Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders (2026) s01e02 Episode Script

[insects chirruping]
[dramatic music playing]
[Ray]
The day Shannan Gilbert disappeared,
we know for sure is that she called 911.
Highly unusual thing
for a sex worker to do.
But for me to find out
what was on that tape,
the police refused to give it to me
or anybody else.
So I had to sue
the police department twice.
And I won the case.
And finally,
they had to give me the tape.
You heard her say,
"Someone is after me" three times.
But the police spun it and said,
"Well, she's not rational,
because how could someone
be after her if she's in the house?
And Shannan's driver
comes in a few minutes later
and is standing there.
[woman] I know my sister's voice.
I know her panic.
I believe she called 911
to have them there.
Maybe she was unable to speak at the time.
She couldn't talk.
I do believe somebody was out for her.
She doesn't want to leave
because she's afraid of what's outside.
She finally leaves.
Then she lets out a bloodcurdling scream.
[Shannan shrieking]
Somebody was after her,
just like she said.
[Shannan screaming]
You can hear it.
She really thinks she's gonna be killed.
[screaming continues]
And Shannan bolts, runs,
knocks on doors.
Finally ends up at a house
of a man named Gus Coletti.
[Ray]
And then she runs away from his house.
[Ray] Knocks on another door.
[Ray] And then she disappears,
allegedly never to be seen again
by anyone.
[eerie music playing]
[scratching and heavy breathing]
[phone line disconnects]
[water lapping]
[Ray] This was all a crock
from the very beginning.
The police certainly knew
about the 911 call.
But the police couldn't describe
what had occurred.
And why.
And the things they kept saying
were all falsehoods.
They were all bizarre.
Something-- Something was up.
Something was wrong.
And when Shannan was found,
I asked for the autopsy report.
Typically, what happens is,
after there's an autopsy that's done,
the medical examiner calls the family in
and tells them what they found.
Here, months went by.
And no medical report.
And we finally got it,
and we went to the medical examiner's
meeting on the autopsy.
There were three detectives
from Suffolk County Homicide.
What are they doing here?
This is a civil proceeding.
There's a medical examiner.
I would ask her a question.
If they were really easy,
she'd answer them.
But sometimes,
she would get out of her chair,
go over to the detectives,
whisper together with them,
come back and answer the question,
or refuse to answer it.
I'd never seen it before or since.
I mean, it was ridiculous.
Somebody frustrated that investigation.
And it was Burke.
And you say, "Why Burke?"
Well, when we come to know
who Burke really was,
as I have very well,
you'll understand exactly why Burke.
[Thorne] We started to hear these stories
about Chief Burke.
[newscaster] Burke rose to power
despite a department investigation
early in his career involving
allegations of drugs, a lost gun,
and a sex worker in his squad car.
[Ray] Her name is Lowrita Rickenbacker.
And I took Lowrita's case.
She was charged with some crimes.
And I helped her out.
And from her,
I learned a great deal about Burke.
And then from other sex workers
who called me from all over the country
who had shacked up with Burke.
[reporter 1] So,
you're alleging that these parties
where Burke was at, where you were at
[reporter 2] How would you characterize
his behavior that night?
Aggressive.
It was more of him grabbing me
in an aggressive manner by my hair
and shoving his, you know
his-- himself inside of me.
Um, choking. I remember tears
[Ray] He did that uniformly for years.
Nonetheless, he was promoted
all the way to the top.
[reporter 3]
Were other law enforcement there?
Yeah, there were numerous people there.
I mean, um
-[reporter 3] Drugs?
-Yes.
[eerie music playing]
[Thorne] There was a lot of talk
about these sex parties
that he would go to.
Parties with women and drugs.
Things going on in that department
that shouldn't have been happening.
But everybody just below him
supported him.
They made sure that everybody
below them supported him.
That's the department
that James Burke had created.
It was like a fraternity.
That's really more of like what it was.
