>> Tonight, the major breaks that cracked open one of the country's most notorious cold cases.

How investigators finally tracked down the suspected Gilgo Beach killer living on live Island -- Long Island.

Where the investigation goes from here as "MetroFocus," starts right now.

♪ >> This is "MetroFocus," with Rafael Pi Roman, Jack Ford, and Jenna Flanagan.

MetroFocus is made possible by The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnhold.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.

The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.

>> Good evening, and welcome to "MetroFocus."

I'm Jack Ford.

For over a decade, it was the Long Island cold case that could not be cracked.

Nearly one dozen people killed, their bodies discovered around Gilgo Beach on the South Shore.

A major break finally came this summer when a special task force arrested a 59 old architect from Long Island and charged him with murdering several of the victims who worked as sex workers.

Rex Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the murders and is currently behind bars, a long-awaited outcome for the families of his alleged victims who have waited years to see justice.

Here is Newsday TV's Macy Egeland with more on what the police say is a double life.

>> It just shows you.

It could be your next-door neighbor and you don't know.

>> Rex Heuermann, the first and only suspect to be charged in the 13 year cold case.

Who is he?

>> He was kind of a nerdy kind of guy, odd.

But not a troublemaker.

He was soft-spoken and we spoke regularly.

I'm surprised at the violence.

>> He lives next door to Heuermann's rundown home.

The little red house sticks out like a sore thumb.

>> People say they just almost avoided, kids don't go trick-or-treat-ing there.

>> Newsday's Mark has been digging into the background.

>> The house may be a symbol as a paradox of his whole life.

He is an architect.

At least from the people we spoke to, he has a reputation for being a person who is adept at what he does.

Then you go to his house and you see a home that is sort of run down.

It really stands out on the street.

>> Neighbors say>> Heuermann, his wife, and two kids are quite people who keep to themselves.

In a sit down, his neighbor recalls a disturbing encounter, saying he would often peek over the fence at his wife.

>>>> It started becoming a regular thing.

She said every time I'm out there, every time I'm out there with a bathing suit, he would come out, and I finally had a talk with him.

>> He says Heuermann often spoke to him about his love for guns.

More than 200 were seized from Ewald inside the home.

An arsenal of weapons stashed away by a man with no criminal history, not even a traffic violation, according to public records.

But police say Heuermann had a dark side he kept hit in.

His Internet search history became a big part of the investigation.

Court documents detailing disturbing topics like torture pornography.

His wife has filed for divorce.

Police say his family was away when he would attack.

Newsday has learned police in New Jersey, South Carolina, and Nevada are investigating if he is linked to unsolved murders in those states.

A painstaking search for more evidence and answers, as Heuermann sits behind bars in Riverhead.

>> When I was around him, that gut feeling, I knew something was up.

I did not know what, but something was up.

>> I am Macy Egeland.

Jack: For much more, we are joined by criminologist Dr. Scott Bond who accurately profiled the accused killer in 2011.

He's also the author of "why we love serial killers, the curious appeal of the world's savage murderers."

Also, we have a reporter for Newsday who has been reporting on these crimes for a long time, and Terry Austin, legal analyst and host of law and crime, the nationally syndicated show covering the day's top stories.

Welcome to all of you.

We have a lot to talk about.

Scott, let me start with you first for a bigger picture approach to all of this.

You've studied this and Britain extensively on this.

Why is it that the public has such a fascination with serial killers?

>> Thanks for having me in.

It's a great question to start with.

It is a curiosity.

Why did the Ted Bundy's and the BTKs and John Wayne Gacys take on this almost iconic pop-culture status?

It is an ongoing fascination.

As you said, I've done a significant amount of research for my book.

You can almost reduce it to one word, empathy.

I think there's a need for us as humans to empathize and understand all things, the good and the bad.

These individuals represent the reprehensible.

As dark as the human condition can get.

It is very terrifying.

I think we have this compulsion almost to try to understand it.

If we can somehow comprehend why these people do these terrible things to complete strangers, than may somehow it is not so terrifying if I can understand it.

