Pod Insights True Crime Conversations UPDATE: The Long Island Serial Killer Finally Learns His Fate About this episode Rex Heuermann, known as the Long Island Serial Killer in the Gilgo Beach murders, has now been sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to the deaths of eight women.
Host of the Unraveled podcast, Alexis Linkletter, was in court for Heuermann's plea hearing and gives us an update on what the courtroom felt like, how Heuermann reacted to his sentence and where this story goes next.
Listen to Unraveled here https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/unraveled/id1543476170.
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CREDITS
Guest: Alexis Linkletter
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0533976/Host: Gemma Bath https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmabath/?originalSubdomain=au
Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahli-blackman-205a891b7/?originalSubdomain=au
Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy
Video Editor: Julian Rosario
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Hi there, I'm Gemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations. Just a few weeks ago, an American serial killer was sentenced to life without parole. It brought to an end a case that spans decades. A case we covered in detail on this podcast in 2024, when there were only charges involved. To recap, in 2011, a total of 11 human remains were found on or around Gilgo Beach on Long Island, New York. In 2023 and 2024, one man was charged with murdering seven of them. His name is Rex Heuermann, and he was a local architect who hid in plain sight for years
0:42 Speaker 00 before his eventual arrest in July 2023. He'd been using up to 100 burner phones to lure women, mainly sex workers, before torturing them, killing them and burying them. Some were dismembered. The women were aged between 20 and 34, and they were killed between 1993 and 2010. Their names were Sandra Costilla, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Bartholomew, Megan Wooderman and Amber Costello. We now know of an eighth victim, Karen Vigada, killed in 1996, who Hewerman admitted to murdering earlier this year.
1:26 Speaker 00 To understand more about the evidence police found that led them to Hewerman, how they caught him, and more about the victims, I suggest dipping back into our original episode. It's linked in our show notes. But in the meantime, we asked our original guest, Alexis Linkletter, who has a podcast called Unraveled, Unpacking This Case in Detail, to come back on our show and fill us in on the latest from court. Here she is. Alexis, last time we spoke, it was October 2024. At that point, Rex Heuermann had been charged with six murders. And then, a few months after our interview, there was a seventh murder charge. Were you expecting that momentum to continue?
2:09 Speaker 00 Because there were 11 bodies found in and around Gilgo Beach.
2:14 Speaker 01 I was expecting that momentum to continue. I had always been of the mind that all of the remains found along Ocean Parkway were connected to Rex Heuermann.
2:25 Speaker 01 But in the months that followed, I discovered that I was wrong about that.
2:30 Speaker 00 Can you tell us a bit about that? Because two of the three remaining murders that we haven't attributed were attributed to someone else.
2:38 Speaker 01 Correct, so there were two victims who had long been unidentified. And they were known as Peaches and Baby Doe. And they were linked genetically. And I believe around, like, the early the early side of like the 2010s. They were able to link them genetically and confirm that they were a mother and daughter. Now, the remains were found really far apart from each other. The mother's torso was found in an area close to New York City, where her appendages were found along Ocean Parkway. And the toddler was found along Ocean Parkway, about 250 feet from the remains belonging to a woman named Valerie Mack, who Rex Heuermann was charged with.
3:24 Speaker 01 Now,
3:27 Speaker 01 a little while after Rex Heuermann was charged with that seven victim, these two victims were identified as Tanya Jackson is the mother, and Tatiana Dykes is the baby. And not long after that, the neighboring county to where the Long Island Serial Killer case basically is unfolding, which is called Suffolk County, the neighboring county in a different jurisdiction charged a different man with the murder of Tanya Jackson, who was known as Peaches. Nobody has been charged for the baby.
4:02 Speaker 01 And presumably, I mean, we think, obviously, they believe if this man killed the mother, they killed the child as well. So it was a big shock to everybody familiar with the case. I don't think anyone was expecting that. I'm still in shock over it because there are so many coincidences tied to where these remains are found. I find it really hard to believe that two different people would have chosen such precise locations for this.
4:28 Speaker 00 And then the the third victim, known as Asian Doe, no one has been charged over that death.
4:35 Speaker 01 No one has been charged with the death of Asian Doe. There is a renewed push, once again, to try to figure out who they are. Although, when I was attending in court, the plea hearing for Rex Heuerman, so when he pled guilty, there was a giant press conference afterwards, and one of my colleagues asked the district attorney whether or not the DA believed that Rex Heuerman could be responsible for the murder of Asian Doe. And the district attorney has sort of like, an interesting personality, but he said this to my colleague, he said, "It doesn't matter what I believe, it matters what I can prove." And it kind
5:16 Speaker 01 of made us feel like they believe he did that, they haven't proven it yet. And especially because in these batches of evidence that the district attorney was sharing with the public along the way, you know, over the three years since he'd been arrested, to go along with all the new indictments, there are many, many Google searches that have been provided to the public that Rex Heuerman made, and a lot of them were about Asian victims. And a lot of them were about Asian trans victims, which many people believe that Asian Doe was living their life as a woman because they were biologically male but found in women's clothing.
