Gilgo Beach LISK Serial Killer, Rex Heuermann, charged with 6 murders, July 2023 #12

[jmk59]

Yes, for people into technology it was east. He had all the apparatus. He must have spent a fortune on electronics.

Business write-offs?

 

[fred&edna]

Looking back via google... there was FTP platform (file transfer protocol). As others have stated, it wasn't difficult to share image files but it was slow. Alas, things just seem to get faster as time moves forward.

 

[Inthedetails]

Looking back via google... there was FTP platform (file transfer protocol). As others have stated, it wasn't difficult to share image files but it was slow. Alas, things just seem to get faster as time moves forward.

Blast from the past! I remember using FTP for work, but I sure don't remember how we did that.
jmo

 

[Betty P]

Looking back via google... there was FTP platform (file transfer protocol). As others have stated, it wasn't difficult to share image files but it was slow. Alas, things just seem to get faster as time moves forward.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall quality of the photo/scan wasn't as good as today. In the 90's, when I wanted to make copies of old family photos, I took them to a local photographer or mounted the original and used my 35 mm camera to take a photo of the old photo. I started my genealogy hobby back then and recall it was difficult to get good quality copies of print photos, even with a scanner. The flatbed scanner I got in the early 2000's was a big improvement, but it still left horizontal lines across the copy.

Maybe Rex didn't care about the quality as much. I do wonder if he was sharing them on the dark web, etc.

 

[snooptroop88]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall quality of the photo/scan wasn't as good as today. In the 90's, when I wanted to make copies of old family photos, I took them to a local photographer or mounted the original and used my 35 mm camera to take a photo of the old photo. I started my genealogy hobby back then and recall it was difficult to get good quality copies of print photos, even with a scanner.

Maybe Rex didn't care about the quality as much. I do wonder if he was sharing them on the dark web, etc.

This is my fear as well.

 

[SleutherGirl]

Maybe Rex didn't care about the quality as much. I do wonder if he was sharing them on the dark web, etc.

Surely someone would be monitoring that sort of thing. If pictures of crime scenes, etc. were up on the dark web, I would think they would have found them, and therefore also Rex, much sooner. JMO.

Edited to say: I am uneducated on the dark web, and I know that stuff is hard to track but surely someone would have said, hey isn't that a picture of that unsolved string of murders? And that would at least be on the radar.

 

[Trocroc9]

What year did his mother die?

I’m not sure. I am focused on him being alone in that home starting 1993 when he got divorced from witness 3. I personally think that is when the LISK took its full form. I also am humble enough to say I’m wrong a lot. Jmo

 

[Forest_Wood]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall quality of the photo/scan wasn't as good as today. In the 90's, when I wanted to make copies of old family photos, I took them to a local photographer or mounted the original and used my 35 mm camera to take a photo of the old photo. I started my genealogy hobby back then and recall it was difficult to get good quality copies of print photos, even with a scanner. The flatbed scanner I got in the early 2000's was a big improvement, but it still left horizontal lines across the copy.

Maybe Rex didn't care about the quality as much. I do wonder if he was sharing them on the dark web, etc.

I think if he was accessing dark p.o.r.n.ography online back then, there's a high chance he was also sharing his own sick hobby with others through pics. MOO.

 

[Izzylizzy]

DS is the man who shared the apartment with Amber Costello. DS reported the ogre-looking man, driving the dark green Chevy Avalanche, who picked Amber up just before she disappeared.

@justk -- Even if RH had been discovered in 2011, would the technology have been advanced enough to convict him? The important DNA testing, especially, is available only recently as DNA testing and understanding was in its infancy. DNA itself was only discovered in 1953, but testing actually began in the 1970s-80s.

The History of DNA Testing: From Discovery to Modern Applications

Probing into our past, predicting our future, and uncovering the mysteries of life, DNA testing has revolutionized the world in ways that Watson and Crick, discoverers of the double helix structure, might never have envisioned back in 1953. An article on the subject reveals that from informing...

thednatests.com

Cell phone technology and tracking as well as computer technology are also much evolved from 2011. If the cases were investigated then, would there have been enough to convict him?

Bittrolff was convicted based on his DNA being on the bodies. Did you note that the hair on Sandra Costilla was sent for comparison to Bittrolff's but came back as not a match? Because it matched RH's.

As for his conviction, this morning Sarge Joe noted that in addition to the DNA Bittrolff was convicted because his brother Timothy testified that he had helped John Bittrolff dispose of one of the bodies.
Pretty much convicts JB in my mind.

