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[narrator] The search for the Gilgo Beach serial killer

dragged on for 13 long years.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

But it didn't have to be that way.

[Dave Schaller] It wasn't The Amazing Kreskin came in

and figured this [bleep] out.

It was, on paper, 13 years. It's sickening.

[narrator] Eleven bodies dumped in a five-mile radius.

Rex Heuermann has been charged with murdering three.

If he is the serial killer,

it's likely he murdered more.

[Dr. Phil McGraw] This is kind of an addictive aspect.

They just have to act on that impulse.

[narrator] Cops had clues for more than a decade

that would have led them to Heuermann's doorstep.

But those clues were ignored.

I gave them the guy's description, down to his beady-ass eyes.

They had everything they needed.

[narrator] Some women who encountered Heuermann

knew what was up.

[Nikkie Brass] I told people for years,

I had dinner with the Gilgo Beach killer.

[narrator] Yet authorities turned a blind eye,

in large part because of the top cop.

[John Ray] He was morally, sexually corrupt.

He was a pervert, and he was the one running the show.

[narrator] The tragic reality: the bungling,

the corruption, the missed clues,

may have spiked the body count.

[Dr. Scott Bonn] He may well have a burial ground

that has yet to be discovered.

[narrator] It's a travesty of justice

with fatal consequences.

TMZ Investigates:

Gilgo Beach Serial Murders:

Missed Warning Signs.

[eerie music playing]

[Rodney Harrison] Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us.

[♪]

A predator that ruined families.

If not for the members of this task force...

he would still be on the streets today.

[reporter]

[narrator] On July 13th, 59-year-old Rex Heuermann

was arrested and charged with murdering three women

found dead on Gilgo Beach on New York's Long Island back in 2010.

The skeletal remains were found in this shallow grave.

[narrator] It was a mystery that haunted a community for more than a decade,

and it should have never taken that long.

[Rob Trotta] It seems to me this should've been solved

in the first three months, rather than 13 years later.

I really, really feel bad if-- if this person went out

and killed other people during this time,

and, you know, we dropped the ball.

I gave them the [bleep] guy's description

down to his beady-ass eyes.

His size, height, weight.

Everything. Hair color, [bleep], you name it.

They had everything they needed. They had everything.

[narrator] The victims: Megan Waterman,

Melissa Barthelemy, and Amber Costello.

Heuermann is also the prime suspect

in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

They're known as the Gilgo Four.

There were four bodies that had been disposed of

in a similar fashion in the thicket in a very isolated,

desolate area there on Long Island.

It was obvious that we were dealing with a serial killer.

[♪]

[narrator] And there's another common thread:

all of them were sex workers.

[♪]

There were a total of 11 bodies found within a five-mile radius.

Authorities dismissed some as unrelated.

But not everyone is buying that.

There's also the distinct possibility

that we're looking at a serial killer who evolved.

One who went from dismemberment to one who simply said,

"I'm going to leave these bodies wrapped in burlap

because it's simply an easier thing to do."

[♪]

[dispatcher] State police.

[narrator] 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert

was not one of the Gilgo Four,

but her mysterious disappearance back in 2010

led cops to discover

there was a serial killer on the loose.

[narrator] Early in the morning of May 1st,

Shannan, a sex worker, makes a 22-minute 911 call

from a client's home near Gilgo Beach,

claiming she's in big trouble.

[narrator] Toward the end of the call, Shannan takes off running,

her phone still connected to 911.

[phone line crackling]

[Shannan screaming]

[phone line crackling]

[Shannan panting]

[narrator] She's never heard from again.

[melancholy music playing]

[narrator] Seven months later, on December 11th, 2010,

a Suffolk County officer and his search dog

are looking for Shannan's body on Gilgo Beach,

not far from the last place Shannan was seen.

[mysterious music playing]

Just a few feet off Ocean Parkway,

they make a gruesome discovery.

It's not Shannan.

It's the body of Melissa Barthelemy.

Two days later, three more bodies are found:

Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman,

and Amber Lynn Costello.

As the months passed, things get even worse.

