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IMPACT x Nightline S04E26 Monster at the Beach H 264
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00:12Rex Heuermann was a suburban dad and an architect with an office on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
00:21He's kind of dual personality. On one side, he's this family man, and on the other side, he's a terrifying
00:28serial killer.
00:30Rex Heuermann looked like the guy you'd be sitting next to on the train, commuting to and from work.
00:37Rex! Hello! Hi! How are you doing? Good to see you.
00:40Rex Heuermann. I'm an architect. I'm an architectural consultant. I'm a troubleshooter. Born and raised on Long Island.
00:48This man was truly living a double life.
00:51The prolific psychopath, this monster, and his crimes really terrorized Long Island.
00:57He commuted by day. He killed by night.
01:00This guy was huge. He was a monster. He was Frankenstein.
01:04Even his wife and his daughter say they did not know that he was capable of being the killer that
01:10he now admits to being.
01:27Good morning, Judge. Good morning.
01:30Coming out, Judge.
01:33Okay.
01:36Rex Heuermann only needed to take a few steps from the holding cell into the courtroom, and you heard him
01:47before you saw him.
01:48And the shackles behind his back kind of clanked, and the courtroom was hushed, so it was audible.
01:54I think every time Rex Heuermann walks in a courtroom, it's an energy that follows with him because he's this
02:01notorious killer.
02:02Have you discussed this case with your attorney?
02:04Yes, I have.
02:05Today's plea delivers a measure of justice to families who have waited decades for answers.
02:11It almost appeared as if he had a slight smirk on his face, as if he maybe wanted people to
02:17know that he is the Gilgo Beach serial killer.
02:21We thought there was going to be a trial, and suddenly this hard pivot to pleading guilty.
02:26These family members, you know, this guy's about to admit what he did to their loved ones. It was very
02:33heavy.
02:35The chilling turn in court today involving serial killer Rex Heuermann.
02:39Rex Heuermann admitting to murdering eight young women in a string of killing that went unsolved for two decades.
02:46Rex Heuermann tortured, killed, and in some cases, cut up his victims.
02:52That was just something that his disturbed mind wanted to do to these victims before taking their lives.
03:02Families of victims were escorted in. They took seats near the front.
03:06Law enforcement officials who had been laboring over the investigation, some for decades, lined the wall and the windows.
03:15And there's this idea that he's supposed to look away or act away, and it's just never what you expect.
03:21You know, his brain doesn't work like ours. His disposition is never appropriate.
03:27Nobody knew if he would actually plead guilty, and I think everybody was on pins and needles waiting to see
03:33what would happen. Would Rex do it?
03:35District Attorney Ray Tierney starts to ask Rex Heuermann the manner in which he killed these victims.
03:42And one after the next, he just says, strangulation. And when he's asked if he killed each victim, he's like,
03:50yep, yes. I mean, he's unfazed.
03:54Strangulation is such a personal way of killing someone. It's so intimate.
03:58It is tragic to think about, and also terrifying, that this guy who's 6'4", he is huge, would take
04:07these women, tiny, petite women, and strangle them.
04:12And you can only imagine this kind of ogre of a man lifting up this tiny girl and strangling them.
04:17It's terrifying.
04:23The idea that there even was such a thing as the Gilgo Beach serial killings begins with a woman named
04:30Shannon Gilbert.
04:31So Shannon Gilbert was engaging in sex work and ended up going on a call to a neighborhood called Oak
04:37Beach in May of 2010.
04:39And something went wrong during the date, and she ended up fleeing from the house.
04:44State police?
04:46Yeah, they're still going to ask for me.
04:48I'm sorry?
04:49Somebody's after me.
04:51No, stop, no.
04:53While she was fleeing this house, she made a 23-minute-long 911 call, in which she sounds really frantic.
05:02What's your name?
05:03Shannon Gilbert.
05:05Where are you?
05:07I'm in Long Island.
05:09You're going to kill me.
05:12Please stop me, please.
05:14Please stop me, please.
05:16No, what are you guys doing to me?
05:18What are you guys doing to me?
05:18What are you guys doing to me?
05:21Ah!
05:22Oh, my God!
05:24Oh, my God!
05:25Ah!
