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Killing Grounds The Gilgo Beach Murders S01E04
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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. To look at it in real life is horrible. This
00:41is highly disturbing. His whole being is devoted to sex, torture, murder in the worst way that
00:51a 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 created,
01:20not downloaded from the internet. It was created by the user and investigators believe that the
01:27exclusive user of that device was Rex Howerman sometime between 2001 and 2002. This is right
01:34after Valerie Mack is murdered. It's particularly critical for the prosecution because it establishes
01:41the intent and the mindset of 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, problems
02:02specifically details the things needed to avoid apprehension. DS is a reference to dump site, where the
02:10bodies would effectively be disposed of. And TRG is a reference to the targets. The target section references
02:19Megan with a question mark. Also, small is good. It's important to note that the known victims thus far
02:27are all small, petite women. When we first got access to this planning document, it was very disturbing. To the
02:35point that when I reported it, I did a disclaimer to the viewer.
02:39To please be ready for what you're about to hear. You may not want to hear this.
02:45Supplies. Booties. Acid. Rope. Hairnets. Problems. DNA. Bloodstains. Foot shoe prints.
03:02The document very clearly lays out. Dump site one, Mill Road. Valerie Mack and Jessica Taylor's
03:10remains were found close to Mill Road. Post event. Destroy file. Change tires. Burn gloves. Have story set. As I
03:23read this, I have to say, it's strange. There's so many misspellings here.
03:29Rex is well-educated. An architect. He didn't spell well. He would make me listen to this tape recorder. When
03:39he would have me do proposals, you know, it obviously didn't spell well.
03:44Use heavy rope for neck. Light rope broke under stress of being tightened. Light rope broke under stress. That's disturbing
03:58because he's now speaking, allegedly, that this happened. He's learning.
04:06Who fucking hurt him that he had to do that to people? He was hunting them. He literally planned all
04:13that.
04:15More sleep and noise control equals more playtime. He was not interested in just killing them. There was more that
04:24he had planned. And where were they for that time?
04:30They were somewhere. When you look at the planning document, it talks about, for lack of a better word, a
04:37staging 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 and how it
04:48was better to use pushpins as opposed to tape.
04:52Because tape leaves adhesive marks on the wall and the ceiling.
04:57Authorities 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 use of pushpins and
05:08tape.
05:09So 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.
05:59You 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.
06:19There was carpet.
06:20There was a sofa.
06:22And there was a little bar.
06:25You know, it was a hangout area.
06:27So you can see how he would say, hey, why don't you come down?
06:31Some couch, you know, have drink and just hang out.
06:34You 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.
06:50From the sofa was this area I'm calling the vault.
06:56He was standing literally, his back was to the door of the vault.
07:03And he said, you can't go in there.
07:08I always remembered that because I don't know.
07:13Something struck me when he stopped and said that to my face in such a stern voice.
07:20It really kind of caught me off guard.
07:23The vault would have offered a level of privacy and, to some degree, a level of noise cancellation
07:29that 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 saw this adhesive tape had
07:50been placed.
07:52It really just reiterated what that planning document specifically talks about with regard to staging areas.
08:01From 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.
08:30They're directly underneath his kitchen, directly in line with the stairs that go down to the basement.
08:37He was able to move 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 a period
08:57of time,
08:58in a room where he was able to hang a drop cloth, where he was able to test all these
09:06different torture methods on them.
09:09And 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,
09:36and dumped her body on a Friday night.
09:40So 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.
10:06Given the evidence in this case, one of the things that we argue is significant is that with regard to
10:11all of the victims,
10:13the defendant's family were out of town during the commission of the crimes.
10:17That would have unfortunately given the defendant unfettered time and access to the victims at a time where, you know,
10:25no 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-to-beach killer.
10:41I knew it was him and nobody believed me.
10:44Which again goes to show how little people believe things from people in that industry.
10:55I was a felon at a really young age and nobody wanted to fucking hire me at all.
11:01It'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.
11:10So I ended up becoming a sugar baby.
11:14So I met Rex Hummerman through the website in 2015.
11:19Initially, 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.
11:26He didn't want to be in 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?
11:39Where do you work?
11:42And then he asked if I knew about the go-to-beach killing.