And then of course there is empathy with the victims.

That's a powerful thing.

It comes down to the empathy, the thing we have, and the thing which they do not have.

That is empathy.

Jack: Tony, let me come to you as someone who has been following this case for a very long time.

We refer to it as a cold case.

Cold cases become cold cases for a reason.

Usually there's not enough to go on here.

But as I've mentioned in the introduction, there were breaks, recent breaks in this case, that led to the arrest.

Give us a rundown of what it is that happened recently that allowed police to essentially resurrect the case.

>> This seemed initially like the never-ending case.

Would it ever be solved?

People had doubts.

What happened was in early 2022, the Suffolk Police Department and Suffolk County district attorney and other law enforcement agencies including the FBI got together to form a task force, the express purpose of solving the case and put their resources together.

They said check your egos at the door and let's get this done.

And immediately, they got a break on a lead about a vehicle, Chevy avalanche, which through a special state database, they are able to zero in on a couple possibilities.

What also happened was, we did not know this early on, there was hair found under some of the victims.

The hairs were able to allow police through DNA analysis to link those particular pieces of evidence to the family of the suspect and ultimately the suspect, Rex Heuermann.

It was an interesting confluence if you will of technology and DNA analysis.

Jack: Terry, let me ask you something here.

I will ask you to play the role of legal professor.

The attorney for the defendant said, and we see this often, don't jump to conclusions, this is a circumstantial case.

We all know that if you watch in the media, people say it's only circumstantial as if somehow you can't get a conviction with a circumstantial case.

What is the reality?

>> The reality is circumstantial evidence is just as good as direct evidence, as a matter of fact the judge will instruct the jury that it is just as good.

You have to use common sense obviously, and determine the credibility of the direct witness and circumstantial evidence.

Here we have DNA.

Five hairs on the victims that they analyzed.

DNA is really important.

They traced it back and ultimately got to the defendant here.

They have cell phone evidence.

That I don't want to underestimate that, cell phones go wherever we go.

Rex Heuermann had not only a cell phone, but a burner phone that he used with each victim.

That task force, they did check it -- check their egos at the door and did an amazing job, that task force was able to track the records for the cell phones.

I think when a jury sees all of that, plus the Chevrolet, the other evidence, I think they will be able to come to a conclusion, even though it is only circumstantial evidence, this is the individual who performed these horrible crimes.

Jack: One more quick question following up on what you said.

Tony talked about the evidence that has been discovered recently.

Is it fair for us to assume there might be, may well be, more incriminating evidence the prosecutors and investigators have that they are not revealing to the public at this time?

>> Absolutely.

When you listen to the DA press conference, he hesitated.

He did not want to give away all of the information.

He mentioned Internet searches, but I don't think we have all the evidence they found with Internet searches.

He was searching for sex workers, torture, for pornography.

There's also more information they are not telling us about.

I think he has other records like bank records they are following and putting together before they tell everyone.

He doesn't want to tip anyone off or tell perhaps other people who might have been involved to take evidence and destroy it.

He's being very careful as to what information they will real -- reveal.

Jack: I mentioned in the introduction, as far back as 2011, you had put together an extraordinarily accurate prediction, a profile of who the killer could be.

Give us a list of some of the major points, identification elements you had and pointed to when you put the profile together.

>> Absolutely.

I expected that he would be a white professional male, educated, living in the vicinity of the burial ground that had been discovered, probably a family man.

Articulate, persuasive, very patient, and driven.

Motivated by not sex per se, even though these were six workers and there were sexual acts involved, I believe his primary motivation is domination and control, and structured and of these women.

Noticeably, he is a giant of a man and he picked these petite little women.

Some of them were not even five feet tall.

He loomed over them.

I think that was part of the need to play God almost.

Jack: It's interesting, you talk about it not being about sex.

That's one of the things we learn about rape.

It is not about sex.

It's about dominance and violation.

Tony, certainly what Scott said back then sounds an awful lot like the defendant here.

>> It does.