05:26And then according to police, she ends up taking off into this marshy area, and she was never heard from
05:35again.
05:36The search for Shannon Gilbert goes on for months.
05:40The area is extremely difficult to search.
05:42It's extremely heavily vegetated.
05:45The terrain is difficult to navigate.
05:47We have Suffolk County officers with police dogs
05:50combing Ocean Parkway looking for Shannon.
05:54And it is in mid-December of 2010
05:57that a police officer with a dog named Blue
06:00finds a set of human remains
06:03along the north side of Ocean Parkway.
06:05On December 11th of 2010,
06:08he located a set of human remains
06:09on the north side off the shoulder of Ocean Parkway.
06:13The assumption was that it was Shannon Gilbert.
06:16They end up finding, near Gilgo Beach,
06:20a body wrapped in burlap.
06:22It seems obvious to Suffolk County law enforcement
06:25that this is going to be the woman they've been searching for,
06:27Shannon Gilbert.
06:28But that's not the case.
06:30Who they find is Melissa Bartholomew.
06:35They find the first victim, Melissa Bartholomew.
06:38And then the next day, they find another victim.
06:41And then another victim.
06:43We were quite surprised the second day
06:44when we found the second body.
06:46And then we conducted a more detailed search,
06:50and we found the third body, and then ultimately the fourth body.
06:54And in two days, they find four women laid out like trophies.
06:59And I think at that point, once everybody heard that news,
07:03the public freaked out.
07:05Suddenly, they realized that there is a serial killer in their midst on Long Island hunting women.
07:13And they're all identified to be young, petite women.
07:16A gruesome find about three miles away near Gilgo Beach,
07:20a suspected serial killer cemetery containing four skeletons dumped by the side of the road.
07:26The first four women found on Gilgo Beach were all sex workers,
07:31and they were given the name the Gilgo Four.
07:33They were Melissa Bartholomew, Maureen Brainerd Barnes,
07:36Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello.
07:39Could four murders on Long Island be the work of a serial killer?
07:50My name is Liliana Waterman. I am the daughter of Megan Waterman.
07:56I was three years old when she first went missing,
07:59and when she was found, I was four years old.
08:05Coming to this park definitely makes me think about my mom.
08:08Some of my favorite things to do with her when I was younger
08:10was go to the park, spend some time.
08:13I remember when she first went missing,
08:16I would always just ask when she was going to come back,
08:18take me to the park.
08:20So it's nice to come here and just feel like she's with me.
08:26Megan Waterman was a young woman in her 20s from Maine
08:30who had been working as a sex worker
08:33and who was reported missing in June of 2010.
08:37So Megan Waterman is actually, her case is the only one
08:43in which her boyfriend was prosecuted for bringing her
08:46over state lines for sex work.
08:48So she was not happy to be engaged in sex work.
08:51She was coerced to do so.
08:53But that's what she was doing when she disappeared
08:56on surveillance footage from the lobby.
08:58The last place she had been seen was leaving
09:02the Haphog Long Island Holiday Inn.
09:05A video camera captures her leaving the lobby of the hotel.
09:11Megan Waterman's remains were found about six months
09:15after she was reported missing on the north side of Ocean Parkway.
09:22For me, over all of the last 16 years, it's just been a heavy weight,
09:27not knowing exactly who did it, how it happened,
09:30not knowing if I could walk past him someday
09:32and not know that it was him.
09:35He is nothing but a serial murderer, callous, cruel, no conscience.
09:43I have no sympathy for him.
09:49Most of Rex Heerman's victims were sex workers.
09:52If they went missing, they just went missing.
09:55There wasn't a very large investigation based on the nature
09:57of their work and who they were.
09:59These women were not on the street.
10:01They were using the internet.
10:03They were using Craigslist.
10:04They were using Backpage.
10:06And I think they thought it would be safer.
10:10But what they didn't realize is that the internet creates
10:13a whole new layer of anonymity
10:17that allows guys like Rex Heerman
10:19to use burner phones to get people into his vehicle
10:23and to kill them.
10:28I grew up on Long Island,
10:30and I grew up going to these beaches on the south shore.
10:32It's like they're the most beautiful beaches on the east coast.
