This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio. In the headlines recently are the shocking revelations surrounding the Long Island serial Killer. From twenty ten to twenty twelve, the remains of eleven bodies were discovered in or near Gilgo Beach on the south shore of Long Island, with many of the victims being young
female sex workers. The case went unsolved for thirteen years until July thirteenth of this year, when Rex Huerman, a fifty nine year old architect, husband and father, was arrested and charged with the murder of three women in the case and named as the prime suspect in a fourth. Hueerman pled not guilty long before the arrest. I discovered and quickly devoured the podcast unraveled the Long Island serial Killer.
Later in the pro we'll catch up on the current state of the case, but first I want to share my original conversation with the podcast's hosts and executive producers, Billy Jensen and Alexis Linkletter. This conversation was recorded about a year before the Latest Discoveries, their investigative podcast and accompanying documentary unravel a web of police corruption and cover up centering on the scandal ridden Suffolk County Chief of
Police James Burke. Suffolk County Executive Steve Malone appointed Burke in twenty twelve. Four years later, Burke was convicted of assault and obstruction of justice for his attack on civilian Christopher Loeb, who had stolen a Duffel bag containing pornography and sex toys from Burke's truck. You cannot make this up. Burke was sentenced to forty six months in federal prison, and in twenty nineteen, District Attorney Thomas Spoda was also
convin for covering up the assault. Burke's role in the Long Island serial killer investigation is now under a spotlight, as he blocked the FBI from participating back when it was under his control. For link Letter and Jensen, I imagine putting their podcast together was challenging digging into a whizzly case involving some of the darkest pieces of humanity. I wanted to know if there was ever a time when the work itself became too dark for them.
You know, with this case and the way that we approach this case, Long Island Serial Killer has been covered so many times, and a lot of people have covered a lot of the details. One of the things about this case as opposed to other cases, is that there have been so few details that have been led out by the police, So there's not much that you might see of the kind of gory aspects that you might hear on other podcasts or see on TV. And what
we were really doing was investigating the investigation. It was different for us because as opposed to the typical things that I've done in my career, which is looking at unsolved crimes and unsolved murders and trying to figure out who done it, this got a very political, and it got very entangled, and it got more about power and privilege and going down those rabbit holes and then trying to hold those people accountable.
For me, I saw this as such an incredible opportunity to discuss sort of political corruption and use this case, which it is, as a microchasm for what happens everywhere. And I never got sick of it because it was such an opportunity. Because when you try to sell it a show or a podcast concept about corruption and exploitation of power, nobody wants to listen to that everyone thinks
that's boring. So this was such a unique case where the political corruption overlapped with an unsolved case, and it really got people interested in politics and interested in talking about the political corruption that's going on on Long Island in a way that I don't think people were before, because a completely different group of people were exposed to it and could consume it in a way that was palatable for them. A lot of people don't want to
hear about indictments of political officials. I mean, they just don't get it, and they don't see they see it sort of as a victimless crime in some ways, and here it was a really tangible way for people to digest what was happening in this part of New York.
So Alexis correct me if I'm wrong. But the genesis of this, or at least a component of the genesis of this, is that you knew Lobe and you went to school with Lobe correct.
Correct? So I went to middle school and high school with Chris Lobe.
Yes, and he approached you like, had you knowing him? You knew about the case, and how did you make the match to do the podcast?
So Chris and I got back in touch. I was already living here in Los Angeles and a friend of mine called me and told me that she was seeing Chris in the news, and I just started googling and digging into it, and I sort of understood off the jump the breath of what he was involved in. At the time, he was at the Queen's Correctional Detention Center, and he was there in custody, in federal custody because at that point they were sort of investigating James Burke's
role and Chris Lobes beating. So I sort of got in with Chris at that point. I contacted his girlfriend and she put me in touch with him, and we started having calls when he was in protective custody. And it took a few years to get him to want to do this because he felt that he was in danger for sharing his stories. So it took us, you know, four years or something for him to come around actually participate in something.
Really that long. Yeah, Now, I devoured every episode and I found this fascinating in the same way that anybody else would. But I did forget, which surprises me. A fundamental piece of it, which was when Lobe is rifling through Burke's car, finds the evidence bag, puts that in the Duffel bag, goes home, finds out all the pirates treasure that's in there for him. What is it that leads Burke and his squad to come find and what
tips them off that Lobe is the perpetrator? How do they get to Lobe's house.
It happens that Chris was on probation at the time and he actually had a parole officer arrived that morning. The story is that it was by chance, that it was a coincidence. It's unclear if that's true, but the story is that he had a probation visit and the officer found something that appeared stolen and that's what led the police to descend upon the house that morning. Unclear if that's true.
So the probation officers who allowed to toss your house and look for paraphernalia or drugs or whether they're allowed to search your house.
So there was a visit that was a surprise visit apparently, and again the stories kind of suspect. But this is what we understand based on the facts, based on you know, the criminal case against Burke.
What does Lobe content happened. What does he think happened?
He doesn't know either. Well, there was definitely surveillance cameras at Burke's house as well, So it's unclear whether the probation officer story is true or they found him by some other way and they had to make that up. But the official story is that there was a probation visit that morning, which led police there to discover that
there was stolen property at the house. And you know, one thing led to the next, with Burke in his entire group descending upon the house and ripping Lobe out of his bed and taking him back to the precinct.