Seven more bodies are found within a five-mile radius of beach,

11 in total.

Eight of them female sex workers.

The last body found: Shannan Gilbert's,

19 months after she made that chilling call.

All that was left were skeletal remains.

It's all along a stretch of land which is a--

sort of an enlarged cemetery for sex workers.

Cops say Shannan may have drowned,

and possibly been under the influence of something.

But her family believes she was murdered.

Everything Shannan did that night was perfectly rational,

and look at the consequence.

What happened to her is exactly what she predicted was about to happen to her.

[Charles Latibeaudiere] Here's the enraging thing.

During the 13 years the case went nowhere,

other women may have been murdered,

because serial killers typically have uncontainable,

murderous tendencies.

Some of these people do stop for periods of time,

but the chance that he went dormant

for that long a period of time, 13 years,

is a very low probability.

It-- it-- it boggles my mind.

I hope to God that their incompetence

didn't cause someone else to lose their life,

because that would be a horrible, horrible thing

for them to live with, to anybody to live with.

Because this really, clearly, should've been solved right away.

[narrator] Coming up...

[Dr. Bonn] They are able to seamlessly flip a switch,

go from husband and father to sadistic killer,

and they can do it without any sort of shame.

My father called me that morning,

and said, "Hey, you know, that guy, the serial killer

that we used to joke about?" And I said, "Yeah."

He goes, "He's actually a serial killer."

[♪]

[dramatic music playing]

[reporter]

[narrator] Rex Heuermann was arrested in July

at his architecture office in Manhattan.

He has pled not guilty to multiple murder charges.

But if he is the serial killer,

he was living an insane double life

in plain sight for a long, long time.

-Rex, hi. -Hello!

-How you doing? -Good to see you.

Likewise. Hope you don't mind I brought my assistant with me.

-Norman. -[Heuermann] Hello, Norman.

[narrator] In this 2022 interview,

Rex seems normal.

Hard to believe this man could be a ruthless killer.

What do you think is the most important qualities

a person in your position

-dealing with the job must have? -Patience.

What has this job taught you about yourself?

I think it's taught me more about how to understand people.

[mysterious music playing]

[narrator] On many levels, Heuermann seemed like a regular guy.

A college graduate, married to his second wife,

Asa Ellerup, for 27 years.

He raised two kids, a daughter and a stepson, both adults now.

That was one life.

But cops say his other life was steeped in evil.

He's definitely somebody that should not be out in the public,

and being involved with other human beings.

It is a Jekyll and Hyde,

and I think we have enough information now,

sadly, tragically,

about serial killers,

that had done exactly what we're describing here,

living parallel lives.

-It's... -Selfie time!

Selfie time.

You're fast.

Ready? One, two, three.

Ah!

-Can you smile? -That is!

[laughing]

[Dr. Bonn] What these individuals are able to do,

they are able to seamlessly flip a switch,

and go from family man, go from husband and father,

to sadistic killer.

And they can do it without any sort of shame,

guilt, angst.

No sense of right and wrong.

[narrator] So sadistic, he allegedly called Melissa Barthelemy's sister

to taunt her from Melissa's phone.

When she was missing for a few days, and then the phone rang,

and it said, "Melissa," like, from her phone,

and Amanda, the sister, said,

"Melissa, where have you been? We've been looking for you!"

And then she heard that voice, of the killer.

When you're seeing an offender reach out to family members

that are already suffering

and call them over and over and over

to increase their suffering,

you have someone who enjoys watching people suffer.

And that's exactly what we have here.

[♪]

[eerie music playing]

[narrator] When Heuermann was arrested,

some of his neighbors weren't all that surprised.

My father actually called me that morning and said,

"Hey, you know that guy, the serial killer

that we used to joke about?" And I said, "Yeah."

He goes, "He's actually a serial killer."

[narrator] People who knew Heuermann for years,

since childhood, say he was always an outcast.

[John Parisi] He was very strange, he was very smart,

but he didn't have many friends, and he was very much to himself.

He was a loner.