10:35And it was just, you know, a pristine place to go.
10:39How many times have you actually been out to Yogo Beach?
10:42I've probably been here like 15 or 20 times.
10:45I come out here kind of as often as I can.
10:48It just helps you get some greater perspective
10:51on what we're dealing with here.
10:54This whole path here didn't used to be here.
10:57So trucks used to be able to essentially pull right up to this.
11:01If you're looking at all this brush and marsh right here,
11:04like if you're looking at double bodies.
11:05It's extremely remote at night.
11:07There's no street lights.
11:08So you would see someone coming from miles away in either direction.
11:12And before this bike path was here,
11:14you really could just back your vehicle up to it
11:18and do whatever you needed to do and have no one see you.
11:23After December 2010, when the bodies of the first Gilgo Four were found,
11:30investigators started turning up body parts elsewhere on Long Island.
11:35More victims.
11:36And investigators are starting to notice that the remains are similar to the original Gilgo Four.
11:44In the spring, they find the remains tied to seven other victims.
11:51As bodies seemed to pile up in this area, law enforcement had no leads.
11:57The authorities said they never gave up.
12:00They just didn't have the technology to solve the case until years later.
12:05But that left an entire community with all these questions
12:09and with all this fear that there's a serial killer perhaps living among them.
12:13Which is exactly what turned out to have happened.
12:25Despite the fact of finding bodies along Ocean Parkway, this case went dormant.
12:31But over a decade later, finally, the case is reinvigorated with the creation of the Gilgo Beach Task Force.
12:37In 2022, law enforcement got a new sheriff, a new task force,
12:41and they welcomed the FBI and other resources into this investigation.
12:45And that's when this case really started to move.
12:48So early on, law enforcement knew some things about this killer.
12:52They knew that the killer was contacting the victims through Craigslist
12:57and using burner phones to do that.
12:59The killer was also taunting the families with his victims' own phones and burner phones.
13:05So when Melissa Bartholomey disappeared, the family received a number of phone calls.
13:10And it was very strange because they thought it was Melissa's phone because her number had come up.
13:14But when Amanda, her little sister, answered, it was a man's voice.
13:19And he started to taunt her about what he had done to her sister.
13:22We now know that the man on the other end of the line was Rex Ureman.
13:26He had made these calls mostly from Manhattan, either during his lunch hour or on his way home.
13:32He'd always call around dinner time between 5.30 and 6.30.
13:37He would only stay on the phone for about a minute and a half.
13:40I remember the first call, he said to her,
13:43Are you a whore like your sister?
13:46In tracing those phone calls, law enforcement was able to determine where those phone calls were made from.
13:52And they zeroed in on a couple of areas, one of which was Massapequa on Long Island.
13:58Additional calls came from the Times Square area.
14:01And calls also came from near Port Authority and Madison Square Garden.
14:06Through the analysis of the cell phone data that had been accumulated from this case,
14:12give us an area of Massapequa.
14:15This is the area where we believe the killer may reside.
14:19So that was a primary focus of the investigation.
14:24Law enforcement know the suspect has burner phones that are making phone calls in two locations.
14:29An individual who may take the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan by Midtown and also work in that area.
14:37Thousands make that commute daily.
14:39And so now law enforcement has to figure out who's the one making this commute and are they the suspect
14:45they're looking for?
14:48In a way, Amber Costello broke open the whole case about her own murder.
14:56Right before she went missing, she had a client come to her home and essentially, along with her roommate, they
15:03engaged in a ruse with this client.
15:05She did not want to have sex with Rex Hewerman.
15:08And she set up a ruse with another individual to take money from him.
15:13And then this other person would come in and pretend to be her boyfriend so that Hewerman would leave and
15:22she didn't have to follow through.
15:23He ultimately drove off angry.
15:28Rex Hewerman continues to text Amber through the next day.
15:32And it appears he's not that mad because he wants to see Amber again.
15:37And he was sending her texts like, you owe me for next time.
15:41She agreed to meet up with Rex Hewerman again to go on another date.
15:44But then Amber Costello disappears the next day.
15:48Her roommate, a guy by the name of Dave Schaller, tells police that there's a number of Johns that they
15:56should look at.
