is a woman in South Carolina who says,
24:08I know that face. It was the last face I saw with my mother before I never saw her again.
24:16South Carolina's Sumter County Sheriff's Office posting this photo of Julia Ann Bean.
24:21Bean's adult daughter telling authorities the last time she saw her mother,
24:25she was with a man driving a vehicle similar to one that's now been linked to Heurman.
24:30I didn't know that he went down to South Carolina, that they had property there because
24:36he had me paying the taxes for it.
24:39The FBI recovered a vehicle that matches Heurman's SUV linked to the case,
24:43and now investigators are searching property in Chester County, South Carolina.
24:56I think that every missing person's case that involves a woman in this country should be looked at.
25:05Cameron Bean telling NBC News, I saw her the night before my graduation. She didn't come,
25:10which was definitely something that was out of character for her.
25:14Sheurman. Prior to identifying a suspect, you're limited in terms of the victims that
25:19you'll tie that suspect to. After the suspect was arrested, you look at the suspect's behavior,
25:24their lifestyle, their travel patterns, and that drives you to look at potential other victims
25:30that were outside of the jurisdiction of Suffolk County and outside of New York.
25:35We don't know yet if Rex Heurman will be charged with their murders.
25:39Heurman and his wife own a timeshare condo at Club du Soleil on Tropicana Avenue and Lindell Road.
25:46Property records show they bought it in 2005 for $17,000.
25:52In Las Vegas, he has a condo that's right behind a sex worker establishment.
25:59Sources tell 13 investigates Metro has a number of cold cases involving sex workers.
26:05We've asked how many of those unsolved crimes there are, and we are still waiting for that information.
26:10I've spoken to a mom out there. Her daughter, she's from Canada. Her daughter had gone to Vegas to
26:15be a sex worker, and she's never heard from her since. And she waits with bated breath at the phone
26:23that Rex Heurman may have killed her daughter.
26:26The defendant did spend time in Alaska, as well as Atlantic City, as well as other places.
26:33And if any of those jurisdictions have any information that they need from the task force,
26:37we have provided it. We're going to continue to provide it.
26:41I guarantee you that if they start looking into disappearances and time frames when he was there,
26:46there's going to be bodies all over the country. If you think that he was just killing on Long Island
26:50for 30 years, there's no chance in hell that's going to be true.
26:54Recently, we learned from Suffolk police that they're still receiving tips. They're up to about 7,000 tips.
27:00We're going to concern ourselves with what's happening here on Long Island and remain supportive
27:04of those investigations. But because I lack the jurisdiction,
27:07we'll leave those investigations up to those other places.
27:16One of the more heartbreaking things about this case is that the duration of it and the time that it's
27:21taken to apprehend a suspect and the time that trial will inevitably take is that so many of these
27:27families have suffered incalculable loss that most people could not live through. And they have not
27:33been able to see justice be done. This is dorky, but I kept it.
27:43This leaf blew in front of me and every time I moved it, it blew towards me.
27:47So I figured it was meant for me to take it. So I took it and it's been in this
27:51box ever since.
27:52The families have waited for years, sometimes decades, to find out what happened to their loved
27:58ones. And not all of them are still here today. Megan Waterman's mom, Lorraine, died in 2022,
28:05only months before Rex Herman was arrested. She died without knowing who may have killed her daughter.
28:16Mary Gilbert passed away in 2016.
28:20In the beginning, I wanted to pretend like it's not my life. After my mother's passing,
28:28I have gotten a lot more involved because I feel like I have to now. I have to participate in
28:35what my
28:35mother did. She spoke a lot for Shannon and justice for Shannon. So I believe that I have to do
28:44the same
28:45thing. These families always held out hope that they would find who did this to their loved ones.
28:54And they died, some of them, without ever knowing what happened.
29:00The family members who are still alive are carrying on the torch, showing up to hearings,
29:07involving Rex Herman to make sure that there is justice.
29:15We don't know where this will end, but this case drags on. And because there's so many victims,
29:22it's taking a long time for the case to go to trial. So it's a painful process for many of
29:30the family
29:30members. They are committed, however, to seeing this through to the end. They want the truth
29:37about what happened to their loved ones.
