Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 443 - The Long Island Serial Killer

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

On November 20th, 1993, the sexually violated and mutilated corpse of a young woman is found on Long Island, New York. The first of over ten bodies found in the coming decades of young, petite, sex workers, whose murders will later be attributed to "The Long Island Serial Killer." But no suspect will be arrested until July of 2023. Why did it take law enforcement three decades to find this guy, how did they find him, and who is he? All this and more on this week's true crime deep dive. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch.

The case of a missing young woman working as an escort on Long Island, New York on May 1st, 2010 will lead police to the discovery of multiple bodies of other young women and over a decade later to a man they believe is a serial killer. It all started when a woman named Shannon Gilbert called 911 in the early morning hours of May 1st, 2010. Shannon was panicked, telling the operator that someone was after her. But then she disappeared by the time police arrived. In December of 2010, an officer was searching for Shannon or her remains on Long Island's Gilgo Beach. He didn't find Shannon, but he did find the body of Melissa Barthelome, who went missing in July of 2009.

Days later, three more missing women's bodies were found. The four women's remains will become known as the Gilgo Four. Searches of Gilgo Beach and the surrounding area continued into the spring of 2011. Six more bodies are found, none of them Shannon Gilbert. One of the victims was just a toddler. Disturbingly, some of these victims' partial remains had already been found before, one as early as 1996. Whoever had killed them had also chopped them up. Investigators continued to search for more victims and for the man who had killed them for over a decade. Who was the Long Island serial killer? The hunt for him would be hindered by corruption

within Suffolk County's police department and by a killer who was very careful and had taken great lengths to never be caught. But as advances in DNA analysis continued to be made, as digital footprints got harder and harder to hide, it became very, very difficult for a serial killer to get away with the kinds of crimes that so many had gotten away with for so long in the past. A new task force was formed in early 2022, and they made more progress in less than two months than all the other investigators had made in over a decade. In multiple decades, really.

About six weeks later, these investigators identified their main suspect, a man who has now been linked to seven of the murders and counting. His trial has yet to begin. This story is not over, but there is already so much story to tell. The tale of the Long Island serial killer. Over three decades of dead bodies and oh so many cautionary tales in today's true crime have sympathy for those who were dealt a hand much rougher than yours to play in this life but also be so so careful how you play whatever hand you've been dealt addition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're

listening to Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. Well happy Monday and welcome to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins, the master sucker, unlicensed, and possibly mentally ill biofeedback therapist, Khmadja intentional community applicant, and you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, hail Lusifena, praise be to good boy Bojangles and glory be to Triple M. No announcements today. We've had a lot of blue skies this past week and Coeur d'Alene this past week and holy

shit does that feel good. I hope you are also getting that pill-less, needle-less, vitamin D, sunbeam, joy injection wherever you are this week. Here we go. No introduction is needed before beginning the timeline of the Long Island serial killer investigation, which actually starts in the early 90s and is still ongoing today. During the timeline, we'll learn all about the known victims, the details of the investigation, meet the main suspect who is currently charged with seven murders.

I won't name the suspect until the time at which his identity is revealed in the timeline. I want to lay this case out as it happened. For so many years, no one knew what was happening. A young woman doing some sex work disappears on Long Island. A few years go by, another young woman disappears. Some body parts turn up, but no one knows who the parts belong to. Another young woman is identified. There are no suspects. This keeps going on for 30 years, from 1993 to 2023.

And then finally, somebody gets arrested and charged. Can you imagine being the family of that first victim? Waiting some 30 years before someone is caught who sure looks guilty. But now who knows how much longer so many family members will have to wait to see if the man charged in seven murders and possibly more coming up here soon, suspected in at least 11, when he'll actually go to trial and hopefully be found guilty. Let's head to Long Island. Our first time back, I

believe, since we looked into Joey but a butt fuck, we were nearby recently. We were nearby in Queens, I believe, just last week. But we're going a little further east today and see what dirtbags we will meet this time around. Shrap on those boots, 1993. Two hunters near Old Fish Cove Road in North Sea, a little hamlet in the town of South Hampton in Suffolk County, Long Island, discover the remains of 28-year-old Sandra Castilla. North Sea is just over 60 miles east of Gilgo Beach. An hour's drive, there's no traffic. Sandra is the first known victim attributed

to the Long Island serial killer, but authorities will not make this connection for over three decades. Sandra was an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago. Last seen on November 19th, law enforcement will call Castilla a drifter. Her last known address was in Queens, but police don't think she was living there at the time of her death. Police never said that Castilla was a sex worker but they will say that her lifestyle was quote substantially similar. Her body was found on her back with her arms outstretched over her head. There were numerous indications she had been violently sexually assaulted. She had multiple sharp force injuries. Decades later after a suspect is arrested for her murder and

a number of other women's murders, evidence will reveal that the suspect had a quote significant collection of violent bondage and torture pornography dating back at least as far as 1994. The images found in the suspect's hard drive included photos of women's breasts being quote mutilated, a vaginal torture, the sexualization of decapitated women, and extreme bondage. And these images quote notably and largely coincided with how the remains of Castilla were discovered. It seems as if someone decided to test out their torture porn fantasies in real life at the expense of Castilla's life. But never stop being shocked and disgusted

that people deciding to sexually torture and murder somebody else. Somebody who's never wronged them, somebody brutally murdered, because that fills the killer with joy and pleasure. So endlessly disturbing to know that people like that not only exist, but are experts at hiding in plain sight. April 20, 1996. A pair of young women's severed pair of a young woman's severed legs are found in a garbage bag on Fire Island,

also in Suffolk County, parallel to the South shore of Long Island. This victim will remain unidentified for over 20 years. June 28th, 1997. A hiker finds a torso of a young woman that had been stuffed inside a black plastic bag inside a plastic container in Hempstead Lake State Park in Rockville Center, an incorporated village in the town of Hempstead in Nassau County, Long Island.

Hempstead Lake State Park is just 23 miles north of Gilgo Beach on Long Island. A maroon towel and dark pillowcase with flowers on it were found along with the torso. There was a tattoo of a peach below the woman's left breast. Because of this investigators will nickname this Jane Doe Sausage Toes. Are you confused? Well you should be. Because that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Why would they nickname the victim Sausage Toes because of a tattoo of a peach? No, they nicknamed the victim Peaches.

Investigators determined that Peaches was a black woman between the ages of 20 and 30. She had a scar indicating that she previously had a C-section. Her remains will later be featured on America's Most Wanted, and a photo of her tattoo will be shown and also published, I thought this was smart, in various tattoo magazines.

And because of that, a tattoo artist based in Connecticut will come forward and recall the woman was visiting from Long Island with her aunt and cousin and said she was having some boyfriend trouble. But he won't be able to recall her name or the name of the boyfriend. Before I move forward a little bit about Long Island and violent crime on Long Island. Long Island is technically made up of Brooklyn and Queens on the west side of the island, right? Queens, we were there last week, technically on Long Island. Also made up of Nassau and Suffolk counties on the central and east side of the island, but when people refer to Long Island, they tend not to be referring to Queens or Brooklyn.

So when I talk about violent crime stats on the island, I won't include stats for Queens or Brooklyn. I will only be referring to Nassau and Suffolk counties. And in 1997, when these remains were found, 74 people died between murders and quote legal intervention, i.e. through being killed by police officers, in Nassau and Suffolk counties. For some reason, those two types of death are lumped together in the county stats from the 90s, when it comes to causes of death inside of New York counties via health.ny.gov. And the years leading up to 1997 and following seem to reveal similar stats. So these first three bodies, one found in 1993, another found in 1996, a third found in 1997, they don't attract any particular attention. Just a few murders spread out over five years, roughly. Three murders of around 370 total murders during this time. So no one at this point is thinking serial killer.

Not yet. September 2000. Three years since the previous victim. Another young woman's torso was found wrapped in garbage bags and dumped in the woods near the intersection of Halsey Manor Road and Mill Road in Manorville, a village in the middle of Long Island in Suffolk County. Manorville is 43 miles, about a 45-minute drive without traffic from Gilgo Beach. It'll take around 20 years to determine this victim's identity, and it'll take almost

25 years for someone to be charged with her murder. Again, at this time, this victim not connected to the previous victims I've listed, no one thinking serial killer. July 26, 2003, another three years from the previous victim turning up. A dog walker in again, Manorville in Suffolk County finds another young woman's headless torso. The young woman's head and arms below the elbow had been removed and a tattoo on her torso had been mutilated to hinder identification efforts. A male hair is found on

her body which will later become a critical piece of evidence in the search for the Long Island serial killer. This victim was identified as 20 year old Jessica Taylor. Authorities believe she had been killed between July 21st and July 26th. Her mother had reported her missing on the 25th, but she didn't show up for a planned family get together in Poughkeepsie, New York. The Long Island Press will report that Jessica had previously been arrested in Atlantic City, New Jersey,

New York City, Washington, DC, and had relocated to Manhattan in July and was working near the Port Authority bus terminal between July 18th and the 21st. The outlet does not reveal what those arrests were for but numerous outlets report that she had engaged in sex work for years and that at least at the time she was there the Port Authority bus terminal was a known hotspot for sex workers. Some authorities now do start to wonder if some of these victims are connected. If a serial killer has been hunting women on Long Island.

Initially they try to connect this murder with the 2000 Jane Doe. Both victims found in Manorville and in both cases a headless torso was found. Also examining her torso investigators determined she had been sexually tortured in a manner similar to Sandra Castilla. Breast mutilation, vaginal torture, the sexualization of decapitated women, extreme bondage. Also all of these initial victims and all of the future victims attributed to the Long Island serial killer will be petite women, five foot five or shorter but most of them

around five feet tall and weighing somewhere around a hundred pounds. Police at the time still have zero leads and zero suspects. No task forces formed. It's just the you know some of these murders seem to be connected but it doesn't seem like a lot of investigative effort is being put into solving these cases. Investigators on Long Island, particularly in Suffolk County, where nearly all the bodies will be found will later be heavily criticized for not dedicating enough manpower to trying to find who killed these women. July 2007.

Four years now from the previous body being found, 25-year-old Maureen Brainerd Barnes goes missing on Long Island. And Maureen is the first of four victims who will become known as the Gilgo Four. We know more about her and a few other victims than we do about the previous women in this timeline. Thanks to the investigative efforts of Robert Kolker, an award-winning journalist whose book about some of these murders, Lost Girls, an American Mystery, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times notable book, named one of Slate's best nonfiction books of the past quarter century, adapted into a film.

I wanna share a bunch of the details Robert gathered about these victims in order to humanize them. So they're not just thought of as sex workers or nameless murder victims. Well, I guess we got their name, but you know what I mean. They were all young women who were yes troubled, but young women who might've been able to figure their shit

out have given more time to do so. And also they were all women who had been dealt some really tough fucking hands in life. You know, as many sex workers in my experience reading about them have been dealt. One of the reasons I don't like people who look down on sex workers or write them off quickly is being somehow deserving of their fate. So easy to cavalierly write them off as people who should have just made better choices. If you haven't walked a mile in their shoes. So let's walk. Maureen Brainerd Barnes, born on June 14th, 1982 in New London, Connecticut to parents Marie Ducharm and Bob Sennical. She would grow up in a three-bedroom

apartment in a federally subsidized housing development called Pequonic Village with her younger sister and brother, Missy and Will. Most of the time for years, five days a week, her mom Marie would walk two miles to clean rooms at a motel on the side of the highway. And two miles there, two miles back, rain or shine, summer or winter, she would have driven, but her car almost never started.

Maureen's dad Bob was in and out of her life. And so many dads in these sucks are in and out of employment. He only stayed with the family from time to time. And when he was around, he didn't seem to provide much. He described as mellow and immature, never wanted to take life too seriously. Probably should have taken life a little more seriously. He was quick with a beavis and butt head impression, loved the Lord of the Rings movies, worked in lumber mostly, a little bit as a mechanic

when he did work. Bob treasured solitude and he loved to go on long walks that gave him a chance to think. I guess he had to think about Beavis and Butthead and Lord of the Rings. Sadly he will die on one of these walks on Marine's 21st birthday no less in 2003. He was walking on a train trestle late at night when he tripped, fell down, then drowned in some shallow water. I'm thinking he was probably drunk or something. Shortly after the Mohegan Sun Casino opened nearby in 1996, when Maureen was 14, her mom Marie got a job there as a slot machine attendant.

No longer walking two miles to clean motel rooms, she was now able to afford a down payment on a car, a tan Ford Taurus, and having that car allowed her to take a second job that she would drive to cleaning offices. She was able to provide much more financial stability for the family, but also now she was always working, rarely home. And now it was on Maureen to help raise

her younger siblings, Missy and Will. Each week, Maureen would get the three of them food from the grocery store, typically a stack of frozen meals like Elio's pizzas, chicken tenders, things that Marine and her siblings could easily heat up in the microwave. Marine and her siblings were pretty much raising themselves now, left alone to explore the woods behind the apartment complex, doing stuff like picking berries, walking on railroad tracks, running from the police when they

get caught trespassing. Sometimes Marine would sneak into a local bar in a pool hall called American Billiards to shoot some pool, drink, and feel cool, feel older. Or she would throw a football around with Missy and Will in a big field right next to the apartment building. When the weather was warm, on some nights, the three of those kids would climb up on top of these sheds filled with lawn maintenance equipment for the apartment complex and just lay there and dream and stare up at the sky together. While her sister and brother loved sports and spent a lot of time practicing or playing sports, Maureen was more artsy, much more into books. She also loved to write, she was creative. She'd scribble down notes about her dreams in a marble covered notebook.

She loved MySpace, used her profile to let others know of moments when she sensed things happening before they happened, like the death of her grandmother or a friend burning herself with a cigarette lighter. She was a deeply curious young woman regarding the meaning of life. She would post questions on her profile like, is heaven a physical place or just a state of mind? Tell me what you think. She was sweet.

She was smart, happy, full of hope regarding her future. She turned to books primarily for answers about life's deepest mysteries. The biblical book of Revelation fascinated her for a while. Then later on she became obsessed with the Da Vinci Code. Started reading anything she could find about the Illuminati. From there she began reading anything she could get a hold of about the supernatural. I think she would have loved a lot of what we have covered here on Time Suck over the years and definitely what we've covered on Scared to Death. She was cool.

She was interesting. Maureen believed that the answers to most of life's mysteries were attainable to anyone who was willing to truly seek them out. She loved to share what she was learning, what she'd been reading about in some book or online with her siblings Missy and Will. She tried to instill in them the same sense of wonder about the universe. They never cared about that stuff as much as she did. Although school was easy for Maureen, she didn't often get the best grades.

She preferred to read what she wanted rather than study what had been assigned to her. And no parent was around to make sure she was, you know, properly doing her homework. Very little parental supervision going on here. By the end of junior high, she started to spend less time reading, more time flirting with and making out with the boys who had started to shower her with the attention. She certainly was not getting from her dad, who was almost never around, or from her mom, who was always at work. She developed curves and breasts early. She was naturally pretty. She didn't need makeup to be noticed. By the time she started Fitch High School, she was reveling in the attention boys

were giving her. She had become less introverted, less introspective, more moody, impulsive, and when it came to the boys she dated needy. When she walked into a room her friends would say she made sure that the boys noticed her and she would ignore the girls, which led to some drama at school. Jealous girls began to gossip about her, spread rumors about her, bully her, got so bad she stopped going to school for a while, long enough for her mom to find out and fight with her about it. But because Marie was so busy with work and no other family was around and helping out, including her dad, there was only so much Marie could do, and when Marine was 16, she

dropped out of high school altogether. She dropped out as soon as she had found out she was pregnant. She'd only been with her boyfriend Jason Brainerd Barnes for about six months but they were in love or more likely they were in lust and had lust confused with love like the young tend to do. Shortly after she became pregnant he asked her to marry him and she said yes she was so happy. A Justice of the peace will perform a brief ceremony at a courthouse in 1999 after Maureen, just 17 years old now, had delivered their daughter Caitlin. They moved into Jason's grandparents place in Pawtucket.

Then a few months later, Jason enlisted in the army. Shortly after that, the young marriage falls apart and the teen couple separate. There were no big fights or lawyers. It was amicable for what it was. They'd rushed into it all. They just weren't right for each other. They were too young, right? An old story. Maureen and Jason decided that their daughter would live primarily with Jason and some of Jason's family in Mystic where the schools were better. Maureen moved in with her sister now, Missy, who had also dropped out of high school and

who had also gotten pregnant. The two of them now lived in a low income housing development in Groton called Branford Manor, once considered a grand experiment in suburban public housing, but by the time they lived there, a rough and rugged project in a struggling town. The place was Missy's, but she was happy for her sister to move in, share some of the expenses. And then soon Marina and Missy's brother, Will Will also moved in with them and the band is back together, but with some new members. Each of the teenagers have all had babies of their own now. Kids having kids. And now this trio tries to build a new life for themselves. Their own mother and father are both pretty much out of the picture now.

Missy takes over the mother's role in some ways or takes on the role of the mom they wish they had cooking big meals for her siblings and the little ones on you know Thanksgiving, Christmas, once a week she would cook a big family dinner for everybody. Will who had been a Fitch High School football star before his life got derailed when his girlfriend got pregnant was now working as a mechanic at Midas and he had become his sister's protector. If Maureen ever complained to him about a boyfriend treating her poorly, she knew the conversation would lead to her baby brother finding that guy and whooping his ass. Man, all this reminds me so much of that TV show Shameless.

And kids raising themselves. Even though Maureen was the oldest, her sister and brother watched over her more than she watched over them. Maureen was the most sensitive of the three. She was the dreamer, the artist, the romantic, quick to take in a stray, whether that stray be a boyfriend or a pet. One morning she brought home two stray kittens in from the rain when Missy noticed they had fleas, told Maureen to get rid of them. Maureen refused, asking her sister

how she could be so heartless. She went out, bought some special pet shampoo, came back and bathed them, even though they scratched the ever-loving shit out of her while she did. The dreaded cat scratches. Literally one of the main reasons I don't have a cat. They are cute. They're very cute. I love some cats I had growing up, but fuck those scratches sting. Maureen had trouble holding down a job while she lived with her siblings. Her most promising job is a car dealer working at the nearby Foxwoods casino. Ended in less than a job while she lived with her siblings. Her most promising job as a car dealer working at the nearby Foxwoods casino ended in less

than a year when she called in sick one too many times. She then delivered pizza for a while, but got bored with that and quit. She then ran the cash register at a local shop right, but got bored with that as well and quit. She started leaving her daughter when little Caitlin wasn't staying with her dad, with her sister Missy, when she'd go out for dates or just go out to the bar or whatever, Missy'd get pissed off and then the little sister would lecture the big one about being more responsible. Little brother Will would play peacemaker.

