Judgment Day: Sentencing of Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: You were letting your bodies rot. He simply launched into torture and killed. [00:00:13] Speaker 2: Headless and handless. You will spend the rest of your forever in prison. [00:00:22] Speaker 3: I'm responsible for what was said in this real estate. [00:00:25] Speaker 4: Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann broke his silence at sentencing. [00:00:31] Speaker 5: Are you a little bit sorry for what you did to these poor, innocent women? Eight women that you strangled to death? At least eight that we know of? [00:00:40] Speaker 4: For more than a decade, these murders haunted Long Island. Eight women, eight families. [00:00:47] Speaker 6: My world shattered the day my sister was found in the Brambles on the side of the dark Longley Highland. [00:00:54] Speaker 4: Years of unanswered questions. [00:00:57] Speaker 7: Since the first bodies were found, to the conspiracy theories, to everything else, Long Islanders were glued to this story because there was no ending. No one could be right until we got to this day. [00:01:09] Speaker 8: Back then, as I heard that call on the scanner, and I went down there when they discovered those bodies, I had no idea that it was actually related to a serial killer. I never imagined, you know, that they would catch this guy. And just this, just between then and now, it's really stunning, surreal, and shocking. [00:01:30] Speaker 4: The Massapequa Park father is now in prison for the rest of his life. But there's a void that can never be filled. [00:01:38] Speaker 2: A million years isn't enough. Nothing will ever make this right. [00:01:43] Speaker 9: You know, closure is a tricky word, you know, because they'll never have closure, you know, on this case. [00:01:50] Speaker 4: A chapter coming to a close. [00:01:52] Speaker 10: I hope he rots in hell. [00:02:10] Speaker 11: Turn the mic. Turn that camera. [00:02:12] Speaker 1: Come on up. Come in. You're the more important. All of you are the most important people here. [00:02:18] Speaker 7: Number 300% could see Rex A. You or no? Let's get him out. [00:02:21] Speaker 11: The day of the sentencing, I think there was a feeling of anticipation that I don't remember feeling previously. Not that the sentencing means it's done, because obviously for the family members of the victims, it will never be done. But a sense that this was the ending of this chapter of the case. [00:02:44] Speaker 8: So I was designated as the pool photographer for Gilgal Beach. This is one of the biggest stories on Long Island, crime stories, and I've covered every single hearing, the only single photographer allowed in. [00:02:58] Speaker 11: I think everybody knew that this court day was going to be different because we knew we were going to hear from most, if not all, of the victims' family members. And also there was the possibility that Hewerman himself was going to talk. [00:03:21] Speaker 4: June 17th, 2026. What was once a cold case comes to a close, and we hear from the admitted killer himself. [00:03:31] Speaker 3: There are no words I can say, and I'm responsible for what we said in this room today. The words I would say have no meaning, and I'm going to leave it there at this time. [00:03:47] Speaker 5: I know that you're sorry that you got caught. I assume that you're sorry for what you've done to your wife and children. Are you a little bit sorry for what you did to these poor, innocent women? Eight women that you strangled to death? At least eight that we know of? Are you at least a little bit sorry for that? Yes? Yes, I am. You know what? You've been described as a very big man. But you're a disgusting and despicable small man, if you're a man at all. And you're a coward. All right, get him out of here. [00:04:33] Speaker ?: Hold her! Hold her! I'm just going to see you guys. [00:04:36] Speaker 12: I'm going to break you in the ass, I'm going to kill you. [00:04:39] Speaker 13: It was like a sporting event. It was celebratory. People literally stood up and cheered. There was claps in the audience. It's obviously victims, family members. And, you know, after somebody hits a big shot late in the game, people are chanting MVP. [00:04:57] Speaker 14: We don't normally see that here in Suffolk County. I understand. I understand why the families would have done that. [00:05:05] Speaker 13: So it didn't bother you? [00:05:07] Speaker 14: No, you know, I'm going to sit here and judge these folks who we just went through, what they've sustained and suffered, some for over 30 years. [00:05:15] Speaker 8: I got to see his reactions, his faces. Of course you can't catch every reaction with a photo. His back is facing the