15:56But one in particular, a guy who had been to the house previously.
16:00He also described this client's stature.
16:04He described him as being sort of ogre like and very tall.
16:07He had glasses, 6'4", 300 pounds, and that he had gotten into a fight with this guy outside.
16:16And he was very suspicious of this individual.
16:20Also, Dave told police that he drove a Chevy Avalanche, which was a unique vehicle at the time.
16:26But he made one error and allowed his vehicle to be spotted in one instance.
16:33And he drove a distinctive Chevy Avalanche.
16:37Lots of people drive it in the country.
16:39But it's not sold very much in Long Island.
16:44And from that vehicle, investigators were able to winnow down who bought it.
16:52And they used cell phone records to track down who may have been driving it in certain areas.
16:59Ultimately, that leads them to Rex Hewerman.
17:06So Rex Hewerman really was, in every sense of the word, living a double life.
17:12You know, he was working as an architect.
17:15He had an office in Midtown Manhattan.
17:18He had his daughter working at his office.
17:21You know, seemed like father of the year in that regard.
17:25He had a disabled adult stepson who he basically adopted.
17:28He had a wife at home.
17:30And all the while, every time he sent his family on vacation, he was murdering innocent women.
17:37Rex!
17:38Hello!
17:39How you doing?
17:39Good to see you.
17:40You know, when a job that should have been routine suddenly becomes not routine, I get the phone call.
17:48Rex Hewerman was even profiled in an online video about being an architect in Manhattan.
17:52Rex Hewerman, I'm an architect. I'm an architectural consultant. I'm a troubleshooter. Born and raised on Long Island.
17:59Okay.
18:00Been working in Manhattan since 1987.
18:03Rex Hewerman lived in Massapequa Park, which is a nice community on the south shore of Long Island.
18:10It's not far from Gilgo Beach. And like so many others in that community, he took the train every day
18:17from Massapequa Park into Manhattan for work.
18:21When it comes to investigating a crime, it's about taking a large number of people and zeroing it down to
18:26just one person.
18:27And so first they have this electronic information in terms of a person going from Massapequa Park into Manhattan.
18:34There's your hundreds of thousands of people.
18:36It started with Chevy avalanches, narrowing them down in that timeframe on Long Island.
18:43How many green Chevy avalanches were around on Long Island in the year 2010?
18:49But they also collect information from the Costello case where they know about this ogre-like person who's driving this
18:55green Chevy avalanche.
18:56The Chevy avalanche, and especially the color, is a very unique color.
19:00And I assume that once seeing that Rex Hewerman lives in Massapequa Park, you know, a light bulb goes off
19:07because the killer made a taunting phone call from Massapequa.
19:10That's when they have to get DNA evidence to see who exactly is the suspect in this case.
19:15Law enforcement began monitoring him.
19:18When the bodies were first recovered from Gilgo Beach and beyond, there was evidence that was recovered with them, including
19:26a hair that was found on the burlap used to wrap some of the bodies.
19:34They couldn't really do anything with it, though. The DNA technology was not advanced enough.
19:39So they know that there's DNA on these women. The question is finding a match.
19:44They needed direct DNA from Rex Hewerman. And they got it from Pizza Crust.
19:52They followed Hewerman until he abandoned some kind of sample of his DNA that they can take and collect without
19:58him knowing about it.
20:00They see that Rex Hewerman is eating pizza out of a box, leaves it in a trash can, and as
20:05he walks off, they collect that box.
20:07They collect that pizza crust and they test the saliva on it. And through that connection, they found their man.
20:13Rex Hewerman was arrested in front of his midtown office. He was on the sidewalk. He had no idea this
20:19was coming. He had no idea he was being followed. And then he was in cuffs.
20:24When police initially recovered the bodies, they were able to find hair samples, some of them female, there was a
20:33male.
20:33Now, when it comes to those female hair, they were able to track what's called the mitochondrial DNA of that
20:39hair and see that it was closely connected to or related to Rex Hewerman's wife and or daughter.
20:45Law enforcement suspected early on that that may mean that these women were killed inside the Hewerman home.
20:56The Hewerman house is weird. It's in this nice neighborhood with manicured lawns, not huge homes, but all of them
21:06beautifully kept.