It was like a big frat house.
[tense music playing]
This is a man who is completely
corrupted by, and devoted to, sex workers.
And in charge of the investigation
of the deaths of sex workers.
This fox is in charge of the henhouse?
How could you possible expect
a fair and honest result?
Nobody in their right mind would say that.
Except the Suffolk County
Police Department, as we speak.
Shannan, her manner of death
is still listed as undetermined.
And police had publicly said
that they considered it to be accidental.
[newscaster] Investigators believe
Gilbert was not murdered
by what cops believe is the serial killer
that dumped ten other sets of remains
at Gilgo Beach.
[Thorne] Was this a cover-up?
I mean, what are they hiding?
Even now, John Ray believes
that Shannan Gilbert
was murdered by the same person
who murdered all these other people.
But I'm not sure that we will ever know
the truth about Shannan Gilbert.
And so, that mystery will continue.
[reporter 1] Jimmy, do you have anything--
Do you have anything to say
about your arrest?
[reporter 2] During his 30-year career
in law enforcement,
James Burke was haunted
by Internal Affairs investigations.
Today, the chief's career
came to a swift and a sudden end.
But concerns of wrongdoing still remain.
[dramatic music playing]
[Thorne] Chief James Burke
assaulted a man while in custody.
His name was Christopher Loeb.
Christopher Loeb was out robbing cars
in the certain area of Long Island.
And he was going into the cars
and taking things out.
And all of sudden,
he gets to a car in a driveway.
And he goes in
and he finds a duffel bag.
He opens up the bag
and he finds gun belt,
magazines, ammunition,
and sex toys and porn.
And turned out it was Burke's
department-issued vehicle.
When Chief Burke found out about this,
Burke had officers
pick up Christopher Loeb,
bring him to the precinct,
and beat him up.
[Christopher] Every time
I ask for a lawyer, I got hit again.
I got choked. I got punched.
I got slapped. I got kicked.
[Thorne] And so that was really
what took James Burke down,
because Christopher Loeb
filed a civil rights complaint.
And Burke was convicted.
[newscaster 1] Today, the Suffolk County
police chief stepped down.
[newscaster 2] Burke was also overseeing
the Gilgo Beach
serial killer investigation.
Numerous law enforcement officials
familiar with the case
say Burke blocked the FBI
from investigating.
[Thorne] At the time, we all hoped
this would be a turning point
for the Gilgo case.
[TV host] What do I need to know
about Gilgo Beach,
and now the recalls
of this investigation,
and trying to find the killer?
[Thorne] But after James Burke,
so many years went by.
[tense music playing]
It [scoffs]
It kind of got to a point
in the local media
where it almost became laughable,
because it's like,
what is going on with this case?
It has been going on for so long.
And then, you know,
another person comes in and says,
"We're gonna do something."
And I think everybody tried
to keep up hope this whole time.
[newscaster] The newly appointed
Suffolk Police commissioner
announcing a new closer partnership
with the FBI.
Today, uh, upon our request,
they're gonna take a more active
and prominent role.
The Suffolk County Police,
the Suffolk County
District Attorney's office,
the FBI, and all of our
law enforcement partners
are working tirelessly
to solve these cases.
[mouthing]
Look, I try to give police
Police do a great job.
They have a hard job.
But when you hear over and over,
"It's an active
and ongoing investigation,
it's an active
and ongoing investigation,
it's an active and ongoing investiga--"
There's only so long
that you can deal with that.
[newscaster] According to Ela,
this has been a flawed investigation.
[Ela] I don't understand it.
The case has gone cold.
We know it's gone cold.
They can tell us what they want.
We know different.
If it was one of their own children,
this case would have been solved.
They need to step up to the plate
and realize these are human beings.
It doesn't matter
what their profession is.
They're still you and me.
We had no clue what happened to her.
[Barthelemy] When the new officer
took over for Suffolk County,
he said there were two guys
working on the case,
and that's all they worked on.