29:43So, Lynn, we don't know exactly what's going to happen today.
29:48No.
29:49You've been to the courthouse that we're going to so many times, right?
29:53I have.
29:53Probably you've lost count, right?
29:56This is the first time I'm going to see the defendant, though.
30:00My guess is he's not going to look at anyone who was sitting there except maybe the judge.
30:07Hmm. If he's smart.
30:13I think it's very important, don't you, that the family members come?
30:17I do. We all need to be there to support each other.
30:21Yes.
30:21And any new victims' families.
30:24Mm-hmm.
30:25Let them all see that we're all here for them.
30:28Yeah, exactly. And that you're here.
30:31Because nobody can feel this except us.
30:33Exactly.
30:33I mean, you can say that you feel sorry or...
30:37No.
30:37But you just don't know.
30:41I don't think there's ever going to be any closure.
30:47Well, at some point, hopefully...
30:51I mean, there may be justice.
30:52...a little less painful.
30:54Exactly. That's how I feel. Exactly.
30:56And no one else will be hurt.
31:00It's so, so important.
31:19Gender violence.
31:21That makes the families very angry and very upset.
31:27We see horrific things happening to women all over the world.
31:31The bottom line is this accused man thinks he's powerful, hurting the vulnerable.
31:38It's just tragic.
31:41Doesn't think about family members.
31:44Doesn't think about anyone except himself.
31:47We go now to Long Island where suspected Gilgal Beach serial killer Rex Eurman has been charged with a seventh
31:53murder.
31:54Suffolk's DA today said that parts of Valerie Mack's dismembered body were first found in Manorville back in 2000.
32:01That's when prosecutors recovered a strand of hair DNA has now traced back to Rex Eurman's daughter.
32:08That courtroom audience included the parents of Valerie Mack as well as family members of some of the other alleged
32:15victims of Rex Eurman.
32:16It was silent when he came into the courtroom.
32:19So for that reason, it was particularly startling when he yelled, not guilty.
32:27Family members let out an audible gasp when Eurman decided to enter his own not guilty plea.
32:33He certainly has a right to say not guilty. He can say it until he's blue in the face,
32:40but really what matters is what the evidence shows. So we'll have to wait and see.
32:46How did you feel about this morning?
32:49It was very emotional. I didn't expect to feel that way when I saw him for the first time.
32:55So it was like feeling it for the first time all over again.
32:59Mm-hmm. But, you know, he's sitting alone in a cell, most likely.
33:05That's all he's got. That's all he's got. That's all he's got.
33:19Here in New York, the judge in the case of accused Gilgo Beach killer Rex Eurman
33:24is expected to announce whether key DNA evidence can be used during the trial. The type of testing
33:30has never been used before in a New York courtroom.
33:35We're in Riverhead, Suffolk County, for a big hearing. The judge's decision today is monumental
33:43for months. Rex's attorney, Mike Brown, put up every expert that he could find
33:50that would argue that the use of this DNA technology was too new and should not be allowed in the
33:56trial.
33:57This evidence is critical, because without it, prosecutors have what is a circumstantial case.
34:06If the judge doesn't allow this in, there is a chance that a jury could find Rex Eurman not guilty
34:13because of it. If this is all tossed, if the judge says, look, it's just too new to bring into
34:18this trial,
34:19I mean, that's going to be really damaging for the prosecution.
34:26Breaking news out of Long Island, judge making a major ruling surrounding DNA evidence in the Gilgo
34:32Beach murder case.
34:37The court's decision is that the question hairs with regard to the nuclear DNA testing that has
34:47been deemed admissible by the court. This decision marks a significant step in forensic DNA analysis.
34:57The science was on our side, and that's why we won.
35:02Could you say anything about the trial?
35:04This was very aggressively and effectively litigated. We're hurtling towards the trial stage.
35:12How did Rex Eurman react to this decision which would allow the nuclear DNA to be used as evidence
35:17against him? He was disappointed. We believe it's not scientifically reliable, but the judge has
35:24issued a fried decision saying this is acceptable. We don't like it, we don't agree with it, but he's the
35:30umpire.
35:30Mike, do you anticipate him taking a plea?
35:33A plea? A guilty plea.
