Has The Long Island Serial Killer Finally Been Caught?

You're listening to a Mother Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and orders. This podcast was recorded on It's the early hours of May one, twenty ten, and Shannon Gilbert calls nine to one to one from a house in Long Island, New York. She's there working as an escort with a client she met on Craigslist. There's somebody after me, She repeatedly tells.

The operator where are you? There's somebody answering, Okay, where are you? So somebody answer where are you?

Ma'am? I thought you're The entire call lasts twenty two minutes. She sounds calm and then confused. You can hear her talking to two men in the background. She keeps telling someone to stop please. Then she starts running down the street. You can hear her screaming and breathing heavily. She asks neighbors for help, knocking on their doors. Two different homes called police, but when they finally dispatch officers to the area,

Right?

So, on that May first morning, we know that Shannon Gilbert was called to the home of Joseph Brewer and she was brought there by her driver, Michael Pack And at that point, when Shannon had called nine one one, Joseph Brewer was trying to get her out of his house because she was panicking about something. And you can hear them on the nine one one call in the background, sort of seeming to talk to each other. It's kind of unintelligible, but it sounds like they're communicating about what to do.

Her disappearance prompted a search of the nearby area. What did that search junk cover? And it was something that went on for several months.

Yeah, So at first the search for her uncovered nothing. It wasn't until December of that year that a police officer conducting a search with a search dog found some skeletal remains, and everyone assumed that those remains would be that of the missing Shannon Gilbert, the woman they had been looking for, But that wasn't the case. It turns out these remains actually belonged to a missing young woman

Can you tell us.

A little bit about the women. Let's start with Melissa because her family in particular had been receiving kind of taunting phone calls, hadn't they.

Yes, So shortly after Melissa's disappearance, her sister Amanda received calls from an unknown person. This person used a lot of derogatory language. This person had explicitly said things like, I'm watching your sister rot your sister is dead, just things like that. The exact verbiage we don't know, but that was the types of things this person was saying. And at that point, Melissa had been missing, so these were obviously very terrifying calls to receive.

Who was Melissa and the other women amba, Megan and Mulraine. They all had a lot of similarities, didn't they.

Yes, So they were all young women.

They were all batite, and they were all advertising their services on Craigslist because they were working as sex workers. But that's not what any of them wanted to be doing. Melissa Bartholemy was last seen in New York City. She had goals of opening her own hair salon. She had a lot of friends, a lot of people who loved her.

What kind of time frame are we talking about when these women went to me seen?

So Maureene brainer Barnes vanished in two thousand and seven, and the others disappeared between that and two thousand and nine, with the final two disappearing within just a few months of each other in two thousand and nine.

And when police found their bodies, were I able to determine any think about how they died.

Presumably yes, but that information wasn't released right away, and because it was skeletal remains, very little.

Was released to the public at that time.

What the public was made aware of is that these women were petite, They were wrapped in burlap, and that's kind of all we learned, and that's all we knew for a really long time.

A discovery like this is obviously shocking. Did police immediately know that they were hunting a serial killer? Because I can imagine that starts some pretty serious task forces and escalations that kind of thing.

So at first, when the gil Go fur and that's what those first victims were referred to as the gil Go four, the assumption right away was that somebody had killed these four victims. Where there was a diversion in terms of the theories that occurred in April of the following year, which is when several more sets of human remains were found along Ocean Park. But these victims, the circumstances were much different. There were victims that were dismembered.

Because that was six more PayPal, wasn't it. There was even a toddler among those remains.

Yes, So that's when the controversy really began about whether one person was responsible for all of these people. But as far as the first four, everyone believed right away that one person had done all of those.

And then Shannon's reminds were eventually found as well.

Yes, eighteen months after she disappeared, Shannon was found, and interestingly, her remains were found very close to where she disappeared from, which created a lot of questions about how thorough the search had been for her to begin with, how had they not discovered her sooner if she was essentially right down the street from where she vanished from.

And interestingly, with Shannon, Palais actually said that I didn't think she'd been murdered, right.

That also creates a lot of confusion for people, especially given her similarities to these other victims that were found right down the street. It's hard to believe for a lot of people that she's not a murder victim. But the Suffocunty Police Department essentially says, and they stand by the fact that they believe Sheannon Gilbert died as a result of misadventure, which is essentially sort of an unknown cause.

So this is ten bodies, eleven including Shannon. For those who haven't been to Long Island, I haven't. Is it quite a small area geographically to be finding all of these remains.