Only, that was under the Thomas Spota (2002-2017 as DA) and James Burke era -- I do wonder if there's any chance Spota had leverage to coerce the brother into testifying . . . yep, just googled it. Timothy was discovered a partial match for the DNA because Timothy's DNA was taken after he violated an Order of Protection, per the Wikipedia article on John.

My distrust of Spota and Burke makes me wonder . . .

"My distrust of Spota and Burke makes me wonder . . ."

snip:
"Spota credited the “miracle of DNA evidence” for catching and convicting Bittrolff.

Less than six months after the conviction, Spota was arrested for obstructing an investigation into the chief of the Suffolk County Police Department, who was accused of beating a prisoner. Both men were eventually convicted and sentenced to prison.

As with the Gilgo Beach investigation, the case against Bittrolff was dogged by allegations of mistakes and misconduct by police and prosecutors. During the trial, the Suffolk County police admitted to accidentally destroying the wood chips found on one of the women’s bodies and, separately, wood chips discovered in a car used by a police sergeant who was a potential suspect.

Police were also accused of prematurely destroying the sergeant’s investigative file. In their appeal, defense attorneys said prosecutors did not turn over another internal file containing allegations by the wife of a separate officer that her husband killed one of the women. Prosecutors maintain they did turn over that document; a judge has yet to rule.'

New charges for alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer cast scrutiny on another man's murder conviction

New charges brought against the man accused of a string of killings on New York's Long Island are raising questions about another man’s murder conviction.

apnews.com

 

[Inthedetails]

Surely someone would be monitoring that sort of thing. If pictures of crime scenes, etc. were up on the dark web, I would think they would have found them, and therefore also Rex, much sooner. JMO.

I don't think so. If RH distributed images, I think people viewed the pictures and didn't say a word. Of course, it's likely the viewers didn't know Rex was the torturer and murderer - and they wouldn't care, imo. The viewers liked what they saw - they weren't about to report what they wanted to see.

I hate thinking about people consuming this horror for pleasure.

jmo

 

[SleutherGirl]

I don't think so. If RH distributed images, I think people viewed the pictures and didn't say a word. Of course, it's likely the viewers didn't know Rex was the torturer and murderer and they wouldn't care, imo. The viewers liked what they saw - they weren't about to report what they wanted to see.

I hate thinking about people consuming this horror for pleasure.

jmo

Perhaps I am overestimating the police's abilities, but don't they have people for cybercrimes? I guess it would be like finding a specific grain of sand at the beach, though .. .

 

[Artis]

Wasn't there something about having a place in North Carolina?

Investigators also searched property he owns near the North Carolina – South Carolina border in Chester, South Carolina. It’s about 50 miles southwest of Charlotte.

Long Island Serial Killer victim grew up in eastern North Carolina

One of the women believed to have been killed by New York’s Long Island Serial Killer is an eastern North Carolina native.

www.publicradioeast.org

<modsnip - not an approved source>

 

[CuriousCricket]

"My distrust of Spota and Burke makes me wonder . . ."

snip:
"Spota credited the “miracle of DNA evidence” for catching and convicting Bittrolff.

Less than six months after the conviction, Spota was arrested for obstructing an investigation into the chief of the Suffolk County Police Department, who was accused of beating a prisoner. Both men were eventually convicted and sentenced to prison.

As with the Gilgo Beach investigation, the case against Bittrolff was dogged by allegations of mistakes and misconduct by police and prosecutors. During the trial, the Suffolk County police admitted to accidentally destroying the wood chips found on one of the women’s bodies and, separately, wood chips discovered in a car used by a police sergeant who was a potential suspect.

Police were also accused of prematurely destroying the sergeant’s investigative file. In their appeal, defense attorneys said prosecutors did not turn over another internal file containing allegations by the wife of a separate officer that her husband killed one of the women. Prosecutors maintain they did turn over that document; a judge has yet to rule.'

New charges for alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer cast scrutiny on another man's murder conviction

New charges brought against the man accused of a string of killings on New York's Long Island are raising questions about another man’s murder conviction.

apnews.com

selfishly, I like it when I'm in good company. That's an Associated Press story!
Let's hope Suffolk County legal system will take a hard look at all those tarnished cases.
I saw today a story that quoted Bittrolff's attorneys saying they're planning to work on it.

P.S. Wonder if the New York Supreme Court could -- I don't know how the legal system actually works, but all the cases by those two need to be re-worked someway.

 

[Forest_Wood]

"My distrust of Spota and Burke makes me wonder . . ."

snip:
"Spota credited the “miracle of DNA evidence” for catching and convicting Bittrolff.

Less than six months after the conviction, Spota was arrested for obstructing an investigation into the chief of the Suffolk County Police Department, who was accused of beating a prisoner. Both men were eventually convicted and sentenced to prison.