Yeah, because it seemed incredibly convenient that there happened to be a visit right then. You know, probation officers will visit, but they don't you know, just what is the luck of the draw there, Because if they had known it was this kid, he was known to the police, you know, they would have had to potentially have gone getting a warrant do all of this stuff. But they were able to say, hey, let's send the probation officer and do
it that way. Then they would be able to have a lot more reason to go in and not have to go through all the rigamarole of getting a warrant and doing things are the right way as you're supposed to do in a democracy.
Now, Burke, he starts out in the Suffolk County Police Department or Sheriff's.
Department, police department.
When he's plucked by spotted to come into the DA's office. Where is he in? What rank is he? Is he a lieutenant or what it say?
So he was promoted basically up to I think captain and then by the time he's moved over to the DA's office around ten twenty eleven, he becomes a DA investigator directly Underspoda at the Sepha County Day's Office.
And when he was a captain, he was a captain in the PD or the Sheriff's Police Department. He was in the Sefha County Police Department, and then which he returns to when he becomes the chief of the police department. Correct.
Correct.
One of the things that was fascinating to me was did the killings as they were uncovered with the bodies themselves. When bodies start emerging, the first body has found, what year?
It was December of twenty ten, So.
When twenty ten was Burke a captain in the PD. Was he in Spota's office or was he or was he the chief of police at the time.
He was at the District Attorney's office as a DA investigator at that time, So.
He's a DA investigator, he's in Spota's office. See, this is what I find interesting is did you get anybody that you had strong feelings about but he didn't have any corroboration or nobody would would would speak on microphone. Is it possible that Spot and people in his office they just didn't know what Burke was up to?
I don't think so. Spoda met him at a time when he was a juvenile delinquent. You know, during the John Pious case, he used him as one of his witnesses, and that was the case that kind of made him. The John Pious case is a case where a teenage boy was found dead and rocks had been shoved if pebbles had been shoved down his throat, and the official story that came out is that he had seen kids stealing a worthless frame of a mini bike and then
they did that to shut him up. A lot of innuendo, a lot of things, and they needed to get corroboration of Oh I heard this, you know, I was at some place and I heard somebody saying, yeah, we killed that kid, that kind of thing. Spoda finds Burke and then he kind of acts as his guardian angel throughout
his career. He knows what's going on. You know, Burke had had so many different you know, misadventures and things like, you know, having sex with a sex worker in uniform in his cruiser, losing his gun at her house, like these things that were internal affairs that had looked at it, and he still kept rising through the ranks. He was doing a lot of things that, quite frankly, should have gotten him, you know, more than just a slap on the wrist.
I think, what did he do?
He lost like a couple of weeks vacation, and we know that Spoda was looking out for him the entire time. So why he was doing this, you know, why he never cut bait on him. That's between those guys. We just don't know what they might have had on each other or whatever.
Yeah, between the time that Spoda was working as a prosecutor, he worked for the Suffoc Kenny District Attorney's Office several times, but He had periods of time in between where he worked as a defense attorney in several other things, and he did a ton of work for the Police Benevolent Association in the police unions, and he represented Burke in these indiscretions when there were internal affairs, internal investigations conducted
on Burke's behavior. So Spoda was his advocate when Burke made mistakes and when Burke went against protocol, and Spoda knew every step of the way. To answer your question, he knew everything.
How old was Spoda when he was sentenced to prisoner? Was he seventy five?
He just went a few months ago. I think he's seventy four. He just began his term.
He just went a few months ago.
Yeah, for some reason, there was a delay in his needing to serve. Burke went, you know, years ago. He's been out for a while. A Spoda just went.
And Spoda went for how long?
Something like three years?
Yeah? Amazing. Now I'm going to assume that Bologne is insulated from understanding the facts of this case and the severity of this case, in the way that the Mayor of New York is walled off from the police department. The police department in New York of zero transparency, or they aim for that. They want to adjudicate all their own cases and they don't want any interference with their own internal disciplinary system.
Not necessarily, you know, because one of the things that happened, one of the things that we learned is that, you know, the scuttle butt was that they find the bodies on the beach, there's an out, there's a year long investigation, they're being somewhat transparent, they're having press conferences, and then Bologne comes on their scuttle butt that Bologna is going to hire Burke as his chief of police. And Burke
had done a lot of things about intelligent policing. He had this PowerPoint presentation that he used to dazzle people with and all of this stuff. So a few people got together and sent an anonymous letter to Bologne outlining why you shouldn't hire this guy and saying all of the outlining everything that he had done, all the internal affairs things and everything like that, and he just kind of shuffled it off and said, no, I'm still going to hire this guy. I think he's good, i think
he's the future of Suffolk County. He went ahead and he hired Burke. First thing that Burke does is he fires all of the chiefs, including the head of the homicide squad, Dominic Varon. And this is a guy that's been working on this case for a year. Of the bodies that were found on Kilgo Beach. He doesn't even do a debriefing. He doesn't find it. He doesn't talk to him, Hey, where you're going, you know, who do you think did this? Or anything like that. He just tells him you leave.
