A new Netflix docuseries explores the case of alleged Long Island serial killer, Rex Heuermann
Between 2010 and 2011, the remains of 11 people were discovered along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach on New York's Long Island. Four of the victims were found within a quarter mile of each other and in similar conditions — bound with belts or tape and wrapped in burlap — suggesting to police and the community that there was a serial killer in the area.
But it wasn't until July 2023 that police finally arrested 61-year-old Rex Heuermann, a New York City architect living in Nassau County, as a suspect in several of the killings.
Heuermann has since been charged with murdering seven women: Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Sandra Costilla and Valerie Mack.
The three-part series, which airs on Netflix March 31, suggests that the reason it took police so long to arrest Heuermann is because all of his alleged victims were sex workers.
'Police were saying, if you're not a sex worker, you don't have anything to worry about,' Long Island Press reporter Jaclyn Gallucci says in the first episode. 'You don't want to think that somebody's going around murdering women, and you want to say, 'OK, they put themselves in that situation, this is the reason why this happened to them and this is the reason this could never happen to me.''
The victims' families and friends, who are interviewed throughout the series, also say they felt their loved ones were dismissed by police and the media because they were sex workers. Some say they even gave police information about a man matching Heuermann's description years before he was arrested.
Dave Schaller and Bear Brodsky, who both lived with 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello when she went missing in 2010, recalled an encounter they say they had with Heuermann before Costello's disappearance. According to the former roommates, Costello had called them asking for help because a client of hers was at the house and scaring her. Schaller and Brodsky say they went into the house and told the man to leave. They said they knew Costello took another call from the man in September 2010 and went to see him, saying she was promised $1,500, and then was never seen again.
When Costello disappeared, Schaller and Brodsky went to the police and described the man in detail, including the exact car he was driving — a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche. When Heuermann's face was shown on TV after he was arrested, Schaller said it was the same man he and Brodsky had described to police 13 years earlier. Heuermann was also driving a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche at the time of his arrest.
'[Police] had their answers for f***ing years,' Schaller said.
The series does not feature interviews with any officers who were employed by the Suffolk County Police Department at the time, however, the second episode dives into controversies surrounding former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota and former Police Chief James Burke, who supervised the investigation of the Gilgo Beach murders. Spota resigned from office in 2017, was disbarred in 2020 and sentenced to federal prison in 2021 for helping cover up a suspect abuse scandal; Burke stepped down in 2015 and was arrested in 2023 for soliciting a sex worker.
Investigative reporter Gus Garcia-Roberts, who covered the case for Newsweek, says that, in retrospect, it seemed like Burke's effort to cover up his own alleged crimes may have affected how much attention was spent on the Gilgo investigation. Neither Spota nor Burke were interviewed for the docuseries.
The documentary's final episode seems to support Garcia-Roberts's theory. In it, Ray Tierney, the current Suffolk County district attorney who assumed office in January 2022, says that once a new team of investigators was assigned to the office, it took them six weeks before they identified Heuermann as a suspect.
Detectives tracked Heuermann's physical movements as well as his cellphone records for months before they were finally able to match a hair recovered from one of the victims to DNA on a leftover pizza crust Heuermann threw out in January 2023. He was arrested at his Manhattan office seven months later.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and has requested separate trials for the women he's accused of murdering, but prosecutors have objected to splitting up the cases. A trial date has not yet been set.