These confrontations usually left Maureen feeling guilty and then she'd buy presents for Caitlin or bring home pizzas for Missy and her kids to try and make amends. Missy will also later point out that while her sister was not the most responsible parent in no way was Maureen a bad mom, a bad sister, a bad aunt. She'll talk about memories of Maureen reading Shel Silverstein, allowed to her daughter Caitlin and later on to Missy's kids. Or Maureen playing dress-up with Missy's daughter and the cat. She or she and Maureen and Will would all take their kids out together, get some grinders, sit in the park. She'd talk about

Maureen filling her stacks of notebooks with poetry and rap lyrics. Also, their apartment was like a townhouse. Had a little yard out back and all weekend long in good weather in the summer they'd be out there grilling. The neighbors would come out, bunch of kids eating and playing together. She said the Ma the Marine never seen more at ease than when she was barefoot in a sundress Running free in the backyard with a big smile on her face. It was her happy place However, despite all the good memories She was also aware of how lost her sister was how her life was starting to spiral out of control towards the end By 2003 Marine was 21 with a four-year-old daughter. She

still had no steady job, no place of her own to live, no solid plan for the future. Her dad has now died, her mom is barely around. Instead of coming up with and acting on a practical plan for how to improve her life, she's still dreaming. She doesn't want to work some basic job. She'll talk one day about trying to make it as a rapper. Other times she's talking about trying to become a model. Her plan, if you could even call it a plan, was always changing. In 2004, three years before she went missing, her friend Jay De Bruyl remembers her stopping by his place one day giddy with excitement. She brought along Caitlin, who was five at this point, directed her into another room to play with Jay's daughter who was six. Oh look, Maureen said, before the kids ran off into the other room, I had a photo shoot.

Jay was living down the hall from Missy at Brantford Manor now. When he met Maureen, he was working doing remote broadcasting setups for a local radio station, and Maureen actually interned for him once, but when they asked her to wear an elephant suit for some silly stunt they were doing, she was like, fuck that, and she quit. Shortly after that, Jay himself was laid off. Since then, he had been working odd jobs, sometimes delivering paint, for sure, when Williams, other times delivering pizzas.

He and Maureen had grown close. She felt like she could talk to Jay about anything. They had slept together here and there, but never talked about being boyfriend and girlfriend, more friends with benefits. What is it? A situationship than people considering a relationship? Marine liked to date around Jay accepted that but recently before she came over this day She had left Missy's apartment and moved in with a guy named Steve that she was serious about

He was tall had a mustache ran a pawn shop in Norwich He was white talked a lot like a rapper and Jay didn't like him Neither did her sister or brother. He never wanted to be around any of Maureen's friends or family. No one who met him seemed to understand what Maureen saw in him. Sometimes when Maureen came over to his place, she'd come to use one of Jay's computers, mess around on MySpace, or to share some rap lyrics with him, like the following verses. There's too many people walking around with plastic faces. Too many children hanging in the wrong places. Too many dirty cops controlling ghetto blocks.

Too many fist fights ending in shots. Too many girls taking the wrong paths. It's not too late to do the math. Jay thought she was a genius. She actually made a few tracks, put them on MySpace, which I wish I could find them now. They didn't get much attention and she thought she needed to focus on her image more to get her name out there. Hence the new photos she was now wanting to show Jay. Using MySpace to try and market her music and network with other rappers had led to her seeing some ads for modeling and

those ads led her to a site called modelmayhem.com, a site that is still around. She needed a portfolio for bookers to reference, so she found a friend who agreed to take some photos for free as long as he got to keep the negatives. The photos she showed Jay that night weren't especially provocative. Just marine, smiling from head to toe, wearing a few different dresses and one that could be considered lingerie. A red nightgown. Jay thought she looked adorable.

On her model mayhem profile she wrote about being open to anything. Catalog shoots, magazine shoots, music videos. Shortly after enrolling on the site she started getting dozens of emails from places purporting to be modeling agencies that after a few clicks turned out to be pimps. Pornographers essentially. Agencies specializing in nude modeling or escorting. And she wasn't shocked by that. She was shocked by how much money they were offering her.

Clicking some of the links, Marine was, for example, pleasantly surprised to see how much live webcam stripping paid, with no sex involved. And so, it begins. It was easy for her to see how much money she could make if she did have sex as well. And soon she decided that she was open to escort work, but she didn't want to sign on with an escort service. She didn't want to share any of the money she made. And this desire led her to Craigslist, where Maureen found women posting ads right where she was living, right there in Groton. There were women who were earning a living without needing to leave their homes, not having to share what they made with anybody, not a pimp, not an escort service, not a boyfriend.

Nothing. Nobody. And this now led to Maureen, for the next few years, working on and off as an escort. She also, in the next two years, had another kid, a son, Aidan, with Steve, the douchebag from the pawn shop nobody liked. Not long after having the baby, she and Steve split up, and now she was sharing custody of both her kids with two different dads. Sometimes it was just her and Caitlin, sometimes it was just her and Aiden, sometimes she had both kids, sometimes she had neither kid. Life was chaotic,

stressful. When she doesn't have either kid or when she can get her sister Missy to babysit she's taking sex work clients. Sometimes she'll drive in New York City for several days worth of sex work where she can make a thousand dollars a night. And that connects her with a lot of hard partying people doing a lot of hard drugs, mostly coke. Sometimes she tries to break away from it all so take a job in something like telemarketing or work as a masseuse, but it never seems to last long. There's always more money in sex work than anything else she can find now. And she keeps what she's doing from her kids,

fathers, from her brother, but her sister Missy knows. She'll tell Missy that the work doesn't bother her, that the men treat her well, but it's easy to see that the men always don't treat her well and that the work is changing her, aging her, hardening her. She's no longer the artsy dreamer. She's a jaded business woman, a jaded soul in general. And she's starting to worry that something bad is going to happen to her.

On her MySpace profile, she posted on July 5th, 2004, having serial killer dreams again. Love is hemorrhaging in my head, fading away with every beat. Maybe it all, maybe all it takes to keep alive is smoking it to death. Three years later, in July of July 2007 this dream will no longer be a dream, it'll be her life. Long after Maureen disappeared her sister Melissa Khan or Kan told a producer, this Missy here, Missy slash Melissa, told a producer for the long-running TV show 48 Hours regarding her sister's life right before she vanished. She was getting evicted from her house,

she needed to get some money, it was her last resort. These are all the jobs she called and applied for. Call center, data entry, the list goes on and on. She didn't turn to Craigslist because she wanted to. She turned to Craigslist because she felt like there was no way out. No one else would give her a job. I would add that no one else would give her a job that paid as much as sex work. She did have many other jobs, but the money was so much less. July 6 2007, somebody using a burner phone calls Maureen on her cell phone. From July 6 to July 9, there were a total of 16 interactions between Maureen and this client.

On July 8, Missy spoke to her sister for the very last time. She received a call from Maureen late at night from Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan. Maureen said she was going to take the midnight train home, but she never got on it. Marine was last seen alive in New York City the following day, July 9th. She disappeared after checking into a Super 8 in Manhattan. A few days later, Marine's family reported her missing in Norwich, and her sister told the police she did escort work. Missy said they were told, maybe your sister just ran away. Maybe she doesn't care about her kids. Missy said they were told, maybe your sister just ran away. Maybe she doesn't care about her kids.

Officers later told Missy that someone had used Marine's cell phone to make a call from Long Island. And now before we move on to the next poor Missy and young woman in this timeline, this feels like a good spot to take this week's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't wanna hear these ads, if you wanna help us with donations each month,

sign up to be a Patron, get the entire catalog ad free and more. Alright now let's head to July 2009 and meet Melissa Bartholomew. July 2009, two years after Maureen Brainerd Barnes goes missing, 24 year old Melissa Bartholomew also disappears. Melissa had moved from Buffalo, New York to New York City to work as a hairdresser and then when life didn't work out as planned, she started doing some escort work. She is another victim we know quite a bit about. So let's humanize.

Another one of the young women, the Long Island serial killer, felt so comfortable raping, torturing, and murdering, whose remains he would toss out like they were literal trash. Melissa was born April 14th, 1985 in Buffalo, New York. Her mother had gotten pregnant with her when she was 16 and a sophomore at Seneca Vocational High School. Her dad Mark was a senior there. They were going to get married but Lynn found Mark far too controlling and called the wedding off when she was seven months pregnant. When Melissa was three months old her mom got a job after school. She was now a junior washing dishes in a nursing home. She still

managed to graduate from high school. she'd also keep that job washing dishes for the next 25 years. Lynn's parents Linda and Elmer agreed to help their daughter with childcare and Melissa would grow up largely in her grandparents home. For the duration of Melissa's childhood she found, excuse me, she and her mom would live with her grandparents for a while, then they'd move in with their mom's boyfriend for a while, then her mom would catch this boyfriend cheating, then they would move back in with their grandparents, and then a year or so later the cycle would repeat itself. Her childhood did not have the stability so many of us probably take for granted.

One of these boyfriend cycles led to the birth of her half-sister Amanda, born nine years after she was, and then beginning in her early teens, Melissa will start to date. And she constantly, or I guess consistently rather, will pick dudes who were fucking trouble. Low-level drug dealers, kids and gangs, that sort of shit. When she was 15, worried that she was going to repeat the same mistakes she had, Melissa's mother Lynn called up Mark, Melissa's dad, who'd moved to Texas. And she talked him into taking Melissa in before Melissa threw her life away in Buffalo. For the next two and a half years, Melissa would live with her dad and

stepmom in Dallas and the whole time she and her stepmom would fight like crazy. Uh, was not a happy move for anyone. Then she'd, uh, steal her dad's work van, get pulled over, get in trouble for not having the proper license to be driving it and her dad would ship her back to Buffalo, but he didn't tell her he was doing that. He just told her he was sending her there for Christmas and that she was coming back to Texas. But once she got to New York he told her she was not welcome back in Texas which is pretty fucked up. Pretty shitty trick to pull on your kid. Now when she turns 18 she was living with

her mom and grandparents again but her grandparents have moved to the suburbs. It was too boring for her there so Melissa moves out starts living in an apartment with some friends back in her old neighborhood Gets a job at a pizza place and to her mom's surprise Graduates high school with stray fucking A's. So hail Nimrod good on her She then took out an $8,000 loan with her mom's help and enrolled in a local beauty school She also worked part-time at a diner owned by her mom's new boyfriend Jeff Her mom would typically drive her to class at beauty school and then Jeff would take her to work. She talked to Jeff about how watching her mom's struggle growing up affected her. How she wanted to open up her own hair salon. How she wanted to wait until she was at least 35

before she got married and started having kids. She was crushing it. She had big dreams that actually felt possible to attain. She graduated from beauty school and then she got the only job she could find cutting hair at a super cuts in Williamsville, a suburb of Buffalo, and she hated it. Like she really hated it. The pay was shit and her clients were fucking boring. While Melissa was white her younger half-sister Amanda was half black and Melissa loved to play with and braid and style her hair growing up. She also only dated black men and she only wanted to work on black men and women's hair. And that was not happening at the shit cuts in Williamsville. She started dating a guy named Jordan around this time who she'd also dated when she was a freshman and sophomore back in high school.

And one day in 2006, Jordan and Melissa take a trip to New York City where she meets Jordan's uncle owned a recording studio and a friend of the family named Johnny Terry who offered her a job cutting hair at his barber shop and so the dream feels like it's alive again. She's excited she tells her family she's gonna do big things in New York City she moves to the city and her dreams of making a living cutting hair you know back on the table someday opening up her own salon all that's back on but then his dreams so sadly often do they fade and then they die She breaks up with Jordan the job with Johnny Terry did not work out. He was full of shit He was not interested in her cutting hair for him. He was interested in her sleeping with him

Soon Melissa is renting a dingy basement of a shitty two-story apartment in the Bronx with the family From the family who lives above her Then so she's subletting then one thing leads to another and another she's not making the money. She thought she would she's barely able to Pay her basement rent. She's too embarrassed too prideful to go back to Buffalo You know where a lot of people told her she wasn't gonna make it. I'm sure New York City she starts working at a strip club now And that leads to performing sex acts in the back of the strip club for a little extra money. Something some of the other girls that were doing and then that leads to full

time sex work. And now the girl from Buffalo, the straight-A student who's gonna open up her own salon. The girl who was never gonna get married until she was 35, not gonna have kids then, who was really focused on building her career. Now she's working the streets in New York with another sex worker named Kritzia. The two of them, they run together for a couple of years and for a while. You know, it's fun sometimes. Exciting, easy money, lots of party drugs. They worked as a pair. Melissa for the most part said she felt safe, but you know, again, working the streets is fucking hard. It's a hard life. She starts doing coke more regularly, a lot more regularly. She tries to find a boyfriend who can help her out of this life, but she only finds guys

who use her, don't respect her. Her and Chrissie end up part ways. She grows sick of working the street. So now she starts advertising on Craigslist. And by late 2008, she is working exclusively through Craigslist, out calls only. She would only go to a John's house. She charges $100 for 15 minutes, $150 bucks for half an hour, $250 for an hour, and $1,000 for an overnight stay. She makes enough that when she comes home to Buffalo for Christmas of 2008, she pays

to take her sister Amanda and her mom Lynn to the spa for massages. She gives Amanda and some of her cousins iPod touches for presents. Jeff, her mom's boyfriend, tries to talk her into moving back to Buffalo. His sister-in-law now runs a cosmetology school. He senses something is wrong. Despite the money she has, he's like, something's not right here. She's not happy. She's not herself. She doesn't look well. She hasn't told her family. She is working as an escort. But, you know, they knew despite coming home with some money she was doing something probably illegal. She was struggling. She tells Jeff, you know, not yet.

I'm almost ready though. Excuse me. She told she tells Jeff regarding coming back to Buffalo. Not yet. I'm almost ready though. Then six months later in the Bronx, July 12, 2009, Melissa sends a late night text to her sister Amanda regarding Amanda coming to visit her. The next day, the security camera of her local bank records

Melissa depositing $1,000 into her account, the proceeds, it is believed, from a date she'd had earlier that night. She withdraws $100 before heading out the door. Melissa is lasting alive that afternoon sitting on the curb outside her building on Underhill Ave in the Bronx. Her phone records show a call to a guy she was dating who went by the name of Blaze that evening. Yeah, fucking Blaze. To everyone listening, never date a guy who goes by the name of Blaze. Seriously. Don't date that guy. Don't fuck that guy. Don't even hang out with that guy. I promise you, you will not find a single example in all of human history of

someone with a story that starts out with, my life was going nowhere. I was down in the dumps. Nothing was working out. But then I met Blaze. It's been nothing but smooth sailing ever since. Thank you, Blaze! No, only a fucking tool is like, call me Blaze. No, I would rather not call you at all. Blaze, I'd rather not ever see you again. Melissa and Blaze, they spoke for less than a minute or his call just went to voicemail and he left a minute long voicemail. Sources are not clear.

Blaze later say that he knew Melissa had lined up another thousand dollar date the next night somewhere in Long Island. He said he'd offered her a ride, but she had declined. I think he was, seems as if he was working as her pimp somewhat for supposed to be protecting her, but not always doing that. Next day, the 13th, because Melissa stopped returning all calls and texts, Lynn and Jeff called off Amanda's trip

to visit her older sister and began calling local hospitals. Melissa's landlady got worried, too, when she heard Melissa's cats crying and scratched at the door. Lynn and Jeff tried to file a missing persons report. but for three days the police wouldn't let them. They said Melissa was 24 years old with no history of mental illness and no psychiatric prescriptions. Just because her family couldn't find her, they said, didn't necessarily mean she was missing. They hired an attorney, Steve Cohen, who talked to the police and the police informed him that Melissa was working as an escort. And essentially because of that

They weren't going to assign a detective to look for and their experience these women were transient unreliable Unpredictable and when they went quote missing they generally just didn't want to be found for some reason Ten days later though the family finally has pressured the police into starting a missing persons investigation and now they have subpoenaed Melissa's phone records canvas neighborhood talked to fucking Blaze, pulled a DNA sample from her toothbrush. They also learned that on the night of her disappearance, she made a call that pinged off a cell tower in Massapequa, Long Island.

And because of that, nearly two weeks after she went missing, the police will visit two nearby motels on Long Island, Budget Inn and Best Western. They'll speak to the staff, review some security tapes, but they won't find shit. And the police might not have been stirred into action at all. If on the fourth day of Melissa's disappearance, July 16th, Amanda still hadn't rung in Buffalo. When she saw her sister's number on the caller ID, her sister Melissa's sister was overjoyed, but after she answered with Melissa a man spoke instead of her sister

He spoke in a controlled and comfortable manner Saying oh this isn't Melissa and then he hung up But he'll call back over the next few months seven more times at all every time he'll speak for if briefly and calmly and also say Increasingly disturbing things the second time he called he asked Amanda is this Melissa's little sister? I hear you're a half-breed. He told Amanda that he knew her father was black. He described what she looked like. When he called next, Lynn, Amanda and Melissa's mother answered and he immediately hung up. So now the police advise for only Amanda to answer the phone going forward. They put a wiretap on the phone and they hope the killer will reveal some clue

that will lead to finding Melissa. They hope he'll stay on the line long enough to be tracked. They hope she was still alive. Starting with the third call, the police trace the signal to a cell tower near Madison Square Garden. Another call pings a tower near Times Square. Detectives now wonder if she really had seen her final known client in Long Island. Did he live in Long Island and did he work in Manhattan? Amanda, just 15 years old, will listen to five more calls. The caller will always hang up before his location can firmly be identified. Melissa's family attorney, Steve Cohen, will say the killer said some pretty horrible things to Amanda.

Sexually explicit things as to what he had done to Melissa. Sexually explicit things as to what he was going to do to Amanda. Man, that's sick fuck. If only Blaze was around to help. Oh shit, if Blaze could get a hold of that guy? Dude's in a world of hurt. Blaze has, I'm guessing, already moved on. A guy known as Blaze, he moves fast, like a raging inferno. Anyway, during one call, the caller asked her if she knew what her sister did for a living. And then he said, are you going to be a whore like your sister? In another call, he told her he knew where she lived. Said he might come find her.