That's it.
Second thing he does is then kicks out the FBI and says, we don't need you anymore. And the third thing he does is there's no more talking about the case.
That was it. Burke says this after Bologne makes him the head of the police department.
Correct.
Yeah, and Bologne, should it be presumed, made Burke the chief of the police department on Spoda's recommendation or did Bolone have his own belief in him?
It's been said that Boloone had his own belief in him. Yeah, and Spoda was. I mean, there's talk also, and I've talked to people that said that Spoda wanted Burke to stay with him in the DA's office. But you know and thatone Bolone has been sort of characterized and he's tried to characterize himself, which he did in our interviews. Is this kind of being hoodwinked by this guy. He dazzled him with these ideas about how this new policing was going to work, and that's the reason why he chose him.
Well, And we know that when Bologne was considering hiring Burke, we know that he received a letter warning Bloone about Burke's behavior in his history with sex workers and his history with drugs, and Spoda told Bologne to ignore the letter and that none of it was true, which Spoda knew the contents of the letter were true because he defended him in several of these cases. So we know that Spoto was sort of the censure in the hiring of Burke.
Because I find that interesting. If Belong, I thought to myself, how did Bloge survive? Beloone? If I'm not mistaken, is still the Suffolk County executive Correct?
Yes he is.
Yes, Alexis link Letter and Billy Jensen. If you enjoy conversations about true crime investigations, check out my episode with the directors of the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer Laura Ricardi and Moira.
Dimas, it just seemed like, you know, he was this incredible window through which to look at our system. You know, if we followed this man's story, we would go from one extreme of the system to the other. So as I was saying, you know, we had no money, but what we what we could put into it was time, which is actually an incredibly valuable asset. And after doing a preliminary week of shooting in December, realized this was something we wanted to pursue, and we sublet our apartment
in New York. We've got an apartment in Manatwack and we lived there, you know more on and off for close to two years.
To hear more of my conversation with Laura Richardi and Moira Dimas, go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the Break, alexislink Letter and Billy Jensen share what they believe is behind the phenomenon of true crime reporting. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Alexis link Letter and Billy Jensen released Unraveled Long Island serial Killer in January of twenty twenty one and a companion documentary that march over a decade after the first bodies
were discovered. I spoke with them in June of twenty twenty two and wanted to know how the case was evolving since the release of their series.
Well, one of the things that happened, so, you know, us talking to Beloone. You know, we originally had reached out to everybody to try and talk to them. We talked to Geraldine Hart, who was the chief of the police at the time. Bolone didn't want to talk to us, but once he heard the line of questioning that we had given to geraldine Hart, they really wanted to talk to us, which I think was telling. We talked to Geraldine Hart, We asked for transparency. There were a lot
of things that they weren't releasing. They weren't releasing the Shannon Gilbert nine one one call who really kicked off this investigation. She was the sex worker who had gone missing in the town of Oak Beach in the spring of twenty ten. And you know, there was also other things as well, just a lot of other evidence that they just weren't sharing. And if you hadn't had any answers right now, why wouldn't you share this evidence? So
we were asking for transparency. We talked to Bologne and you know, Bloone very much made the you know, yes, Burke was a bad guy. I didn't know it. You know, we didn't know we had a sociopath, and we asked him straight out, were you comfortable having a sociopath once you knew he was? You know, he left him in a position of power for two years and he had a sociopath that he thought was a sociopath running the
Suffocunty Police Department for two years. And he said because he didn't want to interrupt a federal investigation, which I think is incredibly disingenuous and quite frankly dangerous. So after the podcast came out, Geraldine Hart left to become the chief of security at Hofstra University. Tim Seeney, who is the DA. He lost the election to Ray Tierney, and they actually have been using this as a political platform.
I'm going to solve the Long Island serial killer case, which when you think about it, you know, this is
a twelve year old case. It's something quite remarkable, and you know, us going in there and rattling the cages, I think really helped with that, and since Tierney came in, they hired a new police chief, and they were able to start releasing the things that we've been asking for them to release, like the nine one one call, like the last video of one of the victims, Megan Waterman, the last video when she was seen at a hotel in Hoppog, that kind of thing. So there's a lot
more transparency. They created a task force that they say is the first ever task force that they've created with federal, local and state authorities. But we still have a lot more questions. You know, what is going on with that task force? What are you doing with it? How are you trying to identify the unidentified victims, and how are you trying to go to identifying bottom line who killed these women?
Now, I'm going to ask this to Billy first, were you ever afraid these are police officers who have the ultimate tools and the ultimate power of their disposal to kill people and did Yeah, you're dealing with a story in which potentially Burke himself is the killer. Were you ever afraid of what kind of retaliation you might face?
You know, when we were there, it was a very very odd time when we were working on this story because it was still during the pandemic. We actually traveled to Long Island, stayed in in airbnb, and had to quarantine for two weeks. We couldn't even go out, so we were doing a lot of our work on the phones and everything. And then when we finally did go out, you know, and even when we knocked on Burke's door, which we knew we were going to have to do,
there was not that much fear there. I found myself in other situations. It sounds it felt like he was laying low and cowering, and quite frankly, when we knocked on the door, somebody that definitely sounded like him, you know. It was a very meek voice that said he doesn't live here, you know, and it just sounded like this is somebody that wanted this to kind of go away.