5:59 Speaker 00 Originally, Heuerman was going to trial. That was what we've been waiting for. He'd pled not guilty. It was shaping up to be enormous, the sheer scope of, you know, the number of victims, the years he was active, the evidence.
6:15 Speaker 00 Can you kind of help paint that picture? Because at one point, his defense team wanted five different trials. Like, this was gonna be huge.
6:23 Speaker 01 It was going to be huge because with every new arrest, I mean, with every new indictment they made, you know, he was indicted for the murder of a woman named Sandra Costilla. She was murdered in 1993. Prior to that, the earliest victim we all thought that he was responsible for was 1996. So, the timeline of when he was murdering kept broadening. And so did the MO. A lot of these victims were dismembered, some of them were not. With Sandra Costilla, the woman that he was indicted for, the seventh victim, she had sharp force injuries and was left in the woods, not where any of the other victims were found.
7:06 Speaker 01 For a long time, everyone thought a different serial killer was responsible. So for that reason, we're talking so many geographic areas, so many different MOs. And his attorney did attempt to sever the trials into five separate trials. He attempted several times to get evidence thrown out because the evidence against him is vast as well. But there was new DNA technology that was used in a lot of this DNA analysis. So, it was gonna be huge. That's why, I mean, it took three years, all of the pre-trial hearings. It was gonna be a massive trial and it was gonna be complicated, but the evidence against him is overwhelming. So I think he saw the writing on the wall.
7:44 Speaker 00 Did you think Hume was going to change his plea? That that is something that he would do?
7:53 Speaker 01 My instinct was no, but I heard early on from a source that he was considering that because I was of the mind that, well, what does he have to lose? You know, we don't have the death penalty in New York State, so why not? Why not sit there through the attention and the media circus and soak all of that in? I didn't see a downside for him. But the more I've gotten to know sort of his life through interviews with people who knew him, and I've, you know, developed a friendship with Rex Hume's wife's attorney, his name is Bob Macedonia, and I talk to him quite frequently. I realized that-
8:33 Speaker 01 People like Huherman are much more on a spectrum than I believed initially in that he did appear to do this to spare his own family further embarrassment because a lot more evidence was going to be paraded out publicly had he gone to trial. And I think a lot of that was going to make things look way worse. So weirdly, I mean, I didn't think men like him were capable of caring about their families, but it seems to some degree he is, or at least he's capable of making these decisions to control a narrative around him.
9:07 Speaker 00 Because in the last year or so, we have learnt a lot more about Huherman's wife and daughter in particular because they spoke to a documentary, right? What did you learn about them seeing that?
9:19 Speaker 01 Wow. So I was in that documentary and I was fascinated. You know, we have never seen the aftermath of an arrest of a serial killer who was living a double life that up close and personally before. And that deal for them came together so quickly. So we really saw them in shock at first, in total denial. So what I've learned about that family is that his wife had no idea. Their marriage was very traditional as far as like their gender roles. She didn't ask questions. He was the breadwinner. He went to the city. He commuted about an hour and a half each day. He had kind of a separate
10:02 Speaker 01 life in Manhattan. And because he sort of had control of their household and relationships, he would buy her a ticket to go somewhere and say, you're going on this trip, bring the kids. And he was doing these things when she wasn't home. It's hard to believe that someone could hide that much from their spouse and children, but it seems he has. And the timeline fits together where he murdered a woman days before he married her. And he was murdering far along before he married her. So in my opinion, I think he chose her because he knew he could get away with this with the type of personality she had.
10:41 Speaker 00 Well, he certainly has been hiding in plain sight for decades, so that wouldn't be a surprise.
10:46 Speaker 01 No.
10:47 Speaker 00 Can you talk us through how news of this plea deal played out? How close to trial was he? And how did you find out it was happening? You said you had a bit of an inkling.
10:57 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, I knew beforehand. Um, I had heard from a source long before, probably, you know, six months before it actually happened. And I asked, you know, the DA at one of the court appearances about it, you know, during one of the press briefings afterwards. And then people started asking about it, saying, oh, is that really on the table? Is that really going to happen? And then the rumours kept circulating. Um, so I knew. And the trial, I think, was going to take place. I mean, they were talking about 2026, but I mean, it's hard to know. I mean, the judge was getting impatient with all of the pre-trial hearings.