Due to her, what he'd done to her sister. He was definitely enjoying fucking with her. Based on his voice, the police believed he was a white male in his late 20s to late 30s. The last call came on August 26, 2009. He said, do you know what I did to your sister? Well I killed Melissa. And then the last thing this motherfucker said to Amanda, this 15 year old girl was, I'm watching your sister's body rot. Amanda almost has a nervous fucking breakdown from these calls. My god that poor kid. She falls into a deep depression, withdraws from her friends, her grades plummet. But then she meets Blaze and he takes care of her and he makes her forget all of her troubles. No, she didn't meet Blaze thank god. Blaze has burned his

way out of this story maybe. Her mom and Jeff they now pour themselves into work at Jeff's diner and they wait and they wait and they wait for a full year They don't get any updates. No clues as to what had happened to Melissa After the call stopped coming in the police still had not connected Melissa disappearance to the disappearance of Marine Brainerd Barnes two years before her But these women will be the first two of the four homicide cases known as the Gilgo for The case that really launched the investigation into the murderer dubbed the Long Island Serial Killer began May 1st, 2010, when 23-year-old Shannon Gilbert,

working as an escort, calls 911. Shannon had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, struggled with depression, severe mood swings. When her sisters expressed their worry about the potential dangers of her work as an escort, she assured them that nothing bad was going to happen to her. She had the blind courage and sense of invincibleness that is only possessed truly by the young. Shannon's sister Sherry Gilbert would say on 48 Hours many years later, my sister had other dreams you know. She wanted to be a singer, an

actress. She was pursuing that. She was also going to school to be a writer. The night she called 911 and then disappeared, Shannon had gone to the home of Joseph Brewer, located in a gated community in Oak Beach, a census designated place in Suffolk County within the town of Babylon on Long Island. She had met Joe through Craigslist. He'd responded to her ad just hours earlier. Joseph, then 46 years old, was an unemployed financial advisor who had just separated from his wife After he found out his wife had started fucking some dude named Blaze. No, sorry. I Keep trying to quit you blaze, but I can't I don't know why Joseph and his wife were separated Maybe she found out he was sleeping with sex workers

Shanna's driver that night Michael Pock dropped her off at Joe's house around 2 a.m Shannon had worked with Michael for months by this point. Michael, a little bit about him, he was born in South Korea in 1969, moved to the U.S. with his mom in 1974, grew up in New York City, then got a bachelor's in history from SUNY Binghamton, bounced around to different jobs, got married in 2004, then got arrested at the end of 2004 in Texas for passport misuse. He got caught smuggling people into the US, served six months in prison. His wife left him over that. Then he got a job from his brother back in New York working at a pool hall.

And he got a job at an insurance company. Then he got a job as a driver for Prestige Escort Agency. And the first escort he picked up was Shannon Gilbert. He had driven her dozens of jobs by the time she goes missing. Shannon called 911 the night she went missing at 4 51 a.m. Her family believes something happened that caused her to panic and then flee the house she was at. Others believe, I think myself included, she was having some kind of mental health episode. Shannon's entire call lasted over 21 minutes including long stretches of the call that are silent.

Doesn't seem like that she realized the call was still on after just a few minutes. The full recording was not released to the public until May of 2022. Shannon will tell the 911 operator, there's somebody after me when she first calls. And these people are trying to kill me. Let's actually hear her say this. This is the beginning of her call. State Police, keep a fire. Stay police. Yeah, there's somebody after me.

I'm sorry? There's somebody after me. Where are you? There's somebody after me. Okay, where are you? There's somebody asking me. Where are you ma'am? I don't know.

You're driving right now? No, I'm inside a house. I'm sorry? I'm inside a house. What house? I don't know. Can you trace where I am? I'm sorry?

Can you trace where I am? No, I can't. What's your callback number you're calling from? Huh? What phone number are're calling from. Huh? What phone number are you calling from? Somebody's after me. Please. Are you in Suffolk County or Nassau County? Um, I'm in Long Island. Where on Long Island are you?

Okay, uh, so the voice in the background at the end there is Joseph Brewer. He's saying, yeah, he wants to talk to you. This guy wants to talk to you. She then says, no. He says, go ahead and talk to her. For the next few minutes, 911 operator just keeps getting Shannon, or trying to get Shannon to explain where she is on Long Island. Mostly Shannon just completely ignores the operator.

Can be heard talking to two men, Joseph Brewer, Michael Pock. You can hear her say, stop. Please stop. where she is in Long Island. Mostly Shannon just completely ignores your operator. It can be heard talking to two men, Joseph Brewer, Michael Pock. You can hear her say, stop, please stop, numerous times, but she sounds more irritated and confused to me than alarmed or scared when she says this. It does not sound like she is being hurt. Then you hear Joseph Brewer say, time to go. She says no. She asks them to shut the door. It sounds like they have opened the door like, like you know from what Michael will say later. They're trying to get her out of the house. Trying to drive her away from this gig for lack of a better term. For a minute or so, she doesn't want to go. For a minute or so it sounds like

Joseph and Michael are trying to convince her yeah to get out of the house. She won't. About three minutes in she suddenly asked someone are you trying to kill me? No she's excuse me are you going to kill me? Then she asked, why are you going to kill me? But again, she doesn't sound like she's being threatened. She sounds very confused, like possibly having a mental illness episode. Michael Pock says to her, come on, let's go, you're freaking me out. She says, out to the middle of nowhere. Shannon asks, why are you, what are you going to do to me? And she says, why? For the most part, you can't understand what the men are saying back to her. About four minutes in a second

911 operator takes over the call, tries to get Shannon's attention, asks her what is happening, what is wrong, where is she, and she is not listening. Now Shannon asked Mike to get her out of there. Then right after asking Mike to get her out of there, she accuses Mike of quote being a part of this. You hear him laugh, hear him say, I just met this guy. Then Shannon sprints out of Brewer's house, runs two tenths of a mile down the street to Gus Coletti's house.

This other just random fucking guy living in this gated community. The new 911 operator keeps asking questions. She keeps not responding. Again, I don't even think she realizes she's still on the line. You hear her running. Sounds like the phone is either in her pocket or her purse.

Every once in a while you hear her randomly scream. You don't hear anyone else. She bangs on Gus's door. He lets her in. She still sounds very, very confused, nonsensical, like she's maybe, maybe high on something. You hear Gus now, but not fully understand her. He asks her, what's the matter? And is somebody after you? He then asks if she's alright. She says, I need help. But she won't say why she needs help. You hear her breathing heavy. You hear Gus ask, what are you doing? Where are you going? She doesn't answer. Instead, she takes

off running again. Now he calls 911. So she's still in line with 911. Now he has called 911. She runs another two tenths of a mile to another house and the owner of that home, a woman named Barbara Brennan, calls 911 at 530 Amps. Now there's three 911 operators all dealing with the same thing, but they don't know that. Backing up to Gus's call with 911, he says, and let me just play some of his recording. Yes, I live at Oak Beach in the association. There's a young girl about 14 years old running around here screaming and there's some guy trying to follow her. I'll just say real quick, she is definitely not 14, but that just speaks to how young she looks.

The Long Island serial killer's type, definitely like small, petite, young looking women. What's the address, Theo? I'm, petite, young looking women. The boy I can't tell he was into like a suburban. What color? Black. Okay, so Michael Pock was driving a black suburban that night. Gus is now able to give the police an address for Shannon's location, so that's good. But the police do not know that the girl on the other 911 call, Shannon's call, they don't know it's the same girl that Gus Coletti is talking about because she wasn't able to tell anybody where she is. Barbara Brennan on

her 911 call says there's a young woman at the door who says she's in danger. You can hear Shannon knocking while she's saying this to the operator. She also tells the operator there's no way she's letting this woman in her house. She said her elderly mom is living with her. Barbara sounds old herself and sounds very scared. Also for some reason Blaze is with Barbara. He asked the 911 operator if she has heard his latest mixtape yet. She said she hasn't. Then he asked her if she would like to buy a copy of his mixtape or if she knows anyone in the music business. No she doesn't. Sorry. I don't know why I keep talking about Blaze. Refocusing on

reality now. After knocking on Barbara's door, not being let in, Shannon takes off running again. Now she run into this marshy area with a bunch of reeds that can grow up to 12 feet in height and she disappears. Her remains will later be found about three quarters of a mile away way out in those reeds. She still has her phone on. She's still with the 911 operator who she's still not speaking with. About six minutes before the call finally ends, the last six minutes you just mostly hear like breathing and sound like she could be running through some reeds or some brush. But about six minutes before that we hear her scream one last time and it is pretty chilling. It sounds like a struggle, but if I were to keep playing it, which I won't because it

goes on for quite a while, it just sounds like she's running. It sounds like she's still moving. And earlier in between her leaving Joseph Brewer's house and making it to Gus Galetti's house, she also would just like randomly scream very similar to that. You know, here and there she'd scream and then you just hear the sound of running again. No other voices. Gus Coletti will later recall of his interaction with Shannon.

It was like five in the morning. I was in the bathroom shaving. All of a sudden I heard screaming out here and banging on that door, yelling, help me, help me, help me. He said he opened the door, asked Shannon what was wrong, but all she would say was help me help me help me According to Coletti when I said to her I called the police sit down in that chair. They're on their way She just looked at me and then she ran right out the door He said of Shannon's driver Michael Pock driving that black SUV

I could see a car come and stopping coming a little bit and stopping so it sounds like you know He's following her down the road trying to get her in the car. She's screaming and running and just freaked out. Then he said he spotted Shannon hiding under his boat. When he noticed her there, she suddenly ran out from under underneath the boat and then the driver started to follow her again. Shannon then of course ran to the home of Barbara Brennan. By the time the police arrived at 540 a.m. 10 minutes after Shannon was pounding on Barbara's door, Shannon and Michael Pock had both vanished and the police would assume that she had left the area with

him. Nope. According to the Suffolk County Chief of Detectives at the time, Dominic Verone, the local police who responded to Gus Colletti's call, they didn't know about Shannon's lengthy 911 call. 48 hours reported that her call was transferred from the county to the New York State Police. That's why that second operator took over when she could not provide an exact location. It would take almost a month for the local police to connect her call to the missing person's report that was filed by her family in New Jersey where Shannon lived. Shannon's sister Sherry didn't learn she was missing for two days, not until Shannon's boyfriend called her to say that she hadn't come home.

She was dating Blaze. I don't know why I just keep wanting to fucking interject him. By the time Shannon's family started looking for her, she'd already been missing for eight days. They spoke to about a dozen people, tried to put together a timeline for her last night, learned that Shannon and her driver left the city shortly after midnight, May 1st, 2010,

to go to that gated community in Oak Beach where she disappeared and then, you know, you heard what happened next. The police were now focused on three men, Joseph Brennan, Michael Pock, and a random doctor who had inserted himself into the investigation. Joseph Brewer told 48 Hours he had solicited Shannon, but not for sex. Oh, of course not.. Yeah right. What did you solicit her for? To play a fucking really late night game of cribbage? Shut the fuck up. Brewer said he didn't know why she became afraid because he didn't do anything to her. He just wanted her to leave his house and brought the driver in to get her to leave. He said the last time he saw her was when she was running out of his house towards his neighbor Gus Coletti. And I got to wonder if Brewer didn't slip her some

kind of drug or just gave her some drugs that she voluntarily took and that's why she became so disoriented and confused. Coletti said that when he saw Michael Pock he said Michael was looking for Shannon. Also in Coletti informed Pock he called the police. Pock said you shouldn't have done that. Not sure why maybe just because you know he's working for an escort agency. And a text message with the producer for 48 hours, Pock said he quote, never touched her, had nothing to do with Shannon's disappearance. Uh, the Suffolk County police will say both Pock and Brewer passed polygraphs and were ruled out as suspects.

The Suffolk County police would search Brewer's car and his house, find nothing incriminating. Uh, Brewer will later tell reporters that he did not have sex with Shannon and just wanted her company. Bullshit. He also denied involvement with drugs of any kind. Bullshit. Dr. C. Peter Hackett, the third suspect, a resident of the same Oak Beach community Brewer lived in and a retired ER doctor, inserted himself into the case when he called Shannon's mom Mary Gilbert May 3rd 2010. He told her Shannon had also ended up at his house before she disappeared and he claimed he ran a halfway house for

people who wanted to get off the street. He also said that Shannon had left with her driver and that he was worried about her. That doesn't make sense. The police were there 10 minutes after Shannon ran off. If Michael's car was at this doctor's house, why didn't the police notice it? When Shannon's sisters came to Oak Beach to search Hackett now denied ever calling Mary Gilbert. Also said he had never seen Shannon. So what the fuck is happening here? In letters to 48 hours Hackett admitted that he did call Mary Gilbert, but it was later in the week and he did so at the request of friends who were searching for Shannon.

Gilbert, but it was later in the week and he did so at the request of friends who were searching for Shannon. He wrote, at no time did I suggest I had ever met her or rendered medical care of any sort to her. Also denied ever seeing Shannon to the press. Mary Gilbert had a friend recorder confronting Hackett about Lyon who said, I never saw her. I never met her. All this stuff about a rehab or something. I don't have a rehab.

I don't do rehab. 48 hours will obtain phone records from Mary Gilbert, which confirmed that Hackett did make a call to her, May 3, 2010. 40 hours went to Hackett's house to ask him why he changed his story and Hackett explained, because I couldn't remember my story. Seriously, a person gets a lot of phone calls. What? Chief of Detective's Dominic Verrone will say that Hackett was not a suspect. He said the calls were strange, but not out of character for this dude because quote, he's an individual who likes to get involved. Uh-huh. Some call him a storyteller and an exaggerator. We certainly believe that he may have called to offer his distance. So this is

a fucking old fucking lonely guy just inserting himself into shit because he's fucking bored I guess. Exaggerate. So a liar. A guy who fucking likes to talk a big game. Fuck is wrong with people. Who is this old weirdo? Why would you try and insert yourself into a case like that if you don't know shit? What are you doing? Just shut the fuck up. Get a hobby if you need something to do. Learn to play guitar. Learn a new language. See how far you can swim out in the ocean. Go offer to produce Blaze's next mixtape. The police did an extensive search for Shannon but months passed with no sign of her. However, the search for her and her mother Mary's efforts to keep that search going will eventually lead to the discovery of numerous bodies and the formation of an

investigation into, excuse me, a serial killer. And now before we meet the next victim of the Long Island serial killer, I'm going to take today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Now let's head to June of 2010 and meet Megan Waterman. June 2010, jumping ahead a month now. 22-year-old Megan Waterman was a young single mom from Scarborough, Maine who did escort work. She was a young single mom from Scarborough, Maine who did escort work. She was a third of the Gilgo for to go missing and also the youngest. On June 5th, a burner phone that was just activated that day called Megan. Later that night at 1 31 a.m. early in the morning of June 6th, the same burner phone contacted Megan. Security footage captured Megan

leaving a Holiday Inn Express in Hop Og, Long Island around the same time. This was the last time Megan will be seen alive. Megan normally had somebody come with her on the calls but she went alone this time. Cell phone records later placed Megan's phone in the Long Island neighborhood called Massapequa Park, another key location in this case. Megan will later be determined to be another victim of the Long Island serial killer. And she's another victim that we know a bit about, so let's meet her as well. Megan Amelia Waterman, born in Portland, Maine, January 18, 1988. And what a fucking shit show she was born into, Jesus. When she was born, her mom Lorraine was drinking a

lot, living in a low-income apartment in Portland. She paid for with government assistance She was unemployed, haven't recently quit her last job working at Burger King Also living in this apartment was her older brother Greg Excuse me. It was like, you know, not her mom's older brother, but Megan's older brother Greg. So Her mom Lorraine's first child And Megan and Greg's father, I mean also named Greg Really wanted to say her dad was blazed, but held back. Also living with her mom and dad when she was born was her dad, Greg's

new girlfriend, Karen. Big Greg and Karen were sleeping in the living room on the floor. Lorraine, little Greg and Megan were sleeping in the apartment's one bedroom. What the actual fuck. So her mom, her baby brother, her dad, and dad's new girlfriend all living together in a one bedroom apartment when she is born. Sounds a bit less than ideal. It's a little bit dysfunctional.

Sue and Lorraine's mom Muriel, little Greg and Megan's grandma, heard this living arrangement was not going well. And I do love that this story now has a blaze and Muriel, that's not a pairing you come across often. Lorraine had always been pretty much the bane of her and Muriel that's not a parent you come across often. Lorraine had always been pretty much the bane of her mom Muriel's existence her other five kids had grown up fine but Lorraine always a problem. Lorraine was the black sheep of the family always angry never satisfied always blaming other people for her problems. Now Muriel is hearing that Lorraine is smacking little Greg

you know hard that Megan's diapers are never getting changed she just lying in her own filth for hours and hours as a newborn. Someone saw Greg crawl next to an open gas oven with heat pouring out of it. Somebody else saw Greg eating a dirty cereal off the fucking floor. Then one of her other daughters said that she saw big Greg and a friend tossing little Greg around the room, like in a crazy, irresponsible way. One of them spun when they caught the little guy, then slammed his poor little nose into a door frame, leaving him with a big old nasty bruise, and now Muriel decides to do the right

thing, and she calls Child Protective Services. Reports her daughter and son-in-law for being sorry sexist shit when it comes to parenting. Some people truly should be sterilized. Lorraine accepted no responsibility for anything that had been witnessed. Everything was always somebody else's fault. Short time later, little Megan ended up in the hospital for a few days with respiratory distress. Or respiratory, I think is how you're supposed to say that word. Muriel now applied for custody of her grandkids. When Megan left the hospital, she and her brother will be taken by the state, placed into foster care. And while Muriel waits for her application for custody to go through the state's bureaucracy she and her husband Doug visit their grandkids as much as they can like is constantly Lorraine and Greg they don't visit nearly that often and a lot of times they

say they're going to visit they don't show up Lorraine and Greg will challenge Muriel and Doug for custody and quickly lose and that is how Megan's grandparents will gain custody of her and her brother Muriel and Doug will gain custody of her and her brother Muriel and Doug go on to raise Megan and Greg as if they are their own kids Big Greg will visit his kids here and there for the next two years and then leave town for good and never see him again So go fuck yourself big Greg you sad excuse for a sperm donor Lorraine will now visit her kids just enough for them to grow up to hate her for not being a better mom. Megan will grow up full of rage, as will her brother. Their grandmother will eventually have a social worker named Joe Moser come visit them when Megan is 9 and Greg is 10 because the kids are out of fucking control. Joe is a parenting

coach who came over to give advice on how Muriel could control these two hellions. Doug was having heart trouble. Muriel was in over her head when it came to trying to control her fucking feral grandchildren. Joe will later remember meeting Megan and Greg very well. She said it was breakfast and in front of her the siblings got into a full-blown fistfight over a piece of toast. Like screaming, punches to the face, hair pulling, and it seemed that that was just a normal way for them to live. And she noticed that Megan was holding her own against her older brother. Muriel told Joe that these kids were way out of control.

