Advertise on podcast: Long Island Serial Killer | The Trial Of Rex Heuermann

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This episode goes deeper into the detail from the Rex Heuermann case that's generated more questions than almost anything since his guilty plea: the therapist who worked closely with his family, and what she was reportedly hiding the entire time.  Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty to eight murders and is now serving three life sentences plus a hundred years at Clinton Correctional. But according to reporting, the therapist involved with his family wasn't licensed, appeared on a Peacock special discussing details tied to her clients, and reportedly guided his wife toward living in the remodeled bedroom connected to the murders. Tony Brueski and the Hidden Killers team walk through how something like this slips through, who was actually responsible for catching it, and whether it gives Heuermann's legal team any real grounds for appeal. According to the attorneys the show consulted, it does not.  The episode also revisits the parts of this case that remain unresolved. One victim is still known only as Jane Doe. Families in the courtroom have said they believe there are more victims Heuermann hasn't been charged with, and he's reportedly agreed to sit down with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, though the team is skeptical he'll give up everything he knows without using it as leverage first.  There's also a longer look at how Heuermann evaded detection for decades while working as an architect and living just miles from where he left his victims, and what that says about how long it can take to catch someone who understands exactly how to avoid attention.  For everyone following this case from the beginning, this episode covers the full picture: what's confirmed, what's still being investigated, and what may never be fully resolved.  Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/  Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1  Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/  Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/  Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod  X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod  This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.  Hashtags  #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeach #HeuermannCase #TrueCrimePodcast #LongIsland #SerialKiller #FBI #Ethics #HiddenKillers #ColdCase

Amber Costello was twenty-seven, from North Carolina, battling addiction, and living with roommates in West Babylon. Friends described her as generous and funny. Her sister said publicly she forgives Rex Heuermann — and that Amber would have too. And without her case, Heuermann might still be walking free. This look back puts Amber first — her life before the case file — and then traces how the evidence surrounding her disappearance became the key that unlocked the entire Gilgo Beach investigation. The night before Amber vanished, Heuermann was scammed at her address — her roommate ran a hustle, and he left empty-handed. Then came a text from his burner phone. Then he came back. Amber walked out to meet him. Her roommate Dave Schaller saw the truck — a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche. That description and that text sat in a file for over a decade until the 2022 task force ran them through registration databases and Heuermann's name surfaced. Surveillance followed. Then the pizza-crust DNA. Then the warrants, the house searches, the planning document, the arrest, and ultimately a guilty plea to eight murders. The segment also turns the lens inward through psychotherapist Shavaun Scott's examination of the erosion-of-agency pattern — connecting the Heuermann and Richins cases through the same thread: how control doesn't begin with a crisis but with compromises so incremental you don't see the cage being built until you're inside it. Asa Ellerup lived inside that cage for twenty-seven years. Eric Richins saw it clearly and still couldn't leave. Scott turns the conversation toward anyone who recognizes those small concessions in their own life. Heuermann is expected to be sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus an additional hundred years. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #AmberCostello #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #LISK #GilgoFour #ShavaunScott #ErosionOfAgency #TrueCrime #GilgoBeach #TheGilgoBeachCase

She asked the question no daughter should ever have to ask: did you ever think about me when you were doing this? Rex Heuermann said no. The two worlds never crossed. Victoria Heuermann heard that answer sitting across from her father in a jailhouse room — after he'd just admitted to killing eight women in the house where she grew up — and she forgave him on the spot. This look back sits with both halves of that exchange and everything they reveal. Nobody thinks about the daughter of the serial killer. Victoria said that herself. And the documentary showed what living inside that identity looks like — a young woman cycling between depression and anger, whose sense of self has been shattered, who has questioned whether she should even be here. She said her father was a loving dad and a serial killer. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines whether those two things can coexist as truth, or whether that framework is itself a form of the compartmentalization that allowed Rex to do what he did. Then the documentary went deeper into Rex's own mind. Sessions where he described a four-day cycle refined over years. Disposals timed with a stopwatch. Crime scene photos he reviews in his cell while claiming he can't connect himself to the person who created them. He asked the therapist if she'd ever sat with a serial killer before — not with vulnerability, but with performance. FBI profiler John Douglas compared him to BTK. Scott examines whether Rex is still controlling the narrative even in confession — and whether Victoria's forgiveness is something she arrived at freely, or something he's still shaping from behind bars. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #VictoriaHeuermann #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #LISK #ShavaunScott #JohnDouglas #SerialKillerDaughter #Forgiveness #TrueCrime #TheGilgoBeachCase