11:45And, like, I'm from here, so of course I have.
11:49The way he talked about it seemed odd.
11:53Honestly, it felt like he was, like, sexually getting off to talking about serial killers in Gilga.
12:01You know, when someone's blood pressure is high and their face starts turning red and their palms get flushed,
12:05and they, that's what he looked like.
12:07It was so weird.
12:10He honestly was in a rush to try to get me to his house.
12:14I was like, I really don't want to be driving at night in an area, I don't know.
12:17That was, like, my polite letdown.
12:19And he was like, why would you drive? No, no, no, we'd take one car.
12:25He was, like, very aggressive, like, very pushy about it.
12:28And then he seemed, like, angry. Like, he was mad that I didn't want to go home with him.
12:33It 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'd gotten away with it for so long.
12:49He lived this dual life. He had the front-facing life where he was, uh, the architect who worked in
12:54the city, had his own business.
12:55And then he had this aspect 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 particular.
13:14We know that he was fixated with Mindhunter.
13:17Mindhunter was written by retired Special Agent John Douglas.
13:21John was a pioneer in establishing the Behavioral Science Unit,
13:25and 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 criminal offenders.
13:40John Douglas famously wrote in that book that if you want to understand Picasso, you have to study his art.
13:47If you want to understand the criminal personality, you study the crime.
13:53I think this suspect liked being thought of as an artist.
13:58And it was an art form that he had to perfect.
14:01He was looking at the way serial killers kill and also how investigators go about tracking down and convicting serial
14:12killers.
14:13And he makes it a point to denote certain pages to really pay attention to.
14:18And if you have access to that type of internal information, you can definitely square up how you execute a
14:27series of murders like this to minimize the spread of evidence, including DNA.
14:33Body prep.
14:35Wash body inside and all cavities.
14:39Remove ID marks like tattoos.
14:42Remove marks from torture.
14:44Remove head and hands.
14:46Remove eyes.
14:48For the other six victims, four of the six were dismembered.
14:55Out of all of those four, not only were they dismembered, some body parts were recovered along Ocean Parkway.
15:02Others were recovered in Hempstead Lake Park, Fire Island, Manorville.
15:08Typically, the perpetrators undertake that, and it's a lot of effort, in order to frustrate and confuse investigators and to
15:17delay the identification.
15:18That's the key.
15:20Suffolk 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 to this case.
15:32And 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 with two additional murders.
15:46Those charges pertain to the 1993 murder of Sandra Castilla and the 2003 murder of Jessica Taylor.
15:56The task force believes that the planning document was utilized by Uriman to methodically blueprint and plan out his kills
16:04with excruciating detail.
16:07We allege that this document evinces the defendant's intent in committing the charged crimes.
16:13I did not suspect that Sandra Castilla was going to be connected to him.
16:20That wowed me. I was suspecting Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack.
16:26The reason is, we have known for years, because police have said, that Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack most likely
16:34had the same killer.
16:35Sandra Castilla kind of came out of nowhere, but the significance of that cannot be understated.
16:42There were two hairs from Sandra Castilla's remains that are of particular significance in this case.
16:48One 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 was wearing that was pushed above her head.
17:02They found a female hair on her right arm that did not belong to her.
17:08They believe it closely matches who they call witness three.
17:13Witness three is the woman that Rex Herman was living with in 1993.
17:18From a defense standpoint, I don't know what strategy I would use to explain that away.
17:27The totality of the evidence is extraordinarily damning.
17:37Good morning. It looks like there's just so much discovery that's forthcoming.
17:43You see here, the interns here have a box of, I don't know how many terabytes are in there.
17:49But these are things that were disclosed this morning, and that's just on top of all that we've received to
17:55date.
17:56I think it's fair to say that it's an unprecedented type of case.
18:01Michael Brown is his lawyer. He's a good lawyer.
18:05Michael tried his first jury case against me, and he beat me.
18:08I stood in front of you folks a year ago, and I said he wants his day in court.
18:14He still wants his day in court. He wants his trial.
18:16If I were Michael Brown, I know what I would do.
18:19And I would start to look directly at the DNA evidence and pull it apart.
18:26The strongest piece of evidence that they claim they have is a hair.
