CONTACT US Email: paranaughtica@gmail.com Twitter: @paranaughtica Facebook: The Paranaughtica Podcast Here's the latest serial killer, suspected serial killer, that has been arrested. July 13, 2023, Rex Heuermann was arrested for the murders of three women who's remains were found on a stretch of Gilgo Beach. He is also suspected in at least one more.More than four bodies, or remains of peoples bodies, have been found there, but hey, we're giving too much away already. Just tune in. You're going to like this one..... ***If you’d like to help us out with a donation and you’re currently listening on Spotify, you can simply scroll down on our page and you’ll see a button to help us out with either a one-time donation or you can set up a monthly recurring donation. You can also go to our Facebook page where we have a link to our Ko-Fi account and Pay-Pal account if you'd like to help out the show. We would greatly appreciate it and give you a massive shoutout on the show if you'd like! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
It's one of those situations where you go, you know what?
I'm gonna do it.
Today's the day.
Yeah? And so I went out to the back little shed that we have out there.
I went inside.
I tossed everything end over end looking for it.
Just wrecked the place.
I'm talking like old vinyls covering the floor.
Those collector's salt and pepper shakers.
No, not those.
Don't worry about them.
I like the sound of walking on gravel when I go in there now.
But finally, finally, I found it.
Good. It was hanging from a small hook on the wall right next to the door, man, on the inside.
I was looking for it the whole time.
That is fucking crazy.
Yeah, right there.
No worries, though.
I just grabbed that jump rope and I headed back outside and, you know, and I just went for it, dude.
Nice. Yeah, sure.
I mean, it was kind of nice for like the first, I don't know, maybe like 17 jumps.
No! No way, man.
What happened?
I'll tell you what happened.
The rope broke.
The rope broke.
Yeah, man.
Damn rope broke.
Snapped right in half.
What? How'd that happen?
I wish I could tell you.
It's a surprise.
Even to me.
Maybe it was old.
Hadn't been used in a while.
Yeah, maybe, definitely, I haven't used it in quite a while.
But, you know, thought I'd try it out.
Yeah, it was worth a shot.
Well, ladies and gentlemen...
Welcome to another episode of the Paranautica Podcast.
I am Coop, and sitting across from me on the other side of the shoddy-ass table is the equally magnetic Scott.
I'd personally go with enigmatic, but yeah, we're just, you know, splitting hairs now.
But hello everyone, it's a pleasure to be here as always with you, Coop.
And, uh, hmm, yeah, him over there.
Whatever, dude.
Anyways, great to be here.
Always great to be here with you as well, Scott.
And hopefully we can get you a new jump rope soon.
I'm sorry to hear about all of that.
I wish you would, man, but just put it down on the list of, the ever-growing list of possible Christmas gifts.
Okay, yeah.
I'll put that on there.
So today we are going to talk about the man named Rex Howerman, who was recently arrested in connection with at least three murders on Gilgo Beach, Long Island, New York, and is suspected of a fourth murder, thereby making him a serial killer.
And who knows, maybe he's responsible for many more.
On July 13th, 2023, Rex Howerman was arrested outside of his office in Midtown Manhattan that make up the city that never sleeps.
Initially, he has been charged in connection with the deaths of three women, all of which were believed to have been sex workers working at the time of their disappearances.
Those three were Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, and Melissa Barthelemy.
And the authorities also believe that he was involved in the disappearance of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard Barnes.
Maureen Brainard Barnes was 25 years old when she was last seen on July 9, 2007, in Connecticut, where she lived.
Melissa Barthelemy was 24 years old and was last seen at her apartment at 1149 Underhill Avenue in the Bronx on July 12, 2009.
Megan Waterman was 22 years old when she was last seen on June 6, 2010 in Maine, where she lived and where she was kidnapped from.
And Amber Costello was 27 years old who lived on 1112 America Avenue in West Babylon when she was last seen on September 2, 2010.
Rex Howerman has pleaded not guilty.
To all counts, as it stands today, the 27th of August, 2023.
The police, and well, probably most of the world who are aware of this story, believe that Rex is not only responsible for those four women's deaths, which have been given the name the Gilgo Four, but also of many others.
As you probably know, 11 bodies in total have been found on or near Gilgo Beach on Long Island up to this day since 2010.
But bodies have been found in that same location as early as 1996.
And there have been at least 16 or 17 bodies discovered since then.
But it is important to note that the authorities do not believe that all of these bodies were disposed of by the same killer or killers.
Therefore, the general consensus with the authorities is that Rex Howerman is not responsible for all 11 bodies found on Gilville Beach.
This case has been referred to as LISC or the Long Island Serial Killer case as well.
But as this investigation grinds on and the police dig up more and more evidence, More and more questions are being asked.
For example, not only had Howerman been living next to Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York since the 1980s, which is only about 5 miles from Gilgo Beach, it's been uncovered that he also owns property in Las Vegas, Nevada and Chester, South Carolina, which means that if Rex Howerman is indeed responsible for the three murders he was originally charged with,
then that makes him a serial killer and that leads one to believe that the likelihood that he has killed in other areas is incredibly high.
At this time, The police are not discussing other possible areas of interest outside of these three named locations, but it's likely that there are more.
First of all, this is a huge story, and I'm glad that finally somebody's been arrested for it since nobody had been arrested for it for a long time.
But I think it's weird that authorities do not believe that all the bodies were disposed of by the same killer because, I don't know, it's the same area at the same time frame.
I just find it hard to believe that he didn't kill everyone.
That's just my opinion.
But I guess it doesn't matter if they're linking him to...
If he's going to go away for these, you know what I mean?
I guess closure for the victim's families, I suppose, would still be important, but at least he's going away.
Right. Well, there's a reason why I've only connected him to three, possibly four of these bodies, and we're going to get into that.