35:35I stood in front of you folks from day one. Everything we're doing is catered and directed
35:39towards a trial. So what we do is we fight. He has maintained that not guilty plea. We go for
35:45it.
35:47All right, guys? Okay, thanks. Even though Mike Brown said today there's no plea deal,
35:53and I think that that was a legitimate, genuine response, you never know what is happening in a case.
36:02This decision today was a huge blow to the defense and a big win for prosecutors.
36:10Can you speak for the victims' families? How are they feeling today?
36:14I think they're feeling relieved, and I think they're happy and pleased with the decision.
36:18And I think these families understand that while their loved one isn't here,
36:24they potentially have who was responsible for hurting them.
36:31Now begins the process of holding that alleged person accountable
36:37and to be a witness to this process, to justice.
36:44A lot more is going to come out in the trial, isn't it?
36:47Yeah. I think the DA's releasing this level of evidence to rattle this cage
36:51and to, and hopefully to prompt a plea deal. That's what I hope for, because I hope the families
36:57don't have to go through the emotional tumult of a trial.
37:03There were people behind the scenes for a number of years working on this investigation
37:09to try to bring them justice, and I'm glad that there's finally progress.
37:17But we still have a ways to go.
37:23We have victims where there are no suspects that have been charged with those murders,
37:27and those investigations remain very active and ongoing.
37:35When I said I wanted to practice law to a cousin of mine who was a lawyer in Philadelphia,
37:41he said, why? I said, because I would like to help win justice. He said, there's no justice.
37:50All you can do is mitigate the injustice.
37:58We've helped to remove some of the fear against the powerful person who has hurt them in their lives.
38:06And now the fear is on the other side. The fear is on the side of the perpetrator,
38:12because the fear is now he doesn't know what the survivors are going to do.
38:19Maureen, I owe her my life.
38:22And if I can't help her, I can probably help others that are just like us.
38:32So that they're not afraid
38:37to report something bad, so that they're safe from those kind of situations happening.
38:49I think that there is still a pattern of behavior in law enforcement who I have the utmost respect for,
38:57but I do think that there is dismissing that still goes on with women who disappear.
39:05The family members and the friends who went to police made a fatal error that shouldn't be a fatal
39:11error. They told them the truth. They told them what these women did. The second that law enforcement
39:19hears that these women have issues, their cases get pushed to the side for the cases of the wealthier,
39:29the more put together, the ones of the families that have the ability to pay for lawyers.
39:38And I think there will always be questions about things that we may not get the answers to,
39:47like Shannon Gilbert. I'm not sure that we will ever know the truth about Shannon Gilbert.
39:55I can definitely tell you, over the years, I have gotten so cold because of this. The stuff I've heard,
40:05it just, it makes you cold. It does.
40:13Every person that walks in and says, I'm worried about where she is, should be treated as if it was
40:20the officer's own sister, mother, aunt, cousin. I hope that the department, and I think they have,
40:30has learned some lessons about what works and what doesn't work. Look, this idea of a task force is,
40:37is so smart. I mean, I would love to see more investigations like this.
40:44Part of our motivation was, we wanted to let everyone know that the lives of these young women
40:52mattered, and that if you engage in this type of conduct, eventually you're going to be held to account.
41:00I definitely want people to be held accountable for my sister's death. And not just my sister,
41:10but as far as this happening to other women.
41:16This isn't just about murder. This has roots deep in the culture and how some men see women.
41:27Women in this country and in this world are not safe. It's not just in that kind of work.
41:35Women are not safe.
41:38Maureen was a mother of two amazing children, and they will forever be without their mother.
41:45I think that these victims, family members, are standing up,
41:51becoming fighters for change for other women.
41:56Amber would've accomplished her goals. She wanted to work when I was. She wanted to be a veterinarian.
42:02Maureen, she was a good mother. She would definitely be proud of her daughter and her son.
42:08Melissa would've been 39 years old this year. She should've been able to get married. She should've been able to
42:16have children. She should be here to share her laughter and her love.
42:23The whole world deserved more of her. I'm sick and tired of being angry.
42:32I always say first we cry.
42:36And then we fight.
42:38We the same.
43:04We all got
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