So Long Island itself, to give context, is thirty miles wide by one hundred miles long. This particular area, if you look at a map, it's a long stretch of land, but when you're there, it feels extremely small.

It's really remote.

There are no other houses there, and the strip of land between the road it's on the water, so it's on a highway. The strip of land between where the road is and the water is very small. So it's just a very specific place. You know, it doesn't seem like a very obvious place for someone to hide human remains. So the idea that there was this massive concentration of victims in this one area led a lot of people to suspect that, yes, we're dealing with one serial killer.

I want to ask you personally how it felt to have this news breaking, because you're from Long Island, don't.

You, Yeah, so I grew up going to the beaches where this all occurred. It's devastating because most of Long Island, it's very affluent. In most parts, you think of it as a very safe place. It's a place where people from the city have, you know, expensive summer homes. You would just never think that something so insidious could be happening, and be happening for so long without people realizing it.

I want to focus on the Gilg four as they were known. Were there any witnesses or people in the women's orbits that were able to give police any decent clues in those early days?

It turns out yes, although that's not something we learned about until July.

Of twenty twenty three.

Wow. But it turns out that Amberlin Costello, who was the last victim to disappear in the summer of two thousand and nine, we found out a little bit about her last two days before she vanished, And what occurred was is that she was advertising her sex work services on Craigslist and she was engaging with the client through text, and her and her roommates decided that they wanted money, but she didn't want to have sex with this calent, so they were going to.

Do sort of a ruse.

And basically have the client come over and then Amber's roommate would interrupt and act like her angry boyfriend.

Then the client would be chased off.

He would have already given the money and she wouldn't have had to go through with this act. So this happens, and the roommate actually does get into a physical altercation with this client, who he describes as someone you know who's six ' five hulking. He describes him as looking like an ogre, and another key detail he includes is that this man was driving a green Chevy Avalanche, an early.

Two thousand and two model.

So we've learned that the next day after this ruse occurred with this client, the client reached back out to Amber and said something to the effect of that wasn't nice. Do I get credit for next time, suggesting that he'd still like to see her and make another appointment. And based on Amber's cell phone records, we've now learned that she did agree to meet this client on the very day that she disappeared, and neighbors later said they saw

Then We'll never really know.

Were there any suspects in those early days that the public knew about well that the police kind of shard details about.

So as far as official suspects, the police were not transparent about that. But something that really hut a spotlight on this case was the fact that a lot of people suspected that the Suffolcunti Chief of Police had a

Well that in particular, James Burke, the investigation stooling is what you started to investigate and kind of dig a bit deeper into because you did have a personal connection there. Can you tell us about Chris and what he told you, what happened to him?

Sure?

So I went to high school with a guy named Christopher Lobe a column Chris and I was working in the true crime space in Los Angeles, moved away from Long Island, and around twenty thirteen I started hearing that he was in jail for something he had done involving the Suffolk County Police Chief. Now we were put in touch after many years of not being in contact, and that's when he told me the story of what happened. So what occurred was by this point Chris had become

Well, there was one particular day style that Chris gave you about a daba a day that quite clearly could incriminate him in terms of the Long Island Killer. Can you tell us about that?

So Chris alleges that, and this is something he didn't tell anyone until he participated in my series Unraveled, And this was a story he told in twenty twenty when this event occurred in twenty twelve.

But he said that there was a.

Snuff film DVD in the back, and he said that the girl on the film looked like Megan Waterman, one of the Gilgo fur victims.

Now, I don't believe that.

But when you're doing journalism, when you're a journalist, you can't really insert your opinion. I was skeptical, but it is what Chris swore up and down happened.

And was it just a blonde girl who looked like Megan? Maybe?

Was it a fake snuff film where it's porn that's really rough and that's what's supposed to be depicted. There was a lot of nuance with what it could have been at that time. But everybody heard this and immediately the conspiracy theorists were abound with theories about James Brooke being the Long Island serial killer. And we uncovered so many truthful things from his past about what he did with sex workers. He had a really checkered history. He

It just looked really bad as far as Yeah.

Of course you wouldn't want the FBI or any other larger police agencies investigating this case and potentially uncovering your ties to these women and to this neighborhood where the women were found.

So allegations of snuff film aside, there was plenty of solid evidence you were able to find about James and in fact he actually stood down, didn't he There was proof that he kind of fumbled the investigation.