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Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
Unearthed ‘Son of Sam' prison tapes reveal chilling details about serial killer David Berkowitz
Joe Berlinger wanted to understand how one man who seemingly came from a loving home went on to terrorize New York City. The Oscar-nominated director has launched a new true-crime docuseries on Netflix, "Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes." It features newly unearthed audio interviews between David Berkowitz and crime reporter Jack Jones, which took place in 1980 at Attica Correctional Facility. The three-part series also highlights a phone conversation Berlinger had with Berkowitz, 72, who is serving multiple life sentences for his murders. "David Berkowitz is very different from other serial killers," the filmmaker told Fox News Digital. "He wanted no human contact. He didn't want to know his victims. There's an anecdote about a snowstorm when he had a gun in his pocket. He came upon some people stuck in the snow, and he decided he'd rather be a hero than a killer, because he had a human interaction with those people. He is more about rage and alienation and having to express that rage." "I liken him to the school shooters of today rather than the sexual sadistic killer that most of these other serial killers are," Berlinger shared. "Serial killers, particularly Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer, needed to be intimate with their victims. Bundy and Gacy, in particular, got sexual gratification out of killing somebody and watching them die in their hands. Dahmer took that intimacy to the next level by consuming body parts. . . . But with Berkowitz, he needed to satisfy his rage." In the mid-1970s, Berkowitz, a postal employee, plunged the city into fear with a series of shootings using a .44-caliber revolver that killed six people and wounded seven. He appeared to target young women with long brown hair and couples canoodling in a lover's lane. The New York Police Department formed a 200-person task force to hunt down the killer, The Associated Press reported. Frightened women began cutting their hair short and dyeing it blonde, while many others rushed home before nightfall. He went on to send taunting letters to the police and the press, where he called himself the "Son of Sam" and claimed that a demonic-obsessed dog belonging to his neighbor had ordered him to kill. Berkowitz's reign of terror came to an end when he was arrested on Aug. 10, 1977. According to Berlinger, more newspapers were sold for the "Son of Sam" being caught than for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Berlinger said he wanted the film to also address rumors about the slayings that have persisted for decades. "There's still this belief that there were multiple Sons of Sams," Berlinger explained. "There's this conspiracy theory that there were multiple shooters, and they all belonged to a satanic cult. . . . It's preposterous. . . . It just further spurred me on to want to tell a clear-eyed, factual story about what happened. And just from a common-sense standpoint, the shootings stopped after Berkowitz was arrested. If there was a nationwide satanic cult, why weren't there more killings?" "There's just no forensic evidence to support that theory," Berlinger stressed. According to the docuseries, Berkowitz was brought up by Jewish parents in the Bronx. He was traumatized by both the startling revelation that he was adopted and the death of his adoptive mother from cancer. In 1971, he joined the army, and he distinguished himself as a talented marksman, reported. But after returning to New York, his mental health began to deteriorate severely. He was later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. "I think it's a slippery slope to blame it on a bad childhood," Berlinger pointed out. "He had a good childhood by all accounts. He was just shocked that he was adopted. I had a rough childhood, and I'm the opposite of somebody walking around with a lot of rage and wanting to do terrible things." "Some people go through horrible experiences early in life and end up stronger and better," said Berlinger. "Others … end up doing terrible things. [What we do know is] that Berkowitz felt alienated and disconnected to the degree that he had to satisfy his rage." Berlinger admitted that at first, he was hesitant to speak with Berkowitz. WATCH: TED BUNDY'S EX-GIRLFRIEND INSPIRES HAUNTING NETFLIX BIOPIC ON THEIR ROMANCE: 'HE WAS A MASTER MANIPULATOR' "I debated whether it was appropriate to include his present-day thoughts, because it broke with the former," he explained, referring to his previous documentaries. "People are very sensitive about giving a platform to a serial killer. But … you are dissecting human behavior as a cautionary tale." Berlinger described Berkowitz as "disarming," someone eager to please and "wants to say all the right things." Still, it took some convincing for Berkowitz to speak out for the docuseries. And when he did during their phone conversation, there was one comment that Berlinger said took him aback. "It wasn't his final comment in the interview, but it's the final comment in the show," said Berlinger. "His chilling admonition to the younger David Berkowitz to just run and get help, meaning run from that horrible decision to get a gun and kill people randomly. I felt it was just so chilling, because it could have been so different for him." "The deeply sick, psychological disturbances of these other killers who liked looking into the eyes of their victims as they were expiring or eating body parts … it exists, but I don't think it's common," Berlinger continued. "But I do think youthful young men feeling disconnected, feeling rage, feeling unfulfilled - that's not uncommon in our society right now. I found that comment so chilling because it could have been so different had he just gotten help. I think with these school shootings, for example, there were so many signs where, if people had gotten help, maybe the outcomes would've been different." "… I think we have an epidemic of [poor] mental health in this country," said Berlinger. "I think young people, particularly young men – a lot of young men – feel alienated and lost. And I think that's important." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB In addition to hearing Berkowitz speak, the film also highlights interviews with detectives, journalists, loved ones, survivors and others closely connected to the case. Berlinger said it was important for him to get the blessing of the survivors, in particular, to move forward with the project. "It's always important to include the victim's point of view in these shows," Berlinger explained. "I always reach out to victims and want their participation, or at the very least, their blessing. I have canceled shows in the past where the victims have said, 'This will hurt us if you do this.' And it was heartbreaking to hear the accounts of the survivors in this film. These were young people doing quintessential things that people in their youth do. This random act of violence snuffed out their hopes and dreams and reverberated for decades." Berlinger noted that the primary reason he agreed to reach out to Berkowitz was because of Wendy Savino. She was recently confirmed by the New York Police Department as Berkowitz's first known victim. The director wanted to see whether Berkowitz would weigh in on that shooting. "I believe that she was a victim of his," said Berlinger. "I can't say whether he believes it or feels a need to deny it." Berkowitz now claims he is a born-again Christian and feels remorseful. He previously appeared to relish the media attention he received and sold his exclusive story rights to a publishing house, reported. According to the outlet, New York State was the first to adopt a nationwide series of laws that take the proceeds a criminal earns from selling their story and instead gives them to a victims' compensation fund. It's unclear whether Berkowitz is sincere about being remorseful, but his message to his younger self has stayed with Berlinger. "When I asked him, 'If you could speak to the young David, what would you tell him? ' he said, 'Run, get help. I could have talked to my father,'" Berlinger recalled. "That touched me deeply," he said. "… If you're feeling rage or disconnection, and you're concerned about this level of rage that you live with every day, get help."
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
What Are Son of Sam Laws? Unpacking the Rules That David Berkowitz Inspired (and How They Relate to the Idaho College Murders)
Son of Sam laws were initially written to prevent criminals from profiting off their offenses — but their constitutionality has come into question The Son of Sam, otherwise known as David Berkowitz, murdered six people and injured 11 during his New York City shooting spree between 1976 and 1977. In the new Netflix docuseries Conversations With a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes, out July 30, the serial killer details his mindset when he began murdering strangers, including what led him to write letters to the press and police in a dark cat-and-mouse game until he was finally caught in August 1977. Berkowitz reportedly enjoyed the attention he got from the media and sought to get paid for a book telling his side of the story. Lawmakers in New York tried to prevent Berkowitz and other convicts from profiting off of their crimes, leading them to pass the Son of Sam law in 1977 before the .44 Caliber Killer had a chance to collect a dime from his crimes. Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years to life for each murder he committed. Other states enacted similar laws, but the Supreme Court delivered a judgment nearly 15 years later that killed or forced changes to many Son of Sam laws nationwide. Here is everything to know about the Son of Sam laws. What is a Son of Sam law? New York enacted the original Son of Sam law in 1977 in an effort to prevent Berkowitz and other criminals from profiting off of their crimes in the form of movie, TV, book and other media deals, according to The New York Times. In the 1977 law, victims were permitted to sue to receive any proceeds that convicted criminals received from paid media, with a Crime Victims Board able to seize the proceeds until the lawsuits were settled. Under the first Son of Sam law, victims could sue within three years from the time a criminal received payment for media related to their offenses. At the time, there was also a statute of limitations of seven years from the time the crime was committed to file a lawsuit. Why is it called the Son of Sam law? The Son of Sam law got its name from Berkowitz's murder spree from 1976 through 1977. The serial killer used the alias — derived from the name of his neighbor, Sam Carr, and his dog Harvey — in his letters to reporters and law enforcement. Berkowitz later alleged that he heard demons speaking to him through Harvey, a claim he later said he made for attention and to avoid taking accountability for the damage and trauma he caused. The New York Times reported that Berkowitz and his team were selling a book that could make between $1 million and $10 million, of which Berkowitz would receive one-third. The killer and his team were reportedly also considering selling movie rights, but Berkowitz denied these claims. How