He's just dangling in front of me.
There's a certain reason why.
Alright, well let's get to it then.
So who is Rex Howerman and why did he become a suspect in this baffling case?
I would love to know that actually.
You would?
I certainly would.
Well then, you better queue up the band and I hope that you pay them a little better this week.
You know, their measly stipend of $5 and a coupon for 30% off when you buy, I don't know, three of anything at Bed Bath& Beyond just is not going to keep the electricity on forever.
I'll get them some peanuts after the show.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Our dear, beautiful listeners, how we love your hairy little ear holes.
We once again bring to you...
Trey! Portray!
Can't see it, but I am just shaking my little leg over here.
That's... I'm glad to hear you say that because I only had enough money this week to pay the one trumpet player that was just playing just now.
So he's no rhythm section whatsoever.
He's just a lone trumpeter.
Lucky him.
He got the job.
Yeah. Well, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, Trey Portray, back again, everybody's favorite segment.
Our first article comes to us from Dustin Jones.
Thank you, Dustin Jones.
Posted August 21st.
Apparently, Monster Hunters are conducting the largest ever search.
Of Loch Ness in more than 50 years.
And for those of you that don't know the reason why that would be happening, the reason is because for time immemorial, it seems, there's been rumors of a big, scary monster affectionately known as the Loch Ness Monster.
Old Nessie.
Yeah. Old Nessie.
Exactly. This monster became famous back in 1934 when there was a purported photo of said monster taken in black and white in Scotland way back in the day.
And just ever since then, there's a...
It's legit.
You know what it actually looks like, though?
It looks like just some tiny little toy someone put out there, like an old dinosaur toy just floating.
It totally does.
Or like someone's just front crawling, you know, like doing a front stroke.
Yeah, that's just an arm.
The angle, yeah.
Just this whole time, some dude.
Yeah, his name is actually Ness.
Oh, that was just old Ness?
Just taking a swim out there.
Yeah. But apparently, there's been all kinds of sightings over the years.
Tons, yeah.
Yeah. People like swimming there, though.
People do.
I don't know if I would.
Like, yeah, okay, so there's some speculation, but still, I don't think I'd chance at getting the water and, you know.
Tempt fate.
I don't know.
I wouldn't.
Apparently the reputation proceeds far beyond just the number of years when the photograph was last taken.
1,500 years there have been rumors of this piece.
At least that's what monster hunters and other enthusiasts are hoping to prove.
What? Yes.
Yes. Apparently there's an actual Loch Ness Center and the research group Loch Ness Exploration All full of aspiring monster hunters which are going to join in.
Apparently the last big search effort was 1972.
So it's been a fair few decades.
But they're going to deploy all kinds of technology.
I don't know if you read about it at all, but they're going to use surveying equipment.
And apparently that type of equipment's never been used on a freshwater lake before.
They're going to use drones with infrared cameras.
They're going to use a hydrophone.
Under the surface, they're going to try to find what they call, quote, Nessie-like calls.
All right.
I'm fucking down, man.
They're going to find Nessie, dude.
Or little baby Nessies.
Apparently, there's also some volunteers, and they're going to participate in a big surface watch of the lock, visually scanning the surface for any irregularities.
Honestly, that's not a bad idea, but I feel we could put cameras...
In specific areas all around the lake, which I'm sure they're going to do.
They're just not mentioning it.
No, I think it's funny because I feel like a bunch of people wanted to sign up and there wasn't enough roles for everybody.
So they're like, oh yeah, you guys go ahead and do a visual scan.
You get standard over there.
Then he went up to the guy organizing everything and was like, I got him watching the lake.
Don't worry, man.
It's going to keep him busy for a while.
Apparently, since the first sighting, there's been more than 1,140 official Nessie sightings.
That's pretty crazy.
So it's quite a few sightings.
So the lake is just under 800 feet deep.
Yeah. Oh, it's a very deep lake, and it's 22 square miles.
So, you know, it's a lot of space to cover.
It's pretty big.
Apparently, it's Great Britain's largest lake by volume.
Yeah, exactly.
Second largest by surface area.
Yeah. And I don't know if you know this, just a little interesting fact before I move on, but apparently the first encounter, the first written accounts of an encounter are from the Irish monk St. Columba, and that was back in 565 AD,
so that's a long time.
Now that's not Detective Columbo, right?
That's something different.
Oh, okay.
Oh, man.
Love the show.
Love the show.
Yes, yes.
Well, we'll see.
At least, you know, there have been sightings, but we still have yet to have any official proof, which is more than I can say for the next story of our Trey Portray, which is about the disgraced former neonatal nurse who was recently sentenced to life in prison for the murders of no less than seven babies.
Oh, man.
Yeah. Yes.
Yes, Angel of Death Lucy Lepi was charged and convicted of killing seven and attempting to kill six others
Yeah. Oh,
yeah. It's absolutely crazy.
Absolutely crazy.
Yeah, she injected some with insulin.
She's like over, like force-fed them milk to kill them.
She would inject air.
Yep. Oh, man.
The crazy thing is, you know, from the beginning, she's just seemed so guilty.
And even in the initial, like, when you go back and you look at the conditions of these kids, you know, like, while they were under her care, the moment she took over any of the cases, they would take such a steep dive health-wise, you know, most of them having to be brought back to life,
or at least from near death, you know, not even very long into her care of them.
I mean, I'm talking a matter of hours.
Yeah, it's fucking crazy.
And what's spooky about it, I don't know how much you've looked into this, but what's really spooky about it is the ones that would survive, she would contact the families and ask about them and be like, hey, hope little Billy is doing better.
How's he doing?
I hope Susie's feeling better.
So sad what happened.
She would keep tabs.
And then when they searched her residence, they found articles about these.
My God.
Yeah. Information about the parents of the victims.
I mean, tell me she didn't do it.
