All language subtitles for Gone Girls-The Long Island Serial Killer 2025 S1.E3 ∙ Part Three

[tense music playing]

My friend's dad was a manager
at the Gold Club in Philadelphia,

which is a strip club.

I just graduated high school.

I was only 18,

and I started selling shots there
over the summer.

[indistinct chatter]

[woman] It was easy money,

and there were
a lot of drugs around all the time.

One night, I was approached by a man,

and he was feeding me cocaine.

And he told me that
"there's way more where this came from,"

and "there's the opportunity for you
to make a lot of money."

He told me
that I'd be selling his friend cocaine

and then by the end of it,

I would make money off
of that transaction.

My motivation that night was
quick money and quick drugs.

So I was like, "Absolutely."

His friend introduced himself as John.

He was a very tall,
kind of heavyset, middle-aged man.

And then John and I left.

[sinister music playing]

[suspenseful music playing]

[woman] Once we were alone and in the car,

he started going off
about pedophilic fantasies

and asked me about my young friends,

if I could show him pictures
of my young friends,

what's the youngest friend I have.

Inquired about not only just, like,
young girls but young boys too.

That's when I realized what this is.

It's not just me selling drugs.
It's also me selling sex.

So I was doing everything in my power
to just not touch him.

It made me feel quite uneasy.

And then we arrived at the townhome.

[eerie music playing]

When we entered,
there was mail on the floor.

There was nothing on the walls.
There was no furniture.

But there were two beach chairs,
and there was a milk crate turned over,

and then there was the television.

It was playing a porn going on repeat.

[static humming]

[woman] So he says,
"Bust out the cocaine there."

"I'm going to go upstairs really quick."

So I'm, like, weighing out an eight ball,

and I could hear him
making noise upstairs.

But then I hear some kind of, like,
human-sized like scrumpling going on.

[thudding]

[woman] It sounded like
someone was moving around in a room.

I was like, "Someone else is here."

[footsteps treading]

[clattering]

Maybe they were trying to get attention.

[suspenseful music playing]

[woman] I'm kind of out of my body
at this moment.

Felt like something out of a horror movie.

Whatever it was, it freaked me out.

I was ripped back to my body.

I put everything back in my bag.
I had a Taser.

I'm like running towards the door.

He comes barreling down the stairs,

and I grab the Taser,
and I put it up to the flesh of his neck.

Everything in me just says,

"This is the moment that you make
a decision to possibly save your life."

[melancholy music playing]

[waves crashing]

[somber music playing]

[police siren wailing]

[Kolker] By 2022,

things have really changed
in law enforcement in Suffolk County.

Burke and Spota have been
prosecuted and convicted,

but the case has been going on for so long

that there's a real question about
whether anything new is going to happen.

It's been 12 years
since the Gilgo Four were found.

It's been 11 and a half years since
all the other sets of remains were found.

The case is still unsolved.

But then there's
another changing of the guard.

[invigorating music playing]

[Kolker] Geraldine Hart steps down.

[Hart] When I decided to leave
the Suffolk County Police Department,

part of the difficult part of the decision
was leaving Gilgo unresolved.

I think the best way to describe it
is a puzzle, right?

And there were a lot of pieces put in
the puzzle during my time in that office.

But there was the hope
that the new commissioner and their team

could put that final piece in.

[Kolker] Rodney Harrison,
the new commissioner,

he's an outsider from New York City
and knows how cases get cleared,

and that's through
collaboration and partnerships.

[reporter] Suffolk County
Police Commissioner announces

that he's forming a task force

to get to the bottom
of the Gilgo Beach murders.

I put a team together of Suffolk County
District Attorney's Office.

We're working with the state police.
We got FBI on board.

We even have the sheriffs helping out.

I truly believe that we're going
to get down to the bottom

of who committed these crimes.

[Kolker] There is a new district attorney,
Ray Tierney.

He's a local guy, and he actually worked

in the district attorney's office
early in his career

before Tom Spota was in charge.

[Tierney] I took office January of 2022,
and we sort of hit the ground running.

Of course, when we got there,
it was about 12 years in the making,

so a tremendous amount of materials.

The first thing we did is,

we started digitalizing
all the evidence in the case

so you could make it searchable.

[Kolker] Now that they could
actually search for things,

and they started looking at clues
and evidence and interviews

that some people hadn't
laid eyes on for years.

They hit on something right away.