You never contacted, you never were successful in contacting him.
Just through the door.
If that was him.
Yeah, you know, we sent letters to his attorney and did everything. But yeah, and you tried multiple times to reach out to tried multiple times and in fact, you know, there's a moment in the podcast and on the Unraveled TV show on Discovery Plus about he you know, talking to his life lawyer, and his lawyer telling us, you know, you know, we would like to talk to him, and as a lawyer telling us, you know, well be careful,
be careful what you do. It sounded like a threat, you know, it sounded like, you know, you have a nice store here, would hate for something bad to happen to with that kind of thing.
Let me get a Lexus's response to that as well. Did you ever feel afraid this is a guy that killed a lot of women specifically, Well.
Listen, we don't know, you know, we can't say for sure the level of violence that Burke has contributed to. You know, it was what I can say, and it bleeds into your last question about these people take advantage of people with less power, you know, vulnerable people, and the stories we've heard about the kind of violence Burke perpetrates against women, you know, our stories like from the
sex worker we spoke to her names Jane. You know, she had a violent sexual encounter with James Burke after the body's already started popping up in the neighborhood where these bodies were popping up. You know, I think I'm too strong for someone like James Burke. I think James Burke wields his power over the vulnerable, over the Chris Lobes who are chained to the floor, over the Janes who are you know, who need money and who you know are are forced into sex work. Frankly, so I
feel protected. I don't feel like I could be targeted by Burke because I'm not vulnerable enough for him.
How much time did Burke serve in prison?
Thirty six months? Thirty two months?
And he got out early? Did he get did he get out a little early?
You know what's interesting, While he was in there, we found out that they found oxy in his cell and he got no extra time for it. He got out, you know, on time. He didn't serve any extra time for that. And I don't believe he got out particularly early.
Is he tethered to somewhere in that community, somewhere in Seffolk County by probation? Is he on probation for some length of time or is that over with as well?
I believe that's over with. But he is getting his penny. Sure, he is still getting his pension, which is you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So even though he was corrupt. You know, he was able to keep all of his police benefits, which are costing taxpayers. You know, it's unbelievable how still he's able to profit. What happened with Chris Lowe was just the tip of the iceberg
as far as the malice he's been involved in. So it's just shocking that he's still getting paid his pension in retirement we have.
You know, he's out there living his life. You know, we've seen people, you know, people text us. I just saw him at the Deli. I just saw him at the Robbi Krieger concert out on the on the East End. You know, he's out there just spending his pension and doing his.
So he's out in public living his life. Yeah, you're if.
You're in Suffolk County, you very well could run into him.
My god, Do you think he's the Long Island serial killer? You know what?
For me, I think that because the FEDS investigated him so much, I leaned towards no, just because they would have found that. Do I think that that there's a possibility that he may know some people that maybe you know, along those lines, he might have partied with them, protecting people something along those lines or But the thing that we definitely know is that we know that he did not care for women, and we know that he did
not care specifically for sex workers. So someone that was in the position of trying to solve these women's murders, he didn't care to do that, and he was the number one person that was supposed to be doing that. So that's almost as bad.
I've said this from the beginning. What Burke contributes to, undeniably and indisputably is the attitude towards sex workers that enabled the Long Island serial killer. You know, Burke was having encounters with sex workers in the same neighborhood. It's an attitude and he's definitely connected to that and the fact that he was partying in this neighborhood, the same neighborhood where the bodies are popping up with sex workers, and he's got connections to people all over this neighborhood.
There's no doubt that there are some loose connections here somewhere, And really, from a symbolic standpoint, you know, he was sleeping with sex workers in this neighborhood. So when he gets control of the investigation, it tanks and knows dives because he's trying to cover up his own indiscretion. So
is he the Long Island serial killer? No, I don't think so, but he definitely is the reason why the case isn't soolved, and he's got loose connections and he contributes to this attitude about the sex workers, which is why nobody cared it first, and Burke has a lot to do with that.
Has Bologne made any statements or Spota's successors, has anybody made any statements about their determination to solve this case.
Absolutely? Yeah, I mean it was just from the fact that it was used as a platform during the DA's race. I think Bologne having put pressure on him even twelve years later, coming Rodney Harrison, who's the new police chief, he told him, listen, I want this case solved, you know, because not only would it be a feather in his cap, it would push him further away from Burke, who he realizes he made a mistake of, you know, naming him
the chief of police. So they have come out and they have said, yeah, we are determined to solve this case.
It's funny gilgo Toe Bay, Jones Beach, that's my stomping ground from my childhood in the way that each of the townships on Long Island, running kind of in strips from north to south, from Oyster Bay down to Massapeak where where I'm from, and Toebay Beach was our town beach for our residents. Jones Beach obviously is a state park. That whole area was where I spent my entire childhood.
Other than those little pockets of residential properties, it's a very very eerie and very very kind of foreboding place. You know. Now, what about the nine to one to one call? Refresh my memory here? Has that been released? Is that available to listen to or not?