crowd. So the crowd only sees his back. I get to see his reaction. So every time one of the victims' family members said what he did, like they would confront him and say, you killed her, you did this to them. And then he nodded his head up and down like he nodded his head up and down, like he knew exactly what he did. The crowd couldn't see that, but I saw it. [00:05:39] Speaker 10: During the victim impact statements, he did not show any emotions. It just seemed like his mind was wandering elsewhere and he really wasn't listening. And maybe he didn't want to hear what they had to say. I didn't think he was going to speak at all. And I was kind of hoping if he started speaking that he would say, I'm sorry, but he didn't do that. And it doesn't really give the families, the victims of the families, any closure. [00:06:07] Speaker 13: I saw someone who was defeated, someone who looked more disheveled than he normally does. He was, this is a guy who at times has been somewhat arrogant during this process. At one point when he was being arraigned on one of the superseding indictments, he, instead of just saying that he pleads not guilty, he, or, and really you let your lawyer do the talking for you. He was, I did not kill these women, your honor. You know, very defiantly would speak in court at a moment like that. [00:06:40] Speaker 8: Very, highly unusual. Judge Tim Mazey, as I seen him, he's a tough judge. One of the victims actually, and she was talking about her cousin, very graphic about what he did to her. I heard, like, sniffling and stuff to my right. His eyes got watery, and he grabbed a tissue, took his glass off and wiped his eyes. I'd never seen him before, emotional before. [00:07:08] Speaker 15: Rex Heuermann ended an exhaustive investigation and officially ended a decades-old mystery by pleading guilty to seven murders and admitting to an eighth homicide. [00:07:18] Speaker 5: Are you pleading guilty voluntarily in your own free will? Yes. [00:07:29] Speaker 7: The man who terrorized Long Island for more than a decade pleaded guilty in the killings of seven women. So in court that day, an eighth victim's family also got some answers. [00:07:43] Speaker 13: Karen Vergata is the one admitted Heuermann victim who he was never charged with killing. As part of the plea, he gave them a confession to an eighth victim beyond the seven that he was charged with. [00:07:56] Speaker 11: A lot of people are wondering why Rex Heuermann took a plea deal. [00:07:59] Speaker 14: Number one is, I do think he wanted to spare his family the ordeal of exposing them. I know he also did not want to put the victim's families through that ordeal as well. But I would think also, I do think he saw the writing on the wall as the evidence came forward. [00:08:21] Speaker 11: So there was an enormous amount of evidence collected by investigators in this case? [00:08:27] Speaker 14: To get through all the discovery in this case, you would probably need a room full of lawyers and work in 24-7 for a year or two. [00:08:37] Speaker 7: So during the search of Heuermann's Massapequa Park home, investigators found a set of instructions prosecutors described as a murder roadmap. [00:08:49] Speaker 14: Clearly, that was a powerful piece of evidence. There's no getting around it. When you saw that document and you saw step by step. [00:08:59] Speaker 13: So Heuermann had a four-day killing ritual. He would, the first day would be making an initial contact. He would plan everything, get everything ready. The next day would be spent with the person, the actual kill. He would have a day for cleanup, disposing the remains. And then he built in this extra day in case anything went wrong. He needed to scramble, and then he would go off and meet his family. It was always said that his family had nothing to do with this because they were out of state, out of the country, always out of town, when these killings took place. [00:09:32] Speaker 9: Then we found mementos and trophies at his house. There was the original newspaper reports of when Jessica Taylor, Sandra Castilla, and Valerie Mack were first written about in the newspaper. There was the same bounty paper towel that was only available in 2010, which was found with Megan Waterman. With Megan Waterman, that exact same paper towel, same pattern was found in his workbench. When you look from the defendant's perspective, I think there is an aspect where he really wants to control things. And, you know, the plea is sort of the last thing he's able to control. Hurin's plea deal included a twist. [00:10:16] Speaker 16: My client is also obligated to completely truthfully and fairly cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Analysis Unit. [00:10:26] Speaker 