We see that a lot with serial killers.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Keeping memorabilia, little mementos, trophies and things like that.
Yeah. Man.
Yeah, they even, I guess they found a note in her house that she wrote.
I don't know if it was in a journal or a diary she kept, but she wrote...
Verbatim. I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them.
I am a horrible, evil person.
Absolutely. Yikes.
She was horrible and evil.
She got that part right.
It's one thing when you feel that way about yourself, but to project it, especially onto a baby.
No way to defend itself.
Maybe it's one of those situations where she's telling herself...
These things about herself to help foster that inside of her, to help that come out.
Absolutely. That's like her mantra, like her inner mantra.
Apparently, during her 10-month trial, it was brought up over and over again by prosecutors that in 2015, they experienced a significant rise in the numbers of babies who were dying or suffering declines in health for no reason.
And Letby was on duty.
Her name was Lucy Letby.
She was on duty in all of those cases.
Yeah. Yeah, during the significant dip.
But apparently, the managers of the hospital, as usual, didn't take any of the concerns seriously.
And she might have been, you know, dealt with a lot sooner, even as early as 2015, when these things started happening.
They started receiving complaints, and the managers were like, Lucy, let me...
Nah, no way.
The prosecutors...
During the trial, would describe her as a, quote, constant malevolent presence in the neonatal unit where the children experienced medical distress or died.
Yeah, she was just always around, always too interested, just like never left.
Which, I mean, if you're a great nurse, that's kind of what you want.
But yeah, in this case, she's just a terrible spirit of death.
Now it's just one of those things where every time you're in a hospital and someone's a doctor or a nurse is too kind to you, you're like, hmm, why is this person being so kind to me?
I know they're a doctor and a nurse, but man, Lucy Leppi, man.
Yeah, it's definitely a really unfortunate part of this because there are so many good nurses and there are so many good doctors that would genuinely be trying to do everything they could in their power to make sure your baby's healthy.
Yeah. Well, I mean,
just looking at her, she looks like the type that's really silent.
You know, out in society and stuff, but then behind closed doors, you're just up to some really weird shit, you know?
Yeah, well, she'll be up to some really weird shit behind bars for a long time.
Damn. I don't feel bad for it.
No, not me in the least.
But yeah, speaking of behind bars, that brings us to our last story for Trey for Trey about Homer Lee Jackson III, who recently died.
He lived between December 18th, 1959 to July 18th, 2023.
He was an American serial killer who killed at least three women and one teenager in Portland, Oregon, of all places, between 1983 and 1993.
And these killings remained unsolved until forensic evidence actually led to his arrest in 2015, so much, much later.
Holy shit.
And there's a number of things, his arrest, his mental status, that have been the subject of a lot of controversy.
There was a plea deal apparently he was allowed to take because of that, which let him off with time served.
So he didn't actually serve any hard time for these murders.
And of course, it drew a lot of harsh criticism from the family members of the victims and the public in general.
Yeah. But apparently Jackson was found deceased at his home by his sister in 2023.
He weighed under 80 pounds at the time, so he literally wasted away.
Yeah. And he had recently returned home from being hospitalized for heart issues.
So he wasn't doing well.
He wasn't doing good.
Yeah, but I mean, it's probably just the guilt.
Could have been.
In order to not feel guilty, you have to have it all bottled up, you know what I mean?
So maybe it just wasted him.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like some of these people have a conscience.
Some of them are actually decent people inside their heads, and they actually do feel guilty, and it does eat at them, and maybe this is what happens.
Other people are just like, no empathy, just psychopathic.
Yeah. Well, the victims that...
Jackson murdered, or at least that he was convicted of murdering, were Tanya Harry, who was 19. She was found dead on July 9, 1983.
Angela Anderson, 14, was found dead on September 22, 1983.
She died of asphyxiation.
Latanja Watts, I think that's how you pronounce that, she was 27, found dead March 18, 1987, in an empty lot at North Concord Avenue.
Luana Triplett, who was 29 years old, she was found dead on June 15, 1993.
All of the victims, victims of sex trafficking, are thought to have been sex workers who were currently working at the time that they were killed.
They were all also strangulated.
Yes, they were all strangulated.
And some of them had abdominal injuries as well, but strangulation was the one common theme between all of them.
He did serve six and a half years while awaiting trial, but then was ultimately released for good time and served three years of probation.
Yeah, which, if you're convicted of killing people six and a half years, that's not even a sentence.
Yeah, that's absolutely ridiculous.
But, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us on this ride through everybody's favorite familiar segment, Trey!
Poor Trey!
Zap, zap.
People go crazy over this segment.
I can't tell you how many freaking emails we get about it.
It's the only segment that we're told to keep going.
Yeah, they don't even tell us to keep our actual Paranautica podcast going.
Yeah, they don't care about the podcast.
They don't care about the stories we talk about.
They just want to know what's in the trade for trade.
It seems to be the most received comment that we get is, could you guys just do the tray per tray and then just shut the hell up?
Yeah, just do tray per tray.
That's not true, guys.
Thank you for listening.
Well, the band's not great.
Like I said, I only could pay the trumpet player this week, so the ending credits were just me scatting.
I don't know if you could tell.
That was just me.
Oh, that was just you.
Yeah. Oh, you're like a whole band.
I can't tell because usually the band is behind me, so I never see them.
Yeah, well, I excused our solo trumpet player about 20 minutes ago.
He was a little bored.
He was nodding off.
So, I was like, yeah, man, you can get out of here.
I only gave you about $1.50 anyways.
Yeah, not even the $5 stipend.
Damn. Not even a fiver.
Alright, next time we'll try the fiver.
See if we can at least get a tambourine or a cowbell.
Well, what do you think poor little Larry is going to do over there when his poor little spoons break and he can't afford new ones?
Well, we don't have spoons in our budget.