18:30DNA evidence is science.
18:33But the great mistake that people make is that science is the voice of God.
18:38It's not.
18:39There are thousands and thousands of people just on Long Island
18:44that potentially could be donors for those hairs.
18:48And then I would cast reasonable doubt on whether or not he was guilty.
18:53You have a search warrant when Rex was arrested in July of last year.
18:56And now the ten month later search apparently is going to yield three or four times the amount of discovery
19:02that the first search yielded.
19:05Does that make any sense to you?
19:07I would also attack the way the police conducted the entire investigation and pick the police apart.
19:13There were numerous leads that came into the Suffolk County Police Department suggesting that Chief Burke was involved in this.
19:20Mike Brown, he's always been clear that Rex had nothing to do with any of this.
19:27Any piece of evidence, he's going to rip it apart.
19:31It all goes into the narrative.
19:33It's any piece of the puzzle that they can take and they can fit and they can argue that it's
19:39Rex Eurman.
19:40They've done that.
19:41And things that don't work for them, you don't hear about.
19:45We talked about surveillance.
19:47A year and a half of poll cameras at his house.
19:51The defense have made a very good point that all that was captured on that film was Rex coming home,
19:58playing with his dog, talking to his wife.
20:02Nothing out of the ordinary.
20:04I mean, I think probably what he was saying about the poll cam is we don't see him murdering anyone
20:08else in the poll cam,
20:09which means he didn't commit these other, you know, I think that's, that's, that's what he's saying.
20:14Heurman has denied tons of media requests.
20:18So it's interesting that the one person he's decided to communicate with is a convicted serial killer, the happy face
20:27killer.
20:28I try to explain to other killers that are arrested and I write to them, I tell them how the
20:33system works.
20:33If you're arrested, it means that the prosecutor has enough evidence to take you to court and prove you guilty.
20:39I've recently got a letter from Rex Huston, fewer men from the Long Island serial killers.
20:44And I admit, I told him the same thing.
20:48Isn't that kind of an admission of guilt?
20:51Why is he writing to another serial killer?
20:54Is he seeking advice?
20:56Have you had a chance to review the bulletproof manifesto 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.
21:10I don't know that.
21:11You have a document that's attached to a bail package from a computer they claim was in his home that's
21:1823 years old.
21:19But that's all I know.
21:20The experts of the medical examiner's office, and these are folks who are experts in their field, they said that
21:28those hairs were unsuitable for nuclear DNA testing.
21:34Now all of a sudden, magically, we have a company in California that says, no, we're able to denuclear DNA
21:41testing.
21:42I don't understand how the Suffolk County Crime Lab said it's unsuitable, and within a month or two, we have
21:48some magician on the West Coast that says it's my client.
21:52We'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 mitochondrial and
22:02nuclear DNA profiles from rootless hairs just didn't exist.
22:05The capability just wasn't there.
22:07Since then, technology and science have substantially evolved, and we can now get a DNA profile from a rootless hair
22:15through nuclear DNA testing.
22:19The profile that returned excluded 99.96% of the North American population.
22:26Rex could not be excluded.
22:30Even with DNA, believe it or not, you can't have 100%.
22:37There's too many variations.
22:40We have here, these are the, from the indictment, the list of all the breakdown of the DNA, right?
22:49Sandra Castilla, 99.96% of North American population can be excluded, but not Rex Heurman.
22:5999.98%, 99.96%.
23:04Nothing here is 100.
23:06And so what the defense is going to try to say is that this is not a match.
23:14Sandra Castilla increases the potential victims associated with the subject, and there are likely more.
23:21It showed he was likely killing as early as 1993, and most likely well before that.
23:27The brutal nature of Sandra's murder, as well as how the body was disposed of and posed and mutilated, suggest
23:36to 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 any possible connection.
23:55There is extremely strong possibility that he's responsible for a number of other deaths in other areas of the country.
24:05There is a woman in South Carolina who says, I know that face.
24:10It 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 she was with a man driving a vehicle
24:27similar to one that's now been linked to Heurman.
24:31I didn't know that he went down to South Carolina, that they had property there, because he had me paying
24:38the taxes for it.