Rex was bullied and teased

for the way he appeared.

If you dig deep enough, you'll find, somewhere,

somewhere in the background, something triggered them,

some anger, some unresolved conflict

that they're acting out against these victims.

Over the years, Rex Heuermann

showed aggression in different ways.

He filed multiple lawsuits,

claiming he'd been hit by cars.

And here's what's so puzzling.

If he is the serial killer,

why would he draw that kind of attention to himself?

[Dr. Bonn] The fact that Rex Heuermann may have been involved

in a number of legal cases where he was suing folks,

that would indicate someone who is so narcissistic,

things have to go his way,

and wanting control and domination of others.

They look at it from only their point of view,

and they're so arrogant, they think, "I'm above the law.

Nobody's gonna look at me, nobody's gonna catch me.

I'm a respected architect, I know what I'm doing.

People think I'm, you know, a big deal here.

They'll never suspect me."

And sadly, in many cases, that turns out to be right.

[narrator] In March of 2022,

authorities finally zeroed in on Heuermann,

and the walls started to close in.

Where we'd get his internet searches, he was making inquiry

with regard to the Gilgo investigation over 200 times.

He was also doing a lot of searches

with regard to a lot of torture porn

and other rather disturbing searches.

[narrator] Heuermann was also googling

family members of the victims, including a child.

Cell phone records put Heuermann in proximity

to all four victims.

Authorities used DNA from a discarded pizza crust

to match Heuermann to hair found on one of the victims.

We looked at travel records, and were able to establish

that the wife and the children

were out of the state during the time

of the commission of those crimes.

[narrator] After his arrest on July 13th,

cops spent 12 days searching Heuermann's home,

digging up his yard.

No bodies, but they unearthed a boatload of evidence,

including nearly 300 firearms.

And here's a chilling detail.

Heuermann also owns properties in Las Vegas and South Carolina.

Investigators want to know, in the 13 years the case went unsolved,

did the accused Gilgo serial killer

murder way beyond the confines of his hometown?

[Errol Toulon] Not only are we worried about other lives

being lost, not only here in Suffolk County but, you know,

we're looking at South Carolina, we're looking at Las Vegas,

we're looking at anywhere Rex Heuermann might have been.

You can't assume in a situation like this

that you have found all these victims.

This person traveled out of state.

He had places in other locales.

For anyone to assume that this person killed

all these people and then stopped in 2010,

I don't believe that.

There was critical evidence

sitting right in Rex Heuermann's driveway,

evidence that went unnoticed by cops

for more than a decade.

Evidence that could've put him in cuffs

and spared other women their lives.

And one of the reasons cops dropped the ball is mind-blowing.

[narrator] Coming up,

a major piece of evidence ignored.

It wasn't The Amazing Kreskin came in and figured this [bleep] out.

It was on paper for [bleep] 13 years, you know? It's sickening.

[narrator] Plus, the top cop who may have derailed the investigation

for very personal reasons.

He was morally, sexually corrupt.

He was a pervert.

[♪]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Rex Heuermann lived his life,

walked the streets,

and possibly continued his alleged murderous rampage

undetected for 13 long years.

A lot of people say it didn't have to be that way.

From the pieces I've put together,

you know, this is Investigations 101.

Turns out, a major clue was missed early on.

A clue that eventually cracked the case,

and it was either ignored or deliberately pushed aside

for all those years.

It came from a man named Dave Schaller.

This guy just screamed "freak," you know what I mean?

Like, everything about him.

[narrator] Schaller was roommates with one of the Gilgo Four victims,

Amber Costello.

A few weeks before Amber vanished,

Schaller had a violent encounter with a man

who had hired Amber for a lap dance in their home.

A man he says was Rex Heuermann.

I was out. She calls me, and it was like, the guy, you know,

didn't wanna take no for an answer,

and started grab-assing on her, you know?

And was basically, you know, trying to pull her down

to-- you know, to rape her.

So, came flying back to the house,

busted through the door, and there's a giant in my living room.

[laughs] Basically, he was like Frankenstein.

