Preet Bharara:

From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Stay Tuned in Brief. I’m Preet Bharara. Today we’re going to discuss a stunning development in a homicide investigation that has baffled the public and law enforcement for more than a decade. It’s the filing of charges against an alleged serial killer. Earlier this month, police arrested Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old architect who stands accused of murdering at least three women whose remains were found near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach in 2010, and he’s suspected of even more murders. Over the next year, eight additional bodies were found near the beach. What took so long? Why is this elusive cold case only being cracked now? And where is the investigation heading next? My guest this week is Robert Kolker. He has reported on the Gilgo Beach case from the beginning and is author of the 2013 book Lost Girls, an Unsolved American Mystery. It examines the victims and the ensuing investigation in the years following their murders. That book was made into a Netflix movie. Bob, welcome to the show.

Robert Kolker:

It’s great to talk to you, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

So this has been news that has obviously resonated all over, not just on Long Island. For people who are not familiar, could you just take us back to 2010 and describe what happened and what the public reaction was and why this is such a big deal?

Robert Kolker:

Sure. Back in the end of 2010, in December, four sets of human remains were found close together right alongside of Ocean Parkway, which is sort of a quiet highway in the beaches of Long Island. The victims were all identified as women who worked as escorts. And they were only found by happenstance because they were looking for another missing woman who fit the same profile. It seemed quite obvious to be a serial killer case and the media descended. And as they kept looking for that fifth woman, Shannon Gilbert, they found more sets of human remains and more and more and more until the idea that there might be perhaps even more than one killer started to become reality for people.

This is back in 2011 and 2012, and it remained unsolved. What was most amazing about this case, Preet, is that in 10 years there’s been no declared suspect. There’s been no person of interest, there’s nobody brought in for questioning that has been made public. There’s been very little evidence that’s been made public to anyone. And so for an arrest like this to come out, seemingly out of nowhere, is perhaps a credit to good police work, but it’s also a stunning development for the families of the victims who have been waiting and waiting and waiting.

Preet Bharara:

So I want to talk about the families of the victims, I guess, in this respect. Back in 2010 when these bodies were found, you have written about the phenomenon, and I’ll let you put it in your own words, of maybe the police and others were not as diligent as they might have been given the nature of the work that these murdered women were involved in. Could you elaborate on that?

Robert Kolker:

I think one thing that we’ve seen throughout history with a great deal of serial killer cases is that the killers select people who they think won’t be missed, who they think society doesn’t care about, whose families might be afraid of going to the police if they were missing. And that certainly was the case here. The killer really exploited that vulnerability, that stigma. And for a while, the media and the police did too.

These four women, when they were found, essentially from the moment they were discovered, the police had inherited four cold cases because the women had been missing for months, and in the case of two of them, for years. And their families who knew what they were doing, knew them well, loved them, had relationships with them, were having the hardest time getting any traction from the police, from any sort of law enforcement, couldn’t even get their names on the National Registry of Missing Persons. So that stigma and that vulnerability pervaded the case even before it was a serial killer case.

And then it continued. The Suffolk County Police Department at the time had a very uncomfortable relationship with this case. They didn’t like that it had landed in their neck of the woods. They tried to reassure the public that it really wasn’t that dangerous a killer because he was only selecting a certain type of victim, which again is the stigma in action. There was a public safety meeting in 2011, as members of the police and other agencies were combing the beach looking for other sets of remains and finding them, where a highly placed official in the Suffolk Police Department reassured the public that they could relax because the killer wasn’t targeting them. This is the stigma. This is the vulnerability of these people who were targeted by a killer and who society was sort of letting them be vulnerable.

Preet Bharara:

There’s a chapter of the book that I wrote, Doing Justice, in which I spent an entire chapter talking about a victim named Sue Ann who was assaulted and beaten and robbed, and she was a sex worker. And the whole chapter is about how there’s some people who don’t want to get justice for a victim who falls into that category. So a lot of that case and the writing of that chapter is coming back to me as I’ve been reading about this case and reading about your work on the case. So between 2010, and we’ll get to how the crime was ostensibly solved, although I will note for the record that obviously the defendant here, Rex Heuermann, is innocent until proven guilty, is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But before we do that, can you describe the difference in the attitude on the part of police and the public and prosecutors with respect to the identity of these victims as between 2010 and 2023?

