Rex: The Gilgo Beach Architect | The Rex Heuermann Investigation
Rex Heuermann murdered eight women on Long Island between 1993 and 2010 while working as a Manhattan architect for companies like American Airlines, Target, and Nike. The investigation that should have caught him was obstructed by the very officials running it, with three Suffolk County law enforcement officials eventually going to federal prison for corruption that kept the FBI locked out of the case for years.
This series reconstructs the entire Gilgo Beach case from court filings, cell tower records, DNA evidence, witness testimony, and the public record. Every claim is sourced and cited on NBN.fm.
A 25-episode investigative series from the Neural Broadcast Network.
Episodes
26 episodes
What Gilgo Beach Reveals About Who Gets Protected
It took 13 years, a police corruption scandal, a new DA, cutting edge DNA technology, and a discarded pizza box to catch one man who killed eight women. The investigation only started because someone was searching for a woman who may not even h...
The Unidentified Bodies That Don't Belong to Heuermann
Tanya Jackson, 26, and her 2 year old daughter Tatiana Dykes. An unidentified Asian male dressed in women's clothing. John Bittrolff, convicted of two murders in the same county during the same years. Were multiple serial killers using the same...
The $1 Million Documentary Deal and the Victim's Lawsuit
Two days before the guilty plea, Valerie Mack's son files a wrongful death lawsuit against Heuermann, his ex wife, and his daughter. At the center: a $1 million Peacock documentary deal. A victim's child suing a killer's family over who profits...
Rex Heuermann Said 'Guilty' Seven Times Without Flinching
Suffolk County Court. A 62 year old man in a black suit coat says guilty seven times. His tone becomes casual, almost flat. Then he admits to an eighth murder he was never charged with. His defense attorney calls it a sense of relief.All...
Why It Took 33 Months to Go From 3 Charges to 7
July 2023: three counts of murder. January 2024: a fourth. June 2024: two more and the planning document is revealed. December 2024: a seventh. Each charge required its own forensic evidence package built over 33 months.All sources cited...
The Day They Arrested Rex Heuermann in Manhattan
July 13, 2023. A 59 year old architect is taken into custody in Midtown Manhattan. The 12 day search of his childhood home yields nearly 300 guns, hundreds of electronic devices, and a basement vault. His wife files for divorce within days....
500 Calls on Burner Phones, One Bought With a Credit Card
Four burner phones. Over 500 contacts with sex workers in two years. Fake email accounts used to monitor news coverage of his own case. And then he bought one of those burner phones with his personal credit card.All sources cited in this...
How DNA From a Pizza Box Caught the Gilgo Beach Killer
Rex Heuermann tosses a pizza box into a Manhattan trash can. Investigators recover it. The DNA on the crust matches hair found on burlap used to wrap one of the victims. One careless moment after 30 years of meticulous planning.All sourc...
One New DA Solved What 12 Years of Corruption Could Not
Ray Tierney takes office as Suffolk County DA in January 2022 and makes Gilgo Beach his first priority. He assembles an inter agency task force with full FBI cooperation. Sixteen months later, Rex Heuermann is in handcuffs.All sources ci...
Mari Gilbert Forced the Search, Then Her Daughter Killed Her
Mari Gilbert forced the search that found the Gilgo Beach bodies. She called police, called the press, and stood on Ocean Parkway with signs until they looked. On July 23, 2016, her daughter Sarra stabbed her 227 times. She never lived to see t...
Three Officials Went to Prison to Protect a Serial Killer
Three Suffolk County officials went to federal prison for conspiracy and obstruction. The DA, the police chief, and the head of anti corruption covered up an assault and blocked the FBI from a serial murder investigation for over a decade.<...
The Suffolk County Police Chief Who Blocked the FBI
James Burke was the highest ranking police official in Suffolk County. He blocked the FBI from the Gilgo Beach investigation, denied subpoenas for cell tower records, then beat a handcuffed man inside a precinct and enlisted the DA to cover it ...
Why Serial Killers Target Sex Workers and Get Away With It
Joel Rifkin killed 17 sex workers in New York. Not one was reported missing. When the Gilgo Beach remains surfaced, the chief of detectives told the press the killer does not pose a threat to the community. His reasoning: the victims were sex w...
The Week They Found Four Bodies on Ocean Parkway
A K-9 unit searching for Shannan Gilbert finds remains wrapped in burlap on December 11, 2010. Two days later, three more within a quarter mile. By spring 2011, ten sets of remains along one stretch of highway.All sources cited in this e...
Inside Heuermann's Murder Planning Document: HK2002-04
A Microsoft Word file labeled HK2002-04, created in 2000 and deleted from the hard drive. Forensically recovered from unallocated space on Heuermann's laptop. Inside: four categories. Problems. Supplies. Dump Sites. Targets.All sources c...
Trailer - Rex: The Gilgo Beach Architect
Rex Heuermann killed eight women over 17 years. He strangled them in his childhood home at 105 First Avenue in Massapequa Park while his wife and kids were out of town, wrapped their bodies in burlap, and dumped them along a desolate stretch of...
Shannan Gilbert's 22-Minute 911 Call Changed Everything
At 4:51 AM on May 1, 2010, Shannan Gilbert called 911 and said someone was trying to kill her. The call lasted 22 minutes. She fled into the night and was never seen alive again. The search for Shannan led to finding every other body on Ocean P...
Maureen Brainard-Barnes: First to Vanish, Last Charged
Maureen Brainard Barnes was 25, a single mother of two from Norwich, Connecticut. She was the first of the Gilgo Four to disappear in 2007 but the last to be formally charged to Heuermann in January 2024.All sources cited in this episode...
The Roommate Who Saw the Gilgo Beach Killer's Face
Amber Costello's roommate Dave Schaller came face to face with the killer and described him as an ogre driving a green Chevrolet Avalanche. He gave that description to police in 2010. The tip sat in files for 12 years.All sources cited i...
Megan Waterman Left the Holiday Inn at 1:30 AM
Megan Waterman was 22, from Scarborough, Maine, and the mother of a 4 year old daughter she called three times a day. She traveled by bus to New York, checked into a Holiday Inn, and was last seen leaving at 1:30 AM on June 6, 2010.All s...
The Phone Calls to Melissa Barthelemy's 15-Year-Old Sister
After Melissa Barthelemy disappeared, her 15 year old sister began receiving phone calls from a man using Melissa's cellphone. He taunted the family and said he was watching the body rot. The calls traced to cell towers 2,372 feet from Heuerman...
Two Women Dismembered, Found in Two Locations
Both women were dismembered. Both had remains found in two locations: inland Manorville and coastal Gilgo Beach. The geographic shift reveals a killer who recalibrated his methods after a hunter's dog disrupted his first disposal ground....
27 Years as Jane Doe No. 7: Karen Vergata's Story
For 27 years she was known only as Fire Island Jane Doe. Karen Vergata was 34, from Hell's Kitchen, survived by two sons who were adopted before her death. No missing person report was ever filed.All sources cited in this episode are ava...
Sandra Costilla: The First Victim Nobody Knew About
Sandra Costilla was 28, from Trinidad and Tobago, and the mother of a 5 year old son when she was strangled in November 1993. She is the earliest known victim, killed three decades before DNA connected her to the architect from Massapequa Park....
Why Nobody Searched Ocean Parkway for 18 Months
A 15-mile barrier island highway built in the 1930s became a serial killer's dumping ground. Dense brush, no cameras, no streetlights, and fewer than 250 year round residents made Ocean Parkway the place where bodies could sit 20 feet from the ...
