The After Show: New Updates on the Gilgo Beach Murders

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Suddenly, I feel like I'm so excited. Hold your money, Ty from a Span, with like "Stoyer". Hi, everybody. Welcome to 2020, The After Show. So happy you're with us today.

I'm Deborah Roberts, and you were joining us for a pretty special story, because we're going to take a deep look, a special look at a major case. So many people have been talking about around the country.

“It's one of the most shocking crime stories I think that we've ever covered here on 2020.”

And many of you have heard of it. It's called The Gilgo Beach murders. Well, this was a series of killings of young women whose remains were discovered along Ocean Parkway on Long Island, New York.

And at the center of those killings was, someone that people just never would have imagined

a 59-year-old architect by the name of Rex Heurman. Well, I remember this case so well, because I was assigned to it when he was arrested in New York City in July of 2023 for the murders of three women before he was later charged with the deaths of four other women. This past April, Heurman shocked everybody.

He had steadfastly maintained his innocence and then he showed up in a court room in Suffolk County and changed his plea and people are still talking about that and the reverberations and what that's going to mean, possibly for law enforcement down the line. We're going to get into the details of what happened in that court room and also how police might be now working a little bit with Heurman to try to solve other crimes.

“Yep, you heard that right, they will be putting their heads together with him to try”

to see if they can solve other murders. Here to help us uncover all of these details and to talk about it all is ABC News Chief Investigative Report of Josh Margolan and 2020 producer Christina Corbin. Hey, guys, you both have been on the story for a very long time. I had heard about it over the years and as I said, I jumped into it reporting just a few

years ago when we heard about Heurman, but Josh, this goes back decades and New Yorkers definitely have been talking about the story of these missing women when you worked for a newspaper the post you worked on this story.

My first front page story at the New York Post was the day that they found the first

bodies at Gilgile Beach in 2010. That was your first story. That was my first front page story the post I had just started the week before and so I have stayed with the Gilgile Beach story all these years through the investigation through the years when we in the media thought that it had gone cold and nobody was looking

at it and it was. Yeah, it was started with the radar and also too there wasn't this real connection for a very long time. Right. So what what the story revealed in those earliest months and then years was that Suffolk County

and the highways that that traverse Long Island and then go all the way out to Suffolk which is the the bigger of the too Long Island counties, but it's also farther away is that you'd have these isolated areas along the highways very, very dark. These are our population centers right around the highways and that it had you know become a dumping ground for victims of crimes.

“Now we originally thought that the victims would largely be like you know mob victims, right?”

But then we ended it you know we have these these women who turns out that they were sex workers so the belief was mostly not all that mostly at Gilgile Beach and the thought was that these were women who were victims of the Johns. I walked along that highway when I went out to cover the story and I remember just being so struck by how desolate it was as you said and at night nobody's out there nobody

can see anything and the brush and how dense it was Christina you don't go back quite

as far with these cases but what 2010 you got involved in in these cases and as you always

do because you bring such a personal touch to everything you do with us when you're when you're booking stories and meeting families and you got a chance to talk to the families of these victims because many people saw them as these sort of faceless women who really in a way as of course as it sounds who almost don't matter and you really helped to bring to life who these women were and the fact that they did have family members who cared

and who worried about what had happened. Yeah I think there was a largely this perception that somehow their profession sealed their fate and they were different from the rest of the population so we should not be afraid that there's a Jack the Ripper on the loose out on Long Island but spending any time with their family I mean they were sisters they were daughters some of them were mothers and I did form

a pretty close bond with several of the family members over the years. Shannon Gilbert was one of the names that surfaced early on.

She disappeared from Oak Beach May 1st 2010 and it was actually the search for Shannon some six

months later that led to this mask-wave site of women at Gilgo Beach. Gilgo Beach is about three miles from Oak Beach give our take so it was actually Shannon's disappearance that led to the discovery of the Gilgo for was a Barthlamay Marine Breater Barnes, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn. You know the names also well.

