Rex Heuermann Gilgo Case Origins: First Bodies, Burlap Sacks & Police Cover-Up
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 907 Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Rex Heuermann case didn’t start in 2023 with a DNA breakthrough—it goes back more than a decade to the chilling discoveries along Gilgo Beach. We rewind the timeline, from the 2010 search for missing Shannon Gilbert to the discovery of the “Gilgo Four,” all petite women who vanished after advertising on Craigslist. Wrapped in burlap, buried along the same stretch of beach, their bodies set off one of the most infamous cold cases in New York history.
But it didn’t stop there. As investigators kept digging, more remains turned up—including a toddler, an unidentified Asian male, and dismembered women, some dating back to 1996. Was this one killer or several? The case quickly spiraled into mystery. And then—silence. For over a decade, little progress was made. Why? Because Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke actively blocked the FBI from joining the case. When you’ve got burlap, DNA, and a dozen bodies but nothing moves forward, it begs the question: who’s protecting who?
Burke’s later conviction for beating a suspect and his connections to a seedy underworld only deepen suspicions that corruption slowed justice and kept families waiting. Meanwhile, the victims—often sex workers—were denied resources and media attention, buried twice: once by the killer, and again by the system.
This segment pulls the threads together: the bodies, the cover-up, the phone taunts to grieving families, and the institutional indifference that kept a predator free for years. It’s the foundation of the case that now sits squarely on Rex Heuermann’s shoulders, with DNA evidence poised to bring it into court.
Hashtags
#RexHeuermann #GilgoBeach #LongIslandSerialKiller #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #DNAEvidence #ColdCase #Corruption #JamesBurke #JusticeDelayed
Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video?
Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod
Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | In today's fast-changing digital world, proving your company's trustworthy isn't just important for growth. |
| 0:06.6 | It's essential. That's why Vanta is here. Vanta helps companies of all sizes get compliant, fast, |
| 0:13.0 | and stay that way with their proprietary AI, automation and continuous monitoring. |
| 0:17.8 | So whether you're a startup tackling your first SOC 2 or ISO-27-001 or an enterprise |
| 0:24.6 | managing vendor risk, Vanta's trust management platform makes it quicker, easier and more scalable. It even |
| 0:31.3 | helps you complete security questionnaires up to five times faster, so you can close bigger deals |
| 0:36.7 | sooner. And the impact? According to a |
| 0:39.3 | recent IDC study, Vanta customers cut over $500,000 a year in costs and boost productivity by three |
| 0:46.9 | times. Establishing trust isn't optional. Vanta makes it automatic. Visit vanta.com slash go to sign up for a free demo today. That's va.com |
| 0:58.2 | slash geo. In today's fast-changing digital world, proving your company's trustworthy isn't just |
| 1:05.1 | important for growth. It's essential. That's why Vanta is here. Vanta helps companies of all sizes get compliant, |
| 1:12.1 | fast, and stay that way with their proprietary AI, automation and continuous monitoring. |
| 1:17.6 | So whether you're a startup tackling your first SOC 2 or ISO-27001 or an enterprise managing vendor risk, |
| 1:25.6 | Vanta's trust management platform makes it quicker, |
| 1:29.3 | easier and more scalable. |
| 1:31.0 | It even helps you complete security questionnaires up to five times faster, so you can close |
| 1:35.9 | bigger deals sooner. |
| 1:37.7 | And the impact? |
| 1:38.7 | According to a recent IDC study, Vanta customers cut over $500,000 a year in costs and boost productivity by three times. |
| 1:47.8 | Establishing trust isn't optional. Vanta makes it automatic. |
| 1:51.7 | Visit vanta.com slash go to sign up for a free demo today. |
| 1:55.9 | That's VANTA.com slash geo. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from True Crime Today, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of True Crime Today and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.