Police reports from Amber Costello's house
shortly after the investigation begins.

-[suspenseful music playing]
-[thunder rumbling]

[engine starting]

There was this interaction
with, uh, one of her clients

who was described as an ogre,

um, very large individual, 6'4", 6'6",

glasses, uh, kind of bushy hair,
uh, and that he was driving

this first-generation,
dark-colored Chevy Avalanche.

One of the investigators in the case
was able to determine that

that type of generation of Chevy Avalanche
was owned by a very large individual,

matching the physical description given.

We knew the killer used burner phones,
activated in and around the area

of Massapequa Park
and in Midtown Manhattan.

The owner of this Avalanche happened
to not only reside in Massapequa Park,

but also worked in and around
the area of Midtown Manhattan,

where he picked up some of the victims.

[Hart] All the things that we had in mind
of who this, uh, individual would be,

each piece of information,
it just kept checking boxes.

Our first meeting in the task force was
February 1st of 2022

and March 14th of 2022.

It was the day
that the name first came up.

[dramatic music playing]

[dramatic whoosh]

[eerie music playing]

[Tierney] Rex Heuermann.

[sinister music playing]

[Kolker] These guys were able
to do in six weeks

what no one else was able to do
in 12 years.

They've needed a suspect all this time,
and now they finally have one.

[tense music playing]

[Harrison] We started looking into
Rex Heuermann's lifestyle.

Started working
with the district attorney's office

and taking a look at phone records

and getting subpoenas
for a host of other things.

[Tierney] We were able to determine
that he resided in Massapequa Park

with his wife and children.

He would go into the city.
He worked as an architect.

Then we developed this timeline

with regard to the four murders
on the burner phones and then Heuermann.

[Kolker] Up till now, they've sort
of traced the different movements

that these burner phones that were
in touch with the victim's cell phones,

where they went at different times.

And the plan now was
to take Rex Heuermann's phone

and check its movements over time.

And lo and behold, wherever Rex goes,
those burner phones go too.

[Tierney] Police department
as well as the FBI,

we began surveilling the suspect.

[Kolker] On May 19, 2023,

they watched Rex Heuermann walk into
a store in Manhattan

and pay to add minutes to a burner phone.

But they also searched his emails,
and the more they found out about him,

the scarier it got,

because they learned
he had set up anonymous e-mail accounts

where he was
still actively contacting escorts.

[suspenseful music playing]

Which, of course,
if you're law enforcement,

you're wondering,

"How much longer can we wait
before perhaps something bad happens?"

[Tierney] Up to this point,
the investigation was still a secret

because once a person knows
that they are wanted,

they certainly could flee,
and you feel tremendous responsibility

if somebody else gets hurt,
something else happens.

Law enforcement needed to collect

any type of DNA evidence
that could link him to these crimes.

[Tierney] We told
those surveillance teams,

"If you saw him consume something,
drink something, eat something,

and then he discarded that,
whatever it was that he discarded,

pick it up."
Because we wanted to obtain a DNA sample.

They saw him discard pizza in a pizza box.

They grabbed it,
and inside was a pizza crust.

DNA was extracted and analyzed.

We had five hairs recovered
from the scene in December of 2010.

So now we had someone
to compare those hairs with.

[Kolker] After 13 years of investigation
and ten months of following him,

they finally get DNA of Rex Heuermann.

His DNA profile matched
the hairs definitively.

[dramatic music playing]

[Harrison] One thing is having
a green Avalanche,

but having his DNA attached to the bodies
is a game changer.

[Tierney] The balance had tipped
in favor of making the arrest.

So we made the decision,

"Let's take him down tonight."

This day has been a long time coming.

[reporter 1] Suffolk Police announced
they have arrested a suspect

in the Gilgo Beach murders.

[reporter 2] He was outside
his architecture firm last night,

around 8:30.

Then as he left his offices,
detectives were seen following him

near 5th Avenue and 35th Street.

[Tierney] Uh, it was very frenzied,
very hectic.

[interviewer] Did he seem surprised?

No.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Brodsky] A mug shot popped up.

I said, "Oh my God. That was the guy."

"That was… That was him."

[Schaller] The day that they caught him,
a reporter called me,

and she's like, "Are you seeing this?"

I didn't even have the TV on,
and I'm like,

"Tell me right now.
It's a fucking 6'8" giant ogre."