I mean, it's hard to believe that just
two men are working on this case.
What's that?
That's nothing.
[Thorne] You know, law enforcement
has an incredible duty
to listen to people,
and to take them seriously,
and to do their due diligence.
And that wasn't done here.
And these families lived in that nightmare
for all those years.
These families held out hope
that police would find
the man who did this.
And some of them died
without ever knowing.
[newscaster] A grisly murder for a family
already torn apart by tragedy.
The mother of Gilgo Beach victim
Shannan Gilbert
found stabbed to death inside her home.
[newscaster] The murder scene
is a grim little first-floor apartment
in upstate Ellenville,
the place where police found
52-year-old Mari Gilbert's body
on Saturday.
The mother of a murdered woman
now murdered herself.
[Thorne]
Mari Gilbert, Shannan Gilbert's mother,
she was killed
by her other daughter, Sarra,
who was going through
a psychotic break at the time.
-[officer 1] Who is it?
-[officer 2] It's her mother.
[officer 1] Oh, my God.
[Thorne] Here was the one voice
of Shannan Gilbert
that we had.
And then, it was gone.
[indistinct chatter]
[woman] Go! Go!
Whoo!
[dramatic music playing]
[Thorne] All these year pass.
These victims, their souls
have to live in that,
just, horrible place,
because no one's listening
and no one's doing anything about it.
That's what-- I'm left with that thought.
Maybe they were thinking,
"He's gonna get caught.
They're gonna get him
for what he's doing to me.
There's no way
that this is gonna happen to me,
and they're not gonna catch this guy
for what he's doing."
But for so many years, they didn't.
Their kids had to grow up without them.
Their families had to wonder
what happened to them.
It's not right.
[insects chirruping]
[dramatic music playing]
The case goes cold.
Just absolutely nothing happening with it,
as far as the public can see.
And then, suddenly, everything changes.
[foreboding music playing]
[Tierney]
I was born and raised in Suffolk County.
I still live here.
As a prosecutor,
I've done political corruption cases.
Colombian drug cartel cases.
I've done MS-13 cases.
White collar cases.
But the interesting aspect
of Suffolk County
is we have this cold case
on Gilgo Beach
that have gone unsolved.
[newscaster] Suffolk County Police
announced a new effort
to put together a task force
to solve one of Long Island's
most notorious criminal cases.
They're bringing together
what they're calling a dream team
of detectives to take a fresh look
at this cold case.
[Tierney] We were playing catch-up.
[reporter] That's the latest word
from Suffolk County Police tonight
confirming three more sets
of human remains were discovered
during a methodical search
near Gilgo Beach,
where the body count just keeps on rising,
and the grisly mystery just deepens,
as police excavate an apparent
serial killer's dumping ground.
"To Melissa, a special angel.
On a very special occasion,
an angel comes into our lives."
[Tierney]
My career pointed to all of this.
Trying to prevent
bad things from happening
in the county that you grew up in.
[Thorne] I interviewed Ray Tierney
before he got into office.
It was also the ten-year
anniversary of Gilgo.
And I sat down with him and I said,
"What is your number one?"
And he said, "One of my top priorities
is getting back to Gilgo."
[newscaster] A district attorney
is speaking exclusively
with Long Island reporter
Kristin Thorne
about taking a fresh look at the case.
I've heard everything.
I've heard all the names.
I know all of those things.
[reporter] Incoming Suffolk Country
district attorney Ray Tierney
says he isn't in the business of guessing.
He wants evidence, and he plans to find it
by taking a fresh look at the case.
[Thorne] That was a big move.
That was important.
Finally, we're getting some progress.
[indistinct chatter]
[Tierney] You know, there was
a fair amount of politics involved in this
prior to myself getting involved.
And you know, I will say we were able
to successfully eliminate
that political angle
and keep the case about the case,
and only investigators involved.