Just very recently? It was released about two three weeks ago, but mind you literally literally the call was made in May of twenty ten. They just released the nine one one call three weeks ago. And the Gilbert family attorney, John Ray, who's a friend of mine, he has been fighting this entire time to have her release, and only under the tutelage of this new police chief, Rodney Harrison.
He's you know, made it a point to start releasing the evidence that everybody's been calling for, because why would you not release that nine one one call? Especially the police have always maintained that Shannon Gilbert is not connected to the other Long Island serial killer victims. So if she's not, why the secrecy having to do with the nine one one call? It was a confusing, contradictory move.
And what is the length of the call? Is it terse and dramatic and intense and short or is does it lengthy?
It's about twenty three minutes?
My god. Yeah.
There are parts of it that are very tense. There are parts of it that are not tense. You know, there's parts when she's saying things like they're trying to kill me, or they're going to kill me. There are parts when you hear her running running away from something or somebody. You know, we know that she was in the house, and we know that something happened within that house, and it was just a matter of trying to decide
what was going on. You know, the person her client that night and her driver that night supposedly have you know,
cooperated with the police. But it was just one of those things where everybody was asking to hear the nine one one call, and it was the Suffolk County that just did not want to be transparent at all, would never release it so them releasing that shows that you know, they're finally willing to be transparent, releasing that, releasing the video of Megan Waterman, releasing all of these new.
Information describe what the Megan Waterman video is.
So, Meghan Waterman had come down from Maine. She was working as a sex worker, and she was staying at the Holiday and Express in Hopog right near a lot of the where a lot of the Suffa County Police headquarters are in things on that side of the island at least, And there was video of what is considered to be the last video of her just being in the lobby, dealing with people in the lobby, you know, work, looking at the front desk and talking with somebody at
the front desk. And it was just something that it might have jogged somebody's memory if they would have released it two or three weeks after she had gone missing, and it took them twelve years to release it. So it's those sort of things, and those are things that we knew they had. We don't know what else they have that they have not released yet.
Why do you think people are because again of the word is true crime, emphasis on the word true What is it about true crime that you think this has become such an industry.
Well, evil is real, and I think for a while, you know, before the Internet, before stories of real life experiences, we're disseminated so massively and so broadly. We had fiction, and we had horror movies, and I think we remained detached from those, knowing it's fiction. And I think now understanding the risk any of us are and I think people are addicted to understanding, at least I'm addicted to understanding cruelty as somebody with a healthy mind who had
never hurt anybody. I think people want to understand this sliver of human nature that most of us don't possess because it's so foreign from the norm and from empathy and compassion and you know, the lives we all live. I think understanding the driving force behind killing someone or hurting someone with malice, I think is so far from
most of us, which is refreshing. But I think we're all desperately trying to understand it because we're afraid, you know, and there's this complete detachment from the type of person who would want to do this. So that's sort of where I think it comes from. You know, when you boil it down.
Yeah, obviously, before podcasts, before television, before newspapers, before books, people would sit around the campfire and tell stories, and a lot of those stories were about monsters, and a lot of those stories were warning stories. You know, you would say, don't go into those woods because there is a monster in those woods. And you know, it might have been a bear that attacked somebody and they didn't know what it was, and then they'd called it a monster.
So it's ingrained in us. You know, these are kind of these are warning stories, and then at first and I think then they turn into almost sort of you know, there's the puzzle aspect of it, and people like to be able to try and figure something out. And eventually the majority of people are good and they just want to see justice.
Billy Jensen and Alexis linkletter. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow here's the thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back. I caught up with Billy Jensen following the news of the arrest of Rex Huerman and got the latest on the Long Island serial killer case. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're a listening to
Here's the thing. Police had spent over a decade investigating the Gilgo Beach murders when a new police Commissioner, Rodney Harrison, was sworn in in January twenty twenty two. Just a few weeks later, he appointed a multi agency task force to solve the serial killings, and things moved swiftly after that. Phone records and DNA evidence led the authorities to Rex Huerman. Thirteen years after the discovery of the victims. It seemed
the case had finally been cracked. I caught up with Billy Jensen earlier this month to learn his thoughts on this incredible development.
Rex Heuerman, who is from Massapeka Park, has been charged with three counts of murder, the fourth is forthcoming, and that those would all be the victims known as the Gilgo four, which is for women who were found in a close location, most of them wrapped in burro lap along Ocean Parkway. Now it brings up a lot of questions. Now, obviously the police department did a big victory lap saying we caught this guy, and the new administration did do
a good job of catching this guy. But the first question is is he responsible for the six other bodies that were found along Ocean Parkway. Now, those six other bodies, their torsos were found in Manorville, Long Island, and then their body parts were found along Ocean Parkway during the search after they found the gill Go four. And then there's Peaches and the baby. Peaches is a African American female whose body was found. Parts of her body were
found in Hempstead Lake State Park. Other parts were found along Ocean Parkway along with her toddler baby and the Asian male dressed in women's clothing and Fire Island Jane Doe. So we don't know if he's responsible for any or all of these other crimes. That's the first big question. The second big question is has he killed other people before or sitting or since the GILG four. And the third big question is why did it take so long for them to find him.
Why do you think it did Why?