And she's like,
"Dead fucking right, Dave."

She's like,
"It's exactly what you said 13 years ago."

[Gallucci] My cell phone was ringing.

Text messages were coming through.
I turned on the TV,

and I just remember thinking
in that moment, I was so happy.

The families would
finally be getting justice.

[Meserve] When somebody's found guilty,
that's when it'll be like,

"Okay, we found Megan's killer."

But I think nobody wants
to get too hopeful to be disappointed.

[interviewer] If you could
say something to him,

what would you want to say?

He already knows he's a monster,

but just that he's not as smart
as he thought he was.

[somber music playing]

[Tierney] Good afternoon,
ladies and gentlemen,

and thank you all for coming.

I'm standing here
with my law enforcement partners

in the Gilgo Task Force,

uh, to announce the indictment
of Defendant Rex Andrew Heuermann,

for the murders of Melissa Barthelemy,
Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.

The investigation
of Maureen Brainard-Barnes is ongoing.

We are working through forensic evidence,
and analyzes that are not completed.

[interviewer] So right now,
as we're talking,

he's not officially charged for Maureen.

How important is it for you
that that change?

It's important, very important,
because I want justice for my sister,

and she deserves justice,
whatever justice may look like.

So, I remain hopeful,

like I've always have.

[melancholy music playing]

[reporter] We are
in this quiet neighborhood

live in Massapequa Park

that has been turned into a crime scene
when police descended this morning.

That's because the suspect in this case
lives right on this block.

[police siren wailing]

[man] The doorbell rang
about five in the morning,

and I went downstairs, and…
And a police officer was there.

And he says to me,

"Excuse me, could you please move
one of your cars from the driveway,

and the other one in front of the house?"

I said, "Sure, officer,
but could you tell me why?"

And he says to me,
"Just turn the news on."

[reporter] Massapequa Park neighbors
woke up to the unimaginable revelation,

the decade-long hunt
for a serial killer centered here.

[De Villiers] I went, "Oh my God."

"I've lived next to that thing
for 28 years."

Somebody from the neighborhood
that knows him well,

came up to me and said, "What's going on?"
I said, uh, "They got the Gilgo killer."

The first name she mentioned, "Heuermann?"

And I went, "Yeah."

[Kolker] Massapequa Park's like
a lot of suburban towns

that are commuter towns to Manhattan.

People who live there, they like it.
They're house-proud.

Rex is a married father of two,

living in the same house
that he grew up in,

a dilapidated house that he seemed
to spend absolutely no time fixing up.

You would assume that he'd know everybody,
given that he grew up on the block,

but he never seemed
to interact with anyone.

[De Villiers] He creeped
a lot of people out

just by his size and the house.

Halloween, we'd buy candy,

and kids, when they reach his house,
they would cross the street.

[Kolker] You can imagine when people hear
there's been a break in the case

that they wouldn't be necessarily shocked

that it was the loner on the block
who didn't take care of his house.

Every time we walked past the house,
you'd say,

"Why aren't they fixing this house up?"

"It's the only one in the neighborhood
that looks like that."

He used to say that he is an architect.

There was times I thought
he was, well, full of shit.

Now I find out the guy has
an office near Park Avenue.

[Kolker] Rex Heuermann ran
an architecture firm,

but he wasn't
the sort of architect who was, you know,

drawing up plans for skyscrapers
or for dream houses.

Uh, he was more of an expediter,

the person who can kind of get things done
through the regulatory hurdles.

Bonjour. I'm Antoine.
Today on the interview, Rex Heuermann,

owner of RH Consultants,
a Department of Buildings facilitator.

Let's go meet him.

-Rex. Hi.
-Hello.

-How you doing?
-Good to see you.

Likewise. I hope you don't mind,
I brought my assistant with me, Norman.

[Heuermann] Hello, Norman.

I see it's raining out.

-Yes.
-Shall we go through to the table?

-Yes.
-Yeah, I know. You said…

My old co-worker called me, and she said,
um, "Did you hear what happened to Rex?"

And then she says,
"He's the Gilgo serial killer."

And I think I dropped my phone.

Rex, he had his own company,
RH Consultants.

I worked with him there
for about six years.

I was pretty much his right-hand person.

Think back at all the times
you were with him, alone,

working with him for so many years,
you know, it just brought me chills.

-Tell us who you are. Stuff like that.
-Okay.

Um…

Rex Heuermann. I'm an architect.