Gonna sit down
with the new guys to make sure
that everything
that they've done is as--
So then, I could get off blood thinner.
It's one of those things
where the longer you're on it,
the worse it gets.
There was not a coherent investigation.
There was a lot of instances
where the leadership was not focused
upon the right things.
[Corson]
The establishment of the task force
was something that had been known
amongst investigators
as being an absolute necessity.
DA Tierney had a stomach to do it.
The momentum that he was able to build
in a year period is impressive.
[Tierney] With regard to cold cases,
you have to really start
from the very beginning
and follow the evidence
where the evidence leads.
So, the first thing we wanted to do
is we wanted to get the FBI in the room.
[Corson] In cases like this,
the FBI offered investigative
genetic genealogy,
specifically to identify the victims.
We had six unidentified murder victims.
Five Jane Does, one John Doe.
And the Gilgo Four,
they're all identified.
So, that's where the investigation
has focused.
The Gilgo Four,
the manner of death was very similar.
[Tierney] The woods in Gilgo Beach
is insanely thick.
It would take you 45 minutes
to walk a couple of feet
through the woods, it's that thick.
So, rather than bury a body,
the perpetrator would go on
to Gilgo Beach
and just ease the bodies
into the overgrown woods
covered with camouflage burlap.
That way, no one's gonna see it.
What it tells me is,
whoever dumped those bodies
really knew that area well.
Everybody had a little piece of evidence.
Suffolk County PD had a piece of it.
Suffolk County DA's office
had a piece of it.
So, the next thing we did
was we digitalized the evidence
to make it searchable for everyone.
[ominous music playing]
[mouse button clicks]
And we found critically important
phone work that was done in 2012.
With that, we were able to reexamine
all of the evidence that was there.
And we saw that the killer
used four separate burner phones
to lure another individual out
so that person could be killed.
We called it the kill phone.
[no audible dialogue]
Burner phones and the cell tower data
was absolutely crucial evidence.
September 2nd, 2010,
when the burner cell contacted
Amber Costello's phone.
Cell site location for that call
was Massapequa Park.
In Long Island.
[Schaller] The night Amber disappears,
she fields a call.
She gets off the phone.
She's giddy, you know.
She's like, uh,
"He offered 2,500 bucks."
And I'm like, "It just doesn't seem right.
You know, something seems off."
"Who would offer you that kind of money?"
I'm like, "For an overnight,"
you know, it's not--
You know, it just didn't seem right.
But any-- She was--
You know, she was happy, so
I didn't-- You know, I was-- Whatever.
[sinister music playing]
[Tierney] Thereafter, at 11:17,
the kill phone began to move
from Massapequa Park
to West Babylon
where Amber Costello lived.
At 12:05, that kill phone
contacted Amber Costello.
-[phone line rings]
-[Schaller] She got a second call.
And for some strange reason,
whatever she was told
[phone line ringing]
she left her phone.
She left her purse.
And just left with the clothes
on her back.
Everything was wrong.
The guy, he only wanted to pick her up
around the block.
She's like, "It's good."
She's like, "You know, I talked to him."
That was it, man, you know?
Once she got to the edge
of the property
and that was it.
[car door closes]
[Tierney] And then, the kill phone
moved back to Massapequa Park.
[ominous music playing]
[Schaller] When I got up,
I went and got her phone.
The numbers were there, you know?
I was like, "Oh, shit."
So, I call it back. It rung.
Someone picked up and hung up.
Called it back again.
It rung, went to voicemail.
Third time I called it back, it was done.
It was dead. The phone was off, you know?
Never saw her again.
[Tierney] He would use
the kill phone once and discard it.
Purchase a second kill phone,
discard it, and so on.
[Corson] The authorities were using
the cell phone history of the victims
to try to identify the perpetrator.
At the time Melissa was missing,
he was calling Melissa's younger sister
using Melissa's cell phone.
He actively stalked her.
The cell phone analysis would be crucial
to linking the suspect to the victims.