“And while Shannon's disappearance led to this discovery it's important to note that”

Rex Euroman has not been linked to her death nor has he been charged in Shannon's death. Yeah well with the theories Christina early on because police didn't know really what they were dealing with and as I said in the beginning they didn't even know that they were all connected

what kind of led to the complications of the investigation because it took multiple investigators

some who had left the you know police forces new folks came in and to had fresh eyes to look at it what complicated it's so. So there was a lot of disagreement among law enforcement over who we were looking for. I remember a very well respected very intelligent detective with Suffolk County saying to me that the suspect is a crude street urchin. That is the description that you gave and then I remember an FBI source saying actually we believe this is somebody who's

a white middle-aged man has a good job drives a nice car and probably blends in very well with the rest of the population. So those were two very different profiles and then there was disagreement over whether we were dealing with one killer or two killers because the earlier victims were found dismembered the later victims the guilty before were not dismembered so was were do we have two

“killers or was this one killer who had evolved over time and I think most in law enforcement”

believed that his early victims he went to great lengths to dispose of them and dismember them and then when they were not found he realized well I don't have to do that with the later victims. So it was it was a debate among law enforcement whether we had two or whether we had one. Yeah and somebody who had an ego about it too because they thought they could get away with it. Josh as you said this case of people thought just was just going to linger and just be

cold forever and then in 2022 because I remember talking to some of the investigators and they said

you know they never really gave up on this they just never really got anywhere then a new task force

comes on board and 2022 they start re-examining evidence some old evidence that changed everything but all of this had been happening for months to years and then they all decide you know what let's all go in let's open those files it's actually in some jurisdictions they call it a cold case review and what they do is they say let's put a task force together everybody's going to cooperate and so what ends up happening is you have this new team that's there they bring in the FBI

they bring in the New York State police they bring in the New York State DNA analysis capabilities and they start looking at it they take a number of steps and they wind up backing into the reality the Christina said which is that this is a professional person who has some money who has access to professional spaces who can move around freely in the community a street urchin on the island is not going to be able to move around like that yeah I thought that was

so fascinating that they had a profile Christina and then at a certain point there's that car there was a car that was that they they identified that they thought was a little bit unique and putting that together with this professional person and it eventually leads them to Rex Heurman and and people were just like stunned this is a guy who was was was an upstanding architect he has up he was a family man he was married he had children and a police

were even stunned when they when they recognized that this was the probably the guy they were looking at right that's right and Rex Heurman lived in a home in Massapiqua Long Island Massapiqua was long a focus here because some of the victims phones pinged from a tower in Massapiqua Long Island but it was a real shock to people that actually were dealing with a married father of two an architect with an office in Midtown Manhattan it was a real shock yeah that's the profile

“of the person in the end they arrested Heurman in July of 2023 and I remember all of New York”

was was a buzz about this well I want to talk more about that because that was so fascinating but when Heurman was arrested he absolutely maintained his innocence and then recently he changed his plea when we come back we're going to get into some of the details that happened at the courtroom and you're going to hear some exclusive details on how the victim's family's feel about this latest development in the story so don't go anywhere

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the NBA fight to continue ABC and ESPN app welcome back to 2020 the after show I'm sitting here talking with ABC news chief investigative reporter Josh Margolan and 2020 producer Christina Corbin about the latest in the Gilgob Beach murder case the latest head spinning turn that happened we were talking about Rex Huerman the architect the family man who was arrested who had maintained his innocence everybody was really

waiting to hear the details I mean police head revealed a little bit that this was a guy who unbeknownst to his wife and family would turn to sex workers at night when his wife was out of town

this was a guy who clearly had some kind of emotive they felt to get rid of these women and

and maybe just on a very dark side had committed these crimes but we wanted to know the details about what had happened and then all of a sudden we hear that Rex Huerman is going to turn up in court and he's going to change his plea just how shocked were you we were very surprised so we we started hearing over the last few weeks that this was something that was circulating around but it was a surprise to us because by all accounts he seemed like he was going to fight

this tooth and now they had made every motion under the sun they were trying to keep every piece of evidence out now importantly Rex's defense team lost every move at the judge ruled against them at every turn every piece of evidence that had been developed by police in the DA's office was going to be entered into trial but they saw the handwriting on the wall and obviously but we we couldn't even calculate why they would plead out because if they're going to wind up going

to prison for for a bunch of murders why not all the guys so it was very surprising to us and I don't know that we even know to this to this day exactly what the behind the scenes rationale was well he he pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and even admitted to killing an eighth victim who we had not really talked a lot about Karen Vragata did that surprise you Kristina