11:41 Speaker 01 But, you know, probably, probably a handful of months out, the trial was set to start.
11:45 Speaker 00 Did we know that he was going to admit to an eighth victim as part of that plea deal?
11:51 Speaker 01 We suspected it.
11:53 Speaker 00 Right.
11:54 Speaker 01 We didn't know for sure until we were there, until it happened. But everyone suspected that he murdered Karen Vergata. That's the woman he admitted to killing and, you know, that was part of the deal. I always believed that he was responsible for her murder. So a lot of us who follow the case suspected that, but we weren't sure till that day.
12:15 Speaker 00 Can you tell us what the actual plea deal that he agreed to was?
12:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, so he admitted to the victims he was charged with killing, seven of them. And then he admitted to Karen Vergata, who he was just accepting responsibility for. And in return, he is receiving three consecutive life sentences. He cannot be prosecuted any further for any of these eight victims. However, he can be prosecuted if any other murder victims are linked to him in the future, like when his DNA is put in CODIS. If there are any other hits, he can be prosecuted for any other, any other crimes, which again, makes me think that the district attorney believes there are more victims. And what's odd and what really ruffled some feathers was that part of this deal was
13:03 Speaker 01 that he is to cooperate with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, which means he's going to be interviewed by the FBI and he, part of the deal is that he's supposed to be completely candid and honest, but a serial killer doesn't care about deals or what their commitments. We can never know whether he'll be telling the truth. And I think that bothered a lot of people too, because he's fascinated by the FBI. They found a copy of Mindhunter in his house, in his planning document. He was taking notes from Mindhunter. And if you're not familiar, Mindhunter was written by a former FBI agent named John Douglas, who basically was a founding member of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit and coined
13:45 Speaker 01 the term serial killer. So, a lot of people think that Rex Heuerman's very excited by this and it's giving him some narcissistic validation.
13:54 Speaker 00 It's hard, because I can see why people would be upset by that, but then on the other side, we do need to learn from people like this, so that we can catch them in the future and stop them in the future.
14:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, there is value in it, I think, especially because serial killers like Rex Heuerman are very rare. There are other kind of serial killers, you know, there used to be more, you know, but because of technology, serial killers operating through digital means, like Rex Heuerman was, bringing women into his house to murder them, I mean, that's not really happening anymore. The most recent serial killer prior to his arrest was, I think, the Golden State Killer, and he stopped murdering in 1986, but then, you know, he murdered 10 people and then it was cold, right, and they didn't know who he was. But for people
14:45 Speaker 01 to be murdering into 2009, 2010, the way he was, it's highly, highly unusual now. So I think, yeah, I think the FBI wants to understand, like, the compulsive nature of his crimes, because he didn't really have the self-preservation and the self-control to stop when he should have.
15:05 Speaker 00 And the fact that he got away with it for that long, given the world we live in and how connected we are and, you know, the internet, it is quite unbelievable, really.
15:15 Speaker 01 It's really disturbing. It's really disturbing. And, you know, because he stopped in 2010, it really would have been impossible. You know, now with the way our phones are, cameras are everywhere tracking, I think he really got lucky in that time period because he was using burner phones and he was using, you know, sock puppet emails, you know, fake email accounts. But that's still now, I feel like if someone was doing that right now, they'd be caught. So it's unusual.
15:44 Speaker 00 Which is good, we should say.
15:45 Speaker 01 Yes.
15:46 Speaker 00 Great.
15:47 Speaker 01 That's very good.
15:49 Speaker 00 Up next, Alexis takes us inside Hulman's plea hearing, describing the atmosphere in the courtroom and what he said during the proceedings.
15:59 Speaker 00 You know the drill. You pick the couch, pay the deposit, then wait 12 weeks praying it matches the living room. Let's skip that. Mamma Mia is giving one lucky subscriber a $5,000 voucher for B2C furniture to spend on pieces that are in stock and ready to ship right now. High-end style, zero weight. To enter, head to mamamia.com.au/subscribe. You'll unlock all our subscriber-only podcasts, articles, and our fitness app, Move. Already subscribed? You're already in the running. Offer ends October 31st. T's and C's apply. You arrived at the court for the plea hearing at 4:45 a.m.
16:40 Speaker 00 To be there while it all unfolded, which means you did get to see everything. What was that experience like? What was that room like when you walked into it?
16:50 Speaker 01 So, for the sentencing or for the plea hearing?