Robert Kolker:

I do think things have changed. There were a few really rough years there, several rough years where the Suffolk County Police Department had a very uncomfortable relationship with the families of the victims, didn’t want them to speak, didn’t want them involved, and really were keeping everyone at arm’s length. But recent administrations in Suffolk County have changed things. Tim Sini, [inaudible 00:06:01] commissioner, followed by Geraldine Hart and now the current police commissioner, Rodney Harrison, have all shown a little more determination to collaborate with the FBI, to collaborate with outside agencies, to get working on the DNA side of things in a very proactive way. And it shows, because at the press conference announcing this arrest, family members of the victims were standing right behind Rodney Harrison and the DA, Ray Tierney. And Ray Tierney had wonderful things to say about them, and Rodney Harrison turned and gave them all a hug. And as someone who was covering this case in 2010, ’11, ’12, I can tell you, that’s a big difference.

Preet Bharara:

So is it your sense that times have changed or that the particular personnel involved have changed or both?

Robert Kolker:

I think there is an adjustment in sensibility, not just in the police, but also on the part of the media. I think it was much more common 10 or 12 years ago to have a headline that says, “Five prostitutes murdered,” as opposed to, “Serial killer targets five victims,” and then describes them in different ways. So there’s syntactic changes, and I think that law enforcement is more inclined to humanize victims like this as well. I think that’s great. But of course, misogyny exists and people remain vulnerable. I’ve gotten several emails since this arrest from people who have been involved in other cases. One woman in Ohio who had two lawyers tell her that the last thing she should do is talk to the police if she felt unsafe.

Preet Bharara:

So let’s get into a little bit of the who done it. 2010 is not a century ago. We had technology, we had DNA testing. My understanding is that this case broke in part on the basis of new methods of DNA testing, cell records, and even Google searches. Could you unwind for folks how it came about that Rex Heuermann was arrested?

Robert Kolker:

It is amazing, Preet. Back in 2010 when those bodies were found, it was only 18 months earlier that there was a Craigslist killer who was found in New England, someone who had picked his target on Craigslist and was arrested within 48 hours. And I remember when these four women were found on Ocean Parkway, I thought, “Well, they have four women. They’re going to find the killer four times as fast.” And it just didn’t happen. And everybody wondered, “Is he some sort of criminal genius? How is he staying under the radar? Is he using burner phones?” The answer being of course he was using burner phones. The only way to contact an escort on Craigslist is to call the escort. So of course you’re going to use a protected number. But why can’t the police get to the bottom of it and trace those numbers? Real life just isn’t like CSI, as you well know.

Preet Bharara:

Yes.

Robert Kolker:

And this case is exhibit A in that lesson, that law enforcement lesson. But there is, as you said, a DNA angle to this. And they did have evidence it turns out. They had a few hair follicles. And it took several years for DNA analysis to catch up to be able to actually do meaningful analysis of those hair follicles.

Preet Bharara:

But the hair follicles belong to whom?

Robert Kolker:

This is the amazing thing. According to the arrest report, two of the three follicles are a match for the arrestee’s wife and then the third one for him. They are assuming that since it comes from tape used on the victims, that while this alleged suspect may have been good at using a burner phone, he also used a roll of tape that had been lying around the house.

Preet Bharara:

You have written that based on your experience covering this case and other similar cases in connection with writing your book, you’re surprised at the profile of the suspect. Tell us the profile of the suspect and why you’re surprised.