It's true.
So, I mean, he's kind of shit out of luck, I guess.
Go to the thrift store.
Go to the thrift store, Larry.
Yep. And what about, like, Boxcar Joe, a man with his knees slapping?
Like, what's he gonna do if he can't afford new kneecaps to slap?
He's getting old, man.
Look at him.
You know, what I think we should do is get in touch with your buddy that does that 3D printing.
We should try to 3D print him some knees.
That's what I would do anyways.
It's worth a shot.
Yeah. He's nodding his head, so I think he's into it.
He's into it, yeah.
Alright, Boxcar Joe.
We got a plan for you, buddy.
Well, let's start the story, huh?
Yeah, let's get into it, man.
Let's rip the band-aid clean off.
Rex Howerman is a white...
59-year-old architect born in 1964 and raised on Long Island, which is the longest island among the 48 contiguous states.
He was born to Theodore Howerman and Dolores.
He attended a local high school and then went on to college at New York Institute of Technology on Long Island, where he studied architectural technology and design.
And after graduating, he began his career in his chosen field.
Rex started his own company, RH Consultants& Associates, in 1994, which has its headquarters at 5th Avenue and 36th Street.
Oh, yes!
I love Bryant Park.
It blows Central Park right out of the sewer water, man.
Yeah, it is pretty nice.
Also, I wonder if 36th knows that a miracle happened just two streets down from it, you think?
You think it's aware of that?
Probably not.
And it's probably a really sad street as it watches all the fun happen two streets down during Thanksgiving.
Oh yeah, yeah, like the parade.
Yeah man, I'm sure the street just flows with streams of tears.
Oh wait, that's just urine.
Yeah, there's a lot of urine.
And get this, as of June of 2023, just a couple months ago, there were exactly 84,526 homeless people, which included exactly 27,530 children, in the streets of New York.
Oh. Now, how did they get those exact numbers?
I mean, that seems unlikely, right?
Actually, that's probably impossible.
Well, Coalition for the Homeless.org straight up says those exact numbers.
They don't say nearly or almost or around or anything like that.
So apparently those were the exact numbers at the time.
Well, that sucks.
That really sucks, man.
That's just like way too much homelessness.
Yeah, man.
I don't like it one bit.
I don't like it either.
Not cool.
Rex Howerman's architectural company worked with clients such as Target, Foot Locker, and Nike.
And get this, Scott.
Yeah? The Trump Organization once hired Rex to renovate some office space at the Trump Tower.
Well, he knows how to pick his friends.
Oh, hey, by the way, Trump turned himself in last Thursday on the 24th of August, 2023 at the Fulton County Jail, where his good pals, old Booby Gugliani, Con Eastman, Slippery Sidney Powell, and a few others already did.
Did you hear about this?
No, I didn't.
Oh, man.
Yeah, and the following Friday, the next day, the other 15 defendants turned themselves in, so 19 in total.
And all of them had their mugshot taken, their fingerprints taken, the whole shebang.
All of them except one, Harrison Floyd, the former leader of Black Voices for Trump.
They all posted bail, except for him.
Floyd decided to stay overnight and was released the next day.
But I think he was just hungry, or maybe he was like in the...
In the doghouse back home or something.
Oh yeah, he's like, damn.
This is nearly as bad as what happens when I go home.
Shit, I'm gonna stay here.
You guys mind if I hang out for about a week?
You in a fight again?
Yeah. Don't wanna go home though.
Alright, Floyd.
Here's another bologna sandwich.
But Rex's business seems like it was more useful to clients to be utilized to expedite clients through all of those ridiculous building codes.
And kind of skirt around the permits and approval process, rather than, you know, strictly architectural design.
That's not to say that he didn't actually do hands-on work, because he did, and his designs were geared towards a minimalistic approach, which I find aesthetic and easy on the eyes.
I agree.
I'm not into maximalism.
I prefer minimalism.
Gotta say.
But get this, fuckboy.
The Trump organization once recruited Rex Howerman to work on a New York City property as an architect.
Rex was hired to renovate office space, including a...
Minor partition and plumbing changes on the 27th floor of the Trump building on 40 Wall Street in October.
He has been married to his second wife, Asa Ellerup, for 27 years, and she has since filed for a divorce as of July 19, 2023.
The couple had a daughter, Victoria Howerman, who was 26, and a stepson, Christopher Sheridan, Asa's son from a previous relationship.
He was previously married to his first wife, Elizabeth Ryan, but they were divorced after a handful of years for reasons unknown to the public at large.
And she has either done a great job at hiding from the media storm, or the media outlets are respecting her witches to be far removed from the situation.
I find that probably more likely, and since she's been divorced from him, maybe they're just like, meh, let's just leave her out of it, because the people who are currently with him are more sensational, something like that.
Most of his neighbors would have nothing but decent things to say about the guy.
Nothing much stood out to any of them as being weird or strange in any way, even under New York standards.
Actually says a lot, I feel like.
It does.
But not all of his neighbors would have the same views.
One neighbor, Dominic Cancelieri, had lived right next door to the Howermans, and he recalls a time when he was 18 or 19 and watching TV in his basement.
And he said he went outside, you know, around 2 in the morning and heard some digging going on over in Rex's backyard.
He said he wanted to go look, but fear got the best of him, and he felt like something was telling him not to go over to look through the fence.
Um... Okay.
I mean, could have been anything.
I guess it is kind of an odd hour, two in the morning.
But, I mean, you know, sometimes you just gotta dig.
It's cooler.
It's cooler at night.
Yeah, exactly.
Especially at the time of morning.
Yeah. I'd rather dig late instead of, you know, midday.
The blazing sun.
Sun beating down.
Yeah. Fuck all that shit.
Dominic would also say that Rex would regularly burn his garbage in his backyard.