Rex Heuermann confessed to eight murders in front of his ex-wife and daughter, in sessions run by a counselor who had no legal right to be there. Legal analyst Eric Faddis returns to dig deeper into what that could mean for Heuermann's case going forward, starting with the theory that could actually carry weight on appeal: did he plead guilty specifically to keep his family off the witness stand, and if the confession that drove that decision came from a deceptive setup, does the entire foundation of the plea come into question. Faddis is upfront that this wouldn't be a straightforward path to overturning anything, but calls it a genuinely creative legal theory worth tracking. We also dig into the privilege fight directly, whether confidentiality still applies to sessions with someone who wasn't actually a licensed therapist, and how a court might weigh the patient's expectation of privacy against the fact that the person on the other side of the room had no real credentials. From there, Faddis addresses the HIPAA question and whether any of Heuermann's statements to Winter could now become fair game for further investigation. We also walk through why the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine likely doesn't apply here, since Winter was acting as a private individual, not a government agent. This continues to be one of the strangest threads in the entire case, and it isn't finished unraveling. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #RexHeuermann #AllisonWinter #HeuermannCase #TrueCrime #GilgoBeach #SuffolkCounty #GuiltyPleaChallenge #TrueCrimePodcast #LegalTheory #CriminalJustice

For nearly three years, Allison Winter sat across from Rex Heuermann inside the Suffolk County Jail, week after week, counseling him and his family through some of the most consequential moments of his case. She was there around the time he privately confessed to his son and wife. What she wasn't, according to prosecutors, was a licensed clinical social worker. Winter now faces eighteen felony charges, including grand larceny, scheme to defraud, and unauthorized practice of a profession, for allegedly billing Cigna, UnitedHealthcare, and Medicare for more than sixty thousand dollars while treating Heuermann without the credentials New York requires. She appeared prominently in the Peacock documentary covering the case, present for some of the family's rawest moments on camera. We focus specifically on what this means for Heuermann himself. Legal analyst Eric Faddis explains whether an unlicensed therapist sitting in on private sessions could give Heuermann's defense any traction, and why his guilty plea makes that path far harder than if the case had gone to trial. We also examine whether therapist-patient privilege still applies when the "therapist" wasn't legitimately licensed in the first place, and what that could mean for anything said in those sessions. This is a deep look at the access Winter had, the money she allegedly took, and the question that hangs over the entire arrangement: how did someone without proper credentials get that close, for that long, to one of the most closely watched inmates in the country. We break down the charges and what comes next. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #RexHeuermann #AllisonWinter #HeuermannCase #TrueCrime #GilgoBeach #SuffolkCounty #JailhouseAccess #TrueCrimePodcast #CriminalJustice #InsuranceFraud

A man who spent decades organizing murder into checklists and phases may have organized his exit from the justice system the same way. This look back sits with the uncomfortable possibility at the center of Rex Heuermann's guilty plea: that it wasn't a confession — it was one last piece of planning. One thousand days of maintaining his innocence. Every motion denied. Every legal door closed. And then a calculated pivot — his attorney's own words. During a confidential session, Heuermann brought up Karen Vergata, a woman he was never charged with killing. Her case was folded into the deal. No separate prosecution. No public accounting of the evidence against him in her death. The agreement reportedly bars further charges related to all eight named victims. The FBI cooperation requirement reportedly carries no enforceable consequences. The DA is reviewing hundreds of cold cases. Heuermann's attorney says there are no more victims. Then there's Asa. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines the woman who heard her ex-husband admit to eight murders — and, according to a documentary, moved back into the basement where it happened. Scott doesn't condemn. She traces Asa's documented history of trauma and explains why, for a woman whose entire sense of safety was built around one person, the decisions that look incomprehensible to the outside world make a devastating kind of psychological sense. Heuermann is expected to be sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus an additional hundred years. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. The families packed the courtroom. Some wept. The question that won't leave is whether the man at the front of the room was still in control. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #AsaEllerup #LISK #KarenVergata #ShavaunScott #CalculatedPivot #GuiltyPlea #TrueCrime #TheGilgoBeachCase

She sat in the last row. Her ex-husband stood at the front of a packed courtroom and admitted to killing eight women over seventeen years — while she shared a bed with him, raised their daughter with him, built what she thought was a life. Rex Heuermann's guilty plea is now the legal record. And Asa Ellerup, the woman who once called him her hero, walked out of that courtroom into a wrongful death lawsuit naming her and their daughter as defendants. This look back sits with the aftermath. The lawsuit, filed by the son of victim Valerie Mack, alleges the family profited from a documentary and showed disregard for the victims. Asa's attorney has called the claims reckless. Victoria Heuermann has publicly stated she believes her father most likely committed the killings — a conclusion she reached before the plea. Two people who shared a roof with this man, processing the same nightmare in opposite directions. Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis breaks down the legal exposure — what the wrongful death theory requires, how a guilty plea changes the civil landscape, and what the family realistically faces. Retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke examines the behavioral dimension: how the people closest to a convicted serial offender rebuild after a courtroom confession, what compartmentalization looks like at this scale, and what Heuermann's attorney meant when he called the plea a "sense of relief." After the plea, Asa told reporters her thoughts were with the victims' families. Heuermann is expected to be sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus an additional hundred years. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #AsaEllerup #VictoriaHeuermann #WrongfulDeath #EricFaddis #RobinDreeke #LISK #TrueCrime #TheGilgoBeachCase