many states have Son of Sam laws? Around 40 states have Son of Sam laws, though their enforcement and the details in each vary. For example, California's former Son of Sam law stated that only people convicted of felonies were barred from profiting off of their stories and rights to film, TV, books and other media; and it specified that works with only "passing mention of the felony, as in a footnote or bibliography" were exempt. The California Supreme Court, though, struck down their Son of Sam law in 2002 for infringing upon the First Amendment, per Reporters Committee. Is the Son of Sam law unconstitutional? In 1991, the Supreme Court ruled that New York's 1977 Son of Sam law was unconstitutional in the case Simon & Schuster v. Members of the New York Crime Victims Board. The publishers of the book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Henry Hill and Nicholas Pileggi (which would later be adapted into Martin Scorsese's acclaimed film Goodfellas) sued the Victims Board, arguing that the law made authors and editors self-censor their books. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor found in her opinion that the Son of Sam law violated the First Amendment, noting that it was "presumptively inconsistent with the First Amendment if it imposes a financial burden on speakers because of the content of their speech." She argued that under the Son of Sam law, as it was written and enacted in 1977, books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience could see their proceeds not go to their respective authors. What happened to the Son of Sam law in New York? The original Son of Sam law in New York was amended in 2001 to allow victims to sue criminals not just for profits from movie, TV and book deals, but for virtually any income the convicts received while incarcerated, including lottery winnings, inheritance or stock market earnings, per The New York Times. The amended law also extended the statute of limitations from seven to 10 years from the date of the crimes. In December 2023, CBS News reported that New York lawmakers sought to amend the Son of Sam law again to also apply to spouses and relatives of criminals after the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann's estranged wife, Asa Ellerup, was reportedly paid seven figures from Peacock when she appeared in a documentary. Peacock said in a statement at the time that Ellerup "was not paid for her participation, but was paid a licensing fee for use of her archive materials." Peacock also noted that the funds were not permitted to be given to Heuermann or his criminal defense. The proposed amended law would also require any company paying a criminal's relatives or spouses $10,000 or more to notify the New York State Office of Victim Services, which would in turn notify victims, Newsday reported. Does Idaho have a Son of Sam law? Idaho does not have a specific Son of Sam law, a point that the judge in the University of Idaho murder trial alluded to in his sentencing of Bryan Kohberger, per the Independent. Kohberger stabbed Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin to death in their shared home in November 2022. He pleaded guilty to the quadruple murder three weeks before his trial was set to begin in exchange for avoiding the death penalty and received four life sentences. "I know there has been concern about him collaborating on books, or movies, or other media projects, and I truly hope that someone does not stoop to affording him this spotlight that he desires, in the name of clicks, royalties, or profits," Judge Steven Hippler said at Kohberger's sentencing hearing. "In my view, the time has now come to end Mr. Kohberger's 15 minutes of fame." Judge Hippler also encouraged the victims' loved ones and the public to not give Kohberger the notoriety that he suspected the killer wanted. "The need to know what is inherently not understandable makes us dependent upon the defendant to provide us with a reason, and that gives him the spotlight, the attention and the power he appears to crave," Hippler said. "Yet, even if I could force him to speak, which legally I cannot, how could anyone ever be assured that what he speaks is the truth?" Read the original article on People
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Horrors of Son of Sam's Murderous Reign of Terror
We were so scared. Cowering in fear is anathema to Bronx residents. We're bred to be tough; why walk when you can swagger? Son of Sam changed that. Serial killer David Berkowitz, who murdered six people and wounded at least seven, started in his home borough in 1976, before branching out to Brooklyn and Queens. The killings peaked in 1977 and terrorized a broken city, already filled with violence and teetering on bankruptcy. Berkowitz's crimes and his motivation are detailed in a three-part documentary series, Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes, on Netflix July 30. (There's no significant date being commemorated. The closest temporal tie is slight; the series drops the day after the 49th anniversary of his first killing.) Filmmaker Joe Berlinger created the Conversations with a Killer series, which has also explored the lives of Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. Berlinger specializes in true-crime films and has done important work, including the Paradise Lost trilogy. In addition to helping free the West Memphis Three, Berlinger's documentaries have aided four others wrongly accused, saving some from death row. In no way does Berlinger suggest Berkowitz is innocent. The filmmaker's intent was to tell the story of Son of Sam, the name the killer used to refer to himself, and show him in the context of his times, when his actions paralyzed a city and ignited a tabloid war. 