24:39The FBI recovered a vehicle that matches Heurman's SUV linked to the case.
24:44And now investigators are searching property in Chester County, South Carolina.
24:48If you could catch the gate open, there's tarps, there's all kind of weird stuff.
24:52He's got, like I said, a deuce and a half military army vehicle in there, or he did.
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.
25:09She didn't come, which was definitely something that was out of character for her.
25:14Prior to identifying a suspect, you're limited in terms of the victims that you'll tie that suspect to.
25:20After the suspect was arrested, you look at the suspect's behavior, their lifestyle, their travel patterns,
25:26and that drives you to look at potential other victims that were outside of the jurisdiction of Suffolk County and
25:33outside of New York.
25:34We don't know yet if Rex Howerman will be charged with their murders.
25:40Heurman 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.
26:00Sources 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.
26:11I've spoken to a mom out there. Her daughter, she's from Canada.
26:13Her daughter had gone to Vegas to be a sex worker, and she's never heard from her since.
26:18And she waits with bated breath at the phone that Rex Howerman may have killed her daughter.
26:27The 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, we have provided it.
26:38We're going to continue to provide it.
26:41I guarantee you that if they start looking into disappearances and timeframes when he was there,
26:46there's going to be bodies all over the country.
26:48If you think that he was just killing on Long Island for 30 years, there's no chance in hell that's
26:52going to be true.
26:54Recently, we learned from Suffolk police that they're still receiving tips.
26:57They'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 of those investigations.
27:05But because I lack the jurisdiction, we'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
27:23and the time that trial will inevitably take is that so many of these families have suffered incalculable loss that
27:30most people could not live through.
27:33And they have not been able to see justice be done.
27:37This 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.
27:49So I took it, and it's been in this box ever since.
27:52The families have waited for years, sometimes decades, to find out what happened to their loved ones.
27:59And not all of them are still here today.
28:02Megan Waterman's mom, Lorraine, died in 2022, only months before Rex Herman was arrested.
28:10She died without knowing who may have killed her daughter.
28:16Mary Gilbert passed away in 2016.
28:21In the beginning, I wanted to pretend like it's not my life.
28:26After my mother's passing, I have gotten a lot more involved because I feel like I have to now.
28:33I have to participate in what my mother did.
28:36She spoke a lot for Shannon and justice for Shannon.
28:41So I believe that I have to do the same thing.
28:46These 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 involving Rex Herman to
29:09make sure that there is justice.
29:15We don't know where this will end, but this case drags on.
29:20And because there's so many victims, it's taking a long time for the case to go to trial.
29:25So it's a painful process for many of the family members.
29:32They are committed, however, to seeing this through to the end.
29:36They want the truth about 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, probably 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.
30:08If he's smart.
30:13I think it's very important, don't you, that the family members come?
30:17I do.
30:18I do.
30:19We all need to be there to support each other.
30:21Yes.
30:22And any new victims' families.
30:24Mm-hmm.
30:25Let them all see that we're all here for them.
30:28Yeah.
30:28Exactly.
30:30And that you're here.
30:31Because nobody can feel this except us.
30:33Exactly.
30:34I mean, you can say that you feel sorry or...
30:37No.
30:37But you just don't know.
30:42I don't think there's ever going to be any closure.
30:46Well...
30:48At some point, hopefully...
30:51I mean, there may be justice.
30:52It'll feel a little less painful.
30:54Exactly.
30:54That's how I feel.
30:55Exactly.
30:56And no one else will be hurt.
31:00It's so, so important.
31:20Gender 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 Heuerman has been charged with a seventh
31:53murder.
31:53Suffolk'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 Heuerman'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 Heuerman.
32:16It was silent when he came into the courtroom.
32:18So for that reason, it was particularly startling when he yelled, not guilty.
32:27Family members let out an audible gasp when Heuerman decided to enter his own not guilty plea.
32:33He certainly has a right to say not guilty.
32:38He can say it until he's blue in the face, but really what matters is what the evidence shows.
32:43So we'll have to wait and see.
32:46How did you feel about this morning?
32:49It was very emotional.
32:51I 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.
33:00But, you know, he's sitting alone in his cell, most likely.
33:05That's all he's got.