Robert Kolker:

Certain things didn’t surprise me. That he lives in Massapequa Park, which is like a 20-minute drive from where these women were found, that makes sense. That he commutes to Manhattan for work makes a tremendous amount of sense given some of the cell phone pings that were made public with some of the victim’s phones. The idea was that he made a lot of harassing phone calls to one victim’s family on a phone that he was using in Midtown Manhattan. But, I was surprised by other things. I really was expecting a loner, someone who really could be out of sight and not circulate with a lot of people. I had in mind someone like Joel Rifkin, who is another Long Island serial killer, who basically roamed around Long Island in a truck with gardening equipment and was able to be unnoticed for a tremendous period of time. But this guy had a very public facing job with corporate clients, some high profile clients. And he was a family man who lived in a house with other people. And so the question is how do you find the time to do this and how do you stay unnoticed for so long?

Preet Bharara:

You said a moment ago that the suspect had in the past made harassing phone calls to the family of one of the people who went missing, one of the people who we believe he killed. What’s up with that?

Robert Kolker:

I don’t want to get too profiley because I think that there’s a mythology and a romanticization about these crimes and these criminals that makes them out to be Hannibal Lector or something. But if you are leaving four bodies next to one another, all in pretty much the same condition alongside a highway where you could do that privately and unnoticed, that’s the work of an organized person who wants to be able to drive by there from time to time and remember his experience and prolong his experience. And so when it came out that he also was making harassing phone calls to the family of a victim, and this is old news by the way, this happened back in 2009 before there was even a serial killer case.

Preet Bharara:

But you would think that somebody commits a homicide, they don’t want to be caught, they don’t want to insert themselves, they don’t want to provide other evidence either by way of voice exemplar or phone toll records or anything else. What’s going on in the mind of a serial killer who does that? And maybe it’s related to something that we haven’t talked about yet either, which is the nature of the Google searching he was doing as well.

Robert Kolker:

This is someone who did some things right and some things wrong. He is not a criminal genius. He’s not Dracula, he’s not Hannibal Lector. I think our culture, when they hear the word serial killer, likes to think of Dexter or likes to think of someone who has some sort of uncanny intellect that’s supernatural in some way, and it’s just not true.

Preet Bharara:

But remorseless, does that apply here?

Robert Kolker:

Certainly he was remorseless, certainly he wanted this experience to mean something to himself. You don’t call up a victim’s family and start taunting the 16-year-old sister of Melissa Barthelemy time and time again with phone calls if you don’t want this to be a meaningful part of your life. And you don’t leave four bodies next to each other along the highway in a very deliberate fashion without wanting some connection to what you’ve done. It’s not like he was a, “Okay, just this once I’ll do it and I’m tormented and I’ll never do it again.” He believed in what he was doing.

Preet Bharara:

What’s the part of this case that has to do with the pizza crust?

Robert Kolker:

It’s all well and good to find DNA on hair follicles from tape that you think might match the suspect, but then you need the suspect’s DNA, and so you need to find it somewhere. You need to find it in a lawful fashion while he’s not looking because you don’t want him to run. And so they followed him around and they waited for him to leave DNA around. And in this case-

Preet Bharara:

Recently, in recent times.

Robert Kolker:

That’s right. They were moving quickly, Preet. They were locking on him as a possible person of interest last year. And then once all of the cell phone movements seemed to match up, they really got very interested and they pushed hard on DNA. And then once they had a DNA indicator that he was probably the guy, they needed his DNA and they needed it quickly because they didn’t want it to get out that they were searching for him. So they followed him around and looked for what they call found DNA, and that turned out to be his lunch or his dinner, it’s not clear [inaudible 00:13:38].

Preet Bharara:

And they went through his garbage. In the James Bond movie, you take the martini glass from the bar. In real life, you go through the garbage.

Robert Kolker:

Right. But coming soon to an episode of Law and Order near you, it’s going to be pizza crust.

Preet Bharara:

What is your supposition, and I want to stress that we don’t know where the investigation is going, but maybe you have some insight, what is your best supposition as to how many of these other women either he did kill or he’s likely to be charged with murdering?

Robert Kolker:

There are a lot of unidentified and unsolved cases out in Long Island still, and perhaps this individual’s responsible for all of them or perhaps there are many others. There are definitely documented cases of multiple serial killers leaving remains all in basically the same location. So it’s not necessarily all one person. But, it is the big unanswered question of this case. If somebody is so determined to do what he did to these women and to make those phone calls, who’s to say that he ever quit? And who’s to say that he hadn’t been killing before this too?