Which there seemed to be a pattern to it, something like once every few weeks.
On July 24th, the authorities began to dig in the backyard of the Howardman home using an excavator.
They also dismantled a wooden deck to look in the ground beneath.
But the investigators reported that they did not find any obvious human remains.
Oh, interesting.
See, I feel like they always do.
They always find it.
You know, so maybe it really threw them off, I guess.
Not every part of a human body can be expected to burn.
Don't ask me how I know that.
I don't know it by experience.
I can tell you that at least.
But I feel like you're not going to get all of it right.
I don't know.
Usually you miss a toe or something.
And then they're like, oh, what's this toe doing back here?
Exactly. Maybe they didn't even dig in the right spot.
He's like, ha, burn it in the corner, you fools!
Another neighbor came forward to tell the media and the police that Rex started to freak his wife out.
This neighbor said that Rex had stared over the fence that separated the properties whenever the neighbor's wife would be sunbathing.
Well, I mean, he might have been an odd guy, but I mean the sunbathing thing, like, I don't know, who wouldn't do that?
Hey, who's that?
Who's that laying over there?
Yeah, he's probably just making sure everything's alright.
You know, like, maybe she fainted.
Yeah, you're just making sure she was still alive.
Yeah, exactly.
Just checking for some breath.
You know?
You want some lemonade?
It's hot out here.
Yeah, you look sweaty.
A certain Mr. Devil Ears, who was also a neighbor, said that people would stay away from his house.
That they'd literally have to cross the street because his house was so cluttered with shit everywhere.
And he also said that Rex would always try to befriend the neighbors, but nobody liked him, so they just avoided him.
Oh, wow.
After his arrest, it would be uncovered that Rex has had a bit of a history of filing lawsuits against drivers, accusing them of hitting him, causing serious and permanent personal injuries.
In 2013, Rex would file his first of four lawsuits, which would all be in various courts in New York.
In each of the four lawsuits, he had sought $5 million.
Three of these, yeah, three of these have either been settled or dismissed.
The first lawsuit came in 2013 when he sued a Queens cabbie.
Gurwinder Singh, after he accused the driver of injuring his foot, which required up to five months of treatment.
This case was settled with an undisclosed amount.
In 2016, he sued Cynthia Darlene Martin after he accused her of hitting him on the Capitol Beltway in Maryland.
This case appears to have been dropped.
The next one came the following year in 2017, when Stephen Dawn During's girlfriend was the one behind the wheel as the two were driving on a rainy night in January of 2017.
Rex said he was walking home from the train at Massapequa Park when the couple ran into him, causing him serious and permanent injuries.
Steven says that his girlfriend had barely tapped him and Rex didn't even fall down.
He just stood there with a smirk, winked, and then farted.
Oh man, this guy's ballsy, dude.
He's like, I got you now.
That's just crazy.
Not really, though.
He said he couldn't use his arm and that his back really hurt.
So the couple started to keep an eye on him.
And would even find him climbing up and down ladders, putting up Christmas lights.
Yeah, I guess if someone was asking for that much money from you, you'd be like, fine, I'm gonna go fucking prove that he's a liar then.
So, you know, they took some pictures, and then they brought those pictures to court.
Oh, they didn't.
And the court mostly agreed with the couple, but their insurance company still agreed to pay out $55,000 to Rex for some reason.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, even the couple were like, why would you agree?
The court obviously...
Yeah, like, what are you doing?
Yeah, it's so stupid.
And the fourth lawsuit he brought was in February of 2017 after he claimed that a couple from Long Island had crashed into his 2012 Chevrolet Avalanche while in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Dang. Boy.
This guy's good, man.
Yeah. He's good.
Yeah. And that case is still going on as he sits behind bars right now.
So, like, it just shows he just needs that easy money.
You know, especially choosing $5 million every single time.
Like, not only does he want money, but he wants a lot of money.
Like, he wants to become...
Seriously wealthy from this whole process.
I mean, it shows that this guy is just shady.
Exactly. Yeah.
What else is he up to?
He's filing all these fraudulent lawsuits against people and lying his ass off.
Yeah, sounds like a douche.
What else is he doing?
Exactly. So, I mean, that's a very brief little overview of who Rex Howerman is.
And since this case is so fresh, we don't really have a lot of details yet.
But as this case unfolds...
We'll be here to help unfold it.
More so as it progresses.
Absolutely, we will.
And as it unfolds, many more facts will come out about who this guy was and what he was up to through all these years.
Yeah, and who knows?
Maybe it's not even him.
Seems doubtful-ish, but I guess we'll see.
So, alright, so why was Rex Howerman looked at as a suspect?
What led the police to link that old Rexy...
Yeah, let's get into that.
How did that happen?
Well, first...
Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Right there, quick, Silver.
Really quick.
We're also talking something like 15 years from when the first woman was kidnapped, went missing, right?
Yeah. Up until he was finally caught, right?
Right. And apparently the police had no idea about this guy or his possible connection to any of these murders until just last year in 2022.
Yeah, this is crazy fresh and it's really interesting because the prosecution's bail denial is basically the entire case against him wrapped up in like 32 pages, which leads me to believe that they are so adamant, so sure.
That they have the suspect in custody already and do not want to take any chances.
Can't blame them, yeah, because once you're on the hook for that, I mean, the appeal of leaving becomes very tempting.
Yeah. Very tempting indeed.
And, I mean, I read the bail denial.
Holy crap.
Man, like, this guy is going down.
And then, you know, especially if we consider how many years were bungled due to the police chief that was in charge of the investigation, James Burke, who refused to allow the FBI to get involved in the matter for years.
Which obviously stalled the investigation and most likely led to the continued murders of more women, all because he was too busy dipping his dipstick in any dip hole that would let the guy.
Possibly through either threat or under duress.