Yeah, so it's on records that the FBI tried to get involved and he blocked that. He was ultimately charged for what he did to Chris Loeb, and he didn't do it alone. He had accomplices and he was working with the District Attorney, which is I don't know what they call them in Australia, but it's just the highest prosecuting attorney for the state essentially for this county. And

You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Jimmy Bath. I'm speaking with true crime host and producer Alexis Link Litter Up. Next, I ask Alexis how the police managed to discover and catch who they suspected to be the Long Island serial killer. Well, let's skip forward to twenty twenty two, because a new task force was formed and within six weeks they had a new potential suspect. How did police find Rex Hueman?

So we were all very excited when the new task force was assembled and there was this renewed effort to really regroup and do this right.

From the start.

And it's a little disheartening to realize that it only took them six weeks of true focus, of real valiant effort to do this, considering how many people had been suffered for how long without these answers. But essentially it was the tip provided by Amberlin Costello's roommate about the Chevy Avalanche that actually led the police to the door of their suspect. And that's frustrating because that means it wasn't like they found a new piece of evidence or

I loved well, as you say, two decades it sat there, just sat there in front of them. There was also some DNA that they were able to link.

Wasn't there, Yes, So we didn't know this until there was an arrest.

Several hairs had been found on the remains of the Gilgo fr and.

Megan Waterman, that victim.

There was a male hair that was found and once Rex sewer Men, who is the suspect who would come to be arrested. Once he was identified as the person who owned that Chevy Avalanche, they were able to follow him and get a surreptitious DNA sample and connect it to hairs that they were covered on this victim, Megan Watermen. They were also able to connect Rex Sierman's family to other hairs.

Found on other victims.

So that was a huge development to because the Chevy Avalanche is a great connection, but it's not what juris want to see these days. They really want to see DNA, so to be able to link him with DNA was huge.

So they arrested him in July twenty twenty three, initially only charging him with three of the motives. Eventually he was charged with a fourth. Can you tell us about that fourth charge, because the allegations in that case were quite surprising, weren't they.

So with the.

Fourth one with the timeline we discussed between two thousand and seven and two thousand and nine with the Gilgo four victims, Yes, they were able to charge him with a three that occurred later across those couple of years. Maureen Rynard Barnes was the first victim who disappeared in two thousand and seven, so presumably they just had less in the form of, you know, digital evidence. With the other three victims, they had phone records and they had

To sex workers.

They were just very worried that he was ramping up, so that's why they pulled the trigger, even though they only had enough for the three at the time.

I know police don't think that Shannon was murdered, but it's really hard to separate her from the gilgo fuur considering she was also in sex works. She also found people on Craig's list do they allege she had any run in with human.

They have not disclosed whether or not they have found a link between Shannon Gilbert and Rex Huerman. However, people have come forward claiming that there is a link between Shannon Gilbert and Rex Huerman, but law enforcement have not verified this information. But John Ray has taken affidavits from witnesses who claim to have seen Rex Yuerman with Shannon Gilbert at a motel in Suffolk County, So there are claims that there may be a connection there.

I think what.

Is a challenge with Shannon Gilbert would be connecting him to that Oak Beach neighborhood, which as far as I have heard, there are no connections. There are no connections between Joseph Brewer and Michael Pack, the men who were heard in the background of that nine when one call. It's hard to know how Okay, there's all this proof that Shannon ran from that house that night, she knocked

So it's just a coincidence, which is wild.

Maybe or or maybe not.

I think the fact that we're dealing with such a small area, like we discussed in the beginning, and the idea that so many men are connected to these sex workers in this way also reflects just a greater attitude about women, showing how pervasive this is, which it's not something I understood before getting involved in this case. It's one of the more bizarre elements of this case. It's really hard to understand how she could not be connected.

It's really hard.

It's hard to face that you look at it on a map. This happened very close together. She also matches the descriptions of these women. She's batite, she's blonde. She fits, you know, but then she doesn't. It's just very hard to understand.

What do we know about human married kids? What does he do for work?

So we know that Rex Huerman is married, He's been married twice. He's got a biological daughter and a son who he essentially adopted through marrying his second wife. He is a Long Island lifer is what they call them, born and raised on Long Island.

He currently.

I mean, up until the moment of his arrest, lived in the home that he was raised in. He bought the house from his mother in the nineties ninety one, and he.

Is an architect.

And in ninety three, I believe, is when he opened his own architectural firm. That office was located in Midtown, Manhattan, And for geographical context, that's about an hour and change away from.

Where he lives.

And he lives in a town called massive Pequa Park and he commutes back and forth from his house to the city every day to get to his office.