They would not hesitate to tell anyone to go fuck themselves. Teachers, neighbors, their grandparents. They didn't care. A couple alley cats disguised as human children. Joe noticed that Muriel was becoming a big softie as far as raising them. She'd go after, get after her kids, one know, one minute, you know, her grandkids. The next she's telling them they can have whatever they want. She also sees that the home is in a constant chaotic state.

Various family members, neighbors, acquaintances, just constantly coming and going, just revolving door of people. Joe will work for this family for roughly a decade. And she'll come to adore Megan, in spite of her being hell on wheels. She said that Greg was more of a typical troublemaker, mouthing off, ditching school, getting into fights, stealing money, but Megan was the one who ruled the house. Had her grandparents wrapped around her little finger. She said she was both so tough and so sensitive, you know, she's telling Joe one minute that she needs her grandma or doesn't need her grandma, you know, hates her grandma. The next she's crying about how much she loves and does need her grandma.

Megan at school is becoming more vicious than her brother. He'll get in fights, but no one really seems to fear him. Megan, however, will get the police called on her for the first time in first grade. Second grade, she's diagnosed with ADHD. Fifth grade, she's transferred with ADHD. Fifth grade she transferred from Reiki Elementary in Portland to a school for troubled kids called PrEP. Then she gets nearly kicked out of the entire public school system in Portland. When she attacks a classmate tries to hold her head under the water in the swimming pool, thinks it's funny, she basically gave zero fucks. Friends

remembered her being fearless. For example in the summers Megan and other kids would sneak into a local hotel's pool. She was a kid doing crazy dives into the water and then daring other kids to do them after her, making fun of them when they wouldn't. One time when she was 12, she was running around the pool and her swimsuit was starting to slip off. Some guy there complained that she might as well be naked. So she took the entire swimsuit off and then cannonballed into the pool. She was that kid. Social worker Joe Moser thought that Megan's bravado was a big facade.

She thought she was deeply insecure, angry about her parents neglecting and then abandoning her and just full of self-loathing. What seemed to enrage Megan the most was the word no. The refrain of Megan's pre-teen and teenage years was pretty consistent. I don't care. I'm going anyway. You can't make me. I'm gonna go back You can't make me. I'm going to go back to school, beat the shit out of so and so. By the time she was a teen, most close to the family believed her grandma Mural was now way too frightened to rein her in.

Everyone would hear Megan's threats of, I'll kill you in your sleep. I'll stab you to death. I honestly think they were scared of her. Her cousin, Jessica Small will later say, if she wanted something, she'd be like, I want this. And then hand it scared of her. Her cousin Jessica Small will later say if she wanted something she'd be like I want this and then hand it right to her. Muriel would hear Megan pitching a fit, try to put her foot down sometimes but then Megan would you know fly into a fit of rage you know maybe throw something at her maybe hit her then Muriel would say Megan I don't have the money but take my last five dollars. Her aunts and cousins were appalled at this. Megan's aunt Ella remembers asking Muriel, why do you pay her to be bad? After 10 years of working with her, Joe observed that Megan was still an unfulfilled child, angry, wounded, still feeling like she wasn't getting

what she deserved out of life. She'd also become a romantic, looking for love, looking for somebody who accepted her despite her flaws. And her grandparents weren't enough. Them indulging her only made her more insecure, more needy. In some way she had both inferiority and grandiosity going at the same time, Moser said. Those were the two elements. I can do anything I want and I'm a piece of shit. Just before Megan finished junior high, her grandparents moved from Portland a few miles away to the south, settling in Scarborough, moved into a rundown single wide trailer there on the western edge of the town in a dumpy trailer park

called Crystal Springs. Little Greg did not want to move with him. He didn't want to leave his friends and he would spend the last few years of high school living in group homes, living with other relatives and living on his own. Megan in her new locale is labeled as being white trash by her suburban classmates immediately. She started off Scarborough Middle School in regular classes, but was in special ed classes by the end of the school year. When she started Scarborough, Scarborough High the following year, she was placed in the alternative school for troubled kids, a place kids are called the basement. She also quickly met the local cops her freshman year.

She was arrested for shoplifting several times, ended up in a jail for kids called the youth center, AKA juvie local officer, Doug weed. Oh, fuck yeah, bro. Officer weed. He arrested her for the first time on October of 2002 when she was 14 for harassing another local girl, taunting her by fucking beating her up. Then in 2004, a neighbor, a neighbor filed a restraining order against her. She's out of control. In June of 2005, she gets busted for possessing drug paraphernalia. In 2006, her grandma Muriel calls him after she busted out of rehab, showed up at her place.

Officer Weed had developed a soft spot for her because she had had such a shitty childhood. He would usually let her off with nothing but a warning more often than not. When Megan turned 17, she dropped out of high school, went to go live with her grandma again. Shortly afterwards, she got busted for shoplifting alcohol, then busted again for stealing a credit card a customer had left at the bagel shop she's working at. She used it to go on a shopping spree for her friend's baby shower. And then the wild child is pregnant before she turns 18. The father, a 32-year-old guy named, can you guess? That's right, Blaze.

You knew I was gonna say that, but it wasn't Blaze. No, his name was DJ. And he already had another kid he was not helping raise who was living in New Hampshire. And Megan barely knew this guy. They met at some kind of club, fucked in the bathroom, and then she was pregnant. Megan would give birth to a healthy baby girl in the summer of 2006 named Liliana. And now being a mother, calms Megan down. She's no longer so angry and so reckless.

She moves back in with the grandparents in that Crystal Springs trailer park. She's no longer taking advantage of them. Not at first anyway. Her brother Greg will later say Megan loved her daughter. Liliana was everything to her. But now she has another mouth to feed. A new kind of pressure she'd never had before. She desperately wants to be a better mom to Liliana than her mom was to her. She will be in some ways, but sadly will not be in others.

She keeps picking boyfriends who treat her like shit, who abuse her. One of them, some kid named Banks, soon becomes more of a pimp than a boyfriend. He'll be the guy who will get her to work as an escort for the first time when she's still 18. And she'll use the money she made from sex work to move out of her grandparents trailer into an apartment at Brick Hill, an apartment complex in South Portland sounds pretty rough. She starts leaving her baby with her grandparents most nights, so now Mural and Doug, they've raised their fucking kids, they've raised some of their grandkids, and now they're raising one of their great grandkids At Brick Hill Megan gets wild again starts throwing parties soon after that. She starts selling prescription opioids

Also starts snorting a lot of coke starts doing a lot of Molly She leaves her pimp boyfriend Banks after he had beaten her again, starts dating a friend of Banks who went by the name of Vibe, who was also a fucking pimp, because he was a real mellow fellow. For fuck's sake. Vibe, who was her same age, was also a drug dealer who drove a custom Cadillac with TVs in the headrest that I guess impressed everybody. Of course Vibe is a pimp and a drug dealer. God damn it. It's Blaze 2.0. Blaze and Vibe might actually have mi and a drug dealer. God damn it. It's Blaze 2.0 Blaze and Vibe Might actually have mixtapes out there somewhere soon with Vibe pimping her out Megan is making up to $1,500 at a night And anyone listening never date or fuck a dude named Blaze or a guy named Vibe

Nothing ever comes from hooking up with Vibe in the spring of 2009 Vibe who was from New York took Megan to Long Island for the first time ahead of the trip. They posted some ads for her on Craigslist. Trip went well. Soon they were heading back to New York. But then in October now an undercover Nassau County detective in Long Island responds to one of her ads and busts her for prostitution. Doesn't bust Vibe because he's not there. That same trip she gets robbed by two different Johns. Also Vibe is not there. He doesn't get robbed. Where the fuck is Vibe? Why isn't he protecting her? What kind of fucking pimp is he? It's almost like this motherfucker is not dependable.

In late 2009, an old friend of Megan's goes to visit her. Happens to see Vibe beating the shit out of her, not surprised. Grabbing her by the hair and punching her face bloody. Fucking Vibe did that? What? She calls an ambulance, went with her to the hospital, Megan refuses to press charges against Vibe, and then she never speaks to the friend that helped her again. In April of 2010, Vibe

leaves her after she and her friend snorted a bunch of his coke that she was supposed to sell for him. Then the following May, Vibe gets arrested for dealing. Good. But then the charges get thrown out because of an improper warrant. Bad. The day Vibe gets arrested for dealing. Good. But then the charges get thrown out because of an improper warrant. Bad. The day Vibe is released May 31st 2010 Megan greets him at the jail. Then the next day the two are planning another trip to Long Island where Vibe is gonna pimp her out again.

But not protect her or do fucking anything because he's a lazy piece of shit. June 5th a Friday afternoon Megan takes a bus from Portland to Long Island Vibe had left a few days earlier to visit some family in Brooklyn. Wonder what relatives he was visiting. Maybe going to see Cousin Fly, Cousin Riz, Cousin Hella, Cousin D-Train. Megan checks in alone at the Holiday Inn Express in Hop Og along the Bear's Tread to the Long Island Expressway. She had company soon after. At 8pm, the security camera recorded Vibe and Megan leaving the hotel together. Probably heading to the library.

At 8.30 Megan came back alone. In her room she made some calls. She briefly talked with her mom, Lorraine, at around 10. Who she had kind of reconnected with. She called her friend Nikki at about 11. But Nikki was too tired to talk. She told Megan she'd call the next day. Just before midnight Megan calls her grandma Muriel. says that Vibe is out with some friends.

And she's tired, she's going to bed. I'm sure Muriel was fucking thrilled to hear about her escapades with Vibe. She asked if her daughter Lily was up. Muriel scoffed and said, it's midnight. Are you kidding me? Fair. Megan told Muriel, oh yeah, she'll call back in the morning Sometime after midnight under the name of Lexi Megan post a new ad on Craigslist

Jump into a world like no other please no blocked calls or text messages Five speaks with Megan on the phone at around 1 20 a.m. The last time he would speak with her Ten minutes later 1 30 a.m. Security camera in the lobby the Holiday Express records Megan walking out through the automatic sliding door. The hotel is located on a narrow service road to the highway. One witness later said Megan seemed to be walking down the service road towards a nearby convenience store. A good meet and place, perhaps, for a John who did not want to be seen. And now Megan will never be seen alive again. Vibe will call the police to report her missing after he gets to their room by 6 a.m.

Finds that she is not in the room, calls her going straight to her voicemail. This freaks him out because she never turned her phone off. So immediately Vibe knows that something is wrong. It's almost like he should have done a much better job looking out for her. If you're going to pimp, pimp Vibe. Oh shit, sounds like suck verse. Sex work expert former pimp chicken Joe wants to share some thoughts. Bok bok playboy, bok bok. Vibe illustrating the problem with most pimping. Not enough protection, too much posing and limping. Do your job, player. The least protected girl you're already exploiting.

Drinking with your boys while your girl doing the dirty work. So damn disappointin' Vibe and blaze bringin' shame to the pimping game Couple sorry ass losers frontin' only pimps in the name Need to legalize that shit, get these parasites out the game Most pimps do nothin' but take Worse than the bad johns they supposed to be done and break Former pimp chicken Joe now wanna end these pimps Do nothin' but prayin', you feel me? You dig? You hear what I'm saying? Wow

Been a while since we heard from Chicken Joe Former pimp who is now a sex worker safety advocate. What? Hey turn around September 2010 Three months after 22 year old Megan Waterman goes missing in Long Island, 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello also goes missing. Amber is the last victim whose backstory we know quite a bit about, so let me introduce her to you as well.

Amber Lynn Overstreet, as she was born, the name she was born with, born February 10th, 1983, just outside of Philadelphia. She'll grow up to be petite, like the other Long Island serial killer victims in short like most of them 4'11 and as one source described her 100 pounds soaked and wet. She had one sister Kim six years older than her and her parents Margie and Al. They did adore their two little girls. Her dad was a baker. Her mom was a waitress when they two when the two

met in Bristol Pennsylvania about 50 miles outside of Philly. Shortly after Amber was born, the family moved from Pennsylvania back to North Carolina, where Al was from. Al reconnected with his dad for the first time in years. Amber's sister Kim will remember fun family dinners with a bunch of cousins she had never known. First, they lived several hours away from Wilmington in Gastonia, a working-class town next to Charlotte, where Al had found work in some knitting mills nearby. Life was pretty idyllic in North Carolina for a few years until Amber and her family's life will be derailed forever by a pedophile.

Amber's family was rent in the garage apartment of another family's house when it happened. A 26 year old neighbor named Blaze, I mean Vibe, I mean James, offered to take Kim and Amber and another girl to play tennis at the local park. And Al and Margie. Much to their regret later will allow this. Another PSA here.

If you have young girls and a 26 year old neighbor dude offers to take them somewhere, anywhere, without you present, that guy can fuck right off. Might be harmless, but why risk it? Holy shit would that set off some alarm balls in my head. And alarm bells. Uh, on one of these outings, James grabbed Amber, her age is not listed for when this happened, but she was in grade school, and I believe she was in early grade school.

He took her out into the bushes, and so it began. He raped her. The family isn't sure how long the abuse went on, but later, Margie will catch James, this 26 year old motherfucker, and her grade school daughter, in bed together, nude, and she calls the police. Amber's parents and her sister will remember what comes next a bit differently. Kim thinks James went to jail, and her dad also went to jail for shooting him. But Al says, yes, he bought a shotgun, threatened to blow James's brains out, But the police stopped him before he could for some reason no formal charges against James will be filed

No arrest record for the incident appears to exist today The overstreets now move immediately and the entire family falls to pieces Kim said that Amber blamed her mother Margie for not protecting her from James and Margie blamed herself She was so riddled with guilt she ended up hospitalized from a nervous breakdown. Then when she got out her and Al separated. She and Amber moved first to Charlotte later to Wilmington bunking in an aunt's house there for a while. Kim stayed with her dad Al for a while but then moved in with the friend's family when he went to jail for too many DUIs. Being raped by James didn't just scar Amber emotionally, it apparently scarred her physically as well.

Fuck. Several friends and family members will say that she told them she couldn't have kids because of what James had done to her. That motherfucker reasoned 10,000 why I would love to see these pedophiles executed. They do so much damage. When Amber was in junior high school, her parents got back together, then Al moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, or then they all, excuse me, moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, then to Florida, then back to just south of Wilmington, lived in Carolina Beach in a housing project there called Nesbitt Courts.

Kim's first baby, a girl named Marissa, will be born while they live in Nesbitt Courts. Amber and her friends will race home to play with her. Kim is almost 20 when Marissa is born, which will make Amber almost 14. Kim's baby daddy is a kid from the neighborhood named Mootney. She'll have two more kids with him, though another boyfriend will end up raising all three when Mootney doesn't stick around. What a fucking theme here, because dudes not fucking being good to women, not sticking around. Al got a job at Krispy Kreme making the donuts early in the morning. Margie worked part-time managing rental properties, helped look after Kim's child and children.

Margie is a stone-cold alcoholic by now. Slender with shoulder-length hair that had turned prematurely gray, Margie kept cases of Old English, oh shit, in the pantry, and would sip from a warm 40-ounce bottle bright and early every morning to start her day. Oh fuck. Another PSA. Do not start your day with Old English. Do not start your day with 40 ounces of malt liquor. That's a recipe for disaster. Meanwhile Amber is doing pretty well, surprisingly this time. She's earned an A's and B's in school. She's skipping class here and there but nothing serious yet. Not getting in a lot of trouble. Despite

having several kids when she was young, Kim is still able to pull off going to college at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She will study sports medicine for a little while while also working two different jobs. Working at Bojangles. Praise Bojangles! Except this is not him, this is a fast food restaurant. And she's also waiting tables at Freddy's Italian American Grill. Her freshman year in college, she will meet a woman named Teresa. The two went to the same psychology class.

Teresa seemed to be killing it in life. Wearing fucking nice clothes, driving a nice car, married to a man in the military who she rarely saw. He was really home, running her own business, an escort business. Around the time Kim meets her, both of her parents suffer health problems. Al has to have surgery for some fucking tumors growing along his acoustic nerve in his head. Margie has a perforated ulcer for fuck's sake.

She has shit stacked on shit stacked on shit with this family now. Now on top of everything else Kim is playing nurse to both of her parents. Neither was able to work, overdue bills or piling up. Kim's afraid her life is about to completely unravel. She's not making enough to pay for school and raise her kids and take care of her parents. She's exhausted. She can't work any more hours. What's she gonna do? She's a pretty girl. She considers working at a strip club. But Teresa, the escort madam, tells her she won't make enough for what she needs doing that and asks her to come work for her. Kim says she doesn't

want to have sex for money. Teresa says it's not always sex. Sometimes it's just a show that clients want. On a busy night, she says the girls can make $800 just dancing. On paper, they're not escorts. The agency tells clients the girls cannot legally have sex for money. But some girls will make their own deals with the guys once they get there, you know, called out to the house and they keep all that extra money for themselves.

For the first year or two, Kim won't even dance for Teresa. She will just work the phones, handling reservations and just doing that. She'll make a couple hundred dollars on a busy night. She's able to quit working at both Bojangles and at Freddie's Italian American Grill. Then one night, a few years into working for Teresa, Kim decides to go along with several of the escorts to watch a party they're going to. See how they they party with a group of doctors and lawyers in this case from New York and New Jersey. There was no sex, well almost no sex. She saw one girl give a guy a hand job in front of everybody, weirded her out but that was it.

Each girl Kim estimated walked away with about $900 cash for two hours of work. Not long after that, Kim takes her first escort job under the name of Mia. Just her and one guy, he's really nice to her, and she makes a few hundred dollars in two hours. He becomes a regular customer, and just like that, she's hooked. Soon, Kim is done working the phone and is doing escort work full-time.