Well, it was a combination of I think negligence and corruption. The one thing that we learned and they kind of skirt past it. So you're listening in the first press conference and they say, Okay, well, how did you get him and then everybody, you know, they sent out pictures of this pizza crust and everyone's like, oh, he got caught with pizza crust. No, he got verified. DNA was verified with pizza crust.
You know.
They found DNA on one of the victims through a hair They verified that through following him around and then he discarded a pizza box with pizza crust. That's verification. He didn't get caught that way. How he got caught was they looked back in the files after they took over the investigation twelve years later and they saw that there was in the Amber Costello investigation who was one of the victims. She used to roll some of her clients.
She was a sex worker and what she would do is she would invite a client over to her house. Her friend, acting as her boyfriend, would bust into the house and then they would shake down the client for money and then the client would leave. Now, two days before she goes missing, they do this to a client and her roommate, a guy named Dave Shaller, remembers that the client was a big giant man, an ogre of a man over six foot four, heavy set, and he
drove a Chevy Avalanche, dark color, first generation. This is a truck that you don't normally see that often on Long Island. So the police had the fact that she had just you know, a woman who had gotten missing, had just robbed basically a client of hers who was over six foot four, over two hundred and fifty pounds, that drove a first generation Chevy Avalanche that obviously was around from the Long Island area. It wouldn't take too long to figure out who this person was, and they
never did. They had all of the pieces, not to mention the fact that if they were to look in even more and say, well, we know that the killer was delivering taunting calls to one of the victim's sisters, Melissa and saying, you know, awful things to her sister. They had traced those calls and knew those calls had come from midtown Manhattan and Massapequa.
Right, and Hueman worked in the city.
Yes, he worked in midtown, and obviously he had a house in Massapequa. He was an architect and he owned his own architecture firm.
Where did he do his building? Where was his career in the city or on the island?
Mainly in the city. It seems like listening to the interview that he had done on YouTube, he paints himself as sort of a fixer, like when things go wrong with somebody else's building or something like that, he comes in and fixes all the codes and things. So it's not like he has a building up that's like the Humorman building.
Now, what interview on YouTube are you referring to.
There's a video of him on YouTube which a lot of people have been pointing to, of him being interviewed about his architecture business, and he's very cocksure of himself. Everyone's saying it's very creepy. You wouldn't really, you know, I described it as it's South Shore Long Island bravado. You know, he's sitting there kind of saying that he's the best in the business and the things that he
does in the architecture world. And this obviously was before he was arrested, but you can see his mannerisms and the things that he was doing, so he was out there.
You mentioned a moment ago that they had this information some time ago mm hm, and they didn't act on that. What triggered them to want to go forward now with information they had quite some time ago.
What triggered them was there was a new administration and it was pretty telling and pretty odd that when the new administration comes in in a county with millions of people and they say one of the first things they say is that this is one of our top priorities. You know, a group of murders from a dozen years ago. It shows that the heat was on them from the media, from podcasts like ours, and they said that they really
wanted to solve this thing. They got the name as they were going through the old files within six weeks. So they started a year and a half ago, they got the name within six weeks. They were able to then use the DNA and everything like that. Now, you know, the initial investigation before Burke took over, they skipped over this. They didn't investigated more of this thing about the Chevy
avalanche and the ogre of a man. And then obviously when Burke took over, he shut down the investigation for the most part.
So I guess that's the better question, not what led them to do it? Now, what was it that caused them not to do it before? Why do you think they didn't do it before?
You know, I've talked with the before this. I talked with the detectives, and they certainly seemed like good guys, the detectives that were on it before Burke took over, and they seemed like they really wanted to solve the case. They had a year to solve it before Burke took over, but they just you know, didn't follow up on this lead as closely as they should have. And it seems like, you know, hindsight's always going to be twenty twenty, but it seems like it was a really damn good lead
when they didn't have many good leads. Now when you've got Burke taking over, we know that Burke shut down the investigation, kicked the FBI out because he didn't want the FED sniffing around his dirty laundry. And we know his attitude towards women and his attitude towards sex workers in particular wasn't very high, so he did not make
this a priority. And we didn't hear really anything from Burke's administration for a really long time about this case, so you know, he really did just shovel it under the rug, and then the administrations that followed they just didn't put the pieces together but you know, you got to give kudos to Ray Tierney and Rodney Harrison. They came in and then within six weeks they were able
to get this name. You know, the one person that we haven't heard from really who should be doing a victory lap is Steve Blone, and Blone hasn't been because Bologne was the one that hired Burke in the first place, and Bologne had sat there as this case hadn't been solved for a dozen years. And Blogne, for people that aren't in New York, Blogne is the chief executive of Suffolk County who hired Burke and got this whole thing rolling.
When we listened to your interview, and at the time we're doing the interview, I'll let you characterize the investigation back then. And am I mistaken that it did imply that Burke himself was a very strong suspect. Is that fair to say.
Burke was a interesting suspect. I wouldn't say he was a strong suspect. I don't think they had any strong suspects at the time. But the fact that he was so close to the investigation and he shut it down, coupled with the fact that we were getting all of these stories about him being violent and having relationships with sex workers and just a lot of bad things about this guy that you normally don't see swirling around a high profile serial killer investigation.
And with the chief of Police of Suffolk County exactly.
