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Now that the surprise at an arrest in the Gilgo Beach murders has worn off, people are asking questions about the suspect, Rex Heuerman. One of the few people not totally surprised by the arrest is Joshua Zeman, director of the eight-part mini-series The Killing Zone, on Prime and Hulu, which documents the slayings. Speaking on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program, Zeman says each new piece of evidence suggests that Heuerman fits the profile of a serial killer.
“This guy wasn’t on anybody’s radar,” Zeman told Berman and Riedel, “but what was interesting was the fact that all the clues, at least outside of the DNA, were all there. The Massapequa cell phone hits, we knew about those. We knew about the ruses that had been done with some of the sex workers, and the fact that there were individuals who were stalking them. And, of course, the big one, the commuter theory, that this guy had been a commuter at Penn Station… One of the first victims, Maureen Brainard Barnes, had been last seen at Penn Station.”
Zeman says there is one unanswered question that looms above all the rest. “Police departments aren’t really equipped to deal with serial murders. They’re rare… and there are still so many unanswered questions, and I think the biggest one is, we now know that this individual, the defendant, is theoretically responsible for four victims, but there’s a lot of victims out there on Gilgo Beach, so is he responsible for the others? That’s the big question; are we dealing with one serial killer or two?”
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