21:07And then there's this dilapidated thing where Rex Hewerman lived, and he called himself an architect.
21:14This house is not a looker. And investigators went all over it.
21:19And in the basement, they discover a locked door, and they discover a vault.
21:26They find a locked room in the basement that looks almost like a murder room.
21:30Aza Ellorup and their daughter Victoria reportedly got paid to appear in a documentary about Rex Hewerman.
21:39A lot of media, they're calling the vault the kill room. The vault was always locked.
21:48This is the steel door. It had a combination lock.
21:58This is in his basement. It had been his area, his man cave, if you will. And so they weren't
22:04allowed to go in there. And I think that's what was able to keep it separated out from the rest
22:08of the family so that they wouldn't learn all the terrible things that he was up to.
22:13There was a giant gun vault that had 300 guns. It was an unusual number of guns.
22:20Prosecutors said from the outset, it appeared his wife, his daughter, and his stepson did not know about his deviant
22:29double life.
22:30When the young women were killed, there's evidence prosecutors said that the family was away.
22:39And he took a lot of steps to hold himself out as just a normal dad who worked in New
22:47York City.
22:48And even to this day, his wife has said she did not know he was capable of being the serial
22:57killer he now admits to being.
22:59My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Their loss is immeasurable. And the focus should be
23:10on them at this time and moment. I ask that you give some privacy to my family as they navigate
23:23through this very difficult time.
23:30So the search of the house is fascinating. You know, they really tore this house apart. And it was a
23:37full scale operation. I mean, they were digging up the backyard of the house.
23:40They took out, you know, every shred of paper from this house. And later, Hewerman's family released photos of the
23:49aftermath of the search. You know, they took tiles off the bathroom wall. They took a panel off the bathtub.
23:55They went through pipes. They really did not leave a single stone unturned.
24:01When Rex was arrested and they started to go through his computer. They found this planning document. It's called the
24:07hunt and kill planning document. This was basically a blueprint for murder created by a guy who liked to make
24:16blueprints, an architect. And it laid out every step of his process.
24:21Rex Hewerman in this blueprint that he kept reminded himself almost how to be more efficient with his killing. One
24:32reminder said, hit harder. Another said, use thicker rope. Constantly updated with lists of supplies, with locations of dump sites.
24:45What was so terrifying is certain lines that he would use. Get more sleep for more playtime.
24:53It really made you understand how terrifying this guy was.
25:01Hewerman had a significant collection of violent bondage and torture pornography.
25:06Prosecutors uncovered evidence that they said pointed to Hewerman being in regular contact with at least 60 sex workers.
25:15Not under his own name.
25:17They found that he had a Tinder account with an alias of Thomas Hawk and Andrew Roberts.
25:23He was Googling and looking up pictures of the victims' families. He was visiting the Gilgo Task Force website. He
25:33was watching documentaries about the Long Island serial killer.
25:37He kept this chilling collection of news clippings from newspapers and magazines.
25:43Will the Gilgo Beach killer ever be caught? He seemed to revel in his own success.
25:52Another clue they find in the house? Trophies of his murders, including something he kept after he killed Megan Waterman.
26:00Investigators noticed that she had a paper towel stuffed in her mouth.
26:05What's so interesting is that they found this same towel in Rex Hurman's house. In fact, the exact same type
26:11of towel.
26:12Suffolk County had these paper towels, but they needed more, and so they sent the paper towels off to the
26:18Secret Service.
26:19My name is Meg O'Brien, and I'm a Supervisory Document Analyst with the United States Secret Service.
26:24The evidence I examined was a paper towel that came from inside the victim's throat and a paper towel that
26:33was collected from the suspect's property.
26:36I was asked to conduct a comparative examination to see if any kind of link or association could be made
26:42between the paper towels.
26:44The most unique feature was a defect that was in the letter Y that was in the word bounty printed
26:51on both of the paper towels.
26:53Discovering the defect and the why, like, that was only visible to me under the microscope.
26:59Using this one clue, this kind of irregular why in the bounty that they found on both paper towels,
27:05they could then track that back to where it was sold, which was at a BJ's.