The guy just was like a motionless, just, you know, blank.

So I was like, you know,

"What the [bleep] you doing here?"

I was like, you know, "You gotta go."

And he's like-- You know, he just shook his head, and he's like, "Nope."

And I was like, "Well, you're gonna go one way or another."

So I pushed him. He pushed me back.

I punched him in the face.

We went out the front door.

Knocked him down the stoop.

Kicked him in the chest a couple times.

You know, he got up.

Dropped a couple more punches on him,

he hit me, and finally, I picked up a rake

that I had there, and I was gonna smash him in the face with the rake.

He got in his car and bounced.

And just literally no emotion, no nothing.

As he was leaving, he was turning his head,

just like, you know, like, watching the whole time.

[narrator] Schaller says, a month later,

Amber saw Heuermann again, because she needed cash--

needed it badly--

and he offered her two grand.

It was the last time she was seen alive.

The second she went missing,

the first person that came to my head was that dude.

[♪]

[narrator] Schaller told police about the incident in chilling detail

a few days after they found Amber's body.

Then two more times right after that.

He described the exact type of truck the man was driving,

a dark green or black Chevy Avalanche.

Yet cops never followed up.

All they had to do was run Avalanches in Massapequa,

and the case was over, you know?

[Rob Trotta] They had someone telling them that it was a Chevy Avalanche,

that it was a six-foot-five guy who looked like an ogre.

And if you went on Google Maps and went up and down the street,

you saw the car parked in the street.

[narrator] Right in front of the Heuermanns' home.

Sometimes parked on the street,

sometimes right in his driveway.

This could easily have led to an arrest years ago,

before other victims may have been murdered.

[♪]

There weren't a lot of Chevy Avalanches all over the place,

certainly not in Massapequa.

That, to me, would seem like an "aha" moment

when you saw it, like a, "We almost got you."

This one particular tip or lead should have gone

to the very top of the pile, in my opinion.

[narrator] Yet cops waited years before following up

on that critical piece of evidence.

The initial investigation in 2010 were not given the information

that, in fact, there was a Chevy Avalanche involved,

with a six-foot-five guy, who was described as an ogre.

How do you keep that information from a chief or an inspector who's overseeing these cases?

[♪]

[Gary Depass] Once you have information on the make and model of a vehicle,

within a couple of business days,

DMV can get back to you with the information on that vehicle,

which would include the make, the model, the color,

the plate, the address, and the registered owner.

Then the next step would be to run the license information of that registered owner,

and you have height included on that description.

And eye color as well.

Someone who's 6'5", 6'6", 270 pounds is going to stick out.

[narrator] Finally, last year, investigators did just that,

and the Avalanche, along with cell phone and DNA evidence,

gave authorities the ammo to make an arrest.

Bingo! The second-- That's the face I've had in my head for 13 years.

It's the only way to put it. 100% that's him. You know?

I'd love to see him, just laugh in his face, be like, you know, "Remember me?

I'm the guy you forgot to clean up, you know what I mean?

The fact that those clues were not pursued back then

is not only inexcusable, it's something that's unimaginable

in the law enforcement community.

We cannot have this happen again.

I have to apologize, from a law enforcement perspective,

that it did take this long for us to bring him into custody.

[narrator] So who's to blame?

A lot of people are pointing the finger

at this man, James Burke.

He was appointed Suffolk County Police Chief back in 2012,

and his tenure was fraught with scandal.

Now, I can't stress to you enough

on the unbelievable corruption

that went on in this police department over the past decade.

[narrator] Burke went to prison in 2016

over charges related to beating up a man

who stole porn and sex toys from him.

And the Suffolk County DA at the time,

Tom Spota, went to prison

for obstructing the investigation into Chief Burke.

[Latibeaudiere] But there's more.

Burke, allegedly, had sex with prostitutes himself.

A lot.

His critics say the last thing Burke wanted

was to put the spotlight on sex workers

found dead in his jurisdiction.

I knew him, and he was not fond of women,

and clearly has a propensity to patronize prostitutes.