“it didn't surprise me because he was a suspect in her death but I think you know his defense”

was trying to get the DNA evidence kicked out and that failed and I think the walls were closing in on Rex's human and you can't really argue with DNA because her that was found and some

of the remains was ultimately linked to him and so that just there was just no way getting around

that there was so much evidence and to Josh's point yeah we really don't know exactly why he decided in the end to plead guilty some people have speculated that he wanted to spare his family his wife or ex-wife rather and his children from hearing all of the gruesome details about what he did to these women the torture the strangulation and everything does that make sense to you that maybe he would want to do that yeah possibly I mean possibly

because we hadn't heard from them and and how they would how they felt about all of that but his ex-wife and his daughter were in the courtroom but Josh he actually waved his right to any appeals of his conviction and we cover so many stories where we keep doing updates about appeals that are being filed but he waved his right to to appeals and then admitted to a murder that you know he hadn't even been charged with how do you think that deal came about

well a lot we don't know exactly what happened in the room I have to say that but we do know that when somebody is going to agree to plead guilty a lot of times the prosecutors will insist

“if you are going to do that we'll go along with it but you must do ex so the final victim here”

the Karen forgot a victim they knew that they could not prosecute that case because they didn't have enough evidence they suspected Rex as as Christina said and so they wanted Rex to admit to it so that way they could actually be able to go back to the family and to the public to say that's a solved case so we do have have a lot of instances like that also notably in this case different

in and the prosecutors made a point of explaining the crimes in a way that in some jurisdictions

“they don't and that sometimes winds up being controversial in this case there is no doubt there's”

no doubt about how the investigation went there's no doubt about what was going to happen at trial there's no doubt about what Rex did he admitted to all of it that was really something else what was that like in the courtroom well the courtroom was hushed when Rex came in and there's there's a tall imposing very imposing he's imposing in a room full of people right so you're talking about a pack courtroom also the way the suffocating courthouse lays out you actually have the

holding cell behind that closed door that everyone sees on TV you have the holding cell right near that room so he's a big guy and he shackled and so the chains clank and so you have the courtroom is hushed family is there full of media global attention and you hear him before you see him so you have this big six foot four imposing figure shackled walking through this blind hallway so he is preceded by the sounds of his own chains coming at them very he's kind of haunting

what was his demeanor like you know the the paper is focused on it they they said he was almost smurking mm mm and now it's also easy to take a snapshot of somebody in a weird facial expression at a moment and you say it's a smirk but it's just somebody's facial expression changing he was calm he was he was not particularly remorseful he was not particularly emotional but I think it's important in those moments for us to know what we know covering crime the way that we do

we're talking about somebody who doesn't think like the rest of them clearly I like the way

you always try to find that middle road you never really want to go completely judgmental

“Josh and that's why you you're so good at what you do his wife Asa and his daughter Victoria”

or in the courtroom what do we know about the two of them and how they might be dealing with all of this because you and I made efforts we've been trying to talk to them for the very long longest time what do we know about them and what impact this has had either of you I know they're very private people and I know they ask for space following this announcement and said they would rather the focus beyond the families yeah we we know very little

Rex had something of a man cave that police now believe was his kill space in the basement of the home he kept guns he kept weapons but law enforcement very early on wanted the public to understand that officially law enforcement does not believe that they had any awareness of his crimes certainly they don't believe there was any involvement they have been exonerated to the extent that they might have needed or wanted to be exonerated that the crimes

are believed to have been committed when the family was out of town certainly not in the home

“that's what we know you know we've done too many stories where there were people who had”

double lives and folks it really didn't know in their lives what was happening but enough about his family Christina what about the victims families because this was going to be a moment for them to be able to know more to go to court and to hear what happened is as awful as it might be and now suddenly you know a stop in everything how are they dealing at least the few that you've had a chance to speak with how are they dealing with this plea arrangement

I've been in touch with several of them in the reactions very but for the most part I would say they feel like a huge burden has been lifted that they don't have to go through a trial and hear all of the graphic details of course it is bitter sweet because even though there's you know