I'm an architectural consultant.
I'm a troubleshooter.

-Born and raised on Long Island.
-Okay.

Been working in Manhattan since 1987.

Rex and I would go to meetings together,
we'd drive back to the office together,

just daily stuff.

He said when he was younger,

he was either working
in the Parks Department

or working as a ranger for the beach area.

So he seemed to know
the ins and outs of that area pretty well.

There was one incident
that was a little strange.

[eerie music playing]

[Henriquez] My friend Catherine was
an interior designer,

and she went
to measure his house one time.

She said when she got to the basement
that she was going to go in to measure,

he stood in front of the door and said,
"You don't need to go in that room."

"It's just guns I have in there.
I have just guns."

And he… That's the one room she said
she never got to measure.

She thought, "Why wouldn't he let me in
that room? What else is in that room?"

[helicopter blades whirring]

[tense music playing]

[reporter 1] For a fourth straight day,
investigators are concentrating

on the home of suspected serial killer,
Rex Heuermann.

[reporter 2] For many hours now, police,
Suffolk, state police, Nassau police,

they have been at his house,
inside his house, taking evidence.

We've seen them remove
bags of evidence from the home as well.

Ray Tierney, the DA, filed something like

300 subpoenas and search warrants
about Rex Heuermann.

The police spent
12 days searching his home.

They dug in the back, then started
taking the guns out one by one.

[Tierney] He had a tremendous amount
of firearms down in the basement,

upwards of close to 300, I believe.

He considers himself a hunter.
He considers himself a marksman,

so, uh, I think like everything he did,
he took it to extremes.

There was no evidence
that the guns were used

in the commission of any of the murders,

but we also recovered
some personal devices,

uh, computers, laptops,

and although they had
been forensically wiped,

we were still able to recover
certain pieces of evidence off of that.

[sinister music playing]

[Tierney] We saw
what his searches were like.

[keyboard clacking]

[Tierney] They centered around
the investigation of Gilgo…

the victims, the victims' families…

as well as a lot of really disturbing

abuse, degradation,
and torture of women in pornography.

We got his financial records,

we got the records of the family,
we were putting it all together.

[somber music playing]

[Kolker] They've reconstructed
the movements of Rex's family.

In the 1990s,
Rex Heuermann married Asa Ellerup,

who was a woman from Iceland

who already had a son
from a previous marriage.

Then some years later,
Rex and Asa have a daughter.

When did he have time alone
to do these things, you know?

How did he take women prisoner
and also be a family guy?

[Gallucci] The police don't believe
the family knew anything

about what Rex Heuermann was doing.

Through looking at credit card records
and cell phone records,

they were able to place
Rex Heuermann's family out of town

during the time
of the Gilgo Four's murders.

Rex's family would go on vacation,

either in Atlantic City,
on vacation in Iceland,

stay there for maybe a week,
and then he would join them later.

They've reconstructed
the movements of Rex's family,

and they were always out of town
for long periods

during the exact moments
that these women disappeared.

[tense music playing]

[reporter] Asa, Victoria,
do you have anything to say

about why you're here today?

[reporter 2] The wife of the man accused
of the Gilgo Beach murders

is breaking her silence tonight.

[reporter 2] Asa Ellerup,
the wife of the accused serial killer,

declared that her jailed husband
is not capable of the crimes.

[reporter 3] She says
she knew nothing of this.

He also has two adult children.

They say they're just witnesses to this
and watching from afar.

[Kolker] Almost immediately
after his arrest,

his wife, Asa Ellerup, filed for divorce.

But then she started coming
to his court dates,

and she was issuing statements saying

that she couldn't believe
that he necessarily was the killer.

[reporter] After investigators wrapped up

collecting evidence
at Rex Heuermann's home,

his wife Asa Ellerup,
and her two adult children

returned to a life
they no longer recognize.

Don't talk to me.

Don't even say a word.

Wanna take pictures? Go ahead!

It was very surprising to me

that they moved back into the home
after the search,

knowing that the murders could have
possibly taken place there.

But I also don't know
if they had any other option.

The family was seen barbecuing
on the front lawn.

[Kolker] They set up camp there
and they lived there

even though
the place has been ripped apart.

And then they start filing to try
to get some of their possessions back,

including Rex's gun collection,
which seems a ludicrous thing to ask for.

It's a very eccentric state of affairs.