'Here was another opportunity to tell a story that we–our age–all remember because we lived through it, but the younger generation has only had a passing familiarity with,' says Berlinger, 63. 'And yet, if you go on these true-crime boards, even now, you'll see a lot of people believe that there were multiple Sons of Sam, that it was a cult. And I think that's an incredibly irresponsible story. One of my goals was to set the record straight.' This series shares audio recordings from Jack Jones, a former reporter at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, who conducted in-depth jailhouse interviews with Berkowitz. Conversations also features interviews with survivors of his attacks and relatives of his victims. Just enough news footage reminds those who endured fraught days and even worse nights what it felt like. For those too young to remember (and since three-quarters of the world's population is under 50, that would be most folks), the series offers an accurate reflection of the city in crisis. It shows the NYPD squad cars, blue-and-white Pontiac LeMans that always looked about to fishtail; cops sporting mustaches and sideburns, and young women with hair feathered in Farrah Fawcett-inspired dos (or in my case, a don't). It was a proudly outer-borough world that Saturday Night Fever copied, a place where Huk-A-Poo blouses were tight, elephant bells were wide, and platform heels were high. Natural fibers were nonexistent. Although the young women whom Berkowitz hunted were often out for a night at the disco, in the mid-'70s, venturing out of your home at all required moxie and faith. Violent crime was rampant, neighborhoods were burning, and the city was spiraling economically. The federal government refused to bail it out, as the famous Daily News front page headline blared, "Ford to City: Drop Dead." Life in the city was already grim, and a maniac with a .44 gun made it so much worse. Women with long, dark hair tucked it under hats—the killer was known to target brunettes. Besides interviews with those whose lives were shattered, someone identified as an expert on Berkowitz, and veterans of the NYC tabloids who covered the story, there's a reveal at the end that would be wrong to spoil. And it's worth watching for this, as it is to gain perspective on a time that seems so distant, yet Berkowitz remains incarcerated. Some of the documentary's re-enactments, particularly those of an imprisoned Berkowitz, feel forced. But the crime re-enactments work. This shadowy figure snuck up on young couples parked. He sidled up to their car and shot, point-blank, into the victims. He had no connection to them. Ultimately, Berkowitz had no connection to anyone, except perhaps Jimmy Breslin. The late great Daily News columnist owned this story, especially once Berkowitz wrote to him. Yes, this was a tragedy, an absolute reign of terror. Parents lost their children; lives were forever ruined. But for the NYC tabs, it was a bare-knuckle brawl as everyone was trying to get the scoop. Breslin had it. Berlinger shows a clip of other journalists sniffing about whether they would have written a letter to the killer in a newspaper column. Maybe they wouldn't have, but the killer hadn't written to them either, as he did to Breslin. A tabloid columnist who understands the pure gold of a scoop like this, albeit acknowledging the inherent tragedy, would, of course, write to him. This was not just a scoop or a story that those of us living through could not stop talking about. It felt like an epidemic of young women being slaughtered for no reason. The Bronx in particular felt more dangerous than usual, and that is saying something for those times. I grew up close to where Berkowitz did. Both of our families moved from neighborhoods of the Bronx that were burning to Co-Op City, a massive housing complex of brutalist architecture in the northeastern part of the borough. We attended the same high school; he graduated five years earlier. And he killed first in the neighborhoods he knew best. So, while I didn't know him or any of the young women slain, I have friends who lost friends. We were all so scared. In the summer of 1977, I had finished my freshman year at NYU and was renting a teeny room in an Upper West Side apartment. I went uptown regularly to visit my family in Co-Op. Getting off a bus one muggy evening, I spotted a pal and went to his car to catch up. Buddha wouldn't even let me get in, and we had been friends since eighth grade. Instead, he walked me to my building. (Yes, I have a childhood friend nicknamed Buddha even though his real name is Ralphie.) I had shoulder-length dark hair, and the Son of Sam had been targeting couples in parked cars. Just sitting with Buddha would have put us both in danger. 'The entire city was gripped by fear,' Berlinger says. 'I felt like you had to understand how common and normal it would be for a couple to be sitting in a car and to be preyed upon.' The re-enactments help tell this story, Berlinger notes, because 'when you get into the mind of this killer, this killer differs from the other killers we've profiled in the past. And also that's part of my fascination. You know, Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer, each in their own way, wanted to be intimate. They enjoyed the act of killing. This guy, he had to be distanced. He had to dehumanize them. And so, just to understand the psychology of that, I thought that understanding how somebody could just come up, go choose random people and just shoot them and run away, just how terrifying that was again.' And all these years later, even though he's locked away, some of that terror lingers.