What Scott said is something that resonated with other people, the profile, thought it would be somebody who lived in the vicinity, familiar with the areas where the bodies were found, was professional, educated, and had a familiarity with the environment, as it were.

This does sort of ring true, doesn't it?

Jack: As I mentioned before, you have been involved in this and reporting on this for a very long time.

What have you learned about the reaction?

Let's start with investigators.

You all know from your work, I know I was a prosecutor.

If you are working on a murder case like this, it takes over the lives sometimes of these investigators working on this.

What do you learn and what are your college learning about -- colleagues learning about the reaction to the arrest?

>> From what I know in talking to investigators is they are very gratified.

It really bears out the rationale for using the task force approach, where people cooperate, pool their resources, not being individual silos, and not talking to each other.

So it is that reaction.

It's also professional satisfaction in breaking a case that a lot of people thought could not be solved.

That really does come as some sort of vindication.

>> I will go back to when I was a prosecutor in 1975, 1970 six.

Essentially, people were very reluctant to get out there.

There are some limits on what prosecutors can say and even defense attorneys, but that has changed.

In the world of social media, it is not at all unusual to see defense attorneys getting out there early on.

We talk about the court of public opinion.

We know that jurors will come from that point of public opinion.

What would you be doing?

I will ask you to take the role of defense attorney here.

Would you expect them to get out there somehow, do some storytelling to try to combat this narrative that has been established about this guy land with the prosecution says he was doing to these women?

>>>> It's interesting.

I've had some public relations training and my initial knee-jerk reaction is no, say nothing, do nothing.

Keep all your information close to the vest and save it for the trial.

Don't try it in the court of public opinion.

But this case is a tiny bit different.

Here is why.

It is so public.

Everyone knows about it.

You want your client as a defense attorney to have a fair trial.

You have to set the narrative at least a little bit to tell people, let's wait and see what the evidence is, we don't want to try this in the public.

I certainly would not want my client talking to the public, no press conferences, because clearly they may be saying things they should not say.

As an attorney, if you are the one holding these press conferences, at least you can control the narrative.

Here's the other thing.

It will be difficult to get a jury out there who doesn't know -- Jack: I was going to ask you about that.

The idea of trying this in that area.

>> It is going to be extremely difficult to get a jury that does not know about it, which is kind of why you do want to set the narrative.

If you can't make a motion for a change of venue and go somewhere where someone hasn't heard about it, and frankly in all the state of New York, I'm certain everyone has heard about it, but you want to get it out of Long Island.

If you can't do that, you do have to set your narrative and talk to the public a little bit to let them know you should not jump to conclusions.

You are innocent until proven guilty.

As a defense, you don't have to prove the case, that burden is on the prosecution.

You set a general narrative.

Ultimately, you might not win that change of venue and might get a pool of jurors who can start with an open mind.

Jack: Scott, let me get back to you.

I would anticipate that the defense, at some point in time, we have a system of laws and rules here, he as with everyone else is innocent unless and until proven guilty by a jury of peers.

But I would anticipate that if this goes to trial, at some point, one of the things his defense attorney was a to the jurors, this makes no sense.

Why would someone like him, and established professional, an architect, with the family, and with an established and acceptable life, why would someone like that do something like this?

And I think the suggestion would say, well, that's inexplicable.

Let me ask you.

Generally speaking, that kind of why question, in your experience, what sort of answers might you see the prosecutors throughout?

-- throw out?

>> That is a very good question.

The simple answer is, the reason I was able to develop the profile I did and others predicting something similar, is that if you go back and you look at cases that where there were similar crimes, it almost always involved a sexual sadist who fit a similar profile.

For example, there are great parallels between the Long Island serial killer, and another case I'm familiar with, Dennis Rader, also known as bind, torture, kill.

He was also a family man, visible -- invisible in plain sight, Boy Scout leader, president of the church Association.

The every man living next door who has a dual life.

That's with these individuals can do.

They can become chameleons.

They can almost flip a switch.

I suspect he's both A psychopath and a narcissist.

He has that ability to flip a switch and turn into something completely different.