He has hobbies. He likes to hunt. He was a member of social groups.

He's strange. We talked to people who went to high school with him. He was bullied. He was described as odd. He doesn't appear like on paper you wouldn't think he's a serial killer, but he looks like one.

Well physically, he kind of fits that description the roommate gave, doesn't he.

Oh yeah, it's a perfect match. But what I just think is interesting about him. Think about the most famous serial killer is like, think about Brian Koeberger. I don't know if you're familiar with that case. To the Idaho College students. He doesn't look like a serial killer, Like he's conventionally attractive, you know, Ted Bundy, It's like Rex Hwerman looks like a serial killer to me.

Like the Hole, he's quite intimidating.

He's huge, he's hasty, he's disheveled, and he has this really these vacant eyes. He's quite scary looking. But yeah, so that is sort of the summary about Rex Huerman. You know, we also know that in college he worked at these beaches doing maintenance and things like that, at near where these victims remains were found, so he has very strong ties to this area.

We know that Massapequa Park where he lives.

One of those phone calls to the sister of Melissa Bartholemy was able to be traced to Massapequa, so they knew they were looking for someone with ties to that area. Other calls were traced to Manhattan. They knew they were looking for someone with ties to that area as well.

And he really fits the bell.

And he had that same exact Chevy Avalanche, but he gave it to his brother, but he got a new one that's exactly like his old one.

So this is a car.

He seems to really like, that's what we know about Rex Herman. He seems to have very strong emotional.

Ties to this house.

And it's interesting that he's an architect because his house is dilapidated, like it looks like it's on the verge of collapsing. He's got his porch propped up with a piece of plywood. It's really just an awful shape. And pictures of the inside revealed that there was some hoarding going on.

It's really a bizarre situation, all of it.

Well, the house in particular is also a big focus of the investigation itself, isn't it.

Yeah, it is, and we keep learning more and more about why that is. And while it's not been explicitly stated, evidence shows and their implications that suggest he used the

Since he's a rist. He has been charged with two automotives, Sandra Castilla and Jessica Tyla. What do we know about them and what happened to them?

So this is where it gets very interesting. So Sandra Costilla was murdered in nineteen ninety three, and them in her case is completely different than with any of the others. She was stabbed, she was posed, she was left in a completely different area in Southampton, which is further east than where all of the other victims were found. And what's interesting about Sandra is that everybody suspected that Sandra

So he said that he's a suspect in another case. We didn't mention Valerie, but he has been charged with Jessica's murda.

Yes, So the reason why I bring up Valerie is because Valerie and Jessica are very much connected, and they were found way before any of the victims along Ocean Parkway Way, before the Gilg four Way, before anyone else.

Oh, so that's how.

They were connected to the Long Island serial killer case because their head and hands were found with the toddler and Peaches the victim, and all these other victims that are connected to the case but had different ms the victims that caused the confusion about whether it was one or two killers. So Rex has been charged with Jessica Taylor's murder because again they found a hair that they

You know, we don't know how many he's.

Responsible for, because there's countless unsolved murders all across Long Island. And now we know that he doesn't just leave victims in an ocean parkway, because Sandra Costillo is found somewhere else. So it's really he could be responsible for an untold number of victims.

Wow.

So for the moment, he's been charged with six motives if my account is correct, which hat denies. I should point out he is yet to stand trial. Where are we cult wise, because we was still waiting for a trial, he was supposed to already have started one.

Before these additional charges were filed. The judge was trying to speed things along when he was only charged with a Gilgo four and they were trying to expedite the discovery, which means the prosecution handing over all the evidence in the defense so they could prepare. But now that victims keep getting added, it just gets less and less realistic that this trial is going to happen in a timely manner.

Well, that could make ease.

Really it could mean years. Yeah, I mean we're already at one year having passed.

Is his wife supporting him in all of these.

So at first it seemed like no, she filed for divorce almost right away. It's hard to know exactly what the thinking is. You know, she has been spotted at court appearances. She brought their dog to the last appearance. She has said things like I want to see how it all plays out, and it's until proven guilty. You know, I think, I think there's a lot of psychological implications here with how hard it might be to come to terms with this reality. So I try to reserve judgment.

We know that, but we also know she signed a media deal.

Yes, so there is a documentary, a multi part documentary, and yeah, she and her daughter Victoria are participating. I also sat for an interview for it. It's going to feature their perspective in terms of like their shock or you know. I'm interested to see what they've said.