Yeah, so what we wanted to do, you know, in Suffolk County for people that might not know, it's a dead end geographically, so you know, there's no like, no one never passes through Suffolk County or anything. You're going to Suffer County, You're going to Suffolk County, and it very much can be set up like a little fiefdom. And that's what Burke did. And Burke had this little
cadre of people that he was able to control. He was, you know, under the wing of the DA and he really was untouchable and he was able to do whatever he wants. So we didn't know anything else that he was doing. But we do know that the FEDS, because he did go to jail for violating the civil rights of Chris Loebe. We should hope that the FEDS looked
at him very closely. I don't know if they looked at him particularly for the murders, but he looked like he was definitely somebody to throw in the ring of suspects or persons of interest, especially because that he closed down the investigation. Why would you do that?
For me? Having done the interview with you a year ago and then seeing the emergence of this Humerorman thing. Was Humerman's name? Was it discussed a while ago? Was he a suspect a well? Was his name pulled out of nowhere lately to indict him? What was their knowledge or their suspicion of Humorman years ago? Was there any was he even being discussed as a suspect publicly? Now?
Nobody knew the name Heureman at all? Somebody had him at some point, because it sounds like twelve years ago they did get the name, or at least you know what we still don't know in one of the questions that I would like to know is that, yes, they had the Chevy Avalanche, they had the description, they knew he was from Massapequa. Did they narrow it down at that point and get the name and just not do anything with it? Were not sure, you know? And who
knows if they'll ever say that? Now feel in for me if you will.
I mean regardless of the fact that many of these women involved that were victims in this case were sex workers. Describe to the extent that it exists, their families or friends who were exhorting law enforcement and lobbying law enforcement on their behalf to find the answers to these killings. Did they have family or friends or anyone loved ones who were trying to push the police to solve this case.
They did, Yeah, And the most vocal was Shannon Gilbert's mother. And Shannon Gilbert was the one that kicked off the investigation, who had the date in Oak Beach with someone and then she had gone missing. She's the one that did the nine to one one call. Her body was eventually found, you know, in the marshes. She's the reason why law
enforcement started looking at Ocean Parkway to begin with. Her family was very vocal, and then the families of the other victims were very vocal and really did stay on this case continually. You know, You've got movies of the week about them and everything, and it really is a test meant that these women, they were loved.
Now, I understand that Hueman contacted some of these families and harassed them and taunted them, Is that true.
Yes, they established he had called one of the victims one, and I think this was sort of a missed opportunity. He was using burner phones, and with the technology back then, who knows if they were able to trace him. But he did buy apparently a different burner phone for each victim, so he was using different numbers. But he contacted one of the victim's sisters and taunted her and said, I killed your sister. You want to know what I did to her? He called her a half breed and asked
are you a half breed like your sister? Which we thought was a clue, like who you You know, that's definitely a term, a disgusting term that somebody older might use. It's not really used by younger people now. And he has a very distinctive voice when you listen to him, it's a Long Island south Shore, Long Island accent, but it's also got a lot of bubbliness to it. And yeah,
he was doing that. He also called the victim's boyfriend as well, So he was doing these things to get his jolly's off, and he was doing it from midtown Manhattan, and he was also doing it for Massapeak very well could have been doing it from his home right.
What comments have the supporters of these victims, as we discussed family and friends and so forth, what comments have they made in the wake of human's arrest.
The ones that have talked, not a lot of them have talked. Obviously, they're finally happy that the arrest has been made, and that's pretty much it. They haven't really gotten into anything more. There was a press conference yesterday where not really that much was said, just talking about how many pages of things that they have against him.
You know, they really did. This was a very strange case to catch a serial killer because they once they got his name, and once they realized through the pizza crust that it was him, you know, they set up a grand jury. So the grand jury was subpoenaing people. So the people on that grand jury had to keep tight and not tell anybody that they had found the goat Long Island serial killer, and they were subpoening a bunch of things. So they eventually had a lot of
information and a lot of things leading to him. But the victims of the families, they're obviously just relieved that he's been caught. And then they're waiting for the trial because unlike the most recent big serial killer case would have been Golden State killer of a case where it had been a cold case for a long time, this guy's pleading innocent, so it looks like it will go to trial.
Now, Hueman doesn't necessarily account for all the victims, and you can't assume that everybody that's there was killed by Hueman. But when you look back on it now, do you have a different take on why Burke slowed down and why he stole the investigation?
No, I think my take is still the same. I think the take is that he could and he didn't want fed's looking into anything else that he's done. We knew he was a bad guy. We knew he liked to live his life within pu unity and do whatever that he wanted, and he was breaking laws. So why have the FEDS sniffing around things that he's doing. You know, they were a danger to him, he might say, because he's never spoken about this before and he's walking around now.
He might say that it was ubrous on his part. You know, he felt that his key had the right guys in order to solve it. But obviously he.
Didn't Huberman has been charged with four murders.
Three out of the four, three out of I think they haven't been able to get to nail down for the fourth one, Maureen. They haven't been able to nail down probably physical evidence from him, and there is talk that they were waiting even longer so they can get the fourth but they felt that he was a possible danger to society and they had to rush it. This is a guy also, and this is another thing that needs to be noted. He was still seeing sex workers
up until the time that he was arrested. And that's another question that I think a lot of people will have. You know, one of the big questions is has he killed since the gil Go four and if he has killed And obviously if they had all of that information with the truck and the size and the mess a peak when everything to be able to zero in on him, that's a big, big problem for the Suffolk County Police Department.