With her parents still struggling, her still holding the family together, she also begins to rationalize stealing from her clients, a watch here, a credit card there. Meanwhile Amber finds out about what her sister Kim is doing while she's in her early teens and never having fully processed being raped as a child still never going to therapy. Her parents don't put her into that. You know, probably don't even think of that. She now becomes hypersexual. By the time she is 16, she had started charging neighborhood boys for sex. She'll sleep with almost anybody. Sex, according to her, means nothing.

Then by the time she turns or when she turns 18, Amber joins her sister to work at Teresa's escort service, which is called Coed Confidential. The girls' parents know what their daughters are up to, but they're financially dependent on them. The roles have been reversed, and so they don't pressure them to quit. Fuck how sad. Also as time goes on, Teresa the madam starts to invite all the girls working for her to more and more parties she's throwing. Like not with clients, but just like party parties.

And the drugs are flowing more and more freely. All sorts of drugs. From weed, to acid, to molly, to xanax, to cokeanax to coke to crack to heroin to meth all of it and Kim and amber are doing all of them including experimenting with smoking fucking crack smoking meth experimenting with shooting up heroin Another PSA don't fucking smoke crack don't smoke meth don't shoot heroin don't date guys named blaze Don't date guys named vibe. Don't let single child this 26 year old dude take your young daughters to play tennis ah so many fucking horrible decisions soon shit like it tends to do

when crack enters the picture starts going off the fucking rails for these girls pretty soon Kim is selling coke she's stealing from parties Amber gets kicked out of Teresa's escort agency for constantly stealing from her clients. Also, Amber is addicted to crack, which is what happens if you smoke crack. Now for the rest of her life, she will struggle with this addiction and with an addiction to heroin. At one point she is just down to 80 pounds always in and out of rehab, in and out of sex work. And then in and out of various non-denominational Christian churches. As a born-again Christian for the rest of her life

It is back and forth between church and crack Seriously, she'll get married in 2004 to a guy named Michael Wilhelm that she met in church Only to divorce within a year after another crack relapse. Her sister Kim ended up moving to Long Island Where she will have three more kids with another guy by 2009 She already had three kids in North Carolina, so she has six in total and she will lose lose custody of all of them. Fuck! She was so close to getting out of all of this back when she was in school. Now she's struggling with her own crack addiction. In 2005, Amber's mom Margie dies after her ulcer comes back with the vengeance and ruptures because she's a

fucking alcoholic. At the end of 2007, Amber gets married to a second time to a guy named Don Costello. She met again at church. Year later Amber and Don adopt a child from a family they went to church with. A little baby boy named Gabriel. But then just a few months after that, just 15 months after getting married, Don files for divorce. In March of 2009 asked why he'll only say she was not truthful throughout our marriage Feel like she may have fucked around on him behind his back and also smoked crack behind his back Later that same month Amber's arrested for trying to steal some toothpaste from a local grocery store. She had relapsed again hard She then moved to Long Island to connect with her sister

She goes there to live with a guy her sister Kim is sometimes fucking behind Kim's current boyfriend's back, her current baby daddy's back. This guy, this backup boyfriend of a sort, is named Dave Schaller. What a mess. Amber goes to rehab right after getting to Long Island, and in rehab she meets a guy named Bjorn Brodsky, a guy who goes by the name of Bear though. God damn it! Never date a guy named Blaze. Never date a guy named Vibe. Never date a guy named Bear. She does date Bear and she and Bear move in with Kim's backup boyfriend Dave when they both get out of rehab. Now they all live together in the town of West Babylon in Suffolk County on Long Island. Amber loves Bear. I guess, you know, he is pretty good to her especially at first.

She gets clingy with them, always needing to cuddle, always want more physical contact to be held and protected. Amber by this time has also lost nearly half of her fucking teeth to smoking crack and smoking meth. Self-esteem, not sky high. Then soon, frustrated with not having enough money for this or that, Kim and Amber return to escorting. This time they want to do it through Craigslist. Just for a little while, just until Amber has her own place, money for new teeth, Kim has some money in savings. This time they will work together. Yes, two sisters being hired by the same client for sex work. This is like fucking Requiem for a Dream, but even darker. This episode is feeling like a big PSA to stay away from crack, heroin, meth, sex work.

This is honestly why I wish sex work was legal and regulated. Right? No government will ever stop it. Not ever. There's a reason it's called the world's oldest profession. So why not make it safer for those who choose to do it? That's me fucking crazy. That's never considered. Kim and Amber now want Dave, Kim's backup boyfriend, to work as their driver. He's a big guy 250 pounds over 6 feet tall. He can be a bodyguard. He doesn't want to. He refuses to take their money for this, but he agrees to help them when he can, if he can't talk them out of it. At first, Amber and Kim have a no touching rule. They'll just dance or play with themselves and let these guys watch Jesus Christ. They're sisters! That rule doesn't last long.

Now these two sisters are fucking the same dudes. This is a nightmare. Sometimes each girl will also work solo. And then, Bayer relapses on heroin. Soon, Kim and Amber are now using it again as well. Then they all start doing coke, smoking crack. Dave holds out at first, but pretty soon he's shooting up, smoking crack as well.

Then their lives really fall apart because it's crack. Dave will lose 40 pounds over the next few months. Bear doesn't say how much he loses as well, but I guess he becomes like a fucking skeleton. Amber and Kim are getting more reckless with their escort work. Bear is not, you know, Bear was driving them to gigs for a little while too. So was Dave. Neither one of them are doing that now. They're just sleeping with, you know, whoever, letting these guys do whatever they want to them as long as the money is right.

God knows what kind of degradation they endured. Amber, though she's making up to $14,000 in a month, but it's all going to drugs. All the money the girls are making is going to drugs and the group is selling everything they own for more drugs. Cars, TVs, everything. Soon the house they live in is a true crack house. Stinks, it's filthy.

There's barely any furniture. There's holes in the walls from tantrums thrown by people who either high as fuck or going through withdrawal. Now Kim and Amber are not always, you know, again, they're not having the guys driving them to clients anymore, pretty much at all, because everyone's too fucked up.

Summer of 2010, Amber goes out alone, then calls Dave and Bear crying. She was stranded and bloody along the side of a highway. Some John had beat the shit out of her when she refused to blow him. Then in August of 2010, Bear gets arrested. Cops find three bags of coke on him and a knife he was not allowed to carry because he was a convicted felon. He gets sent to Rikers Island.

Amber bailes him out with $3,800 in cash and he promptly ODs and almost dies. Falls into a coma, spends three weeks in the hospital, then he's sent to rehab, then he's sent back to jail. Amber's heartbroken. She's also still addicted to both fucking crack and heroin and maybe meth. Doing sex work, still full-time to pay for the drugs. Amber starts to talk about how she is better off dead, how she hates that she is struggling with substance abuse, she hates sex work. Dave Schaller will later say she knew what she was doing was degrading, just despicable. She absolutely hated it. On September 2nd, 2010, she leaves her home in

West Babylon for the last time. Off to meet another client she had met through Craigslist. She had placed the ad about 5 p.m. He had agreed to pay her $15 for the night six times her normal rate at this time Typically for overnights, you know in the past she'd have the guys come uh, you know to the house But she felt comfortable after talking with this guy and the phone numerous times to go to his house and bear can't go Protect her. He's in uh, fucking jail Prison and you know, dave is high on heroin This guy said he would pick her up by 11 p.m. Have her back by 7 a.m. The next morning Somehow he also convinced her to leave her purse and phone at home

Dave walked out the front door with Amber when she left she hugged him said she loved him She leaves he sees her walking down the street then he never sees her again Three days later he calls Kim who's back in North Carolina tells her that Amber still has not come home. Also calls Bear in prison. Bear knows immediately that she's dead. Assumes. 2011, Dave Schaller will speak to CBS and say, this guy was relentless. He called several times. He was on the phone with her for quite a while each time. Dave then told 48 Hours, he didn't see the client's face, but he thought he had seen, didn't get like a good look at the guy's face, but he thought he had seen the guy before. When speaking to the police good look at the guy's face But he thought he had seen the guy before when speaking to the police he described the guys ogre-like and said he drove a first-generation

Chevy Avalanche Dave also said that no one in Amber's family looked for her after she went missing well Interestingly a few weeks before Amber went missing a client perhaps the same client had asked her to meet him at the same Holiday Inn Express where Megan Waterman was last seen alive. December 11, 2010. Three months after Amber goes missing, Suffolk County Officer John Malia and his cadaver dog Blue are searching Gilgo Beach, close to the shoulder of Ocean Parkway in Suffolk

County. Malia and Blue had searched Oak Beach throughout the summer of 2010. He changed his search location on December 11th basing his choice on FBI data indicating that dumped bodies are often found close to roadways. And blue alerts Officer Malia to ascent, which they track to a skeleton wrapped in burlap. Authorities assume this was the missing Shannon Gilbert, the girl who had made that long and very confusing 911 call. Oak Beach is just eight miles

from Gilgo Beach via Ocean Parkway. But the victim was 24 year old Melissa Barthelmy, who we met earlier. She had disappeared in July of 2009. Law enforcement swarmed the beach to continue searching. And on December 13th, 2010, three more bodies are found. 25 year old Marine Brainerd Barnes, 22 year old Megan Waterman,

and 27 year old Amber Costello. The Gilgo Beach Four. The remains were all found within a quarter mile of their first discovery or of the first discovery. The Gilgo Beach Four found in similar positions bound with belts or tape. Three of them wrapped in burlap. Cause of death for all four women was listed as homicidal violence. All four victims are petite young women around 5 feet tall and 100 pounds. The killer clearly has a type. All four of them are sex workers who met with clients online through Craigslist. Dominic Verone, chief of detectives in Suffolk County, believed the killer scrolled through online ads on Craigslist to find his preferred victim type.

He said if he desires a particular height and weight and eye color, he can do that. And I think if you look at the GGG4, they're very, very close with unique characteristics. Very petite, five foot or under, 100 pounds, hazel green eyes. He's not totally correct here. Megan Waterman was 5'5", but also she was very thin, very petite. Investigators theorized that the killer might have intentionally targeted smaller women because they would be easier to overpower, easier to subdue and torture, and after they had died their bodies would be easier to transport. Verone believed the killer was probably a local, somebody familiar with the area along Ocean Park

Way where the bodies were found, an area he had clearly chose as his dumping ground, at least one of his dumping grounds. Currently there was a bike path in this area but back in 2010 the area was covered in thick brush and reeds that would grow, you know, 10-12 feet tall. Very few joggers and cyclists ever went there. Instead of burying the bodies, the killer could just toss them into the brush. And it took years for them to be found. Or, you know, months, years. Investigators also speculated that the killer might have posed as a hunter, a private trash hauler, or somebody else who would have had a reason to be there. The killer was also likely somebody who is especially charming or persuasive. You know, because he was able to convince Amber Costello to leave behind her phone. The killer was brazen and sadistic as well as evidenced by the disturbing phone calls received by Melissa Barthelome's little sister.

Throughout the spring of 2011, investigators continued searching for Shannon Gilbert on and around Gilgo Beach. They don't find Shannon, but they do find four more bodies. March 29th 2011 the skeletal remains of Jessica Taylor's skull, hands, forearm are found on Gilgo Beach. Remember Jessica? These additional remains were found 50 miles from Manorville where Jessica's torso had been found back in July of 2003. Her case is unique because she was the only person identified years before she was linked to the Long Island serial killer case. April 4, 2011, less than a week after Jessica Taylor's skull, hands, and forearm were found,

three additional sets of remains were found on Gilgo Beach. The head, right foot, and hands of a woman labeled Jane Doe, number 6, were found. Authorities will eventually learn that Jane Doe, number six, is the same woman whose torso had been found wrapped in a trash bag in Manorville in September of 2000. The remains of a female toddler also found on the beach. Man, so sad she'll be referred to as baby Doe. The third victim is an unidentified Asian male dressed in women's clothing. He was believed to have been between 17 and 23 when he died, most likely five to ten years before he was found. The greatest distance between victims just 1.4 miles, shortest distance 0.04 miles. April 11th 2011. A week later two more sets of human remains are

found off in Nassau County, seven miles west of Gilgo Beach. A woman's skull and teeth uncovered at Tobey Beach. Excuse me. DNA testing will link this woman's remains to the pair of legs that were found on Fire Island back in 1996. Jesus, just scattered these fucking people all over. Another woman's remains are found in the brush near Zaks Bay at Jones Beach State Park. She was listed as a Jane Doe, but DNA testing will confirm that these are the remains of Peaches.

That unidentified woman whose torso had been found stuffed inside a black plastic bag inside a plastic container in Hempstead Lake State Park and Rockville Center back in 1997. Some of Peaches' limbs still have not been found. Her skull has never been found, which means investigators have not been able to put together a composite sketch of her. May 9th, 2011. A month later the police speculate that the victims found in 2000 and 2003, Jane Doe, number 6, and Jessica Taylor, were murdered by a second unknown serial killer. But then, November 29th, 2011, police announced, never mind, we do think that one person was probably responsible for all 10 of the murders.

And that killer, almost certainly from Long Island. Early December 2011. The following month, investigators find Shannon Gilbert's belongings, including her purse, shoes and cell phone. In some marshland, less than a mile from where she was last seen, less than 8 miles from Gilgo Beach. December 13, 2011, right, a few days later, Shannon Gilbert's body is finally found a quarter of a mile from her belongings.

Her remains were found lying next to Blaze. That motherfucker had been hiding in those reeds since the summer of 2009. No, her remains were found in the reeds, north of a trench about three quarters of a mile from where she was last seen. Shannon's exact cause of death could not be conclusively determined, but police believe she died of an accidental drowning. The woman whose disappearance did more than anything else to get investigators to search the area where the Long Island serial killer's victims will be found, almost certainly not a victim of the Long Island serial killer herself.

Suffolk County Homicide Section Commanding Officer Kevin Bayer explained that Shannon wandered into the marshland where reeds can grow again up to 12 feet high, saying, "...one cannot tell where the highway is or where the bay is." Former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, Dick Dorm, almost like Dick Storm, which would be fucking great, told NBC she traveled at least a half a mile, three quarters of a mile on foot through that muck. It would have been very easy to get exhausted, fall down, not be able to move any further. Shannon's family paid for a private autopsy and while this new autopsy also did not find sufficient evidence to determine a cause of death,

former NYC medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden, he said the findings were quote consistent with homicidal strangulation. Didn't say she necessarily was strangled, but possibly. Family attorney, John Ray said at a press conference, there is no evidence whatsoever that Shannon Gilbert died a natural death, but that's not exactly true. They just don't know.

John Ray and his colleagues went to the march themselves to see if Shannon could have traveled to the area on foot or not. They believe it would have been almost impossible for her to walk to the area without cutting her feet up badly. But she was wearing shoes. The family also believes that police should have done more to investigate Dr. Peter Hackett, right? That fucking weird neighbor. Chief of detectives Dominic Verrone explained that the police didn't know about Dr. Hackett's mysterious phone call until months later. 48 hours asked if he believed Mary Gilbert's statement that Hackett called on May 3, 2010.

Said her daughter had been staying at his house and Verone said, I don't believe he said that and I would be amazed as to why wasn't that brought to our attention. Why weren't they screaming that clamoring that? Fair. 48 hours found that Mary Gilbert did report the phone call days after Shannon's disappearance, but Mary was required to follow the report in New Jersey for reasons I don't fully understand. Not in Suffolk County. It's all very confusing. Attorney John, I mean they are very close to New Jersey, but still. Attorney John Ray filed a wrongful death suit against Dr. Hackett claiming he improperly treated Shannon. According

to 48 Hours, Dr. Hackett was known to provide medical treatment out of his house. Two neighbors signed affidavits attesting to that. One claimed Dr. Hackett gave him a prescription, injectable steroid. Another said Hackett provided prescriptions for various residents of Oak Beach. Hackett admitted to treating friends and neighbors, but denied treating or seeing Shannon. 2022. Suffolk County police said about Shannon's death, quote, based on the evidence, the facts and the totality of the circumstances. The prevailing opinion of Shannon's death, while tragic, was not murder, and most likely

not criminal. Was she possibly murdered? I mean, yeah, maybe, but by whom? The cop showed up in that gated community where she was found within 10 minutes of her knocking on a residence tour. And by the time they got there, her driver already gone. He wouldn't have had time to strangle her. Then also take her body almost a fucking mile out into those thick reeds,

into that muck, that deep mud, you know, water. Then run back to his vehicle. And in the 911 call, after she knocks on the second house's door, it just sounds like she's just running and running and running and running. So she might have ran out into the fucking reeds. You know, she might have been having a mental health crisis. Or high on something or both. And then gotten disoriented, fallen down, and drowned. I mean, crazier things have happened.

She did not sound well to me at all in her final call. Sadly, Shannon Gilbert's family will experience further tragedy when less than five years later her sister Sarah stabs their mother Mary Gilbert to death in July of 2016. This is insane. Sarah will be convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. This fucking family is cursed. Like her sister Shannon, Sarah also struggled with very serious mental health issues. Whereas Shannon was bipolar, the then 27 year old was previously diagnosed with schizophrenia and had spent much of her life in and out of mental health facilities. In the months leading up to Mary's horrific death, Sarah had drowned her pet puppy and

also threatened to kill her eight-year-old son. Then on July 26, 2016, she stabbed Mary with a kitchen knife 227 times. Holy fuck. She stabbed her mom 227 times with a kitchen knife in Mary's Ellenville, New York apartment. Sarah also then stripped off all her mother's clothes and smashed her head in with a fire extinguisher. She didn't just kill her mom. She fucking disintegrated her mom.

Why did she do that? She told the jury that she believed at the time that her mom was evil and deserved to die. Somehow she will not be found criminally insane for this murder. She tried to blame the murder on her mom practicing quote witchcraft and black magic and she said that the black magic adversely affected her growing up which is something that a schizophrenic person would say. Her sister Stevie disagreed testifying that Sarah was jealous of their mom's relationship with her other daughters. Sarah was apparently the

black sheep of the family. An unnamed juror would tell the Daily Freeman why they came to the decision they did about her mental health. They said we feel that she has mental health or mental illness but was also aware of what she was doing huh January 2012 chief of detectives Dominic Varone who had helped organize a task force to investigate the Long Island serial killer is according to an interview he gave later forced to retire a new police chief James Burke taken over and immediately reduced manpower. He cut jobs, also cut off access to the investigation to the FBI. Why would James not want the FBI looking into what he was doing? Because he is corrupt as fuck.