[reporter] The estranged wife
and two children

of accused Gilgo Beach serial killer,

Rex Heuermann, stood quietly
as her attorney spoke to the media.

It's a matter of piecing
their lives back together

and how they're going to move on.

Nobody wants to believe
their family member, their dad,

their husband would be capable
of these kind of crimes.

[woman] I woke up one morning
to a beautiful sunrise,

and my husband said out of the blue,

"I think my cousin is a serial killer."

My jaw dropped.

[somber music playing]

[Margaret] When Rex was picked up,

the cousins were
just in shock and disbelief.

It's hard to reconcile that he was able
to disguise himself so well.

He wasn't an outsider in the family.

He was an organizer
of the family reunions.

He was called Dear Rex, our Dear Rex.

It's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

My husband was talking on the phone
to some of the cousins,

and they started talking
about stories of his childhood,

like, "How could this happen?"

"How did this person come out
of our family?"

That's when I started hearing more stories
about Rex's childhood.

The core of the stories were
a lot of rage and anger issues.

It was like walking on thin ice
being around his father.

You didn't want to set him off

because God knows
how he was going to react.

Rex actually lived in the house
that he grew up in as a child.

[man] That house has not changed
in 60 years.

Growing up, Rex was a classmate of mine.

He was two years older than me,
but I met Rex when I was in second grade.

He was very, very quiet.

Uh, almost too quiet.

Extremely introverted.

I was on the playground,
and at that time, um,

he was getting picked on
by three or four kids,

and they beat him up.

And, um, he was a big kid, even back then.

He towered over everybody,
and he never fought back.

He just took it. He took it and took it.

His father was very, very hard on him.

We would be playing on the block,

and he would be yelling
and screaming at Rex.

His mother, for whatever reason,

couldn't leave, you know, this abusive man
that everybody was traumatized by.

And so the pipeline of trauma

flows from one generation to the other.

My husband went to stay,
actually, at Rex's house

for a family reunion that I didn't go to.

And. he came back and said,
"You'll never believe this… This house,

that, you know, my cousin is an architect,

and this house is like, you know,
like a scary horror house."

"Everything is falling apart. It's dark."

My husband told me he was…
He was really creeped out.

If you're living in a house
where you were abused and traumatized,

I don't know, if it were me,
I would want to leave that house.

Not only did he stay in that house,

he just kept it
like a capsule of time from his childhood.

[tense music playing]

[Tierney] Through our investigation,

the profile that emerges
of the defendant is

an individual very much
who lived this dual life,

where on one hand,
this life that he presented to the public,

and he would go into the city,
work as an architect.

On the other hand, this secret life
that really only he knew about.

We started to learn more
about his travel and life patterns,

which oftentimes brought him
to outside jurisdictions.

[reporter] Investigations surrounding
suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann

are expanding far beyond
the Gilgo Beach area.

His DNA has reportedly been entered
into a statewide database

to see if he's connected
to any other cold cases in New York.

Also, two locations where he owns property
are now wrapped up in this investigation.

[reporter 2] Police in New Jersey,
South Carolina, and Nevada

are investigating if he's linked
to unsolved murders in those states.

The more you learn about Rex Heuermann,

the more you see
that he didn't just stay in Long Island.

You had to wonder if maybe
he was on the hook for other murders

all around wherever he went.

Who knows how many cases
outside of New York before we're done.

[dogs barking]

[woman] One day,
I just randomly went onto,

like, Google News
and then saw this person's picture

that was the suspect arrested
for the Gilgo murders

and started to have a, like,
a visceral panic attack.

[suspenseful music playing]

It was like a PTSD flashback.

[woman whimpering]

[Taylor] After seeing that picture,
"This is him. This is the same guy."

[sinister music playing]

[Taylor] I realized
I could have died that night.

[melancholy music playing]

[Taylor] Then I thought,
"I have to tell somebody."

Like, this is the person.

He is the suspect of multiple murders.

What if there's people missing
in the area that I was took?

What if there's people
that were taken from the club?

They had just cracked who this person was,

and a lot of guilt started to surface too.

So I started to research a lot,
trying to find answers

if this individual had
any ties to the area.

Valerie Mack had connections
to Philadelphia,

which is where she would work

and she went missing
in the early 2000s from this area.

Her body was found on Long Island.

What if Valerie Mack was taken from Philly
and brought to Long Island?