I never like to use the word closure and I know victims families yeah that word be sure there

yeah that there is no such thing as closure to them but at least he has confessed and at least they are spared the trial and you know I know at many points over the years there were always these questions of will this ever be solved and maybe the killer's actually dead or maybe this is some drifterhood come through to Long Island and he's long gone so they they know who did they have a face on they have a face evil but but it is it is bitter sweet at the same time

understandably well his sentencing is going to come this summer and he's facing obviously life in prison without the possibility for roles it's never times over yeah I was going to say multiple life sentences now the words he's never getting out of prison right I mean that's is that what you're expecting is probably yeah it would be a shock on top of shocks to to see him ever walk out of prison yeah well I want to talk to you guys more about what happens from here because as we

said he might actually here men might be working with police now to help them out cooperating with the FBI when we come back we're going to talk more about that and what we've learned about

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reported Josh Margoellon and 2020 producer Christina Corbin list about this idea the humor

and now has agreed to work with the FBI behavioral analysis unit to help them solve other

crimes Josh you made it very clear it's not a cozy arrangement that they're working together but he's agreed to cooperate absolutely and in fact I mean look we've seen silence the lambs we've seen with the show mine by both of those and mine that was with Jonathan graph it's you know the FBI has really been in the van guard of trying to understand crime the nature of crime the nature of criminals and the crime that has really baffled the experts for all of these

years have been these serial killers people who live among us who travel among us but have this terrible dark side and and they they just kill and the killing is is the end in and of itself

and so it was really remarkable when we heard that the the Gilgo plea deal had this component where

your men was agreeing that he would cooperate with the experts at the FBI as they try to do what they did in mind hunters or in silence the lambs go in and question him to understand the nature of the criminal mind what made him tick what what activated his brain to want to kill people in the way that he did it and then to to plot it out and then to stop yeah as Christina said we saw the evolution of his killing techniques in the earliest days it's believed of the crimes he

committed then we see a period of years where there may have been no crimes committed so what motivated

“him to stop what motivated him to start well i remember talking about that early on with some of the”

detectives which they may learn more about when they talk to him Christina what do we know about the focus of those interviews and what they might be able to listen yeah i would say the FBI's behavioral analysis unit studies the psychological finger prints at a crime scene and from that they like to develop a profile of who they're looking at their age their their profession and they study things like you know their their MO the psychology behind it and so they would

like to work with rex your men to sort of get inside the mind of a serial killer what motivates them i would say with these killings they were actually getting closer and closer as time went on we had one from 1993 1996 and two in the early 2000s then 2007 nine and two in 2010 that were just like three months apart yeah that would have been uh megan waterman and amberland custello

“June 2010 and September 2010 so they were actually becoming closer and closer so i think that you know”

to Josh's point uh the FBI really wants to get into the mind of someone who who could do this and in rex his case i mean he's women where they were tortured they were killed they were disposed of like trash and then he actually taunt it yes the victims families by using the cell phones belonging to the victims and calling family and leaving these weird creepy messages yes well he would call Melissa berthalamys sister and upstate New York and he taunted her and he actually did it

from some of the busiest cell towers in the world like time square and pen station he kept the call short under two minutes very clever and and and and at the time i remember there being speculation that perhaps we were dealing with someone in law enforcement or someone who was knowledgeable of law enforcement tactics and so i mean that that was truly sadistic to be calling the families and then also describing in great detail what he did to him what he did to most of the earth yeah and

and you're so right so clever about trying to you know make sure they he can make sure that nobody could track him Josh when you think about it and Christina alluded to this you know hiding in plain sight the idea that um rex hereman was and that's something that we have heard a lot from law enforcement about these serial killers sometimes they are right there in plain sight any other

interesting is over the years the experts have found that a lot of their original beliefs

“of how serial killers operate are not true that the studying of serial killers has revealed a lot”

to law enforcement you know the old days we had this caricature of the serial killer like the Ted Cruz or in an alley or in a in a big old car yeah traveling along the interstate somewhere

in the south or in the west without a lot of people around going after only hitchhikers or

people without without connections we didn't picture them as a middle class personal living

“out loud being on youtube doing videos about how he how he works with New York City government”

to cut through red tape so that's really the the FBI behavioral analysis folks they have really worked to make sure that they can learn why the stereotypes were wrong to help solve other cases there are a lot of coal cases in this country we look at them all the time yeah yeah so a lot of their assumptions might absolutely be developed because of what they learned so more to come probably in the Rex human story that's for sure well you too thanks so much for coming by

as always great talking with you and so great to have you with us too thank you for joining us today

“and remember you can watch our latest 2020 episodes on Friday nights on ABC and you can stream”

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