Also didn't care about catching serial killer who was targeting sex workers. Back in 1995, a Suffolk County Police Department internal probe found that Burke had quote, had a relationship with the woman engaged in prostitution and drug dealing, and had engaged in sex acts in police vehicles while on duty and in uniform. How the fuck is that guy? Later named Police Chief. What a joke. How was he not fired and banned from working in law enforcement for the rest of his life? That's disgusting. Clearly, he is not the only corrupt cop in Suffolk County if somebody fucking put him in charge.

Just a year after this pile of shit becomes police chief in May of 2013, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office opened an investigation into Burke's alleged beating of a suspect in police custody, somebody who when handcuffed he had fucking punched and kicked in the head. And there was a cover-up and then a coercion of witnesses afterwards Burke was then charged with assaulting Christopher Loeb after Loeb had been arrested for allegedly breaking into Burke's unlocked vehicle and stealing get this Quote a gun belt ammunition box of cigars and a bag containing sex toys and pornography What's happening? Burke pled guilty to reduce charges in February of 2016 then on November, 2016, he is sentenced to 46 months in prison for that shit with

another three years of supervised release after he gets out. He will serve 22 months in prison before being released November of 2018. And then, a year and a half ago, August 22, 2023, Burke is arrested at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Farmingville, Long Island, still in Suffolk County, after he whipped his dick out in front of an undercover park ranger and asked that person to suck it. The then 58-year-old tried to leverage his status as a former law enforcement official to get out of getting in trouble.

He is charged with offering a sex act, public lewdness, indecent exposure, and criminal solicitation. Not sure if Shit for Brains has been sentenced for any of that or not. There has not been any new articles about him since that arrest. So that kind of fucks up the investigation a little bit. This guy being a fucking moron. Backing up now to the Long Island serial killer timeline. December 13th, five years after the last victims remains were found authorities announced that DNA evidence has determined that Peaches is the mother of baby Doe the toddler whose remains were found April 4, 2011. Mother and daughter also were wearing similar gold jewelry when they died and so sad somebody killed both mom and daughter chopped him up dumped them both out on the beach like trash

September 12 2017 almost a year later Suffolk County homicide prosecutor Robert Bianca Villa or Bianca Villa Probably Bianca Villa. There we go Robert Bianca Villa Parmesan spaghetti Revealed that a convicted killer may be responsible for one or more unsolved murders connected to the Gilgo Beach investigation That past July 51 year old John Bit Rolfe had been convicted of murdering two sex workers found beaten to death in 90s 31 year old Rita Tengri de found dead on November 3rd 1993 in a wooded area of East Patchogue, Long Island

20 year old Colleen of East Patchogue, Long Island. 20-year-old Colleen McNamee killed January 30th 1994 found in a wooded area south of the Long Island Expressway. Both victims died from strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head but unlike many of the suspected Long Island serial killer victims their remains had not been mutilated. On September 12th that year, Bittrallf received two consecutive 25 years to life sentences. He was arrested back in July 2014. At the time of his arrest, prosecutors said there was no link between Rita Tengridi and Colleen McNamee and the Gilgo murders. Also at the time of his arrest, he was a married father of two. He was 27 at the time of the murders, which remained unsolved until DNA evidence finally linked him to the victims.

The DNA was first traced to his brother who had been convicted of violating a protective order in 2013 and had to give a DNA sample. The sentencing prosecutors did not say which of the GoGoBeach victims he could be connected to. However, Bittrolf lived in Manorville where two victims were found, their remains in the early 2000s. He was also a hunter who reportedly really enjoyed killing animals. I don't know why they, that what the source said. He really he particularly enjoyed it. And he was a carpenter with access to different types of saws. Both bodies found in Manorville have been dismembered. Additionally the

daughter of Rita Tangridi was best friends with Melissa Barthelome, one of the Gilgo Four. Jesus. Melissa's mom even said she had a lot of calls to Manorville from her phone before she died. Investigators also thought that Bittroff might have committed the 1993 murder of Sandra Castilla, but male hairs found in her body did not match him. September 2019 now, two years later, state officials allowed investigators to ask the FBI to use genetic genealogy to find potential relatives of the victims or suspects. Four months later, January 16, 2020, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart, a former FBI agent who joined the department in 2018, attempted to spark new life into

this investigation by releasing some key evidence. A man's belt with two initials, H W or a feud upside down M H Commissioner Hart said about the belt We do believe that this item was handled by the suspect and did not belong to any of the victims The department also established the Google News website to post updates and accept tips for the investigation May 28 2020 four months later Jane Doe number six whose partial remains have been found in September of 2000, and then more remains have been found April 14, 2011, now identified as 24-year-old Valerie Mack. She was identified with genetic genealogy.

Valerie, who also went by the name of Melissa Taylor, working as an escort in Philly when she went missing in 2000, last seen by her family in Port Republic, New Jersey. Valerie's partial remains first found in Manorville on Long Island. Rest of her remains found April 4th, 2011 near Baby Doe and near the unidentified Asian man. May 29th, 2020, very next day, new case added to the GoGoNews website. The torso of 25-year-old Andre Jamal Isaac found in an abandoned lot in Avern, Queens, almost 20 years earlier, on December 17, 2002. At the time, officers responded to an anonymous

tip that there was a body in a plastic bag on Beach 63 Street near the boardwalk. Inside the bag was a partial human torso with no head or extremities. Spokesman for the medical examiner said at the time that it was a male torso. Additional testing was needed to determine age and other info. Andre's frozen head was then found in the ice of a pond in Mariches, a hamlet in Suffolk County, Long Island, January 25, 2003. Andre's arms and legs also found in a plastic bag in Suffolk County. DNA testing done in Suffolk linked the remains to that torso found in a verne. Torso was found dressed in a skirt, bodysuit, and tank top. Andre was known to perform as a drag

queen under the stage name of Sugar Bear. His mom lived on Long Island. One of Andre's friends saw him leaving with a secret friend just before Thanksgiving 2002 and then he was never seen again. Andre's mother said he was a talented female impersonator and dancer who could enter contests all over the East Coast. He was a big bear, no matter what his lifestyle, who's still a human being. February 2022. Nearly two more years have gone by with zero movement in the case. But then Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison and Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney form a new task force to look into the Gilgo Beach murder cases. The new Gilgo Homicide Investigation Task Force

includes both state and federal agencies and they initiate a comprehensive review of every item of evidence in the case and this new task force, uh, task force kicks some serious fucking ass. And quickly, amazing what the right minds working together can do. March 14th, 2022, the very next month, a new suspect is identified. A Long Island man named Blaze Vibe. They're the same fucking guy. They happen the whole time. No. Rex Heurman. Officials discovered that a first-generation Chevy Avalanche was registered to Heurman at the time of the murders. Prosecutors wrote in a request to posing bail, this was significant because a witness to the disappearance of Amber Costello identified a first-generation Chevy Avalanche as the vehicle believed to have been driven by her killer. And

that witness was, if you recall, Amber's roommate, her sister's backup boyfriend, Dave Schall, who said her client was driving an Avalanche the night she went missing. The discovery of the Avalche leads to a comprehensive investigation into Rex Heurman. Rex was born on September 13th 1963. At the time he was named a suspect. He was a 58 year old married architect with an adult daughter and a stepson, Victoria Heurman and Christopher Sheridan. His second wife was a woman named Asa Elarup who was born in Iceland. They've been married at this point for more than 25 years. Asa took her kids to visit who was born in Iceland, they've been married at this point for more than 25 years. Asa took her kids to visit her family back in Iceland pretty much every summer,

and the police alleged that Rex murdered most of his victims while she and the kids were out of town. Rex was born and raised on Long Island, lived there his entire life. Specifically, he lived in Masapikwa Park, a village within the town of Oyster Bay. Masapikwa Park is a a 20 minute drive from Google Beach. Rex lived in a quiet neighborhood where everybody knows everybody. You know, kind of. There actually isn't a neighborhood on earth where everyone really knows everyone. I mean, we've learned here over and over a lot of people don't even really know the person they're married to. Rex lived according to CBS in a rundown house with Asa, his daughter and stepson.

And based on a few videos I've seen online, I would agree with that description. It is pretty rundown for an architect, especially. It's very uninspiring. Neighbor Margaret Curley told CBS that Rex purchased his parents' house. She said he had lived in the same house since he was a kid, pretty much his whole life. John Parisi, who also grew up with Rex, told 48 Hours that Rex had been bullied as a child. Parisi said, I remember meeting Rex when I was in first or second grade. He was a loner, not many friends. The children were super mean to him, made fun of him and teased him.

He said he never saw Rex fight back. He said he was big enough that if he got upset and started swinging, he would hurt somebody. But he never did. Bracey also said, speaking with a reporter for the New York Times, he was everybody's punching bag. He never really fell into cliques like jocks, nerds, or burnouts. He got picked on a lot. He would take it and take it and walk away.

I seen him push to his limit. In sixth grade, a group of students had, quote, singled out the tall, awkward boy, tried to beat him up. After being stopped by a teacher, they tortured him verbally. In high school, Mr. Heurman grew larger, more menacing. Parisi said, I was really scared of him. He was the type of guy, if he snapped, he could really hurt you. He was disillusioned.

He was misguided. He had to be very careful. As Rex got older, girls consistently rejected him. His awkward stage lasted a lot longer than most others his age. Neighbors said Rex and his family kept themselves, but he would stand out later because he was a very large man, is a very large man man and because he dressed formally for work for his job in Manhattan. CBS reported that he is 6'4", other sources say 6'5". And I would say just eyeballing this dude, he's got to weigh somewhere between 300, 350, maybe even

360 pounds. He's got a big, big frame, broad shoulders, big old cranium. He honestly reminds me build wise and with how his face looks of Shrek how much in a rage was this bully giant pushing down year after year Rex's neighbor Barry Auslinder told the Associated Press that it was strange how his house was a dump but he commuted to work wearing a nice suit and tie Rex's next-door neighbor ATN De Villiers de Villiers I don't know how to fucking say this guy's name told CBS. We've been here for about 30 years and the guy has been quiet Never really bothers anybody

former neighbor Rosemary Koffa Rosemary Kafka told NBC You know the regular guy who goes to work has kids in the local school and in a good neighborhood But he's killing people on the side. ATN De Villiers. I'm just going to call him ATN by his first name. He's not important in the story. I'm going to leave his last name out of this.

ATN. The neighbor did say that his wife once caught Rex peeking over the fence while she was sunbathing. He told Rex not to do that again, then he left her alone. Former police officer who was Rex's neighbor went on a podcast described how in the summer of 2023, Rex once confronted him on a train over where he was standing. He said, it's almost like road rage without a car. I walked away. He's physically intimidating in the fact that he's six foot five, missing his left front tooth. His voice is very distinctive. I thought he was a bully. Actor Billy Baldwin, yes, one of the Baldwin brothers, later tweeted, woke up this morning to learn that the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect was my high school classmate, Rex Sherman.

Yeah, Baldwin and Rex both graduated from Burner High in 1981. After studying architecture at the New York Institute of Technology on Long Island, Rex worked as an architect for over 30 years. He received his architecture license in 1996, the same year he married Asa. Seems as if he'd already been working in the architectural field for about a decade prior to that. Also around 96, he founded his own Midtown Manhattan based firm, RJ Consultants & Associates, and did well. His clients will include Target, Footlocker, Catholic Charities, New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, American Airlines, other tenants at JFK's airport,

or the JFK airport. According to his Meet the Team page, throughout the years, Rex Heuerman has provided services to other city agencies, not-for-profit agencies, builders, developers, and individual owners of buildings in regard to ADA, NYC, and New York State codes, as well as zoning consultation. In early 2022, Antoine Amira interviewed Rex for his YouTube channel, Bon Jours Realty. Amira is a hotel food and beverage manager in the city who loves real estate. He likes to interview people he thinks are interesting and accomplished. And he felt that Rex was well known for his ability to help companies and individuals get permits for finding loopholes in building codes and laws.

And here's a little clip just so you can hear rec speak. So I have one tool that's pretty much using almost every job. That's right. Right now. And it's actually a cabinet maker's hammer. Can we? Oh, okay. Kevin, it's maker hammer.

Okay. It is persuasive enough when I need to persuade something, not someone, something. And I need to persuade something. Not someone. Something. And it always yields excellent results. And at the end of the project, whatever piece of furniture or what I'm working on, it always helps it come out beautifully. In this interview, Rex will say he was born and raised in Long Island, had been working in Manhattan since 1987, and that's creepy about the fucking hammer.

Described himself as a consultant and troubleshooter, saying at one point, when a job that should have been routine, suddenly becomes not routine, I get the phone call. Rex explained that the first architect he worked for was Harvey Rothenberg, started in 1987. Rex's boss did a lot of work for non-profit agencies, so Rex focused on building code and code consulting, as well as design and drawings for facilities. He quickly learned the building department could not understand their own codes and their own laws. He said that part of his job became educating the city about their own codes.

Rex met his first paying client in the mid-90s. He was waiting in line at the Queens Building Department. The man was dealing with the clerk but clearly didn't know what he was doing. Rex was impatient so he took the man's paperwork, examined what he needed to do, what he needed to do for the clerk and then told the man you know what to do next. This was around the time he branched out on his own. Rex was asked about what qualities someone in his field would need and he replied, I don't like to use the word tolerance but sometimes you have to and it's not just with the city, it's also with the client

because most clients they don't understand what I have to do, why I have to do it, and what it takes to get done. When asked what the job taught him about himself, Reg said he learned how to understand people and that dealing with people is an interesting aspect of his career. Also spoke about his dad, an aerospace engineer, how his dad had taught him to build furniture and he said I build furniture at home And I still build it in the same exact workshop And that's where he started talking about that hammer. So he's got a workshop. He's good with tools Maybe filled with inner rage still mad about the girls rejecting him when he was growing up They make me so mad mother. I cannot control my samples

He reminds me physically of another big serial killer, Ed Kemper. For new listeners, that's where that voice came from. Amir would later tell 48 Hours that there was nothing about Rex that made him think he was dangerous. He thought Rex was intelligent. Throughout the interview, he noticed that it was hard to get Rex to smile. Also, when he shook his hand, he noticed that he was very, very strong. Rex's coworkers, Muriel Enriquez and Mary Shell would speak to 48 hours after his arrest. They were both in complete shock when they learned he was charged with murder.

Muriel, another Muriel, recalled how Rex once gave her a sweater that his wife had brought back from Iceland. Most likely the same summer he allegedly killed Marine Brainerd Barnes in 2007. She added that she knew he was an avid hunter but was surprised when she later found out the sheer number of firearms found in his home. And I'll share that number later. It is fucking crazy. Muriel said that there was nothing that ever seemed frightening about Rex. She described him as, quote, a little bit of a nerd in a way. He liked to talk about himself, what he knew.

Not a narcissist, but a little bit of a, you know, I know everything kind of guy. She did remember one strange incident. She said she booked a cruise to celebrate her 40th birthday. He asked her where she was going and she said she was going to be in the middle of the ocean and that he would not be able to find her. And Rex then said, oh yes I can. During the second day of her cruise, a white envelope was slipped under her door with a note from Rex that said, I told you I could find you anywhere.

She thought that was a little bit creepy, but wouldn't have thought anything else of it if he had not become a serial killer suspect. Mary Schell started working for Rex in the summer of 2010 shortly after she graduated from art school. Mary said she had spoken to former female employees who felt disrespected by Rex. For example, he would ask a woman in the office to clean the toilets if he thought the cleaning staff didn't do a good job but he would never ask a man to do that. He would also make comments if a woman working for him gained some weight. Refocusing on the investigation now, court documents indicate that on January 26, 2023, a surveillance team following Rex recovered a pizza box he threw

into a trash can on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. They pulled DNA off of the pizza's crust, which was then sent to the Suffolk County Crime Lab for analysis. Then on April 28, 2023, a detective hand-delivered a male hair found on victim Megan Waterman that had been preserved as evidence to the same lab. It's amazing that he can do this. I'm so impressed by this kind of shit. On June 12, 2023, the lab then compared the DNA from the pizza crust and the hair, determined that the profiles were the same. That 99.96% of the North American population could be excluded. Prosecutors wrote, it is significant that Heuermann cannot be excluded from the male

hair recovered near the bottom of the burlap utilized to restrain and transport Meghan Waterman's naked and deceased body. Authorities had recovered hairs from the remains of multiple victims, most of which were too degraded to test for DNA with old techniques but with improved technology, they will finally be able to test them you know in the in recent years. In July 2022, 11 bottles were collected from a trash can outside of Rex's home sent for DNA testing. DNA profiles generated from the bottles were compared to previously tested hair samples from the remains of Megan Waterman and Amber Castello Castello Castello.

February 24th, 2023, a forensic lab concluded that a hair found on Megan's remains was a match with DNA from the bottle. That hair is believed to have come from Herman's wife. Investigators do not think Aasa Elorup was involved in these murders. Instead, they believe her hair was transferred directs because, you know, they shared a home together. A hair from Amber Castello's remains was, Amber Castello's remains tested also matched the DNA on the bottle. Investigators also found that Rex was linked to seven different burner phones used to contact seven different victims. FBI analysts compared cell site data of the victims to data from the burner phones. According

to Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney, shortly after the death of the victim he would get rid of the burner phone. Investigators additionally documented three different email accounts Rex possessed, where he used fake names such as John Springfield, Thomas Hawk, Hunter, 1903A3. All of them were linked to various burner phones he had bought. Then a search warrant for a fake AOL account led to the discovery of selfies taken by Rex, which he would use to solicit sex. His American Express records revealed recurring Google Pay payments made to Tinder, which was also linked to a burner phone. Then a review of call records for two additional burner phones revealed both phones were used extensively between 2021 and 2023 for, quote, prostitution-related contacts. Law enforcement

spotted Rex at a cell phone store in midtown Manhattan May 19th 2023 where he purchased additional minutes for a burner phone. Now how cool is it that law enforcement has so many more tools at their disposal than they had you know 10 20 years ago thanks to the digital footprint we all leave now. I mean it makes my vengeance related fantasies of getting away with some righteous murder a lot harder to realistically entertain but I am so glad we can now catch guys we never would have been able to catch not 30 years ago. Billing records connected Rex to cell site locations where burner phones were used to arrange meetings with sex workers. Sherman was allegedly in the same location as the burner phones used to contact Melissa Bartholomew, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello. Prosecutors believe the suspect used

Melissa Bartholomew's phone to make taunting phone calls to her family and the suspect used Brainerd Barnes' cell phone to check her voicemail. ABC will report investigators could find no instance where Sherman was in a separate location from these other cell phones when such a communication event occurred. That is significant. He's always there. Back in 2012, with the FBI's assistance, the Suffolk County police learned that most of the calls connected to cell towers inside a small area of Massapequa Park, that area became known as the Box since it was just a couple blocks big. For example, June 10, 2009, records showed the burner phone and Heurman's phone in the same location and

traveling together from Massapequa to New York City. Okay, so he's got the one both phones in his pocket whatever one phone one pocket one phone another then Melissa Bartholomew's phone and Heurman's phone both simultaneously traveled eastbound towards Massapequa. That's significant because it was the last day she was seen alive that that happened. So he started to look real fucking guilty. July 13th 2023 Rex Sherman's arrested at his office in Manhattan. Hail Nimrod. At the time of his arrest he was carrying a burner phone linked to an email account used to conduct suspicious online searches.