33:06That's all he's got.
33:06That's all he's got.
33:21That's all he's got.
33:35We're in Riverhead, Suffolk County, for a big hearing.
33:39The judge's decision today is monumental for months.
33:45Rex's attorney, Mike Brown, put up every expert that he could find that would argue that the use of this
33:52DNA technology
33:53was too new and should not be allowed in the trial.
33:58This 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 Herman not guilty
34:13because of it.
34:14If this is all tossed, if the judge says, look, it's just too new to bring into this trial,
34:19I mean, that's going to be really damaging for the prosecution.
34:26Breaking news out of Long Island, a judge making a major ruling surrounding DNA evidence in the Gilgo Beach murder
34:33case.
34:34Okay.
34:35Thanks, everyone, for coming.
34:37We received the decision.
34:39The court's decision is that the question hairs with regard to the nuclear DNA testing that has been deemed admissible
34:48by the court.
34:50This decision marks a significant step in forensic DNA analysis.
34:56The 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.
35:09We're hurtling towards the trial stage.
35:12How did Rex Herman react to this decision which would allow the nuclear DNA to be used as evidence against
35:18him?
35:18He was disappointed. We believe it's not scientifically reliable.
35:22But the judge has issued a fried decision saying this is acceptable.
35:27We don't like it. We don't agree with it. But he's the umpire.
35:30Mike, do you anticipate him taking a plea?
35:33A plea?
35:34A guilty plea.
35:35I stood in front of you folks from day one.
35:37Everything we're doing is catered and directed towards a trial.
35:40So what we do is we fight.
35:42He has maintained that non-guilty plea.
35:44We go for it.
35:47All right, guys?
35:48Okay, thanks.
35:50Even though Mike Brown said today there's no plea deal,
35:53and I think that that was a legitimate, genuine response,
35:58you 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?
36:13How are they feeling today?
36:14I think they're feeling relieved, and I think they're happy and pleased with the decision.
36:19And 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 and 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.
36:47I think the DA's releasing this level of evidence to rattle his cage and to, and hopefully to prompt a
36:55plea deal.
36:55That's what I hope for, because I hope the families don't have to go through the emotional tumult of a
37:00trial.
37:03There were people behind the scenes for a number of years working on this investigation to try to bring them
37:10justice, 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, and those investigations remain very
37:30active and ongoing.
37:35When I said I wanted to practice law to a cousin of mine who was a lawyer in Philadelphia, he
37:42said, why?
37:42I said, because I would like to help win justice.
37:47He 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, and
38:07now the fear is on the other side.
38:09The fear is on the side of the perpetrator, because the fear is now he doesn't know what the survivors
38:16are going to do.
38:19Maureen, I owe her my life, and if I can't help her, I can probably help others that are just
38:26like us, so that they're not afraid to report something bad, so that they're safe from those kind of situations
38:45happening.
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 error.
39:11They told them the truth.
39:14They told them what these women did.
39:17The second that law enforcement hears that these women have issues, their cases get pushed aside for the cases of
39:28the wealthier, the 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, like Shannon
39:48Gilbert.
39:49I'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.
40:03The stuff I've heard, it just, it makes you cold.
40:10It 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.
40:26I hope that the department, and I think they have, has learned some lessons about what works and what doesn't
40:34work.
40:35Look, this idea of a task force is so smart.
40:38I 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 mattered and
40:53that 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, but as far
41:11as this happening to other women.
41:17This isn't just about murder.
41:19This has roots deep in the culture and how some men see women.
41:27Women in this country and in this world are not safe.
41:30It'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, becoming fighters for change for other women.
41:56Amber would have accomplished her goals.
41:58She wanted to work when I was.
41:59She wanted to be a veterinarian.
42:02Maureen, she was a good mother.
42:04She would definitely be proud of her daughter and her son.
42:08Melissa would have been 39 years old this year.
42:12She should have been able to get married.
42:15She should have been able to have children.
42:18She should be here to share her laughter and her love.
42:23The whole world deserved more of her.
42:27I'm sick and tired of being angry.
42:32I always say first we cry.
42:36And then we fight.
42:38I'm sick and tired of being angry.
43:08I'm sick and tired of being angry outside of the world.
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