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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Australian True Crime International with Michelle Laurie.
Chapter 2: What led to the discovery of the Long Island Serial Killer case?
In May 2010, 24-year-old Shannon Gilbert disappeared after making a frantic 911 call from Oak Beach on Long Island, telling police someone was trying to kill her.
The search for Shannon led investigators to a remote stretch of coastline near Gilgo Beach, where they instead uncovered the remains of multiple missing women, beginning what would become one of America's most notorious serial killer investigations.
Over the years, the case remained unsolved until 2023, when architect Rex Heuermann was arrested after authorities linked him to the murders through DNA evidence, burner phones and a renewed task force investigation.
Chapter 3: How was Rex Heuermann linked to the Long Island murders?
In April of this year, Hewerman pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and admitted to an eighth killing, though investigators are still examining whether more victims could be connected to him. The women Hewerman admitted to murdering were Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Maureen Brainerd-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Sandra Costilla and Karen Vergata.
Chapter 4: Who are the victims connected to Rex Heuermann?
Today, we're joined by Shannon McGarvey, host of the LISC podcast and a consultant and prominent contributor to Peacock's Gilgo Beach Killer House of Secrets documentary series.
Chapter 5: How did Shannon McGarvey contribute to understanding the case?
This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
So for listeners who have no context about what this area looks like. So you have New York City, which we all know, you know, we have a picture of that in our head, right? High density population, you know, huge buildings, all this stuff, right? You drive just east of the city for maybe 30 minutes. Yeah.
Chapter 6: What role did victim advocacy play in the investigation?
And you're in this long, you know, on this long island. And it's quite rural. Parts of it are quite desolate and empty. And you have an area called Ocean Parkway, which stretches the length of, you know, the south shore of the island. And when you're on this... It's like a freeway, right?
A road, right?
Yeah, it's like it's a highway. And on either side, there's like a there's a bay on one side and then there's the ocean on the other. And at nighttime, it's black, like pitch black. And it goes for miles and miles and miles and miles. So it was quite literally the perfect place to dispose of anything, including a body.
Chapter 7: Did the lifestyle of the victims affect the investigation's progress?
And no one would catch you. I think I read it was a thousand days to the date from when he was arrested to when he admitted guilt. That on top of years and years and years of obviously not knowing the pain and torture that these families have been through is unimaginable. But in terms of victim advocacy and victims' families.
Mary Gilbert emerged as, you know, the sort of champion of all of that after her daughter, Shannon Gilbert, went missing in the Oak Beach community. But what's interesting about her is that her daughter was never linked to the Gilgo Beach murders, but it was her disappearance that led to the discovery of the victims of the Gilgo Beach murders.
But also Mary's advocacy for her daughter and the months, I think it was seven or eight months, it took police to really search for Shannon. So Mary, during that period of time, is working very hard to get interest in the fact that her daughter has gone missing in this environment.
And this is our first clue that Shannon's lifestyle, to put it politely as we do, the fact that she was a drug user, she was a sex worker... This is when the question first was raised. Is that an issue in police not investigating thoroughly? Yes, the question was asked.
Does the fact that these women were engaged in sex work have anything to do with the fact that these cases have gone cold and unsolved? And, you know, mind you, this case was cold for years and years and years. I started working. I came onto this case in 2016. which was six years after Shannon Gilbert had gone missing.
And by this point, the police chief in Suffolk County had gone to jail, you know, and that was like a big deal.
I was just thinking that. I was thinking things were constantly shifting on the side of law enforcement too, on Long Island, right? Yes. The district attorney, the police chiefs, personnel in and out. So that changes the direction every time. Oh, yeah.
This very, very solvable case... had languished for so many years as unsolved.
Well, I mean, you call it a very, very solvable case. And indeed, people now talk about it coming together in six weeks in the end when a particular, you're right, when the DA and the police chief were really on top of it and really interested and really on it and reinvestigated the case. And the other thing I think that comes through is that so many of the family and friends involved
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Chapter 8: What insights do we have about Rex Heuermann's mindset?
To your point, they were all loved and cared for and they had families and lives. And through the arbitrary circumstances of life found themselves in these horrible situations that for whatever reason they could not escape. And unfortunately, it ended up... you know, killing them.
Well, I mean, talk about the arbitrary circumstances through which they cross paths with Rex Hewerman, even, you know, I mean, these are girls who they don't work every night. They don't work every day. They don't accept every call.
And yet, unfortunately they happen to have their phone switched on on a night where his family was out of town, where he was in a position where he could murder somebody. They fit the description that he was looking for. Petite young women, uh, The bad luck of it is just horrifying.
And I think about Melissa Barthelemy at the moment when I think about the statement that Hewman's lawyer made when someone asked, why did he plead guilty? Why, after all these years of claiming innocence, has he chosen to plead guilty? And he said, oh, well, part of it is that he wants to spare the families a trial.
Right.
And immediately when we hear, you know, we call bullshit on that and we think about Melissa's sister, Amanda, who was a young teenager when her sister went missing and she... Tell us about the contact that Heuermann had with this child.
Oh, God. So, yeah, Amanda, Amanda Funderburg is her name. And she she actually she sat down with us on the Lisk podcast. But, yeah, she was 15 years old at the time. She was very close to Melissa and had a trip planned from Buffalo down to the Bronx where Melissa lived. And I think, you know, she might have known a little more than the mother did about, you know, what Melissa was engaged in.
But yeah, they were very close. And because she had a trip planned, you know, they had been calling a lot and texting, you know, just communicating a lot about the impending trip. And when Melissa went missing... Her phone, you know, we now know Rex Heuermann took her phone. And, you know, when she disappeared, you know, kept it and called the family, called her sister, Amanda. And...
taunted her with just these terrible, terrible things. They said, I know where your sister is. I murdered her. I killed her in a whorehouse in Queens, describing certain things. And this poor girl who was, like I said, 15 years old, sat there and listened to it. And then
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