That guy, old James Burke, he was forced to resign in late 2015, which was great for everyone.
Now what's the deal with this James Burke guy anyways?
He was the chief of police who was in charge of the Gilgo Beach investigation into multiple dead bodies.
He began as a New York police officer in the mid-1980s, but would transfer over to the Suffolk County Police Department, which has at least 2,500 officers on the payroll.
And in 1995, Berkey Burke was under investigation as part of an internal department probe, which discovered that the officer had been in a sexual relationship with a woman who was a sex worker and involved in drug dealing.
She also had a police record and is thought to have been an informant for Burke.
Oh, man.
That's pretty shady for law enforcement.
Pretty shady.
Absolutely. It was also found that he was fucking regularly in police vehicles while on duty and while in his uniform.
Damn. It's interesting.
Not that I know anything about it, personally, but I have been told by some of our own, I guess you can call them informants, unpaid, That there's a whole genre of porn out there that portrays the storyline of police officers, right?
Maybe frisking the person, playing the part of the criminal?
I think.
That's what I'm told.
That's what I hear.
Anyways, I don't know anything about that.
You can just say that informant was Wayne Dale.
I don't think he'll mind.
Oh, man.
I fucking swear to God, man.
Relax now, big fella.
Take it easy over there.
Yeah, take it easy, man.
We just hate on you because we like you.
I hate you guys so much.
You just make me want to break things with my fists.
Uh, you should try with your head.
I think that'd be a better approach.
Just face it, man.
Like, actually with your face.
Smack it.
That's it.
With your face.
I swear.
Wayne, your anger is unmatched.
You're right.
Chill, bro.
You're right.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me, fellas.
You know, Wayne, forgiving you has become a daily chore.
I'm sorry, guys.
You're forgiven yet again.
Goddammit, Wayne.
So anyway, Burke was unfazed by that internal investigation and he went on to become the chief of police somehow.
But he'd only be the chief of police for about three years from 2012 until 2015, which is when he was found guilty by federal prosecutors of beating a man who was handcuffed and then trying to cover it up.
The man?
His name is Christopher Loeb.
He was accused of breaking into the department's SUV that Burke was using and stealing a duffel bag full of plastic.
And I have a question to posit here.
Why did Burke have this duffel bag full of porn and sex toys in his police SUV?
And secondly, I wonder if Loeb knew that the duffel bag was full of porn and sex toys.
Uh, boy.
Either of those, yeah.
Boy. That is an interesting set of circumstances.
Either way, I mean, like, maybe he thought it was money?
Yeah. Or something?
Or, like, guns?
Guns. Instead he gets...
Maybe Burke put it in there as, like, some sort of a foil.
He's like, yeah, I want to see if somebody steals this, and then they steal it, and they're like, oh, what the hell is this?
So maybe it was, like, meant to be stolen.
Oh, yeah.
You know?
Well, Scott, apparently the duffel bag did belong to Burke.
Burke traced down Loeb somehow.
He got his porn and overwhelmingly stinky toys back.
Gross. And I don't think Loeb was too bummed about that.
But then Burke brought the handcuffed Loeb to the police station where he began to beat the man in order to protect his own career and reputation.
Whoa, jeez.
Just straight started beating him right there?
That's crazy.
Handcuffed him, just started beating him in the fucking back room.
Wow. And yeah.
And arrested along with Burke was the former district attorney for Suffolk County, Thomas Spoda, who was 81 years old at the time.
And also arrested was Christopher McPartland, who was the chief of Spoda's.
Whoa. And James Burke himself was sentenced to 46 months,
so just about four years.
He didn't serve those four years, of course, as he was released to a halfway house in 2018, and then completed his far too short probation term in 2022.
This is obviously a true by-the-books cop, isn't he?
But that's not all, Scott.
Well, shit.
Old Berkey Burke was arrested again this year, just this month, actually.
What? Yeah.
Shit, man.
The disgraced former chief of police was arrested just around 10.15 a.m. at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Farmingville for, well, guess why, Scott?
Uh, being too respectful?
Burke had approached a young man who he thought was a bona fide sex worker.
Turns out that the county park rangers had set up a sting where they had these undercover officers pose up as sex workers within this park.
and the rangers were in plain clothes and observing as Burke went up to this undercover male officer and solicited sex.
Heyyyy, ha ha!
Say, clouds look lovely today, huh?
Look at them clouds up there.
It's a really good day to look at clouds, ain't it?
Hey, do you like coloring books?
The only reason I ask is because you see...
I like coloring books, too.
A lot.
And, uh, you know, I was wondering if you'd, like, maybe want to come over and maybe we can gather together sometime.
Huh? I get lonely.
Usually on the weekdays, but especially on the weekends.
Hey, hey, hooky there.
Where'd that come from?
Say, you want to have sex?
What's going on here?
No. Wait.
Get on the floor.
We're under arrest.
As he was being apprehended, he was trying to get out of it by playing the I used to be a chief of police car.
I'm the ex-police chief.
But the arresting officer, Sergeant Brian Quatrini, he didn't give a shit.
Yeah, that's me.
Sure, buddy.
Maybe we'll know everyone else around this pack.
But this is gonna be really embarrassing.
Oh man.
Man, gets him every time.
And he was charged with public lewdness, indecent exposure, criminal solicitation, and offering a sex act.
He did not want them involved exactly because all of his own skeletons he had stuffed in his cavity.
I mean closet.
For sure.
Okay, well that makes sense.
You know, he's like, oh, let's not be diggered.
I don't think it happened there, man.
I think it happened about a half mile away that way.
What way?
I mean that way.
Yep, he was just trying to distance the FBI from him.
So, exactly.
So after Burke had beat Loeb, Loeb obviously filed some complaints.
Interestingly, the FBI got involved into the investigation into Burke for that matter.