One moment he can be family man, professional architect, and then the next moment flip a switch and become a sadistic killer.

It is consistent with this kind of pattern and profile.

Jack: I have to mention something about narcissism being woven into this.

We've seen with some serial killers in the past that there seems to be a joy in the limelight for them.

Is that something that is characteristic or may well be characteristic in serial killers such as this?

>> Yes.

I suspect he is enjoying his notoriety.

What he may do, and Dennis Rader, BTK did this, he made a calculated decision.

After he realized the evidence was rock solid, he actually pled guilty.

And then what he did because of his narcissism and psychopathy, is he used the public stage as a way to gloat.

When he appeared in court for his sentencing, people said it was almost like he was accepting an Academy award for his body of lifetime of work.

These individuals are driven by what gives them excitement, what will give him satisfaction.

His decisions will be calculated and he will do what he believes will satisfy his tremendous ego and Randy All-City grandiosity.

Jack: We've seen a lot of emphasis on the searching of his home.

It's been an interesting juxtaposition.

It is hard to imagine a more precise profession than architecture, yet you look at his home and it's hard to envision a more haphazard, sort of ramshackle is the word, but the contrasts are stark.

Talk about the search and what, if anything, we've learned about what might have been revealed as a consequence.

>> You are right about the house being sort of a typical for someone in his precise, exacting profession of an architect.

The place was, for want of a better expression, was like the old Collier house named after the Collier brothers from years ago who had a house filled with all sorts of stuff.

It seemed really atypical and going against the grain.

They had reams and reams of material and many items they had taken out of there.

Some of it may be useful, some of it may not be.

They came away with hundreds of guns which is in itself its own story.

It is really a strange setting.

The neighbors complained the house was not kept on the outside very well and that must have mirrored what was going on on the inside.

It really is going to be something that indicates something about his psychology and the family dynamic he was living in, which I'm not qualified to talk about but it seems to me there's more to that story.

Jack: We've got about two minutes left here.

Let me come to you about this.

The question becomes, they are charged with three of the murders, there's a suggestion he's a primary suspect in the fourth, and the suggestion that there may be others that prosecution will try to tie him to.

Innocent until proven guilty but I will reassert -- reinsert you into his defense attorney position.

Is this the case that this could somehow resolve itself to some sort of plea agreement?

>> It's interesting you should say that.

I think from a public perspective, people want to see him tried, and people want to see him convicted.

If the evidence points in that direction and we have the right individual for the crime, and he could in New York get life without parole.

There are minimums and maximums, but the maximum for the first-degree and second-degree murders are the fact that he could get life without parole.

Jack: But not a death penalty here in New York.

>> That is correct.

I think people and the prosecution would want to see this taken to the fullest extent of the law and not have it settled for something less than that.

On the other hand, if in fact he came back with the plea deal and said second degree, I admit to all of that, I killed however many people, right now the number 11 is being talked about.

The fourth woman that he may be charged with and apparently five other women, a toddler and a man.

If in fact they can connect the bodies to one person, he might take a plea deal and say I'm admitting to this and let the families have some kind of closure.

If that were the case go, I would think it would be a very high sentence.

I can't imagine if you took a deal, it couldn't be less than 40 years.

He's an older person.

40 years would put him in jail until he died.

My guess at this moment, I think they will want to try this and do the maximum they possibly can.

Rafael: Jack: I Jack: agree.

Interestingly, the absence of the death penalty brings away a negotiating tool.

We've seen that happen in the past.

There's a great deal more for us to talk about as this continues.

You have all been fabulous, helping us to understand this.

The hope is we can get together with you again and talk more about the case as it continues.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insight with us.

You all take care now.

>> Thank you.

♪ Jack: Thanks for tuning into "MetroFocus."

You can take our award-winning program with you wherever you go, with MetroFocus the podcast.

Listen and subscribe wherever you get the podcast, so you never miss an episode, or simply ask your smart speaker to play MetroFocus the podcast also available on the website and the NPR one app.

>> "MetroFocus," is made possible by The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnhold.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.

The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.

♪