Preet Bharara:

Before and since.

Robert Kolker:

And since, exactly. So before these women were found in 2010, there were several other missing women. They are in different condition, their remains, and in slightly different locations, and their profiles are different slightly. But you get the sense that back then, there wasn’t the ability to really select victims on Craigslist the way that he was able to with these four women. So maybe those were early attempts that were before he came up with a refined technique. And then once those four women were found, perhaps he changed it up and kept going, but left the bodies elsewhere. A lot of unanswered questions in that department.

Preet Bharara:

Not to go back into the mode of profiling again, but I’m curious if you have any sense, given your research and writing, that someone like this escapes detection, but then finally is arrested and charged with some subset of murders he may have committed. Do you have any sense or can you predict in any way whether or not at that point someone like the suspect decides either to be boastful or to repent or none of the above, “Here’s all the other things I did and here’s where you can find their bodies”? In other words, may we get closure on some of these other cases by his own tongue?

Robert Kolker:

It’s possible. Joel Rifkin did it. And I believe David Berkowitz eventually started talking, the Son of Sam. So it happens. I was a little saddened to hear that he was protesting his innocence and saying that he’s not the guy.

Preet Bharara:

Which is his right. I will say, which is his right.

Robert Kolker:

Yeah, absolutely. And he has a right to a defense. And of course, he stands accused, he’s not convicted. But I guess part of me wants somebody to hold themselves accountable for this and to perhaps even help solve other mysteries out there.

Preet Bharara:

Motive. Do we know a motive here?

Robert Kolker:

We do not. But one suspects, it has something to do with domination. He’s a very tall guy and he selected very tiny women. And so you get the feeling that he really didn’t want to be threatened in any way and he wanted to dominate.

Preet Bharara:

Have you had occasion in the last number of days to talk to families of some of these victims? And if so, what are you hearing? What can you share? What’s their thought process?

Robert Kolker:

I’ve done just the gentlest amount of texting to say that I’ve been thinking of them, and then I’ve been hearing things they’ve been saying to others. And they are extremely comforted by the news, but no one uses the word closure. They’ve still lost their loved one. They still have lost more of a decade of feeling discarded themselves. I think the most poignant reaction so far that I’ve seen comes from Cherie Gilbert whose sister Shannon Gilbert is not one of the four women, but who without her disappearance, there never would be a case at all. And Cherie, who’s had so much tragedy in her life, has been nothing but gracious and pleased about the news publicly, and just making it clear how much she supports the other families. And they really did come together, these families. I know that it made for an excellent film adaptation of my book Lost Girls. But Lost Girls really is about the family of the victims really understanding one another and helping one another when so many people were discarding them.

Preet Bharara:

You speak of your book, which was a powerful description of what was an unsolved crime. Do you think so far there’s material here for you, and do you have the inclination to write a book about the second phase of this?

Robert Kolker:

It’s certainly time to sharpen my pencils. I’ll be following everything and figuring out what to do, at the very least, updating Lost Girls. But I always thought from the very beginning that Lost Girls was meant to interrogate some of the assumptions that true crime books make, to try to steer away from the Monster movie and get to the other mystery of what made these people so vulnerable and who they were as people. Certainly there’s a lot of tragedy in the lives of these five women even before they disappeared in Long Island. And I did not want to do a sociology book that got to their pathology and their traumas. I wanted to understand them as people and understand why so many people didn’t want to do the same.

Preet Bharara:

Bob Kolker, thank you for your work. Thank you for your writing. And thanks for coming on the show.

Robert Kolker:

Thank you, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

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If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me @preetbharara with the hashtag #askpreet. Or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338. That’s 669-24-Preet. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producer is Adam Waller. The editorial producers are Sam Ozer-Staton and Noa Azulai. The audio producer is Nat Wiener. And the Cafe team is Matthew Billy, David Kurlander, Jake Kaplan, Nama Tasha, and Claudia Hernandez. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.