This is the map of all
of the relevant addresses so far.

It has missing persons, found bodies,

and relevant addresses of the suspect
all across the United States.

I absolutely think
that there are other victims out there.

Not only bodies that could be found
or have already been discovered,

but ones that are missing
in other areas of the United States.

[tense music playing]

[boat horn blowing]

[Cann] I'd never been to Long Island
before my sister went missing.

I've never had a reason to go before.

[dramatic music playing]

[Cann] It's been, you know, 16 years.

[reporter 1] The suspect
in Long Island's Gilgo Beach murders

has been charged
with the killing of a fourth woman.

[reporter 2] Today,
Rex Heuermann was charged

with Maureen Brainard-Barnes's murder.

[reporter 3] The hair found in the buckle
of this belt used to bind Brainard-Barnes

is said to be linked to Heuermann.

[Cann] I had been waiting for this
for a long time.

Throughout these years,
I have continued to hold on to hope

that one day
there would be justice for Maureen

and that whoever took Maureen's life
would be held accountable.

Today is another important chapter

in the long pursuit
of justice for Maureen.

It has been 16 years
since the last time I saw my sister,

16 years since I heard her voice,
because 16 years ago, she was silenced.

Thank you.

[melancholy music playing]

[Karnes] Maureen was not
just a sex worker,

not just one of the Gilgo Four.

She was somebody's friend.

She's, you know,
somebody's sister, somebody's mom.

[girl] I'm here to speak
for my mom, Maureen.

I was only seven years old
when my mother was murdered.

Her loss drastically changed
the trajectory of my life.

There are countless times
I needed her and she was not there.

I remember she read to me every night,

and now I can no longer remember
the sound of her voice.

The indictment by the grand jury
has brought hope for justice

for my mom and my family.

Now we move to the second phase,
prosecution of these four cases,

as well as continuing
to use the grand jury

to investigate the other cases.

[Gallucci] After ten years
of mostly silence,

police started reaching out to women
with a history of sex work

to say, "Do you have any experiences
that could help this investigation?"

[man] My staff has interviewed
141 sex workers.

So far, we've had 12 women that have
claimed interactions with Rex Heuermann.

[Gallucci] They had people coming forward
and finally police are saying,

"We trust you."

"The things that happened,
we're gonna take them seriously."

And then police were back
at the Heuermann house

to do another search.

[reporter] Talk about déjà vu.

We were here back in July
and now months later,

we're here as investigators issued
another search warrant.

They focused on the basement this time.

So it could have been something
they discovered last time.

Maybe there's more evidence
they found in the meantime.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Tierney] When we first searched
the house,

we recovered his computer

and although it had been
forensically wiped,

we were still able to recover
certain pieces of evidence off of that.

And utilizing the evidence
that we had obtained,

we expanded the investigation

to all the bodies found in
and around the area of Gilgo Beach.

[reporter] A developing story
here tonight.

Investigators combed
a wooded area in Manorville

on Long Island this afternoon.

Another search related
to the Gilgo Beach investigation.

[tense music playing]

Police start searching a different part
of Long Island, way out in Manorville,

near a set of pine barrens
where some victims had been found.

[reporter 1] The remains
of two Gilgo Beach victims

were found in Manorville decades ago.

The partial remains
of Valerie Mack in 2000

and the partial remains
of Jessica Taylor in 2003.

The rest of their remains were later found
along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.

[reporter 2] Law enforcement officials
are tight-lipped,

but say this is a joint investigation

between the Suffolk County
Police Department,

New York State Police,
and the District Attorney's Office.

[Tierney] All of the areas were
being searched,

and it's sort of monumental

because there's
this active and ongoing case,

but you have this other investigation,

and all of it now is sort
of happening at once.

This is the first time police are
outright saying there could be a link

between the Manorville victims,

the other victims on Ocean Parkway,
and the Gilgo Four,

and is confirmation that they really were
looking at all the cases.

Up until this point,
police were very adamant

about Gilgo Four being their own case.

This is moving at a rapid pace.

They're expanding
the search into North Sea,

which is an area that is
about 25 miles east of Manorville

and isn't an area that has been,
up to this point,

associated with the Ocean Parkway murders.

[reporter 1] The search has widened
to the hamlet of North Sea,

where 28-year-old Sandra Costilla's body
was discovered back in November of 1993.

John Bittrolff has been long suspected
in her death, but never charged.