I have no.

Idea, but I do know that this is going to be a long process. Them coming to terms with this reality is not going to be an overnight thing. And they've said that this was a financial decision. They have no money. She is in remission from cancer treatments, and the suspicion is that this was financially motivated decision to participate in this documentary.

After the break, we learn what's happening now with Rex Human's trial. The trial might be years away, but the prosecution has still been putting forward evidence as part of court proceedings, so we have been getting a few more details there about the allegations. Can you tell us about the kind of digital web and the ways that they accuse Human of trying to contact victims.

Yes, So it's been reported that he has over one hundred burner phones, which are sort of they're called ghost phones. Sometimes you know, it's a phone you go into seven to eleven and you buy and then you buy minutes for that you can purchase anonymously and as not tied because like a regular cell phone is tied to a credit check, at least here in the US, is tied to you know, you need an ID for it, you need an address. It's directly tied to your identity. These phones,

He was doing this.

All on these anonymous phones. We know that he was also using these phones for things like Tinder. You know, years later he continued doing this sort of dance with these electronics. He was also using digital shredding software and that was an effort to erase you know, some of this digital evidence. A lot of the Google searches implicate him in really strange ways. He was googling podcasts, he was googling my podcast about the case, he was watching

They also talk.

About a supposed planning document or blueprint, which is quite chilling.

Yeah.

The planning document, I think is sort of what ups the ante for people who are familiar with serial killer cases. I mean, I've never seen something so horrifying in my life.

And also the level of evidence we have in this Do we know what his defense plans to use or do to try and aggie he's case.

We don't know what they will ultimately do.

But what Michael Brown, rex Human's defense attorney has said during press conferences is that there were these other suspects that law enforcement.

Had their eye on.

To the point where it was rumored that an arrest was coming, and this was somebody who's not rex Uerman.

This is someone else.

They had their eyeon with the initials that matched these initials that were found on a piece of evidence, which is WM. So there was a belt found it was found with Maureene Brainerd Barnes that had the words WM carved in the back of it, and for a long time until they got the tip about the Chevy Avalanche which led to rex Ureerman.

The assumption is.

That that's what the police were really focusing their search on. These initials. So we know that Michael Brown is he's going to point to these other suspects as potentially being the real suspects, and they are going to try to poke holes in the hair evidence because hair testing forever has been done with nuclear DNA and done with the root of the hair. This testing that was done with these hairs was done with mitochondrial DNA testing, So it's like very groundbreaking.

Am I right in saying that he plans to also bring in that police chaef we mentioned earlier James book.

So it's unclear as to whether he'll actually be called to testify, but Michael Brown, rex Ywerman's attorney has requested all of James Brooke's files to review, so I'm sure he plans to point to negligence that was done in this case as a way to explain why potentially this evidence is not reliable. Right, this was an investigation led by a corrupt criminal. How can we trust the validity of this evidence? Which I think I think is the

You are so daping this investigation and it looks like it's going to keep unraveling. Does that feel as a journalist overwhelming for you? Exciting a you kind of nervous as to what else might come out.

I'm excited because there are so many people who are still seeking answers and victims who are still seeking to have their identities back. I think there is more bad news to come. I think there is more to be learned about the depths of this person's depravity. But I think there's a lot of relief and justice to be

To get it.

So I think hopefully we're only on the upswing, and I just hope that we're able to connect more people to this serial offender because we don't believe Sandra Costia in nineteen ninety three was his first victim. We just don't, and we don't believe there were none between her and Valerie mac and Jessica Taylor. So who else is there?

You know?

I think it's exciting that these investigators, these really good investigators now who who care about this case, are going to connect all these dots and bring all this hopefully you know, closure, I hate that word closure, but bring justice.

What about Long Island itself. It's used in like the title, you know, alleged Long Island serial killer. It's such a spotlight on it. Has it tarnished the area? I mean, it's your fuller home. Would they ever be able to come out from underneath the white of these.

It hasn't tarnished the area, but it's definitely shone a light on the area's shortcomings, some of the systemic failures that have been occurring since the nineteen hundred's and earlier. There are a lot of marginalized people, a lot of oppressed people, a lot of attitudes about sex workers, people addicted to drugs. I think it's really brought an understanding to the people who have been in power and what

Thanks to Alexis for assisting us to tell this story. True Crime Conversations is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced by me Jemma Bath and Tali Blackman, with audio design by Scott Stronik. I'll be back next week with another true crime conversation.