27:09In Long Island, that was only made for about a six-month period of time.
27:13And when investigators searched Rex Hurman's home, they found a square of that same patterned paper towel
27:20and a receipt for the purchase of bounty paper towels from BJ's Wholesale Club within the timeframe of 2010 when
27:28they were sold.
27:29And to prosecutors, that was more evidence that Hurman was keeping mementos from his killings.
27:38It was an overwhelming amount of evidence for the case.
27:41Rex Hurman's defense attorney, Michael Brown, although tried, he lost every single question that he raised.
27:47They had lost multiple legal arguments about trying to keep out DNA evidence or forensic evidence.
27:52And so as he sits there and sees what the prosecution can use against him, all of the information that
27:58they can throw at him,
27:59I think the writing was on the wall and he knew it's time to take a plea.
28:02Now, when this plea was announced, it was also announced that he would be maybe admitting to murdering an eighth
28:11victim.
28:12Now, those who know the case well suspected that it could be Karen Vergata because she's long been associated with
28:19this case as a victim.
28:21Prosecutors never had enough evidence to formally charge Hurman with Vergata's murder, but they long suspected that he had done
28:29it.
28:30He also admitted that he strangled Karen Vergata to death as well.
28:35She was a Jane Doe for decades, and now we know what happened to her.
28:39So finally, Rex Hurman admitted to killing Vergata, the Gilgo Four, and the other women found in the area, Sandra
28:46Castillo, Jessica Taylor, and Valerie Mack.
28:49Some of these cases go back as early as 1993, which means he started killing over three decades ago.
28:57As part of his guilty plea, Hurman is going to have to sit with behavioral analysts from the FBI.
29:04They're going to study the mind of Rex Hurman and perhaps get a window into this monstrous serial killer.
29:14He's going to cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
29:20Rex Hurman's plea deal where he's going to be working with the FBI is very similar to that of Ted
29:25Bundy.
29:25who sat down with the FBI after his conviction to give them information through their behavioral unit.
29:31They're going to interview the defendant, gain insight into his motivations and background.
29:38This is like something out of a movie.
29:40Like when Jodie Foster played an FBI agent and sat down with Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.
29:47Why does he place them there, Doctor?
29:49The significance of the moth has changed.
29:52There have even been TV shows made about this, like with Mindhunter.
29:57I told her to shut up.
29:58Did she shut up?
29:59She did, but I see it.
30:01Then why kill her?
30:02Because a woman to.
30:03The Behavioral Analysis Unit is the subject of drama, and Rex Hurman is going to be their next subject.
30:09The reverberations of his crimes will never disappear.
30:13You know, that kind of stuff, the ripple effects never end.
30:16With the pain he's caused people, with the fear he's instilled in the communities that were affected.
30:22Hearing him admit that he killed my mom and all those other girls, it definitely felt like a weight had
30:29been lifted off of me.
30:32Rex Hurman is pled to eight murders.
30:34There's still one unidentified individual found along Ocean Parkway, that being Asian Doe.
30:40The Asian victim found along Ocean Parkway.
30:42I could see why Rex Hurman would deny that victim.
30:46That victim was born biologically male, but wore women's clothing.
30:50So the suspicion there is that they were a trans woman.
30:53And I could see why a man going into prison would want to deny that victim.
30:58These are things that put a target on your back in prison.
31:02There are other unsolved crimes in Suffolk County, and Hurman's name will always come up.
31:09But authorities believe they have a guilty plea for eight women.
31:14And they say they will never stop the investigation as long as the evidence presents itself.
31:27I asked the district attorney today if he would meet with any of the family members who wish to meet
31:34with him,
31:35to learn more about the evidence that maybe has not been public, that they had against him for their particular
31:43loved one.
31:43Obtaining answers is empowering for victims.
31:50There's definitely some things that I want to know more about after all the hearings we had today.
31:57Things like, why did he choose her?
32:02Where did all of this happen?
32:04How did all of this happen?
32:05Just all those little small things which nobody really does want to hear,
32:11but I think that will give the final feeling of fully knowing what happened
32:16and knowing what she had to bear through.
33:04To be continued...
33:05The end of the rest of Dr.ê·¼ bear,
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