We wanted to look at all of these women
and put all of these pieces together.

We were working at,
like, a breakneck pace.

My goal is to bring closure
to as many cases as possible.

[indistinct chatter]

[man] He's walking in now.
He's walking in already.

[Tierney] We're here today
to announce additional charges

in the case against
the defendant Rex Heuermann.

Those charges pertain
to the 1993 murder of Sandra Costilla,

and the 2003 murder of Jessica Taylor.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Tierney] With regard
to the 1993 discovery of Sandra Costilla,

there were hairs
from Sandra Costilla's remains

that are of particular significance
in this case, and at that time,

John Bittrolff was excluded
as the donor of those three hairs.

Those hairs were retested
in 2023 and 2024,

and defendant Heuermann cannot be excluded

as the contributor
of that male hair on Costilla.

[Gallucci] John Bittrolff was convicted
in 2017

of the two murders in the early '90s,

Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee,

and he was always the prime suspect
for the murder of Sandra Costilla.

[woman] I work for the Legal Aid Society
of Suffolk County,

and I work within the Appeals Bureau.

And our office represents Mr. Bittrolff
on appeal from his 2017 convictions.

He's been incarcerated
for approximately ten years.

Sandra Costilla,
at the time of the murder,

she was living in Queens,

where she may have been working
as a sex worker,

and even though they suspected

that John may have been
responsible for her murder,

the physical evidence
that was found at her crime scene

was some hair samples,

and they came back
to not belong to Mr. Bittrolff,

so he was never charged with her murder.

Even though the district attorney had
come out and affirmatively said,

"That we believe
that one person killed all three women."

Possible connection
between those two murders

and the murder of Sandra Costilla

is under very active investigation
at this time.

[Gallucci] All three women were killed
within a three-month time frame.

All left in a very similar manner,

but Bittrolff always maintained
his innocence.

They find no DNA connecting
John Bittrolff to Sandra Costilla,

and so when they find a hair
that is later tied to Rex Heuermann,

what does that mean?

Does that mean
Bittrolff was not lying all this time?

[Marcoccia] There were also hairs found
on Rita and Colleen's body

that had not been tested.

So what do we need to have looked at

to compare to Rex to see if we can tie him
to those crime scenes as well?

I requested that the district attorney
review Mr. Bittrolff's convictions

based upon their indictment of Rex
for Sandra Costilla's murder,

and because of their longstanding theory

that only one person killed
all three women.

Their response to me was
that Mr. Bittrolff's convictions

are not being reconsidered.

[somber music playing]

[Kolker] Sandra Costilla, 1993.

If Rex Heuermann is responsible
for her death,

that means that he spent the next 30 years
living in Massapequa Park

at large, under everyone's nose.

That's 30 years where he might have been
harming other people,

killing God knows how many people.

He was 29 in 1993,
and the next murder that he's charged with

is Jessica Taylor in 2003.

So that's a ten-year gap.

Jessica Taylor was last seen
in New York City.

Uh, she was working as a sex worker.

Rex Heuermann was
in New York City at that time.

[Kolker] It was amazing
and shocking actually

to hear that Jessica Taylor was named
a victim of Rex Heuermann

'cause she had been orphaned
for so long in this case.

On July 26, Jessica's body was recovered.

At that time,
the Suffolk County PD spoke to witnesses,

and the witnesses had observed
the night before

a dark-colored pickup truck
in that vicinity.

[Kolker] Once again,
it's the Chevy Avalanche

that pries this whole thing open
for the police.

[Gallucci] For, like, ten years,
police have said

there are different MOs
with different victims.

But then police release digital evidence

that adds a whole disgusting new chapter.

[dramatic music playing]

[reporter] We're told Rex Heuermann kept
a gruesome roadmap of six vicious murders.

This planning document crystallizes
and encapsulates his intent

for the commission of these murders.

The planning document was discovered on
a hard drive found in the Heuermann house,

and it was a file created
in the year 2000 that had been deleted.

Police were able to recover it.

That planning document was jaw-dropping.

He had lists of equipment
he needed to use.

Tips for doing a better job the next time.

Everything from,
"try to hit the victim a little harder,"

to "try to get some rest so you have
more time to torture your victims."

[Gallucci] It makes me think about
what these women went through

before they died.

I never considered
that there was an element of torture

or, like, this sadistic part

that it sounds like happened
before these women were killed.