Now, at that same time, bodies were being found on Gilgo Beach, of which Burke was fully in charge of.
The FBI wanted to be involved in the Gilgo case, and there were some agents assigned to the case.
But Burke did not want any FBI agents to be around because he was trying to cover his own ass with the lobe-beating cover-up.
Therefore, Burke actually removed all FBI agents from the Gilgo case and out of his jurisdiction.
Okay, so I mean, I guess when you think about it, this isn't anything that we haven't seen before, at least in the movies.
You know, not the movies of real life, but it just seems like historically there might be...
A tendency for, like, local police agencies or districts to be like, hey!
This is my case.
True. Get out of here.
We'll do it our way.
We'll do it my way.
We don't need your government ass up in here, like, mucking stuff up.
Yeah. Get out of here, man.
Go on home.
Greeley. You know, like, whatever.
Right. Yeah, and you see it a lot.
I mean, we saw with Ruby Ridge, ATF and FBI, and Waco, again, ATF and FBI.
So, yeah, departments don't like to work with each other.
But there's more, Scott.
There's more?
Yeah, so it was and is very clear to pretty much everyone familiar with this case that James Burke actively, actively, Scott, he actively impeded the Gilgal Beach murders investigation.
Ooh. First, let's bring up a woman who John Ray, an attorney for the families of two of the victims, Shannon Gilbert and Jessica Taylor, brought forward to the media who said that James Burke had forced her, and I'm not sure...
How that was implied, whether she meant he physically forced her or verbally coerced or threatened her.
But she said that he made her perform very rough oral sex on him in the same vicinity where Shannon Gilbert had gone missing.
On its own, it doesn't really mean much.
But when you start to dig a little deeper into Burke, you see some weird decisions that no police officer in charge of a very important investigation would make, such as...
He stalled the investigation in his very early stages after a cadaver dog found the first body, which would later be found to be Melissa Barthelemy's.
Burke shut down the investigation, saying that cadaver dogs didn't like to work in the winter.
Oh, that seems like a really thin and random reason.
And since he's in charge, he's just like, yep, not doing it.
Whoa. What the fuck?
What the fuck is that about?
Why would you do that?
Weird. It makes no sense.
He even had staged a photograph, which he put out to the media, which showed a number of cadaver dogs combing through the woods.
Thing was that the department only had one cadaver dog.
Just, like, photoshopping him in there.
I mean, I know I'm sure it was photos from, like, other cadaver dog searches, but it'd be funny if he's just like, eh, we'll throw a couple more of you in there, and we'll get a couple more agents over here.
Just look totally fake.
There we go.
Just look horrible.
Weird angles, you know?
Obviously, it didn't even match.
He's like, yeah.
Let's not go there.
Here's another one.
Another couple.
Yep, yep, yep.
No effort to, like, brush around and make it look good and fade into the picture.
Yeah, just different backgrounds attached, you know?
And on top of that, he was alleged to have turned his office into a makeshift speakeasy where his friends in the department could stop in for drinks on the daily.
He was also said to have regularly asked his buddies to conduct surveillance on his girlfriend and on her ex-partners.
Oh, man.
Starting to become pretty clear why he didn't want the FBI around.
Burke would also punish those he didn't like or who were under his rank at the department by making threats and demotions.
And most of his former colleagues who have had a falling out with the ex-chief of police would come out and say that he was a true psychopath who always had a hard-on.
They would also come out to say that he would use hard drugs.
As well, on a very frequent basis.
He's like every caricature of every bad cop in every movie.
He's like the living version of that.
He is the embodiment of every bad cop in the movies, man.
So that attorney, John Ray, he would also come out and make claims that James Burke was involved in some way with one or more of the Gilgo Beach murders.
These claims have not been substantiated, and as far as the public is aware, Burke is not being investigated in connection with any of the murders.
It is just really strange that he would try so hard to solve the investigation.
Yeah, it's definitely fishy.
I mean, it's like a red flag, especially without a good reason.
Right. And once Burke was gone in 2015 and a new task force could be created, which wouldn't be until 2022, the FBI would officially join in on the case, and some real work would be done.
Ah, alright.
Well, let's see what they did.
Between 2010 and 2011, 11 sets of human remains were found along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County.
Most of these victims had been sex workers, although the decomposed bodies of an unidentified two-year-old girl wrapped in a blanket and an unidentified young Asian man were found in different locations.
Interestingly, most of the sex workers' eyes were hazel or green.
Hmm. I mean...
You know, you hear about serial killers who have that type.
You know, it's always like a woman with brunette hair or like a woman who wore lipstick.
I mean, that's pretty common.
It's generally thought that serial killers select their victims based on a variety of certain physical and personal characteristics.
You know, like, for example, Glenn Rogers, you know, he targeted redheads, which is...
Most likely due to his hatred of his mom, who happened to be a redhead.
Right. Or Edmund Kemper, for example.
He targeted college girls specifically.
Oh, yeah.
And Ted Bundy seemed to target women who looked like his ex-girlfriend.
True. Also, what is probably much more common amongst serial killers as being the ideal victim is if the person is vulnerable in some way.
Like if they are drug addicts, or if they're homeless, or especially if they are sex workers.
Because as we know, sex workers have a terrible history with being notoriously ignored by law enforcement.
Yeah, the killer sees some kind of doorway they could walk through, some kind of access point, you know, whether it's self-confidence or an addiction or a lack of safety, like, you know, a homeless situation or something like that.
And it's just, you know, easy prey, so to speak.
And since we're speaking about victims, let's get into some of the victims found on or around Gilgo Beach.
And again, the four referred to as the Gilgill Four are Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard Barnes, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
So on December 11, 2010, Suffolk County Police Officer John Malia went out to an area of Gilgo Beach with his canine to conduct what was supposed to be a training exercise.