[Ray] He was morally, sexually corrupt,

he was a pervert, and he was the one running the show.

Burke had no problem taking his sex worker girlfriends, plural,

to police affairs, functions.

And they would strut around, and nobody noticed?

That's what's wrong here.

I think that between Burke and that other idiot,

the other DA that got brought up on charges,

I think that they sacked the case because it would've allowed

[bleep] that would've tied back to them.

In fact, Burke seemed to take deliberate moves

to slow down the investigation,

including kicking the FBI and other agencies off the case.

He wanted full control.

I think the reason he didn't want the FBI involved

is because he didn't want them in his house,

interacting with all the guys in his department,

where one or more of them might say,

"You know, this guy has done similar things."

It is a sad day for all law enforcement

when something like this happens.

[Ray] The commissioner of police, with Burke's urging,

shut down the investigation in January of 2011,

because he said that the cadaver dogs, plural,

didn't like to work in the wintertime.

So I asked the question, "Well, are they lifeguards? Do they only work in the summer?"

That was an absurd thing for the police to do.

And they kept the investigation closed for three months,

giving plenty of time for evidence to disappear in the lake.

[♪]

[producer] We are field producers with TMZ.

[narrator] TMZ tried to reach Burke multiple times,

even knocked on the door of his home,

but we got no response.

If they find a bunch more girls, that's gonna be the tell of how big a [bleep]-up

the Suffolk County Police Department had.

Because if there's a string of bodies still,

which I'm sure there is,

because, you know, this guy was able to follow along,

this whole bungled [bleep] case the entire time.

I've always thought, for so many years,

that he was out there and just lurking.

And it just really upsets me

that the police let this go on for so long,

and he could have been hurting other people.

[narrator] Heuermann's Avalanche has become symbolic

of the missteps, corruption, and incompetence

that may have allowed a serial killer to kill again.

Coming up, the current stylist and former escort

who may have dodged a date with death.

[Brass] I told people for years,

I had dinner with the Gilgo Beach Killer,

and I want to testify against him.

I want people to know he was out hunting,

even after those women were found.

[♪]

[dramatic music playing]

Amber was, like, the most loving, just... sweetest girl,

and you know, these girls are-- they're human beings.

They're people.

So...

There was a real bias affecting the intensity

and the quality of the investigation,

because these girls were considered disposable,

as sex workers.

Because of that attitude, I think the idea was,

"Well, you know, we'll get to it someday."

The fact most of the victims found dead around Gilgo Beach

were sex workers may have allowed a serial killer

to roam free for years,

and that may have been part of Rex Heuermann's plan all along.

As sad as it may be,

they're not going to draw as much attention

from law enforcement as other occupations might,

so he chooses a safe category of victim

in terms of how much focus they're going to get.

When other women go missing, especially white women in this country,

they are often looked at first.

You know, they are blasted all over the news.

When you are in an oppressed group,

I feel like they are going to get pushed down more

than if they were just that typical blonde-hair,

blue-eyes, lawyer, teacher, nurse, you know, mother.

People just don't really look at them

as just regular humans like the rest of us.

It doesn't really matter what they're doing for their lifestyle.

They're still humans.

[Sasse] There was a lack of interest

because of who they were, who the victims were.

I hope not, because that's the worst

kind of discrimination there is for a dead body,

and the families of that victim.

When you look at sex workers in the history of--

across the United States,

there is a stigma that people don't care about them,

that they're throwaways, but you know what?

No one grew up, no one was born saying

that they wanted to be a sex worker.

And I think any person, any person,

any sex worker that has had a crime committed against them,

or even a murder,

that person needs to be brought to justice,

because they are human beings, just like the rest of us.

Current Suffolk County officials insist

they treat all victims the same.

Maybe so, but back in 2011,

the police commissioner made it a point

to reassure the public the community was safe

since the killer was only targeting sex workers.

From the four remains that were found and identified,

the business that they were in, okay,

indicated that whoever was targeting these individuals

was doing it because of their business.

We don't have somebody running around Suffolk County

with blood dripping from a knife,

and I didn't want the public to think that, you know,

Suffolk County was crime-ridden,

which it's not. Very safe county.

