MAJOR MISSTEPS! Ret FBI Robin Dreeke Breaks Down How Police Could Have Caught The Long Island Serial Killer Sooner
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3 • 791 Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
What happens when the person responsible for justice might be the one obstructing it?
In this episode, Tony and Robin Dreeke dig into the alleged corruption surrounding former police chief James Burke and how his leadership may have actively steered investigators away from digging too deep into the Rex Heuermann case. Instead of outright suppression, was Burke just piling on other “righteous work” to keep the department too busy to notice what was hiding in plain sight? They explore how social bias against sex workers, systemic neglect, and fear-fueled silence in the trafficking world creates the perfect storm for predators to thrive. And even with good cops wanting to do the right thing, how can they make any progress when they're outnumbered, under-resourced, and told to move fast or move on?
Could better protection and long-term trust-building with sex trafficking victims be the missing key to taking down entire criminal networks?
#RexHeuermann #JamesBurke #GilgoBeach #TrueCrimePodcast #SexTrafficking #LawEnforcement #HiddenKillers
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The latest on The Downfall of Diddy, The Trial of Karen Read, The Murder Of Maddie Soto, Catching the Long Island Serial Killer, Awaiting Admission: BTK’s Unconfessed Crimes, Delphi Murders: Inside the Crime, Chad & Lori Daybell, The Murder of Ana Walshe, Alex Murdaugh, Bryan Kohberger, Lucy Letby, Kouri Richins, Malevolent Mormon Mommys, The Menendez Brothers: Quest For Justice, The Murder of Stephen Smith, The Murder of Madeline Kingsbury, The Murder Of Sandra Birchmore, and much more! Listen at https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske. |
| 0:03.1 | Here now, Tony Bruske. |
| 0:06.2 | Speaking of unhealthy behavior and I guess grooming to a certain extent, let's talk about James Burke. |
| 0:13.1 | He was the guy who was there as part of the original investigation. |
| 0:19.6 | He was in the police back then the chief when all this was going on actively, |
| 0:25.3 | at least when it seems a lot of the murders took place. |
| 0:27.4 | And it seems many of them did not get the attention and the manpower that they needed |
| 0:32.8 | to be further investigated. |
| 0:35.4 | Obviously, Burke has his own sets of issues |
| 0:37.5 | that he was charged and arrested for and convicted on. |
| 0:41.5 | He certainly fits a profile of someone active in that community, |
| 0:46.2 | of someone who may not want his own choices being exposed |
| 0:50.9 | if someone were to go down the road of Rex Heerman. |
| 0:56.7 | I guess how does someone like that enable a department and enable investigators to not investigate something like this? It's obviously |
| 1:06.0 | people are there. They want to keep their jobs and all of that. That may just simply be the |
| 1:09.8 | answer right there. People are going to be looking up for their own self-interest. |
| 1:13.1 | But at the same point, it's not like these things were happening in the dark. |
| 1:17.1 | Other people had to have seen that, hey, we're completely turning a blind eye to these sort of things. |
| 1:21.9 | How does someone in his type of position at that time, you know, gain other people's trust and |
| 1:29.9 | don't have others dissenting saying, hey, no, we really need to fix us. |
| 1:35.2 | We need to be looking at these things because it went on for so long in that sort of a structure |
| 1:40.0 | of law enforcement. |
... |
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