But also, you know, in between when they identified him and when they arrested him, how are they making sure that the people that he was going out with and the women that he was seeing were going to be safe. I mean, did they have him on surveillance twenty four to seven. These are questions that we don't know.
He's been charged. Did he plead not guilty to the guilty? Yeah? And where is he now? Is he's not on bail? Is he no?
No, no, no, no, he's in a riverhead at the jail.
In the interval since we first spoke to a year ago, what else have you noted about this case or other cases? Has this become a kind of a I don't want to say vocation for you, let alone passion for you, But do you find yourself looking into other serial killer cases as well?
Yeah, you know, not for unraveled. I have a book coming out called Killers amidst Killers, which is there's a type of serial killer now that is really operating under the cloak of the opioid epidemic. How So, because you have a lot of these bodies of women that are on the fringes of society that are showing up that might not have a actual cause of death that they can find because the bodies are so decomposed or they're skeletal that they've actually been murdered and they just chalk
it off as being an overdose. But you've got these men that are killing them. This started with these two best friends that were found murdered in Columbus, Ohio in twenty sixteen, and I just started working this case and I found eighteen women who had either gone missing or murdered in these small towns in Ohio, and then I
started looking all across the country. Recently, there was you know, as early as three weeks ago and were these women that were going missing and murdered in the Portland area. And you know a lot of people were saying, oh, they're just overdoses or whatever. But it turns out they have a guy now that is responsible, or at least they think is responsible as a person of interest for
for their murders. This is happening across the country. So we've got these bad guys, and we also have this fentanyl crisis, and this is where we're going to be seeing a lot more of serial killers that fly under the radar. I mean, this guy is being looked at for four murders that are so recent, but you know, nobody's talking about him because it didn't get the same press as say the Longnown serial killer case. So those are the things that I'm looking at now.
There's a new administration in Suffolk County. Can you describe who that is and do you think this means the end of that kind of Suffolk County Police Department corruption that's become familiar to us.
You'd like to think. So, you know, they got a guy named Rodney Harrison to run the police department. He's from the city, so he didn't come up through the ranks of Suffolk County. And you know, obviously he got this big win right away. But there's also a lot of other problems in Suffolk County obviously, so but with him and the DA ray tyranny, they definitely have a
big win under their belt. Now, Steve Balone, who is the county executive, who was the one that you know, hired Burke and was really you know, as much as he likes to separate himself from the old Guard, he really is representative of the old Guard. He is going to turn out and we'll see who's going to be actually running Suffolk County and see if there's a way that you know, we can get a gleanback on Suffo County that has been lost for a really long time.
Massive peak with such a small I mean it's a big, small town. I grew up there my whole life. My father taught school there. I lived there the all eighteen years of my life before I left to go to college and so forth. And you wonder have his neighbors made any comments, I mean the cliche of you know, he was a quiet man, you know. Yeah, have his neighbors made any comments about his comings and goings or his.
Demeanor, you know a little bit, you know. He They've said that he was a regular guy. One said that he was a little creepy.
You know.
When you originally contacted me, knowing that you were from the South Shore, I thought you might have a tip where there's this Alec Baldwin, you know, contact me. I was like, maybe as a tip. But I think a lot of them were surprised when they learned that he was an architect because the house was a little ramshackly. And there's talk now that the town is going to purchase the house because it has become such a tourist trap of people going to look.
At it like the Amityville horror.
Yeah, like the Amityville horror exactly.
People drove by that house and the owners of the house. I once had this experience where friends of mine from out of town. We were in that area to go to the movies or go to the bowling alley or something in Amityville, which was the town next to Massapequa, and we drove by that house and the people on the front stopyel take a picture. They screamed at us. Yeah.
Long Island has produced a lot of serial killers. You know. Obviously Joel Rifkin is considered the one that has the largest amount of victim but you've got Robert Schulman. Both of them went to the same school district, My school
districts Meadow. You know, you've got everything from Colin Ferguson and the Long Island Railroad massacre, this guy Bittrolf, who had killed women in the Manorville area that a lot of people were looking at and probably still looking at for some of the other victims for Long Island serial killer. There's a lot of bad people on Long Island, and it's just, you know, the crime's on Long.
Island's a heavy charge there.
There is you know what, when you get a lot of people, you.
Know, there's a lot of nice people here too, but.
Oh, there's certainly a lot of nice people as well.
Well, you know, it's like Long Island is an island, and I feel like there's an energy on an island. This is an island, and you come on to an island and the energy field is a little bit different and people get a little stranger. Maybe I really don't know. I'm not qualified to characterize the population of Long Island itself, but I'm glad that they have an arrest that would even incrementally account for four of these murders, or three right now and possibly four. My best to you, Billy,
and thank you so much. Good luck with your book of course, thank you so much. My thanks to Billy Jensen and Alexis Linkletter. This episode was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City and at Monk Music Studios in Easthampton, Long Island. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice and Maureen Hoben. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.