[Kolker] This is a document written
by somebody

who was so determined not just to do it,

but to do it again and again.

As the years go on,
he starts to change things up

and get a little bit more organized,

a little better at avoiding detection,

which would explain
why he made sure that Amber Costello

didn't have her cell phone with her.

[Gallucci] He has plans for dump sites,
which corresponds to the locations

where Jessica Taylor
and Valerie Mack's bodies were found.

There's also a section

where he talks
about getting rid of evidence,

in particular destroying tattoos
and removing the head and hands,

which corresponds to the victims
later found on Ocean Parkway.

So what seems
to be the MO's of several killers

could actually all be
one man adapting and evolving.

Is it possible that all of these cases
are connected to him?

[dramatic sting]

[waves crashing]

[Tierney] This is the case
that matters to Suffolk County

because of the notoriety
and the interest that it's garnered,

but to me,
it's about the victims and their families,

and what we need to do

is find some small measure of justice
for all of them.

[melancholy music playing]

The grand jury with regard
to the Gilgo Four is over,

but the case continues,
and that investigation has been expanded,

both to the bodies
that were found on Gilgo and beyond.

Every person who was tragically murdered
in Suffolk County,

uh, they're in play.

This case is not over.

We have to prove it at trial,
and we have a lot more to go,

but just to be able
to bring it to this point for them

is very, uh, very gratifying.

[Gallucci] From the beginning,
I always felt that this was one killer.

And it felt really good to know

that some of the women
that I got to know through my research

were finally going to get justice.

I feel like this is
what we've all been waiting for

for decades.

[horn honking]

-[woman talking indistinctly]
-[Cann] I see them. Hey, ladies.

I think us as families coming together
is very important

because you have people
that are going through

the same thing as you, that understands.

[Meserve] It's nice
that we have each other.

It's very unusual.

You just think,
"This could never happen to me,"

and now we're all families
that this happened to all of us,

and so you don't feel so alone.

You kind of lived in this bubble,

and then all of a sudden
you kind of had this family dynamic

that the only people that knew
what we were going through was us.

-We all grieved differently.
-Exactly.

[Funderburg] My 30th birthday marks
half of my life without my sister.

It's definitely been hard.

It was hard
when I found out I was pregnant,

the first thing I thought was,

"I want to share this with my sister,"
and "He'll never get to meet his aunt,"

and "How am I going to explain this
to him one day?"

'Cause nobody deserves
to go through what we went through.

I was a little toddler.

[Meserve] I think this connection
with family members

has been very helpful for Lily.

That was Megan's daughter.
She just turned 17.

[talking indistinctly]

In the beginning, Liliana remembered
only trips to the playground with her mom

and the laughing.

She doesn't remember those now,

so it's sad for Liliana
that she doesn't have her own memories.

Her friends look at Lily and say…

[gasps] "Are you Megan's daughter?"

-And you look just like her.
-All the time.

-All the time.
-Your eyes and your nose.

Your eyes are very dynamic,
and your mom had those eyes.

[Meserve] She definitely
reminds me of you.

[Gallucci] Some families aren't here
to see this justice.

Both Megan Waterman's mom,
Lorraine Ela, and Mari Gilbert,

Shannan Gilbert's mother, passed away.

They fought so hard for this moment.

I just wish they were here to see it.

I believe Mari would still be campaigning
to have Shannan's death ruled a homicide,

and she would not be convinced that

Shannan's death was disconnected
from the others.

It's easier for the police department
to say, "It's a cold case. Let it be."

That could happen.
We're hoping it doesn't.

I'm gonna do everything I can
to make sure it doesn't.

[Cann] Shannan deserves justice.

At the end of the day,
we all are here to acknowledge

that without Shannan Gilbert
going missing,

our loved ones would have
never been found.

[dramatic music playing]

[Gallucci] I think we're
at the beginning of the story.

There are dozens of women
whose murders are unsolved.

Some of them who worked as sex workers.

A lot of the older cases are cold
because people just aren't around,

people moved away,

and a lot of families
just kind of lose hope and faith.

They don't feel like
the police are gonna do anything,

and they don't know what else to do.

So how many more could there be?

[Funderburg] It was tough
not having information for so long,

but you just had to keep the faith

and just pray
that something would come one day.

'Cause she would never give up on me,
and I could never give up on her.

So, hopefully,
justice is just around the corner.

[melancholy music playing]