[newscaster]
The sister of one of the victims says
she has gotten a half a dozen
crude phone calls
from an unidentified man
using Barthelemy's own cell phone.
It's nothing that we can say on the air.
-Yeah, it wasn't nice.
-It wasn't nice.
At this point, we had no idea
where she was.
We didn't know if she was alive or dead.
[phone line ringing]
[Funderburg]
When I was at my cousin's house
[phone line ringing]
all of a sudden my phone rings
and it says "Melissa."
There's a man on the other line.
It's not my sister.
And I'm thinking maybe somebody
followed her phone
or found her, knows where she is.
And I was just kind of asking questions.
I was waiting for the answers.
He just called her a whore.
He knew some things about me,
so obviously, he had her phone,
so there's probably pictures in it.
There was one time I grabbed the phone,
and the guy heard my voice
and hung right up on me.
And then, a day or so later,
he called Amanda's phone back.
[Funderburg]
He stated that she was dead.
And I had to tell my mother.
Yeah.
Calls probably lasted
between two and three months.
[Thorne] Whoever did this,
he was taking a lot of risks.
And continuing to torture
this family was part of that.
And it's really sick.
I mean, it's really disgusting.
[Barthelemy] He was always calm.
It was like he had everything planned out
what he wanted to say to her.
And like, the last phone call,
he had said,
"Maybe I'll come tell you
where her body is."
[sniffles]
[Thorne] This is during that time
after Melissa was missing.
And her family was actively
searching for her.
The cell tower ping placed Melissa's phone
in Midtown Manhattan at that time.
Other calls were placed following that
from a cell tower located in Long Island.
[ominous music playing]
[Tierney]
So now, we knew the killer
was in the Massapequa Park area,
as well as the Midtown Manhattan area.
[Corson]
Suffolk County is, it's commuter life.
Thirty-five miles east of New York City.
[Tierney] And given the phone activity,
you're more than likely dealing
with a person
who lived in Suffolk County,
worked in the city.
[Corson] Very white collar.
A lot of cops, firefighters, teachers.
[Thorne] There was someone out there
killing people.
Torturing, dismembering.
[Tierney]
But in a county of 1.6 million people,
you know, it's very difficult
to try to identify, you know
[dramatic music swelling]
We need a new perspective.
[officers]
Nothing in this world is free!
Follow me!
[sergeant]
Nothing in this world is free!
[officers]
Nothing in this world is free!
We were bringing in the state police
for the first time.
The police commissioner
had come to us and asked us
to join the task force.
Different eyes.
Different people looking.
We all see things differently.
My analogy would be if we all
looked out this window right now,
and I told you to look out there
for a minute
and then write down everything you see,
there would likely be five things on there
that you saw clearly I never saw.
And that's the benefit
of having new people,
different agencies.
There was numerous people
from which we could've chosen from.
But we ultimately decided
on one individual.
And that was Investigator Tifini Atai.
She was in the Troop L
Long Island Major Crimes Unit.
This is a unit where the members
assigned to this unit
are some of our more
experienced investigators.
[dramatic music playing]
And you are looking
for that needle in the haystack.
So much different evidence,
and you're trying to figure out a way
of how does this all fit together?
But then, in that time
of doing a deep dive,
there were a couple of things
in those case files
that jumped out at her.
One state trooper
that was looking through
and saw this report
from years ago.
-And he said, "Wait a second."
-[interviewer] It's a woman, actually.
Oh, was it a woman? Oh, my gosh.
-No doubt, because hello!
-[interviewer] I mean, hello!
-The attention to detail.
-Hello!
This report says
before Amber Costello disappeared,
she was with another man, her friend
[no audio]
and he saw the potential suspect.
This was all reported
to police at that time.
[Schaller]
This is my statement, or whatever.
In 2010,
it was the first contact I had with police
when Amber disappeared.
I told them everything.
This is what I said to the police.