Between March of 2022 and June of 2023, Rex Sherman allegedly searched the Internet about serial killers, how the police investigate serial killers, and for info about the Gilgill Beach Task Force. Makes me think about my own internet search history. If the media reported my search history and left out context about me researching true crime for living, holy shit what I like disturbing as hell. One of Rex's searches was why hasn't a Long Island serial killer been caught? One account linked to Heurman was used to conduct quote thousands of searches related to sex workers, sadistic torture related pornography, and child pornography.

Damn. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said at a news conference after the arrest there was a lot of torture, porn, and depictions of women being abused, being raped, and being killed. So like snuff films or people pretending to be killed? I think pretending because he has not been to my knowledge charged with porn related crimes. In a 14-month period, Heurman allegedly conducted more than 200 searches on the Gilgo investigation and an untold number of additional searches for the victims. According to D.A. Tierney, he was searching for pictures of the victims' families, trying

to locate those individuals. That is so fucking disturbing. Ray Tierney said per CBS, when we decided to take down the case, we, you know, it was a sudden decision. We did see him contacting a number of sex workers using a burner phone, which is obviously concerning. Investigators had to balance evidence gathering with public safety when it came to Rex's arrest. They wanted to allow the grand jury investigation to go even further, do more surveillance on

him, catch him doing something even more incriminating, but in the end they felt like they had to quote take him down. During the press conference announcing his arrest, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said, Rex Sherman is a demon that walks amongst us, a predator that ruined families. July 14, 2023. Rex Sherman pleads not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder. He was charged with the deaths of Melissa Bartholome, Megan Waterman, and Amber Cosello, and he was still considered a main suspect in the murder of Marine Brainerd Barnes. Rex's defense attorney, Blaze, no Michael J. Brown, I know it's so stupid, was quoted by NBC as saying

the only thing he did say as he was in tears was, I didn't do this. He's distraught. He's clearly distraught about the charges here. And we all know that distraught people who cry can never be guilty. The police spent the next 12 days searching Rex's house and other locations One of the items taken into police possession during the search was the first generation Chevy Avalanche Chevy Avalanche Found on Rex's property in South Carolina The police also found 200. This is the weapons thing. This is crazy. The police also found 279 weapons in the home fucking almost 300.

92 different handgun permits. Many of the guns were found in a giant walk-in vault in Rex's basement. Had a big old iron door. Was not soundproof. What the fuck? It feels a bit excessive. Was he preparing for the apocalypse? Was he the sergeant of arms for his local militia? Law enforcement also confiscated many other items such as framed pictures and a doll. Not sure whether they took a doll, but that feels creepy.

Police searched a nearby storage unit nearby Amityville connected to the case. Sources said they were looking into whether any victims were killed at the house. Investigators are still looking to connect Rex to additional unsolved murders, especially now that they have his DNA, which has been entered into numerous databases. July 17, 2023, Rex's attorney, Michael Brown, issued the following statement. There is nothing about Mr. Kerman that would suggest that he's involved in these incidents. Get the fuck out of here. There's so much. And while the government has decided to focus on him despite more significant and stronger leads,

nope, we are looking forward to defending him in a court of law before a fair and impartial jury of his peers. The next day, July 18th, Rex's attorney speaks exclusively with ABC in front of the courthouse. He says, I was just talking shit yesterday. This guy's guilty as fuck. This is off the record, right? Oh, he's a monster. He's a fucking demon. No, he said he first met Rex on his arraignment after the arrest and his first impression was quote Nothing struck me as unusual about him. He was articulate. He was intelligent. He was soft-spoken Motherfucker have you ever watched the true crime documentary?

A lot of these guys are like that Brown also said he would have a challenging case ahead of him because Rex was guilty as fuck No, because Rex appeared to have quote been convicted in the media already in the media public opinion Yeah for good reason you fucking shithead. I hate somebody defense attorneys I know I know a lot of you do a good job, but I also think a lot of you can fucking burn in hell Just for fucking representing these pieces of shit. He expressed and trying to get them off. I'm just defending the law No, you're defending a monster He expressed concerns about getting a biased jury.

Brown said the state had circumstantial... I know... Fuck! I know it's complicated. I have friends who are defense attorneys. God damn it. It's... Ugh! But it makes me so mad. Uh, Brown said the state had circumstantial evidence against wrecks like phone records, internet searches, DNA evidence. Not that circumstantial. Uh, he thought that was circumstantial because there were no eyewitnesses, no confessions from his client to go along with any of it. A bunch of details about Heuermann's finances came out after his arrest. Nassau County

records showed that Rex once owed 425 grand in taxes to the IRS, dating back to 2005. Damn, about half were repaid. Rex and his wife also owed $81,500 in personal income tax to the state. Rex also filed several lawsuits in New York. He's probably blowing all his fucking money on constant sex work. Rex also filed several lawsuits in New York accusing drivers of injuring him in car accidents. Three cases have been settled. One was still pending at the time of his arrest.

Four different lawsuits against other drivers? Maybe you're the problem. July 19th, 2023, Rex's wife, Asa Elarap, files for divorce. That doesn't look good. Since the arrest, Heuermann's family has suffered greatly. Asa Elarap is represented by attorney Bob Macedonio now, who says she is just as shocked as everyone else. Quote, nobody wants to think that they've been living with sleeping next to a serial killer for the past 25 years. Rex's daughter Victoria Heurman was working at her dad's firm at the time of his arrest. Now she's unemployed as is Rex's stepson Christopher. Not a hundred percent sure if Christopher was also working for his dad, but I think so. Asa has struggled

financially because Rex was the sole provider for the family. She lost her health insurance after divorcing him and was diagnosed with breast and skin cancer. Jesus! Some people's luck. She does the right thing and the universe hammers her for it. So random but Melissa Moore, daughter of serial killer Keith Jessperson, aka the happy face killer we covered in episode 166, actually set up a GoFundMe for Asa and it raised over $50,000. Bob, Asa's attorney, said that she is living minute by minute. She has no one else to turn to at this time. Family and friends have been hesitant to have her come over because they don't want the media attention.

She gets followed wherever she goes. And that sucks. August 4th, 2023. Authorities announced they had identified Jane Doe number seven, whose partial remains had been found on Fire Island in 1996 And then more of her was found in Tobey Beach on April 11 2011 The victim was 34 year old Karen Vergata

Karen last seen February 14th 1996 never reported missing as Mentioned earlier in the timeline her severed legs have been found in a garbage bag on Fire Island back in 1996 Authorities believe Karen was doing escort work when she went missing. Authorities did not say if she was linked to Rex Sherman or not. Karen's identity was first confirmed October of 2022, but authorities wanted to contact her family first and initiate a confidential grand jury investigation. DA Ray Tierney also said investigators believe they will soon identify three more victims using genetic genealogy. These unidentified victims are the man, the woman, the toddler.

Tierney also told Newsday that the distinctive belt with the initials WH or HM used to mine the remains of Marine Brainerd Barnes. Well, probably the initials of Rex's father WH. Same guy who used to work in the shop Rex took over in the house. September 2023, CBS reported that investigators were looking into whether Rex Sherman had connection to the murder or any connection to the murder of a 25-year-old woman named Carmen Vargas, killed in 1989 in Freeport, about seven miles west of Rex's home in Massapequa. Carmen last seen getting into a truck outside her apartment in East Harlem.

Weeks later, her body found along the Meadowbrook State Parkway. September 27th, 2023, during a court hearing, prosecutors said DNA from Rex's cheek swab matches the DNA from the pizza crust, sees an early 2023, just to confirm that. January 16th, 2024 now, Rex indicted in the death of a fourth victim,

Maureen Brainerd Barnes. Investigators used cutting edge technology to connect him to this murder. As mentioned, hair belonging to Asa El-Erup was found on a belt used to restrain Maureen's ankles, feet and legs. The DNA was extracted in 2010, but at the time there was no method to obtain a nuclear DNA profile from hair, but that had since changed. Odds were 8 trillion to 1 that the Hare matched Asa Elarup or Victoria Heurman, who was followed on a train and threw out an energy drink which allowed investigators to obtain a sample of her DNA. Asa's attorney, Bob again, issued a statement saying Asa, Elarup, and her children were not involved. Not even in the jurisdiction when these murders took place.

New court documents stated that hundreds of electronic devices now were seized from Rex's home. There were Google searches for software that could erase data on some of them. March 2024, Rex's former neighbor, that Athean guy, claimed that Asa Ella Rupp told him she does not think Rex is guilty. He said, that house is a mess and he was spending a fortune on hookers. I told her to her face. She said, no, he wouldn guilty. He said, that house is a mess and he was spending a fortune on hookers. I told her to her face. She said, no, he wouldn't. I said, yes, he was. He was spending a fortune on call girls. It wouldn't drop a dime on that house. Asa claimed she visited Rex weekly, but the sheriff said March that she only visited him a total of seven times. Asa herself issued a statement saying, I will listen to all of the evidence and withhold judgment until the end of the trial.

I have given Rex the benefit of doubt, as we all deserve. I don't know if he should with all these evidence. Her attorney noted, you can go forward with a divorce and still not believe that your spouse of 27 years is capable of being a serial killer. I mean, well, yeah, that's true. New York Times reported in late 2023 that Asa is currently working with the Peacock channel to participate in a documentary series

That will follow the family through the trial which is expected to start in 2025 at some point. No date set yet though May 21st 2024 CBS reported that investigators returned to Rex's home in Massapicua Park Asa and her kids were out of town at the time The previous month investigators had used cadaver dogs to search a remote wooded section of Manorville, close to where partial remains had been found. Officials would not say what prompted the new search. Also numerous sources reported that Rex's defense team's strategy to exonerate him will focus on corrupt former police chief.

James, why did you whip your dick out in front of a park ranger, Burke? At a hearing in April of 2024, defense attorney Michael J. Brown suggested the real killer might have alluded to arrest when Burke was heading the investigation. He even suggested Burke himself might have killed four of the women. Brown said that there were numerous leads alluding to Burke's involvement, but did not offer more details. After the hearing, Brown referred to reporting from the Washington Post that suggested that back in 2021, Long Island serial killer investigators had been focused on a retired police officer

who lived near Rex and they planned to arrest him. But that assertion was disputed by former Suffolk County DA Tim Sinai. Legal experts worry that bringing up Burke's corruption could allow Brown to question how evidence was obtained and handled, which could lead to reasonable doubt at the trial. Burke's lawyer, James O'Rourke, said that Brown was exploiting a giant conspiracy theory, adding, Jimmy Burke is a lot of things and some of them are less than admirable. Oh yeah, but he's not a killer. June 6, 2024, Rex Sherman charged with two more murders.

The 1993 killing of Sandra Castilla and the 2023 murder of Jessica Taylor. He's now been charged with killing six young petite sex workers. DNA linked Rex to both of these murders. In Jessica's case, his DNA matched a hair found on a rope under her body. Three hairs were found on Sandra's body that were compared to DNA from the Gilgo case. The lab determined that 99.96% of the North American population could be excluded as a contributor of the male hair found on Sandra's body, but Rex was not excluded. Then another lab independently confirmed that DNA testing. Results the same in Jessica's case.

Rex also working in the same area as Jessica Taylor around the time she disappeared. He was in Midtown July 25th 2003, the day she disappeared. Would have been in possession of a vehicle matching the description from a witness at the scene by the dump site and after her body was found he allegedly tried to cover up an internet search for a new truck, despite the fact that his vehicle was just over a year old. It's possible Jessica was held captive for four days based on the last time she called a family member and when the truck was seen at the dump site. That's fucking terrible. This new indictment revealed more about evidence taken from seized electronic devices.

I mentioned some of this early in the episode, but it's worth repeating here. Investigators found a quote, significant collection of violent bondage and torture porn currently dating back to 1994. D.A. Ray Tierney said it is alleged that the pornographic images that were accessed by Heurman are consistent with the crime scenes of both Sandra Castilla and Jessica Taylor. Tierney also revealed that Rex was now the lead suspect in the death of Valerie Mack, whose remains were found near Jessica Taylor's in Manorville. And in what I think is gonna be the big nail, the final nail in this motherfucker's coffin, the indictment included a photo of a document that served as a quote blueprint to plan out his kills with excruciating detail.

This is so fucking creepy The document had been deleted in 2002, but then was recovered from one of the 350 newly seized devices in his home So sounds like he erased it from one computer. Maybe forgot it existed on some others Terran he said quote we allege that this document evidences the defendants or excuse me evinces the defendants intent Vince not a popular word. We allege this document evinces the defendant's intent in committing the charged crimes that his intent was specifically to locate these victims, to hunt them down and bring them under his control and kill them. The document has four columns labeled problems, supplies, DS, and TRG. Among the problems list was DNA, tire marks, and blood stains. His supplies

list included booties, lactic acid, and a police scanner. Investigators believe DS stood for dump site and TRG meant targets. Under the TRG section were the words T1 Megan and small is good. One of the go-go four victims, Megan Waterman, all of the victims are small. There was also a section with headings such as pre-prep, prep, and post-event. The section outlined steps such as checking the weather, setting up a staging area, and disposing of evidence. Additional sections included recon reports, which mentioned placement of security cameras

around town, as well as the literal words body prep prep with steps for dismembering a human body and also quote pack for transport the post event checklist included burn gloves or excuse me burn gloves dispose of picks and have your story set jesus there was also a things to Remember section with references to next time. The next time section included notes to consider a hit to the face or neck or using heavier rope for the neck. The author of the document wrote about the importance of sleep to avoid quote problems and to increase quote play time, believed to be a reference for sexual torture and mutilation. Fuck!

So disturbing. The document also referenced the 1996 book Mindhunter by former FBI agent John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. Rex had similar books in his house. He had studied for years how to get away with being a serial killer. July 30th, 2024, Rex is back in court. Prosecutors turned in discovery material to the defense. His attorney wants the cases tried separately because the MOs are different. December 17, 2024, Rex now charged with a seventh murder, the death of Valerie Mack. Heurman had already pled not guilty in the murders of six other women, Melissa Bartholomew, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainerd Barnes, Amber Costello, Jessica Taylor, and Sandra Castilla, the first victim found in 1993, last victim

was found in 2010 and now Valerie Mack. Prosecutors said they also linked Heurman to Mack's death through evidence recovered on some of the 350 electronic devices taken from his home. And they announced that Heurman kept newspaper and magazine clippings about the Gilgo Beach serial killings as trophies in his Massapequa Park home. Heurman now 61, charged with one count of second degree murder in connection with Max death. He appeared in court, hackled in a suit and told the judge, your honor, I am not guilty

of any of these charges. Judge Timothy Mazzei continued to hold Heurman without bail. No date as of this recording has been set for Rex's upcoming trial for seven murders. More murder charges may be coming first. And that will take us out of this timeline. Good job soldier, you've made it back. Barely. The Long Island Serial Killer. First associated with the Gilgo Beach murders A series of murders from the early 90s to 2010.

The disappearance of a young local sex worker, Shannon Gilbert, prompted the investigation. Authorities were still searching Gilgo Beach for Shannon, who disappeared after a disturbing 911 call made on May 1, 2010 when they made the shocking discovery. From December of 2010 to April of 2011, 10 different victims were found on Long Island. The killer became known as the Gilgo Beach serial killer or the Long Island serial killer after the first four victims were found on Gilgo Beach and became known as the Gilgo Four. They were four sex workers who went missing between 2007 and 2010, found close together, similarly similarly bound and positioned. Three of them were wrapped in burlap.

Six more sets of remains found in March and April of 2011. The partial remains of four out of six victims had already been found previously in different locations on Long Island. Three of these victims have now been identified. They were all outside of a toddler, sex workers who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. In 2022, the police finally identified and then arrested a suspect named Rex Heuermann, an architect who lived on Long Island. He's been linked to seven cases now based on DNA evidence, cell records, vehicle evidence, his fucking creepy

planning document, and more. But he has yet to go to trial. If he's guilty and he sure looks guilty, Rex preyed on young petite women that a massive dude like him could easily overpower. Women he clearly saw as worthless. Lives he felt he could take because it didn't matter to him. Because they were as he allegedly said on the phone to one victim's sister, whores. How reductive. None of them had easy childhoods. They all had parents who were either absent, barely able to provide the basics for their families, or frankly pretty shitty. They all at one point or another demonstrated the potential to do something meaningful with their lives. And when their dreams weren't looking like they were gonna work out, they turned to sex work. And that led them to a lot of drug use, to numb the pain of being seen as nothing more than a disposable piece of meat.

And the drugs led to putting themselves in more and more compromising positions, which would lead to further degradation, which would lead to more drugs to mask more pain and then eventually to their deaths. Sex workers do not deserve scorn. They deserve empathy. They deserve a safer way to make that living if that's what they insist on doing. I hope one day we as a society finally recognize that that's what we should do. That that's the right thing to provide them that. Instead of just heaping on more and more judgment.

And more and more ridicule. To people, primarily young women, who already endure too much of that bullshit. And also, fuck Blaze, fuck Vibe, and fuck Bear too. Let's head to today's takeaways. Time Shuck Top 5 Takeaways Number one. The Gilgo Beach investigation started in December of 2010. Top 5 Takeaways Number 1. The Gilgo Beach investigation started in December of 2010. An officer was searching the beach for Shannon Gilbert, a sex worker who went missing in May of that year, but he found another body. Two days later, three more women were found on the beach. Like Shannon, there were all sex workers who had gone missing, the earliest case from 2007.

