Gilgo Beach LISK Serial Killer, Rex Heuermann, charged with 3 murders, July 2023 #7

[citizen_sleuth]

Exclusive | Sons of newly-ID’d Gilgo victim Karen Vergata not notified about death until after presser

“He just thought [Vergata] was missing,” Eric Doherty’s girlfriend, Michelle Nolan, told The Post.

nypost.com

<snipped & BBM>
The sons of Karen Vergata, who was identified as a Gilgo Beach killings victim found dead on Fire Island more than two decades ago, were not notified about her gruesome death before the official press conference announcing the discovery Friday.

Eric Doherty, 32, was distraught when reached by phone Friday afternoon after authorities confirmed his mother, Vergata, was the previously-unidentified woman whose remains were found on separate occasions in 1996 and 2011.

[...]

“We just…we didn’t have any information,” Nolan said. “Their [adoptive mother] just called to let them know.”

[...]

Gary, 34, now lives in a care home for adults with special needs, and is not yet aware of his mother’s death, she said.

 

[SonsOfCain]

Does make me wonder what the hold up is with MBB. They seemed so confident he was linked to MBB that I was expecting news in a matter of days.

jmo

Wasn’t Melissa the first of the G4 girls that they determined had been murdered first? If so, they could be withholding more details if there was something different about the method of killing that was not present with the other three (this is just my thinking). If this is the case, then LE may be withholding that information from the public in order to make sure everything is even more airtight.

 

[Glimma0927]

Is the term LISK meant to directly identify RH (basically anyone who was the perp in the GB4), or does LISK encompass the entirety of the murders on LI, including peaches, cherries, Karen, etc?

I ask because I know there’s debate about whether RH is responsible for just the gb4, a few more, or all of them. Othram wrote that Karen was the earliest known victim of LISK, so I am a little confused.

Or are we all unsure because we don’t know enough about RH and his possible crimes.

It IS getting confusing. Until we know whether were dealing with one killer or more than one, I think it ought to be pluralized (LISKs). But that's just mo...it's wishful thinking to hope that this is just one person doing all this. Long Island has already proven to harbor more than one serial killer.

 

[iamshadow21]

Wasn’t Melissa the first of the G4 girls that they determined had been murdered first? If so, they could be withholding more details if there was something different about the method of killing that was not present with the other three (this is just my thinking). If this is the case, then LE may be withholding that information from the public in order to make sure everything is even more airtight.

Maureen was killed two years earlier than Melissa.

 

[SonsOfCain]

ITA, I think the killer (accused killer, RH) was tweaking his disposal methods in order to or as a means of preventing the remains from ever being found or linked to him.

Agreed. Maybe he was almost caught dumping a body, lucked out, and then decided “time to find a new spot”.

 

[SonsOfCain]

Maureen was killed two years earlier than Melissa.

Aha! Thank you. I couldn’t remember if it was her or Maureen.

 

[I am not Sherlock H.]

Has it been reported or made known (yes I might have missed it) - whether or not the separate sets of remains attributed to Jane Doe #7 / Karen Vergata were believed to have been deposited in those locations about the same time period? Or was there a known time lapse when they are believed to have been placed in those locations.

As I write this I realize to post this in the other thread for this. MOO

 

[margarita25]

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to our very own special member. @othram

https://twitter.com/x/status/1687496910720880640

Dang @othram , You rock!!! Wow!!!

 

[margarita25]

Google Search

At the right age

Our late great @Foxfire said they can start killing as young as 14-15.

I’ve seen some pretty young budding SKs here over the years.

 

[othram]

Dang @othram , You rock!!! Wow!!!

Appreciate the support!

 

[x_files]

SHE says 'if I have to click on a form, I say hazel, but when people ask me, I say, "it depends!"'

As someone who's been with her as friend and then partner since we were seventeen, it really does depend. Lighting, mood, what colour shirt she's wearing. All of it affects the perception of what colour they seem.

Funny thing. Her brother, who is a whole foot taller than her and a completely different body type, has exactly the same chameleon eyes, and I can think of ONCE when they looked exactly the same colour at the same time. Christmas Day, 2000. And I remember because I remarked on it at the time, because it felt like a once in a lifetime thing, like a planetary alignment.

But yeah, to bring this back around, Amber's eyes could possibly broadly be called hazel, but from the available photos, they sometimes look blue, green, or hazel, like my partner's, so it's possible they were just as hard to pin down.

MOO

oh sorry, I wrote HE not SHE!
yes, Hazel makes sense.