Maureen Brainard-Barnes was a songwriter. Her sister said she never got to show the world how talented she was. She was twenty-five, a mother of two, facing eviction and fighting for custody when she rode the train from Connecticut to Manhattan in July 2007 because she had run out of options. Her daughter Nicolette was seven. Nicolette would later stand at the indictment hearing and speak publicly about growing up without her mother. Three years after Maureen disappeared, her remains were found in burlap along Ocean Parkway. Melissa Barthelemy graduated from cosmetology school in Buffalo and moved to New York to do hair. She dreamed of owning her own salon. The city was expensive. The salon work was slow. She ended up in a basement apartment in the Bronx, working escort ads that were supposed to be temporary. On July 12, 2009, she told a friend she was going to meet a man. Five weeks of calls followed — from someone using Melissa's phone to terrorize her fifteen-year-old sister Amanda with details no child should ever have to hear. Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty to both murders. He confirmed strangulation in each case. The evidence — burner phones tracing his commute, DNA on bindings, five weeks of targeted calls to a teenager — is now part of the record. But this look back starts with the women. Who they were. What they wanted. What the world lost when they disappeared. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. Maureen wanted to write songs. Melissa wanted to cut hair. They deserved to be remembered for that. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #MaureenBrainardBarnes #MelissaBarthelemy #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #LISK #GilgoFour #ColdCase #TrueCrime #GilgoBeach #TheGilgoBeachCase

Asa Ellerup called Rex Heuermann her savior. Their daughter Victoria publicly said she believes he most likely committed the killings. And on April 8, 2026, he stood in a courtroom and confirmed it — pleading guilty to seven murders and admitting to an eighth while his ex-wife and daughter sat in the gallery. This look back sits with what that moment did to a family already fractured by opposite conclusions. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines the psychology behind nearly three decades of "not knowing." Prosecutors alleged Heuermann engineered his crimes around his family's schedule. His wife's own hair was reportedly found on victims. Investigators recovered violent content and detailed checklists from his devices. And yet Asa maintained she had no idea. Scott breaks down how denial functions at that scale — how the mind builds walls around information that would destroy the identity you've constructed, and what happens when a guilty plea in open court removes every remaining piece of that structure. Victoria reached a different conclusion before the plea. Scott examines what allowed the daughter to see what the wife couldn't — and what it costs both of them to carry those positions now that there's no ambiguity left. Criminal defense attorney Bob Motta adds the legal layer: what the plea means for the family practically, what the FBI cooperation requirement could produce, and whether the victims' families will ever get the full accounting a trial would have provided. Heuermann is expected to be sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus an additional hundred years. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #AsaEllerup #VictoriaHeuermann #ShavaunScott #BobMotta #LISK #TrueCrime #GilgoBeach #TheGilgoBeachCase

Valerie Mack was born into loss. Placed in foster care as a child, adopted by the Mack family, estranged from her own son by her early twenties. She was working in Philadelphia when she vanished — and after she was found, it took twenty years for anyone to learn her name. Jessica Taylor was twenty years old, working near Port Authority in the same Midtown neighborhood where Rex Heuermann ran his architecture practice. She was the youngest of the women he was charged with killing. This look back puts them first — their lives before the case files, before the evidence, before the headlines. The forensic connections between them are devastating in their precision. Valerie's remains were found in two locations between 2000 and 2011. Jessica's were found in the same dual-location pattern — Manorville and Ocean Parkway — with years between discoveries. Tool marks on their bones matched: the same type of instrument, the same characteristics. A hair on Valerie's remains matched the DNA of Heuermann's family members. A hair beneath Jessica's remains matched his own. And the planning document recovered from his computer included preparation notes that prosecutors say corresponded to the condition of both women's remains. Heuermann pleaded guilty to both murders as part of the agreement covering seven victims, and admitted to an eighth. He is expected to be sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus an additional hundred years. Valerie waited twenty years for a name. Jessica was found twice. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. This segment says their names first, and the evidence second. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #ValerieMack #JessicaTaylor #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #LISK #ColdCase #GeneticGenealogy #TrueCrime #GilgoBeach #TheGilgoBeachCase