As with the Gilgo Beach investigation, the case against Bittrolff was dogged by allegations of mistakes and misconduct by police and prosecutors. During the trial, the Suffolk County police admitted to accidentally destroying the wood chips found on one of the women’s bodies and, separately, wood chips discovered in a car used by a police sergeant who was a potential suspect.

Police were also accused of prematurely destroying the sergeant’s investigative file. In their appeal, defense attorneys said prosecutors did not turn over another internal file containing allegations by the wife of a separate officer that her husband killed one of the women. Prosecutors maintain they did turn over that document; a judge has yet to rule.'

New charges for alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer cast scrutiny on another man's murder conviction

New charges brought against the man accused of a string of killings on New York's Long Island are raising questions about another man’s murder conviction.

apnews.com

What would be the likelihood of all 3 bodies being placed in the same positioning, missing a left shoe and with wood shavings left at the scenes by two different killers?

"Though Bittrolff’s DNA was not found on Costilla, all three victims were displayed in the same sexual manner and missing a single shoe, prosecutors said, and wood shavings were found at all three scenes. Both Tangredi and McNamee were known to engage in sex work, while Costilla “led a similar lifestyle,” Spota said."

 

[arielilane]

Long Island prosecutors charging suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann revealed a shocking "blueprint" Heuermann apparently used to plan his murders. Former @NYPDnews Detective David Sarni and Heuermann's children's attorney @mitevlawfirm joined me earlier.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798837644673352002

 

[Mountain_Kat]

Yes, for people into technology it was easy. He had all the apparatus. He must have spent a fortune on electronics. Back then we were able to transfer photos from cameras to save files, and you could go to photomat and ask for your photos on a disk. I am not sure what he may have be doing with film though unless he was developing them himself as it seems like he was taking incriminating photos.

I'm pretty sure they still made polaroid instant cameras into the 2000's.

It's also possible that Heuermann could have come in contact with people who shared his kink through *advertiser censored* sites, message boards, meet ups, etc. and a "friend" developed the pics for him. I doubt that's likely, but who knows ? Maybe LE should ask John Bittroll, eh ?

 

[Artis]

Perhaps I am overestimating the police's abilities, but don't they have people for cybercrimes? I guess it would be like finding a specific grain of sand at the beach, though .. .

Allegedly. Once in a blue moon you'll hear or read something about LE making a bust by going on the dark web but when there's any follow up, the sentences are pathetic. There was one case where employees of the Department Defense - over 1200 of them - were busted watching and/or d/ling kiddie you know what what and nobody went to prison that I was ever able to find.

 

[Friday13]

Surely someone would be monitoring that sort of thing. If pictures of crime scenes, etc. were up on the dark web, I would think they would have found them, and therefore also Rex, much sooner. JMO.

Edited to say: I am uneducated on the dark web, and I know that stuff is hard to track but surely someone would have said, hey isn't that a picture of that unsolved string of murders? And that would at least be on the radar.

I just did a little bit of reading up on the dark web because I thought maybe he could have possibly been sharing files to it. Just reading about it and all its secrecy and anonymity, it doesn’t sound like anything good is used for it, IMO.

One thing I did take note of was that his HK document in the latest court papers was for 2002-2004 and from what I read, the term dark web emerged in 2009 and when it actually started is still vague and unknown. Does anyone know more about the origins or year that the dark web came into existence?

MOO ~ you have to really know what you’re doing and be pretty tech savvy to access the DW, at least it seems like it to me.

 

[Forest_Wood]

Long Island prosecutors charging suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann revealed a shocking "blueprint" Heuermann apparently used to plan his murders. Former @NYPDnews Detective David Sarni and Heuermann's children's attorney @mitevlawfirm joined me earlier.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798837644673352002

So, basically, the adult kids' attorney is suggesting that because this blueprint is "too neat", then it was planted by LE??? Unbelievable! MOO.

 

[CuriousCricket]

What would be the likelihood of all 3 bodies being placed in the same positioning, missing a left shoe and with wood shavings left at the scenes by two different killers?

"Though Bittrolff’s DNA was not found on Costilla, all three victims were displayed in the same sexual manner and missing a single shoe, prosecutors said, and wood shavings were found at all three scenes. Both Tangredi and McNamee were known to engage in sex work, while Costilla “led a similar lifestyle,” Spota said."

The bail application notes that there is still an unidentified hair from the Costilla crime - I believe the hair is female. Of course we know RH left a hair and one hair was from Witness #3, the live-in gf of RH just prior to Costilla's murder. Wonder when/if the other hair will ever be ID'd?