9: What they do is they look at individuals and look at cases and see what they can learn from a clinical and psychological standpoint. And so that's what they're doing with this defendant to try to gain insight on him and about him. [00:10:42] Speaker 14: What was it like to defend the Long Island serial killer? It was a challenge, and it was certainly the most challenging case of my career. I've handled many significant cases, big cases on Long Island, including numerous murders. But this really transcends all of those cases. The intensity, the amount of discovery, the scrutiny, you know, you're under the microscope. And, of course, you're dealing with the indictment contained at the end of the day. It was seven murders. [00:11:13] Speaker 11: There's somebody after me. Where are you? There's somebody after me. Where are you, ma'am? I don't know. [00:11:24] Speaker 7: Shannon Gilbert's frantic 911 call led investigators to a discovery that changed Long Island pretty much forever. So in December of 2010, while searching for the missing sex worker, police found human remains along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. [00:11:40] Speaker 8: As they kept saying more and more bodies are found, I'm like, wow, this could be one of the biggest stories I've covered. I was on a scene first. [00:11:49] Speaker 7: Four women were found naked, bound, and discarded. And they became known as the Gilgo Four. It was Melissa Bartholomey, Megan Waterman, Amberlynn Costello, and Maureen Brainard Barnes. And over time, more remains were found. In the end, 10 sets of human remains would ultimately be found along Ocean Parkway. [00:12:11] Speaker 8: They brought in different canine dogs searching. They brought in fire trucks, ladder trucks to search over the woods for bodies. It was like almost a movie shoot, but this was real. This was a search for bodies. [00:12:24] Speaker 4: In the beginning of 22, things really started to pick up steam. They created this new task force. They basically start the investigation from scratch, and it works. Within just a couple months, they have Heuermann as a suspect, and he's unknowingly under surveillance. [00:12:40] Speaker 7: I think the moment that stays with me the most is the pizza crust. So just the way that these investigators were able to transform trash essentially into treasure to lead to the arrest. [00:12:51] Speaker 9: You know, I'm reading the DNA report. I was almost disbelieving in my own eyes. [00:12:57] Speaker 4: In July of 2023, Rex Heuermann is arrested by police as he's leaving work, and we later find out that they did it as soon as they could because they learned from records that he was still communicating with women who were selling sex, and they were worried that he could attack again. [00:13:17] Speaker 13: Shannon Gilbert is kind of the great mystery still of all this. There are a million different theories about what might have happened to her. What's not known is after she made her last contact, how she actually died. But it was her disappearance and the police search for Shannon Gilbert that ultimately created this whole Gilgo Beach case. [00:13:39] Speaker 11: On the day of the sentencing, we heard from many family members of the victims. They gave really emotional victim impact statements. [00:13:51] Speaker 12: Rex Heuermann did not just take my mother's leg. He spent an entire lifetime of memories that made her never got to mention. He took away birthdays, holidays, conversations, hugs, advice, and every future moment a mother and [00:14:04] Speaker 11: daughter should have shared. They were all devastating. Some were softer and more spiritual. Others were angry and defiant. What really stood out for all of them is that it was the family members of the victims saying to Heuermann, "This is our day. This is our chance to say what we want to say, and we get the last word. You don't." [00:14:34] Speaker 6: You are no longer the one in control of this story. Maureen was not just a victim. She is a daughter, a sister, a mother, a woman who was left deeply and will never be forgotten. [00:14:47] Speaker 14: This is just raw emotion. They had to express themselves. It's so unique and different than the average murder case because in terms of the typical murder cases, this thing goes back, Castilla murder goes back to the early 90s. These people have been waiting for this moment for so long. It's just, it's traumatic for these people. [00:15:11] Speaker 13: Amanda Funderburg, who is the sister of Melissa Barthelme, and she challenged Heuermann to look her in the eye. [00:15:20] Speaker 17: You can look at me while I'm talking. [00:15:22] Speaker 11: I was sort of like electrically charged, like, oh, somebody said, look