16:53 Speaker 00 Plea hearing.
16:55 Speaker 01 So, the plea hearing, um, it was a really, it was strange. Like, it was more intense than the sentencing. It was a longer day. It was really stressful. And people were there for, I mean, we were there for like, hours and hours and hours.
17:12 Speaker 01 It was, it was intense, you know, it was strange. It's, it was strange that he was admitting it. It's just, it's all just very shocking. I still can't believe that. He did it and they caught him and he admitted it.
17:25 Speaker 00 Did he verbally admit it in that hearing?
17:28 Speaker 01 So, what he did was he provided an allocution. And sometimes allocutions are...
17:35 Speaker 01 The deal that is made is that they are going to go into detail about what they did there on the spot. It's my understanding that prior to his plea, he did what was called a proffer, which you basically admit everything. It can't be used against you in court. It's just for it to strike a plea deal. But in court, he did an allocution with yes or no answers, or one-word answers. So the DA would ask, you know, did you do this? Did you cause the death of Meghan Waterman or Melissa Bartholomew on this date? Yes, he would say. And then they would say, by what means? And he would say strangulation. And they did that eight times in a row.
18:18 Speaker 01 But he wasn't required to go into any further detail. He really just admitted that he did it and said how he did it.
18:26 Speaker 00 And the families were all there to hear that? How did they react?
18:29 Speaker 01 I'm not sure all the families were there. You know, it's very emotional, you know? I, I still, I don't know how the families do it, you know? Sitting close to a man who took the life of your daughter or sister, it's like, the thought's unbearable. The families are strong and do everything with grace. So there are things that are said, you know, especially during the sentencing. It was, a lot of things were said by the family in the room. But yeah, no, it was, it's devastating to witness, you know? And you don't wish it on anyone.
19:04 Speaker 00 The plea hearing was obviously the first step. Then we had the sentencing. Did you, as someone that has worked on this case for so long, did you think that that plea hearing gave you or anyone there closure?
19:16 Speaker 01 Um, no, I don't think, I don't think closure is possible, you know? It's like, with something so senseless, um, and something so, I mean, he's so pathetic. It's like, he's this giant man targeting small women to feel powerful and in control. And it's, what he did wasn't hard. What he did was cowardly, you know? So I think it's just...
19:44 Speaker 01 I can't imagine closure is ever going to be had. It's like, we don't know the rest of it. We'll never know. But I think for the families, it's like, for them, it was a demarcation line. Like, I'm done with you. I'm going to be focusing on my loved one's memory. And now I don't have to think about you anymore because you're going to be in a cage.
20:02 Speaker 00 After court, there were a huge number of press conferences. His defense, his wife, who we hadn't really heard from, the DA. What stood out to you the most from that flurry of press conferences?
20:14 Speaker 01 So, his wife, Asa Alarep, did address the media. You know, she hasn't done much of that. And what I thought was really interesting is like, the second she was done, she had a prepared statement that she read from. And immediately, reporters were questioning, again, how could you not know? How did you not know it was happening right in front of you? And there is still so much suspicion looming over her. And what I want to keep conveying is that, you know, it's unbelievable for people that she couldn't have known. But clearly, she didn't. Because if the district attorney had evidence that she had knowledge
20:54 Speaker 01 or was involved, he would have delighted in charging her. So, they have gone over every shred of evidence. Her cell phones, her computers, there's just no indication that she knew. And I think what, I don't think she should be blamed for not knowing. What I do think that should do is scare people. That you could be living with someone lying to you to that degree. I mean, she was. And she's not the first woman to be duped by a serial killer like this.
21:22 Speaker 00 Well, she really is a form of a victim in all of this, too. She's had her life ripped to shreds as well.
21:29 Speaker 01 She has. And, you know, she starts as a victim, right? And then, for every decision she makes since the arrest, it's hard to blame her for all of it. You know, the shock, trauma, desperation, processing this. I don't know that my decisions would be sound. I don't know that I would be able to trust my instincts about anything. People think her participating in the documentary, that the optics were poor there. Maybe they were. But maybe she was out of options. It's just really hard to judge her after the shock and trauma of these revelations that she was exposed to.
22:09 Speaker 00 Let's talk a bit about the sentencing. That only happened a week ago from when we're talking.
22:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:15 Speaker 00 I want to start with Hulman because we did hear briefly from him. You mentioned the word cowardly before. I feel like that kind of needs to be repeated again here with what he said, right?
22:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, so everyone was wondering whether or not he would speak because the defendant is often given that opportunity. And when he said yes, everyone was surprised and he began to speak and the judge yelled at him. The judge was very intense and told him to stand up. So then there was like awkward five seconds where he's like trying to stand up. And he began speaking. He said something to the effect of, you know, and I'm paraphrasing. My words have no meaning. I am responsible for the words that were said today. I'm going to leave it there. And he sat back down and the judge looked at him sort of annoyed and said,
23:06 Speaker 01 you know, I know you're probably sorry for what you put your family through, but are you a little sorry for what, for murdering these innocent women? And he sort of was like, yeah, but it was so hollow and strange. It's like, why say anything at all? I couldn't understand.
23:24 Speaker 00 Did he look remorseful at all?
23:26 Speaker 01 No, he does not care. This man could not care less.
23:30 Speaker 00 Yeah.
23:31 Speaker 01 It's not funny at all. It's just, this man doesn't care. He would have done it a million more times.
23:39 Speaker 01 After he murdered Melissa Bartholomew, he called to torture her family. Like this guy loves hurting women and this guy does not feel bad about it. It doesn't matter that he has a daughter their age of when he was killing them. It doesn't matter that he's married to a woman. He doesn't care.
23:55 Speaker 00 In the sentencing, we also had the chance to hear from the victims. That's their chance to stand up and tell this man what they've done to their lives in the form of a victim impact statement. Was that emotional, hearing from so many family members in that courtroom?
24:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was unbelievable. Um, it was, it was long too. It was, you know, I think there were about 16 total. And yeah, some. Some made you like want to give them a high five because they just said the exact right thing that you know just hit him where it hurts. You know, these men are narcissists.
24:37 Speaker 01 So, one of the victim's cousins, her name's Jasmine Robinson, basically went over the planning document that Rex Herman had written in 2000 about like, "Don't leave DNA behind, don't leave hair behind." And she's like, "Well, you didn't do that, you couldn't do that." And totally just like mocked him. And you could tell he was getting like so mad. But every single one was compelling, some made you cry, some made you furious for how articulate they were in explaining just the devastation, what this had done to their lives. You know, Meghan Waterman's daughter spoke and it's just, she lost her mom when she was two and she is left with this like,
25:20 Speaker 01 "What, who would I have been, what would my life have been like had I not had my mom ripped from me?" And I think that's a really valid question and it's so unfair.
25:31 Speaker 00 I read that there was even applause when he was taken from the room.
25:35 Speaker 01 Oh, there was more than that. There was applause. There was applause, there were screams from the family saying, "I can't wait till you get raped in jail." Then they all started chanting "Ogre" as he was walking out of the room. And it was, the whole thing was intense like that. It was like the energy, the entire hearing. You know, one of the victims, Melissa Bartholomew's sister, who received the calls, the taunting calls that were made from her sister, her murdered sister's phone, because he had her phone, that's how he called her family. So, first it's hope, right? She's missing and now she's calling me. And she said something like, "It's been 17 years since we spoke."
26:21 Speaker 01 And then she's like demanded that he look at her because he's just been looking ahead like a coward. There were a lot of intense moments during her, during her impact statement. But it was very, almost primal, I don't know how to explain it.
26:35 Speaker 00 Is this over for you now? Do you think, knowing that he is behind bars, he's been sentenced with eight murders?
26:44 Speaker 00 Is this over for you? Because, you know, we don't know how many more there are out there. You've been working on this case for so many years. What does this mean for you?
26:52 Speaker 01 I don't think it's ever going to be over. I think it's part of who I am, because it's not just about this killer and these victims. It's about the way women are treated. It's about violence against women. It's about sex workers, the demonization of them and not the clients or the men who push them and force them and traffic them and make them do sex work, which is what was happening for the majority of these women, right? So it's never going to be over. I'm always going to be speaking out about that. And as long as there are victims, I believe, are connected to him, like Asian Doe, who haven't seen justice, I'll always be monitoring and tracking. I wish I could do more. You know, it's kind
27:37 Speaker 01 of contingent upon what investigators do, whether there's any story left here. So I do feel like, though, this law enforcement team that has brought him to justice is phenomenal, and I'm sure they won't stop if they believe he's responsible for more. But it's also not done for me, because I have a book coming out about the case early next year. So I'm going to be probably talking about it for a while, because, like I said, the implications, it's not him, it's society, you know? And I think that's what I'm going to be talking about a lot.
28:10 Speaker 00 Thank you so much, Alexis. We really appreciate your updates.
28:13 Speaker 01 Of course.
28:16 Speaker 00 Thank you to Alexis for joining us on this episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It really helps people to find the show. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back on Thursday with another true crime conversation.
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