That one time, she just got a call.
Probably like a month before
she went missing, you know what I mean?
It was all set up through Backpage.
So I was like,
"Listen, I'm gonna go get some pizza."
Went up the block, ordered a pie.
And, uh, she calls.
I'm like, "What's the matter?"
She's like, "You gotta get back here."
She's like, "This fucking guy
started grabbing, pulling on me."
Get to the house
and come running in the house.
And there's this giant
just standing in the living room, bro.
"6'4" to 6'6" in height.
Mid-forties.
Bushy hair.
'70s-style glasses, described
to the police as appearing like an ogre."
You know, just a big monster of a dude
with just this look on his face
like straight killers have.
So, I'm like, you know, "You gotta go."
So, he was leaving.
The entire time, he never took his eyes
off of Amber the entire time.
And just staring at her.
He just fixated on her the whole time.
It's like,
something's wrong with this dude.
He was walking to his car.
The Avalanche.
"Furthermore, a witness
noticed the Chevy Avalanche
parked in the driveway.
The driveway of the residence."
Twelve years ago, I said, I'm like,
the one guy who stands out is this dude
with this green Avalanche, you know?
[tense music playing]
You know how the way the back comes down,
sweeping triangle piece and whatnot?
No other truck looks like that.
Back in 2012, the FBI did some
sophisticated analysis
using their CAST team,
and they narrowed down a box.
The box correlated to 200 residences
within Massapequa Park
where the cell phone calls
could have been placed.
And New York State trooper Tifini Atai,
when she evaluated that FBI data
against witness statements,
she isolated a suspect
based on that suspect's ownership
of a green Chevy Avalanche.
One name stood out.
The green Chevy Avalanche, that was it.
And then everything just started to
So, we got that information.
Then, we took that information
and we compared it
to the Massapequa Park area.
And, uh, it wasn't long after that
we found the Chevy Avalanche.
[Udice] It was in March of 2022.
Finally, we have a person of interest.
This person had never been mentioned
or looked at or identified prior to that.
The question that went unanswered
for over a decade
investigator Atai was able
to provide the answer.
And it also gave the task force,
for the first time in over a decade,
a clear-cut direction.
We had our first task force meeting
February 1st of 2022.
Six weeks later, March 14th,
we identify the suspect.
[mouse clicking]
[dramatic music playing]
I'll never forget it,
because when you hear a name,
the first thing you want to do is,
you know,
you're looking to try to eliminate.
Well, it can't be this person,
because of whatever reason.
And the more we looked into it,
the more it fit.
And very quickly, what started to happen
was a picture started to be painted.
That picture became clearer
and clearer and clearer.
[Tierney] The suspect was an architect,
worked in the city.
Not only did he live in Massapequa Park,
he worked in Midtown Manhattan.
Six-four, six-five, dark hair.
And
we confirmed
that he had the Chevy Avalanche.
And his name
was Rex Heuermann.
Bam. We've got him.
Bonjour, I'm Antoine.
Today on L'Interview, Rex Heuermann,
owner of RH Consultants,
a department of building facilitator.
Let's go meet him.
Rex!
-Hello!
-Hi, how are you doing?
-Good to see you.
-Likewise.
I hope you don't mind,
I brought my assistant with me, Norman.
-[Rex] Hello, Norman.
-[dog barks]
-I see it's raining out.
-[laughs] Yes, it's raining.
-Shall we go to the table?
-Yes. Yes, please. Okay.
[Rex] Yeah, I know.
Mother Nature is not cooperating today.
[Antoine]
To say the least, I'll tell you that.
So, tell us, you know, who you are.
Rex Heuermann. I'm an architect.
I'm an architectural consultant.
I'm a troubleshooter.
-Born and raised on Long Island.
-Okay.
Been working in Manhattan since 1987.
-Oh, wow. Okay.
-[Rex] Very long time.
[menacing music playing]
[suspenseful music playing]