Sandra Costilla was twenty-eight years old when her remains were found in the woods of Southampton, Long Island, in 1993. For thirty years, her case sat cold. Investigators pursued the wrong suspect. Nobody connected her death to the Gilgo Beach killings. And then DNA technology that didn't exist during her lifetime linked her to Rex Heuermann — and pushed the entire timeline of his alleged crimes back by fourteen years. This look back puts Sandra first — her life before the case file, the decades her family spent without answers, and the forensic breakthrough that finally brought her name back into the investigation. Before Sandra's connection was established, the Gilgo Beach killings were understood to have begun around 2007. Her case changed the scope of everything investigators believed about how long Heuermann had been operating. Heuermann eventually pleaded guilty to Sandra's murder along with six others, and admitted to an eighth killing as part of the agreement. He confirmed strangulation as the cause of death for each victim. The defense had tried to exclude the DNA evidence that connected him to Sandra — matched through advanced whole genome sequencing — and the judge ruled it admissible. He is expected to be sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus an additional hundred years. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. Sandra waited thirty years for someone to say her name in a courtroom connected to the person who took her life. This segment says it first. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SandraCostilla #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #LISK #ColdCase #DNAEvidence #LongIslandSerialKiller #TrueCrime #GilgoBeach #TheGilgoBeachCase

One word. When prosecutors asked Rex Heuermann in a Riverhead courtroom how he killed eight women over seventeen years, he answered with a single word: strangulation. No emotion. No elaboration. Victims' families packed the gallery, weeping, while the man who had maintained his innocence for nearly three years matter-of-factly confirmed what investigators had spent decades trying to prove. This look back sits with that moment and everything that led to it. Heuermann pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder — three first-degree, four second-degree — and admitted to killing an eighth woman as part of the plea agreement. He said he used burner phones to lure each woman with the promise of money, strangled them in his Massapequa home, and left their remains along Ocean Parkway. His defense attorney told reporters the plea was driven by two pre-trial rulings: the admission of DNA evidence matched through whole genome sequencing — a first for a New York courtroom — and the denial of separate trials. Once both motions failed, the math changed. Defense attorney and former felony prosecutor Eric Faddis breaks down what drove the plea, what the evidence looked like from both sides, and the question families are still carrying: a plea gives certainty, but does it give closure? Some waited decades for a trial that will now never come. The agreement requires Heuermann to cooperate with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit — which may eventually produce answers the courtroom didn't. He's expected to be sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus an additional hundred years. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #LISK #GuiltyPlea #EricFaddis #Strangulation #LongIslandSerialKiller #TrueCrime #GilgoBeach #TheGilgoBeachCase

Melissa Barthelemy’s sister answered a phone call from the man who had just killed Melissa. He described what he did. That detail emerged during the sentencing of Rex Heuermann — three consecutive life terms, a hundred years, families chanting ogre as officers removed him from the courtroom. The sentence is supposed to be the end. But inside the plea deal is a question the families can’t let go of. Heuermann confessed to killing Karen Vergata during a proffer session — a woman he was never charged with. He brought her up himself. He volunteered it for credit. The judge said “eight that we know of.” The plea covers New York. Heuermann owned property in South Carolina and Nevada. Both are death penalty states. Women disappeared near those properties. If Heuermann’s cooperation was designed to close the case in the one state that can’t execute him while keeping the other jurisdictions quiet, the families who chanted ogre in that courtroom may not have gotten the full accounting they deserve. A look back at the most compelling stories of the week. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeach #GilgoBeachKiller #LISK #Heuermann #MelissaBarthelemy #KarenVergata #SuffolkCounty #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers

Rex Heuermann is sentenced. Life without parole. Eight murders. It’s over. So why would he agree to sit in a room with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and walk them through what he did? Former FBI behavioral analyst Robin Dreeke says the answer is simple: information is the only currency Heuermann has left. He’ll use it to stay relevant, to feel important, to maintain some sense of control from inside a cell. He’ll dribble out details and try to manage the flow. The FBI has known this dynamic since Edmund Kemper told Robert Ressler in a California prison that he could rip his head off before the guards arrived. They’ve been navigating killer ego for fifty years. The program started in the 1970s when Ressler and John Douglas interviewed thirty-six convicted killers to build the science of criminal profiling. It produced ViCAP, the national violent crime database. It produced the interview techniques that got Samuel Little to confess to ninety-three murders. It produced the six-month cooperation that led Gary Ridgway to the remains of four women nobody had been able to find. Now the FBI wants Heuermann. Not for the eight he admitted to — that’s settled. They want to know if there are more. They want to study the first digital-era serial killer who used burner phones, fifty-eight hard drives, and a written planning document to operate for nearly two decades. And they want to check what he says against the document he thought he’d deleted. Heuermann thinks the interview is his stage. The FBI has a different use for it. LinksJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod DisclaimerThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. Hashtags#GilgoBeach #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachKiller #FBI #BehavioralAnalysis #LISK #SamuelLittle #GaryRidgway #ColdCase #TrueCrime