So Heuermann may have gotten the memo way back then.

Police seemed disinterested in the victims,

which may explain why his alleged penchant for prostitutes

was apparently alive and well as late as 2022,

when he was put under surveillance.

My first impression was that he was a massive man.

[narrator] Current stylist and former escort Nikkie Brass

says Heuermann contacted her for sex in 2015,

four years after the 11th body was found.

But she had serious misgivings right from the get-go,

at a restaurant just 45 miles from Gilgo Beach.

It wasn't until he looked at me and he said, "Are you a true crime fan?"

And at that point I got a little excited, 'cause I am.

And after that, that's when he said to me,

"Well, have you heard of the Gilgo Beach killings?"

[♪]

I was like, "Of course, I'm from Long Island, we all have."

It was just when he started to talk about it,

that things took a change,

and I realized there was a problem.

It was because he sat up straighter,

you know, he had this smirk on his face,

and it seemed more like somebody who wanted to brag

and relive the crimes they were committing.

[narrator] When Nikkie sensed she was in danger,

she stepped away and called a friend

to come meet her in the parking lot, just in case.

[Brass] I have never, in my life, at that time,

when I was doing those things,

felt scared, felt fear, or felt the need to get away.

So towards the end of the date, he had said,

"Are you gonna come back with me?"

I said, "It was really nice meeting you.

Thank you for dinner, but I'm gonna have to say no.

I have a friend waiting for me in the parking lot

just to make sure I get home safely."

You could tell he seemed, like, very visually agitated,

and, like, angry that I didn't wanna go with him.

We didn't hug. He was, like, almost hovering over me with his size,

and you could tell again he was mad.

He did all this work, and I didn't go with him.

[narrator] As they went their separate ways,

it was clear to Nikkie

she had just escaped a brush with death.

I 100% thought Rex was the Gilgo Beach Killer.

I told people for years, many people, for years.

I said, "I had dinner with the Gilgo Beach Killer, and I know it."

[narrator] Nikkie didn't tell police about what happened,

because at the time she was on probation for drug possession.

But she has no doubt the man she met that night was Rex Heuermann,

a man who police could have caught four years earlier,

had they jumped on obvious clues.

[Brass] I want to testify against him.

I want people to know he was out hunting,

even after those women were found.

And I want people to understand

that, like, these women mattered,

and they had a chance of a better life,

they had a chance to become mothers and wives,

and do things with their lives,

and they had that taken away from them,

because he's a monster.

[narrator] The looming question: were there other women

not as lucky as Nikkie Brass?

Coming up...

I think that there is an excellent chance

that he is responsible for additional murders.

[narrator] And that's because serial killers tend to keep on killing.

Oftentimes, this is kind of an addictive aspect

to their personality, and it starts to build in them,

and build in them, and build in them,

where they just have to act on that impulse.

[♪]

[dramatic music playing]

[Dr. Bonn] I believe that the individual

who committed the original Gilgo Four murders--

and assuming that Rex Heuermann is that person--

I think that there is an excellent chance

that he is responsible for additional murders.

He may well have a burial ground that has yet to be discovered.

[narrator] Officials are looking for other possible victims

in places Rex Heuermann frequented,

including Las Vegas, where he owns a timeshare.

It's important for homicide detectives

to conduct their investigation, scour their cold cases,

to see if there is any connection

between these unsolved murders and the suspect.

[narrator] And they're searching in Chester, South Carolina,

where he also owns property.

It could very well be a connection.

[narrator] Aaliyah Bell Hall was just 18

when she left her uncle's house in Rock Hill, South Carolina,

back in 2014,

never to be seen again.

When her aunt heard about Heuermann's arrest,

she wondered if he knew what happened to her niece.

[Pickett] She decided to leave, to go home.

It was walking distance, and that was the last that anyone saw her was that day.

Chester's about 15 minutes from Rock Hill.

And I took some time to process it,

and I'm like, "Okay, well, this could be related."