at me, you know, like somebody challenged him, which had not really happened before. So I think it made people pay attention. And I think everybody looked up to see if he was going to look at her, which he did for like a split second. [00:15:44] Speaker 17: It's been about 17 years since we spoke, don't forget. My heart even skipped a beat until I got a call from a blocked motor, constantly staring at my phone, waiting for the next call from you. Because of the several times you had called me from my sister's phone, telling me she was a whore and that you raped her in the ass. And that I should have seen the look on her face when you raped her in the ass. Or how I'd ask you where she was. And you'd tell me that you were letting her body rot, and that maybe one day you'd come tell me where she was. I was 15, 15 years old. I was robbed of my youth. I was robbed of my young adulthood. And I still feel robbed to this day. [00:16:23] Speaker 13: Taunting phone calls that Heuermann placed her when she was just 15 years old and bragging about what he had done to her sister. And those calls ultimately were part of what led to his downfall. Because locations were used to track where that phone call was placed from. [00:16:44] Speaker 14: You had one family that came up and they talked about how they were affected. And now it's the daughter who's affected, the mother who's affected, the sister, the friend. And then you go to the next family and the next family and the next family. So now you're at eight families. So as I'm sitting there listening and you realize the amount of havoc that was caused and wrecked by one individual, that's something that really struck me. [00:17:18] Speaker 18: I was only seven years old when I lost my mother. And for the next three years, she was missing. I had to wonder what happened to her. She lived for only another few weeks past her 25th birthday. When I myself turned 25, it wasn't the joyful milestone that most young people enjoy. It was jarring and painful because I knew that it meant I'd now lived longer than my mom did. Today, I'm nearly two years older than she will ever be. Rex Hurman stole decades of life from a woman who should still be here, making memories with the people who love her. [00:17:53] Speaker 19: I'm just glad this is all over with and I never have to lay eyes on him again. I'm trying to become whole, move on, digest today, try to live my best life in her honor and just keep moving forward. [00:18:09] Speaker 1: Forever our family will burn because of Megan's absence and all the milestones and life events that lie ahead. [00:18:17] Speaker 9: He'll never leave me. I think any case that you work and you spend an appreciable amount of time, those victims and even the defendants, they never leave you. [00:18:27] Speaker 7: The story of Gilgo is no longer about hunting a serial killer. It's more about the women whose lives were lost, the families who waited, and the questions, even a confession, cannot completely answer. [00:18:45] Speaker 13: Gilgo Beach, it'll just never go away. This is one of the darkest, if not the darkest chapter in Long Island history. And I don't think the final chapter has been written. [00:18:56] Speaker 4: Megan Waterman's daughter, Liliana, has always stood out to me. She was such a powerful voice throughout the court process and I think really drives home, you know, what this has meant to the victims, how difficult it's been, how much they miss these women that they've lost in their lives. But she reminded everyone that they will never be forgotten. They will forget who Rex is, but their loved ones will never be forgotten. [00:19:22] Speaker 12: Stop saying his name, stop putting his face everywhere. Put the girls face, put their names, and make it known that we are the ones who live on for them. [00:19:32] Speaker 10: Thinking about that pain that was being inflicted on a loved one, hearing it from those family members is, it will stay with me probably for the rest of my life. [00:19:42] Speaker 6: And while you try to silence her, you failed. You may have taken her presence, but you can never erase her voice and the memories of her. It lives on in every truth spoken, every tear shed, and every act of courage inspired by her memory. [00:20:01] Speaker 11: Everyone, including reporters, always ask, was justice served? I don't know that I can answer that. It doesn't bring back their loved ones. It doesn't negate the horrific information they heard. It doesn't bring back the years they lost with their loved ones. It just means the guy responsible is going away for life. [00:20:29] Speaker 6: Even though justice is done, it cannot replace what you have taken from us. [00:20:43] Speaker ?: Thank you. Thank you.