 

[CuriousCricket]

Has it been reported or made known (yes I might have missed it) - whether or not the separate set of remains attributed to Jane Doe #7 / Karen Vergata were believed to have been deposited in those locations about the same time period? Or was there a known time lapse when they are believed to have been placed in those locations.

As I write this I realize to post this in the other thread for this. MOO

Now that conjures up possibilities . . .

 

[Arkay]

It was even worse than paraphrased. I want to touch base, and if you do, too, call. Very thinly veiled as a colleague call.

MOO

IMO that was absolutely a man who wasn't able to get this colleague out of his mind, and attempted under the guise of a “touch base” call to set up SOME kind of appointment with her.

He was working too hard to affect a light tone, collegial, “hey need to check in with you” when he had no work purpose to contact her.

If I were still her age and got one of those calls, I would definitely think this married man from work is putting the moves on me.

Knowing what we know now, it’s terrifying.

JMO

 

[Ann99]

I think its really interesting that Karen lived close to RHs office. Its just a 15 minute walk or even shorter car ride to her place from his work place. Obviously this are all just assumptions, but if we think he started earlier and not mid/end 40ies , this could be totally connected, even if we probably never will find the proof for it.
Also for what i understand he was divorced in 1995 from his first wife and married his second wife in April 1996, so there is the possibility that he was living alone at that time in his childhood home ?

Do we know when RH Mom passed away? Could she have still been alive and he was living with her? That could have been a stress point.

 

[investigatefred]

Do we know when RH Mom passed away? Could she have still been alive and he was living with her? That could have been a stress point.

By all accounts, she's still living

 

[Ruminations]

I think at this point, LISK is used like the Redhead Murders... Whether it's one offender or several, it's grouping a series of crimes together by location, date, victim appearance and lifestyle, the signatures of the crime and disposal of victims, and so on in a way to try to make sense of it.

RH is definitely A LISK... but the ONLY LISK? We don't know yet.

MOO

If the competing serial killer theory is confirmed...

...part of the competition will be who gets the title of the 'real' LISK?

MOO

 

[Jurisprudence]

Wasn’t Melissa the first of the G4 girls that they determined had been murdered first? If so, they could be withholding more details if there was something different about the method of killing that was not present with the other three (this is just my thinking). If this is the case, then LE may be withholding that information from the public in order to make sure everything is even more airtight.

BBM

Wow! brilliant. Now you really just gave me hope. Hope that there may be some through-line to a possible deviation in method with MBB that links to other unsolved cases. I realize we have no facts to back it up but it's a wonderful and hopeful thought. And, it's always good to have hope. Thanks!

jmo

 

[Ann99]

By all accounts, she's still living

Oh. That’s right. She ( RH Mom) must be in her 90’s
So did RH, Mom and 1st wife all live together in 1996? Or that near time frame.
That definitely could have been a stress point. Maybe the reason marriage #1 didn’t last.
Also the start of a new business. More stress.
Maybe this was the beginning.

 

[Jurisprudence]

Maureen was killed two years earlier than Melissa.

I thought @SonsOfCain stated Melissa but meant Maureen because obviously RH is already charged in Melissa's death and we were talking about potential charges for Maureen.

It would make sense that there might be something different with Maureen that is causing them to hold back if you consider the theory that these people supposedly evolve over time and hone "their craft".

One can hope.

jmo

 

[CuriousCricket]

It's interesting that SCPD and NYSP haven't addressed if Karen Vergata is a victim of Heuermanns yet Othrams posts here about the identification give the impression that she is indeed.

Interesting. I had not realized that Othrams post here indicates that.

My brain has tumbled around wondering why her name was kept secret and why the Task Force went straight into the secrecy of the Grand Jury almost immediately after her name was learned.

I also kept remembering DA Tierney saying they knew they were being watched, but I couldn't figure out HOW they knew they were being watched.

But he told us in the first Press Conference after RH's arrest.

RH was identified March 14, 2022. Karen Vergata was identified in September and her family notified in October, according to transcript of press conference. It was at that time the Task Force decided to go into the confidentiality/secrecy of the Grand Jury. AND they took Vergata's identity with them.

By that time RH had been a suspect since March 14. They had been executing warrants and collecting into on him. Among the information were his cell phone records. The Task Force knew about his searches for their progress on the case, according to Tierney at the first press conference.

So, does the decision to take Karen Vergata's ID into the Grand Jury with the Gilgo 4 investigation signify they can link her to RH?