In the spring of 2011, six more bodies found, none of them Shannon Gilbert. Number two, some of the Gilgo Beach victims had already been found such as Valerie Mack and Jessica Taylor who were found in 2000 and 2003 respectively. It was clear that the Gilgo Beach serial killer had a pattern of dismembering the victims after death. This was true for two more victims who were found in Nassau County in the spring of 2011, Karen Vergata and Peaches. Pieces of both women were found in different locations in the 90s. Number three, in 2022, the Gilgo Beach Task Force identified their suspect, now 61-year-old Rex Heurman. DNA evidence has linked Rex to seven murders so far.

Number four, one of the most shocking aspects of the investigation is the fact that Peaches was determined to be the mother of baby Doe, one of the victims found on Gilgo Beach in the spring of 2011. Rex Sherman has not been charged in these deaths. Their identities and the circumstances surrounding their deaths remain unknown. And number five, new info. On August 28th, 2023, CBS reported that two women in the Suffolk County jail claimed they had previous encounters with Rex Sherman, which they described as violent and aggressive. These encounters are believed to have happened over a decade earlier. Since Rex was arrested, the Suffolk County Human Trafficking Unit has been interviewing sex workers and showing Rex's pictures to women.

So far, five different women have given helpful information. A woman named Nikki Brass told 48Hours that she may have survived an encounter with human She's now a hairdresser, but previously did some escort work One night she said she was solicited by Rex and ended up fleeing from the restaurant where they met up Brass recalled I had never gone anywhere and they felt excuse me I had never gone anywhere and like felt fear my gut was telling me I needed to get away and I never had that before She was disturbed when Rex brought up the bodies found on Gilgo Beach. She said he wanted to like really get into it.

Like he asked me how I thought they could get rid of the bodies without being caught in that area. And I said like I've never been over there. I've never seen Gilgo Beach. And his response was well it's really dark and desolate. Hopefully Rex's trial starts soon. And a jury puts that big evil Shrek looking motherfucker in a cage for the rest of his life The Long Island serial killer has been sucked

Thank you to the bad magic productions team for the help and making time suck. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic Lindsay Cummins Thanks also to Logan Keith helping to publish this episode and designing merch for the store at badmagicproductions.com. Thank you to Olivia Lee again for her research. Thanks to the all-seeing eyes moderating the Cult of the Curious private Facebook page. Hope it's getting better there. I'm recording this several weeks ahead. Taking a little vacation. So I don't know what's going on there right now. Thanks to the Mod Squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth as well.

And everyone over on the Time Suck subreddit and Bad Magic subreddit. And now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker updates. Our first message sent in today to Bojangles at timesuckpodcast.com comes from an anonymous and previously insanely stoned meat sack who sent in the following message with the subject line of first gummy experience. Suckmaster. I've heard you get a kick out of folks' experiences with recreational substances.

So I thought I'd send you mine. I have no one to share it with. My employer has a strict substance policy. My family frown strict substance policy. My family frowns on alcohol. So they would really frown on such usage. And I don't really have buddies to share it with. So if you read this, please keep me anonymous. Oh, done anonymous sack. Last time I had any experience with herb, it was in early 2000 since then nothing.

And I'm a guy that doesn't like medicine at all. I even avoid Tylenol as much as possible. Which may be part of why I experienced what I did. I'm almost 45, got a wife, two kids, basically as average as you can get, which means stressed. I was also having some issues with depression as well, so I decided to hit the local smoke shop and see if they had something that could help me out a little. I explained my situation to the folks there, had them educate me on such matters. A lot has changed in the 25 years. And per their suggestion, I left with a packet of two 10 milligram gummies, 0.3% THC. First night, yeah, pretty real low dose. First night, I ate half, nothing. Second night, the other half, nothing. Third night, three quarters, nothing. So I get another packet, ate a whole gummy, two nights in a row, nothing. So I go back. As for something with a bit more pop. Dude hooks me up with a two pack of something he says will have just a hair more kick

than the 10 milligram stuff I'd already tried. Eight milligrams of pure THCP it says on the package. It was the night of the Tyson fight. I go in the bedroom and watch TV. No one ever bothers me. So I fire up Netflix, pour myself a nice strong whiskey and Coke, got settled in, ate my new coming. Two hours passed, no effect at all. I was beginning to think I was just going to have to stick to alcohol when my wife walked into the room, asked me a question.

Oh fuck, I wasn't sure how bad it was, but I knew I was off. I fought desperately to seem as sober as possible, but now my wife wanted me to have a conversation. I attempted to talk to her as well as I could, but you could tell I wasn't right. I blabbered something about pouring my drink too strong and received a short lecture about controlling my drinking. Oh lady, if you only knew. So now I'm slightly freaked, but hey it's okay. Just me and my wife. Until my kids suddenly take an interest in boxing. Next thing I know my whole fam damnly is piled into the bed with me watching the fights. Unfortunately lying on the bed staring

at the TV was completely acceptable and for the most part my kids ignored me. Before long they popped up, left the room and headed back down the hall. All this well until my wife informs me that our 125 pound dog-horse hybrid needs to go out. Now considering that I'm no longer sure where exactly my feet are currently located, attempting to hang on to his retractable leash is not something I'm looking forward to. I put it off as long as possible. Then I get an alert on my cell phone. Motion detected at driveway. Great. Here come the kids to tell me what I already know. A car is currently parked in my driveway and the driver is walking around the vehicle. Most likely checking his tires or something. So here's the situation. My kids are kind of freaking out because we lived just far off the beaten path to make this weird. My wife is

concerned about his intentions. My dog is making this terrible noise he makes when he needs to go badly and I'm so fucking high I can barely walk. Afraid I can't hold on to the dog if he bolts. Deeply afraid. That if I closed my front door and walked into my driveway I might get lost and I'll be able to find my way back. And I need to see why this dude is in my yard. And I cannot even take a firearm with me because I'm too high to make good decisions. And if I do use it and I'm completely even if I'm completely justified it won't matter because impairment will negate the justification. So I rest on my way out of bed where I find my feet they were on the end of my legs struggling to repair

her pants and a shirt slide against the wall for the length of the hallway hook the dog up and stumble outside. Fortunately by the time I made it outside the vehicle was gone and thankfully there were no animals outside for my dog to bolt after. I didn't get lost in my quarter acre front yard mostly because my dog led me back. The next day I wasn't worth a damn. I was very impaired. Stayed in bed all day. The next morning, Sunday, I actually skipped church because I was afraid someone would recognize I was still high as fuck. Monday morning I made it into work and by noon I realized I still wasn't right in the head because there

was stuff taken care of that I didn't remember doing. Holy shit three days. Three fucking days basically lost in a stoned haze. This has completely ended my recreational usage. Clearly I'm not cut out for it. And this was a dude and this was what the dude at the store called the Diet Coke or excuse me the Diet Coke Zero of weed. I'm not a guy that keeps a lot of friends. I have a couple, but I've always enjoyed being alone. I'd love to try psychedelics, but not without a babysitter slash guide slash safe person

to stay with me. And based off the experience I had with the gummy, there's no way in the greatest expanses of a universe of fuckery, I'm going to fuck around with LSD or something, find out how that works for me. Anyway, there you go. Bet you get a good laugh out of that. Excuse me. Three out of five stars. Wouldn't change a thing. Keep on sucking. Hail Nimrod and all that good stuff. Anonymous dumbass. Well, anonymous dumbass. That was a fantastic story.

Yeah, I bet by Monday morning you were starting to wonder if you were literally going to be stoned forever. I've only had a few edibles linger well into the next day. Never two days. Also, I've never taken THC-P before. That's a pretty new strain of cannabinoid. I think you ended up being a bit of a guinea pig. Here's what I read about. This comes from an article published April of 2022 on leafwell.com. THC-P is an analog of THC the compound responsible for most cannabis psychoactivity discovered only in late 2019 by a team of Italian researchers THCP is one of 120 or more cannabinoids found to date in the

cannabis plant with many more potentially waiting discovery however THCP is causing a particular stir in the cannabis community the researchers found evidence suggesting that THCP may have a more pronounced impact on a cannabis strain's psychoactivity than THC itself. According to the researchers who discovered it, THCP interacts with the endocannabinoid system similarly to THC but with a far greater affinity for cannabinoid receptors. The research found that THCP binds to CB1 receptors up to 33 times more often than traditional THC. Which means THCP is potentially up to 33 times as potent as THC.

So, uh, your local budtender fucked you. Probably unintentionally. That shit is potentially up to 33 times as potent as THC. So you basically took a gummy that instead of being like a standard 10 milligram gummy with THC, like the first one you took, it was more like 260 milligrams of THC. Which is why you got so fucking high. If you ever do hallucinogens in the future, yeah, pick a guide that has a lot of experience. And do some from a batch that that guide has used several times before. I actually, if you're gonna do it, I actually do recommend you start off with LSD. Because in my experience, I don't talk about as much in the podcast lately,

because I feel like people are getting sick of it. But I still do acid, mushrooms, DMT, etc. And in my experience, LSD is just, it's more consistent. The amount of psilocybin can vary wildly from one dose of shrooms to the next. With LSD, you know, just go light. Start with a half tap. Make sure the kids are away for the day. If it doesn't do anything, do a full tap the next time. If that doesn't do anything, do one and a half taps the next time. But don't ever take more once you've already taken some. Good luck anonymous dumbass. Now a message from a sailor song sailor-tongued sack.

Hillary, why do I get myself tongue twisters? Hillary Shin, who wrote in with the subject line of Parenting Question. Hello, Mr. Magic Mushmouth. I meant to write an after the mother and baby home episode, but alas, my infant is a party pooper sometimes. I made it through Albert Fish and the Toy Box Killer no prob, but almost had to quit at the description of the treatment of babies in that episode. Glad I made it until the end. My now eight-month-old Bruce has listened to Time Suck since conception. Sometimes it even stops him from crying. In the car you magic, melodious mushmouth. How long do you think I can play Time Suck for him before he starts yelling profanity?

He seemed to have raised two awesome humans, have the same sailor mouth as me. As a former teacher, I know I can have a filter, but it's so much harder in my own home and with my favorite podcast. What if his first word is, fuck your family, drink Whipple. This mother wants to learn your parenting secrets and hopefully not raise a serial killer. Hail Nimrod, thank you to him for your vocal support of teachers. Much love, Hillary Shin. Yes, Hillary, I do love teachers. One of the most important and underappreciated jobs in the country, in any society. I would stop playing this podcast around when little Bruce, great name by the way, when he starts talking, and then probably keep it away from him until he's about 13 or so. Or at least be very selective about what episodes he hears.

I did not shelter Kyler Monroe the way a lot of parents do, but definitely filtered the, you know, the content they got to consume until they felt like they were old enough to properly understand it. As far as overall parenting advice, the biggest thing is just to be there for them, I think. You know, put in the time and be present with the time. Spending an hour playing a game with them or watching a show with them or playing in the park with them while you're on your phone or talking to a friend or something or dicking around Instagram, very different than actively focusing on them talking to them showing them you care letting them you know you

just saw what cool thing they just did you know etc which is probably never gonna be cool my my experience when my kids have wanted me to check out a cool thing they've done it actually is cool about 0.01% of the time but I pretend it's cool almost every time. Sometimes you're gonna have to take a call, you know, sometimes you might need to check something online, but in general, you know, just make the time quality time. And then as they get older, just just talk to them a lot about everything. Ask them how their day was. Who did they play with? How did it go? Are they dating

somebody? Do you think somebody's cute? Et cetera. You know, be honest. Talk to them about all the hard stuff. Sex, drugs, porn, everything. Build a relationship where they feel like they can ask you about anything and not get in trouble for asking. Build a relationship where they don't have to hide things they do from you. That's so important. Treat them like the intelligent little people they are. Don't just tell them to not do something because you said so. Or because I'm your mom or I'm your dad, whatever. Or that because it's bad. That's why. No, tell them why you think it's bad. Tell them why you don't want you think it's bad Tell them why you don't want him to do something

You know and don't be afraid to admit that you were wrong or apologize because we all fuck up. You know, sorry I snapped I was super hungry. Sorry yelled. That wasn't okay, etc But also, you know, make sure they see you as a parent first friend second That's very important. I've had so many conversations where I've said something like this isn't fun for me to tell you this but my job is to keep you safe to raise a productive and happy human So that's why I have to tell you blank Also, you can never hug him too much Never tell him you love him too much and never tell him that you're proud of them too much and take lots of pictures at Every age you're gonna fucking love it later. I could go on and on yet. Never too many pictures

I could want an on that's a gist and enjoy the ride Hillary. And finally one more from a meat sack named Maxed, Maxed? No just Max, who's sending a subject line of a different perspective. What's up suckholes and time suckers? I would like to share a different perspective on exclusivity that you may not have considered. I know that there may not be any episodes related to this subject, but I think it should be noted due to the current state of our country. Anyway, I'm a big white dude that works in southern Oregon, and the company that I work for prides themselves on recognizing pronouns of preferred names, which I love.

But I feel like there is a problem within this community. I may seem to be a cis, bearded, and to some people, intimidating male, but I'm actually a pansexual pacifist. People don't look at me like that though, and that's okay. I once worked in a very high-strung office with people trying as hard as they could to prove to move up the ladder, and I was ripe for the picking. As soon as one person heard I was from Texas, they started limiting their interactions with me.

They reported me to HR, said I was homophobic, my job was on the line, therefore I had to tell the company that I worked for that I was pansexual, I had to put myself out there in order to preserve my income. Later I quit, I was hurt so much by that. They outed me by trying to play office politics. I think this is something that more people should think about. There is a point where ideologies become, if you're not as inclusive as me, or even from a different region, then fuck you.

The irony doesn't escape me. And as the most open-minded dude I know know it gave me a headache trying to wrap my brain around it. This was the first time I've told anyone outside of my family about my sexuality and I'm fucking proud. Read my name out if you like because I love who I am. Sorry not sorry love the show and you have literally saved my life. Bad magic is the reason that I'm in college as a 32 year old man due to inspiration y'all provide. 3 out of 11 Max. That's funny. If you read this on the show give Erica, my new fiance, a holler and tell her I love her butt. Max, good on you finding Erica and her sweet

sweet ass. As a butt guy myself, I get it. I love Lindsey's ass. And also yes, the wildly liberal inclusion crowd can, in my experience, be every bit as judgmental as the far-right conservative crowd. It's so fucking ironic. I've encountered it a lot in the entertainment business over the years. Other podcasters, comics, etc. They've assumed over the years that I'm a big MAGA guy or like the pre-MAGA equivalent. Just because I live in Northern Idaho, have the face that I fucking have.

I'm 6'1", about 240 pounds. No, I don't like1", about 240 pounds. No. I don't like either major party's ideology. I like lifting weights, as a stress reliever, and to stay in shape. Not because I'm trying to fucking destroy people. Well, pedophiles. I have guns, but I'm not trying to join a militia. I've had other people clearly give me the vibe that they think I'm racist or homophobic.

I think just because of the way I look. I've actually made jokes to defuse it. And the way people have reacted when I've made those jokes let me know that they were a hundred percent pegging me as some good old boy. Both sides in this country employ a wild amount of discrimination. Hating on someone you think is conservative and straight doesn't make you any better than someone hating on you because you're liberal and gay or whatever. I know people you know who would never talk to somebody with, like, a MAGA hat. I buy Jim. I love this story. There's a guy named Jim, Jim at the gym.

He's probably like 75 or so, 76, something like that. He could not be more politically conservative. You know, old white guy, northern Idaho, wear nothing but second amendment, NRA t-shirt, shit like that. Likes to talk about, quote, liberals trying to ruin the country. I've gotten to know him. He's a huge fucking softy. Once you get past his gruff demeanor. His daughter is according to him a very liberal Southern California sociology professor and he is obviously so proud of her. Flies down to stay with her all the time. You know, she wants him to move back to SoCal and stay with her. I think he will.

He's up here helping out his son of his up here. This daughter down in Southern California is married to a Filipino man who Jim likes to say is also a huge liberal and he clearly loves him. And he loves his mixed race grandkids. He's a Vietnam vet, big Christian who recently gave his truck to a young couple at his church because their vehicle died and they couldn't afford a new one. He talks to everyone at the gym regardless of what they look like. He loves me even though I have a bunch of pagan tattoos on my arms.

He would help anybody. Gay, straight, trans, cis, white, black, if they needed his help. Even if many of those people would never give him the time of day because they assume that he hates them. But he doesn't. Any ideology can be wielded like a weapon. Listening to those who differ from us, taking the time to get to know them, see their humanity, that is the way we build a better society.

Not this polarizing divisive bullshit too many of us do now thanks to so many politicians. Thanks for the message, Max. Kick some ass in school. Worship Eric as sweet ass every chance you get. Hail Lucifina and hail Nimrod. Thanks for the messages everybody. Thanks time suckers. I needed that. We all did. Well thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to death time suck each week. short sucks and nightmare fuel on the time suck and scared to death podcast feeds twice a

month. Please do not decide to make money this week doing sex work through Craigslist. And don't smoke crack or smoke meth or shoot heroin or date or fuck a guy named Blaze, Vibe or Bear and definitely don't do all of that. Just keep on sucking. February 10, 2024. Long Island, New York. Former Kind of Major Hollywood star Billy Baldwin, his wife Chyna, vocalist for Wilson Phillips. How is that band still together? We're walking along Gilgo Beach when they saw something in the reeds. Upon closer inspection, it was the dead body of 42-year-old small-time pimp, Glaze Wilson.

Billy and Chyna called the police, who, when they searched the area, found the body of another small-time pimp, 45-year-old Vibe Johnson. Next to the men was a trash bag full of shitty mixtapes. A task force was formed by the Suffolk County Police Department to search for a new serial killer in the area. They had dubbed the Long Island Pathetic Excuse for a Pimp Destroyer. All three men were violently sexually assaulted before they died.

It's believed the bodies were dumped the previous summer, and investigators have met with several witnesses who all say they saw a group of short, petite young women in miniskirts and lots of makeup in the area at the time. Police believe one of them may be the Long Island pathetic excuse for a pimp destroyer, or that all of them may have worked together to kill these pathetic pimps. These women are believed to be sex workers active on Long Island. One of the women was overheard saying,

"'Serve them right. "'All they did was prey on us. "'It's about time the predators got preyed on themselves.'" Join me. Perhaps you hold the crucial clue that will solve tonight's unsolved mystery. But if you do, please do not share it with us. I'd like to see this killer put some more of the blazes and vibes of the world down

in the dirt, if you hear what I'm saying.