And had they took action like they should have back then,

maybe my niece wouldn't be missing now.

[narrator] Police in South Carolina say they found no connection

between Aaliyah's disappearance and Rex Heuermann,

at least so far, but the investigation is ongoing.

The stark reality: serial killers don't limit themselves

to a particular zip code.

They kill when there is an opportunity,

and even if they stop for a while...

the urge is still there.

They do stop at times. They may stop at times for years,

and then start back up,

and that's very confounding to law enforcement.

Some have stopped, and, you know, have never been found out, but oftentimes,

this is kind of an addictive aspect to their personality,

and it starts to build in them,

and build in them, and build in them,

where they just have to act on that impulse.

[♪]

[narrator] Back in Massapequa, the lives of Heuermann's wife and kids

have been turned upside-down.

The search of their home left it in shambles.

Asa, who is being treated for breast and skin cancer,

has filed for divorce.

In order to piece back what's been crumbled

into a million pieces is gonna take a very long time.

Through his attorney, Rex Heuermann has proclaimed his innocence.

His lawyer calls the case "circumstantial,"

adding his client has been traumatized by the accusations.

He's a man who's never been arrested before.

He's maintained his innocence from the inception of this case.

I doubt that any one of you, for a moment,

have even contemplated the possibility

that they have the wrong guy.

So what we're gonna do is

we're gonna defend this case in a courtroom.

[narrator] Prosecutors say

they have a trove of evidence

to put Heuermann away for life,

but the wheels of justice grind slowly.

A trial may be at least a year away.

Nevertheless, family members are now hopeful.

[Sasse] At least this man can't hurt anybody else,

and he would have.

That hole will be there,

but it will help, you know, close the door,

and this man'll never walk the streets again.

[narrator] Coming up...

You have so many questions.

How did you pick her? How did you get her?

You know, did my sister cry? Did she beg?

Did she say, "Please, please"? Like, "I have kids"?

[♪]

[narrator] TMZ has broken some of the biggest stories

in pop culture for nearly two decades.

Now, TMZ Documentaries continue to break new ground.

Digging far below the surface

on stories that have captivated audiences.

Stories in the zeitgeist of pop culture.

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[dramatic music playing]

[woman 1] Well, you know, to celebrate the lives of these women.

Also, to pay respects to them.

[woman 2] They were all beautiful women.

They weren't just prostitutes,

as everybody is saying.

They were daughters, sisters, cousins, nieces, mothers.

[narrator] A few months after the bodies of the Gilgo Four were found back in 2010,

family members held a vigil to honor their lost loved ones.

They had no idea back then

it would take more than a decade

to track down a suspect and put him behind bars.

[Lynn Barthelemy] Before we hung up, I always said, "I love you, be careful."

I said, you know, "If you get in trouble,

it's not like you're right around the block."

I said, "It's gonna take me seven hours to get to you."

She loved her daughter so much.

She was just very kindhearted, you know?

She made mistakes. Who doesn't?

She didn't deserve this. Nobody deserves this.

[Schaller] She was a sweetheart, you know?

The whole time that we knew her, she always, you know,

bent over backwards to, you know, whatever it was.

She was a good kid, you know?

She was a little, itty-bitty, teeny-tiny girl,

but she had the biggest heart

and the most nurturing nature, the most mothering nature.

She tried to take care of everybody and every little thing.

You have so many questions. Why? How?

You know, why my sister? How you-- why did you pick her?

How did you pick her? How did you get her?

You know, did my sister cry? Did she beg?

You know, did she say, "Please, please"?

Like, "I have kids"? Like--

You know, there'll be all those answers

that I'm pretty sure the killer won't answer.

[♪]

[narrator] Justice delayed is often justice denied,

and if that maxim is true,

then there may never be true justice

for families of the Gilgo Four,

and possibly many other families as well.

But there may be a measure of peace.

If Rex Heuermann is the serial killer,

a monster may finally be contained.

His long reign of terror over.

[narrator] And after so many years,

too many horrifying years,

there could once again be tranquility on Gilgo Beach.

[♪]