Not long after being there, the dog would pick up a scent and lead Malia right to the decomposed remains of Melissa Barthelemy.
Again, she was 24 years old when she was last seen.
Securing the area, the police would continue to comb Gilgo Beach, and they would find three more bodies on December 13, 2010.
They were the bodies of Maureen Brainard Barnes, 25, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Costello, 27. They are referred to as the Gilgo Four because all four were found wrapped in burlap and found within just one mile of each other.
This is why we know that these four are the victims of a serial killer, either acting alone or with the help of someone.
Right, because it's pretty unlikely that more than one killer would wrap the same victim type in the same style of burlap and bury that body in the same cluster.
I mean, especially with those kinds of unique characteristics, a person would almost have to, like, dig one up, see it to copy it, you know, in the area or whatever.
So, yeah, it makes sense.
Yeah, and it's pretty likely for sure, but...
The only other real relationship or connection the other victims have is that the majority of them were sex workers who were petite and had green or hazel eyes, which is like, that's a fairly considerable connection in my opinion.
Yeah, yeah, substantial.
And again, it's those four women, well, three really, that Rex Howerman has been charged with murdering.
There have been other remains that have since been identified through DNA matching, and they are Karen Vergata, who had gone missing from Manhattan when she was 34 years old.
Back on February 14th, 1996, her legs were found in a plastic bag near Gilgo Beach two months after she went missing.
Her skull was found on April 11th, 2011 on Gilgo Beach near the remains of another victim given the name John Doe No.
3 and Peaches.
These remains were very near the original Gilgo 4 remains.
Karen's unidentified remains were originally listed as Jane Doe No.
7 but were identified in August of 2022.
Sadly, she was not reported missing.
The remains of Jessica Taylor were found on two different dates.
Her dismembered body was found on July 26, 2003, 45 miles from Gilgo Beach in Manorville, New York.
Her head and hands were missing.
Those remains were identified later that year.
On March 29, 2011, her skull and skeletal hands and one forearm were found near Gilgo Beach.
She was 20 years old when she went missing in New York City.
Spooky. Yeah, man.
So spooky.
Valerie Mack, who was 24 when she went missing in Philadelphia, went by the name Melissa Taylor as she worked as an escort.
She was last seen in the early summer of 2000 in Port Republic, New Jersey.
Her torso was discovered near Halsey Manor Road in Manorville only months after she went missing, and the rest of her dismembered remains were found along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in 2011.
Unfortunately, she too was never reported missing to the police.
And Shannon Gilbert, who was 23 when she went missing on May 1, 2010, after speaking with two neighbors of a client she was seeing in the Oak Beach Association.
Her skeletal remains were found near Gilgo Beach on December 13, 2011, after 18 months.
Her purse, cell phone, shoes, and some other belongings were found first, about 8 miles from Gilgo Beach, and about a week later, her remains were discovered about a quarter mile from where her purse and other items were found.
There's actually a very dramatic 911 call that Shannon placed that night.
There are actually three 911 calls in total that she makes as she seems to be running away from someone.
And if you listen to it, which we will post in the show notes, but if you listen to it, it sounds freaking horrifying, man.
Like, the stuff that gets you in those thrillers, except for worse, because you know it's real life.
It's so scary.
It's extremely disturbing and really weird.
In my opinion, she was fucking murdered.
She is clearly in distress during all three calls and even tells one of the operators that at least two men are going to kill her.
One of the men was known to her as he was her driver while she worked as an escort.
But considering where she was found, when she was found, and the circumstances leading up to her death all leading me to believe she was murdered.
And I say this because the cops don't believe she was murdered.
I mean, yeah, it's really difficult to be sure, of course, because we weren't there, as, you know, is the main difficulty with cases like these.
But yeah, considering all those things.
But still, I mean...
But at the same time, from the audio, it does sound like she is under the influence of some sort of hallucinogenic substance.
Maybe. Like, she sounds weird.
The things she says.
It's just really strange.
Yeah, right.
Exactly. And one thing I wanted to point out about the calls is that there's a lot of silence between whatever few words that she does say to the operators.
And I tend to think that her silence was due to her trying to hide from whoever was said to be chasing after her.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I mean, I didn't really think about that.
But yeah, you wouldn't want to give yourself away by loudly talking on the phone, right?
You gotta talk louder.
Talk louder.
And it's just like, if I talk louder, I'm gonna fucking get caught.
I mean, I'll be dead.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, she doesn't say that, but yeah.
The investigators, however, did not think that Shannon was murdered, but rather got high on drugs and ran into the marsh where she died from hypothermia or drowning.
The Suffolk County Department said that the FBI conducted an analysis and a psychiatrist reviewed the 911 call made by Gilbert at the time of whatever happened happening.
And the Suffolk County Police say that her death was not consistent with her being the victim of violence or of a violent offender.
Wow. It's a...
I don't know.
Interesting statement to make.
Just... Yeah.
It just seems so dismissive.
Yeah, man.
I don't know.
She makes some harrowing screams during one of those calls.
Just go listen to it and see what you think.
The link is in the show notes.
Yep. The Gilbert family then had a private autopsy done, and that pathologist believed that what he found during the autopsy were consistent with a homicide.
Of course.
Yeah, and I don't know what's going on with that.
I think they should at least leave the possibility on the table that she was a victim of a killer, whether that was Rex Howerman or someone else.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, the pathologist literally is the one who reviews these cases.
If they're saying this kind of thing seems pretty consistent with, you know, homicide, I would pay attention to that.
Yeah, they should definitely reopen the fucking case, man.
Because the police had their, you know, autopsy done.
And it was like, nope, this is not a murder.
And then the family got a private one to do the same thing.
And they're like, this is a murder.
Yeah, he's like, this seems an awful lot like a murder to me, buddy.
You know?
Well, here's a very sad side story to this.
Mary Gilbert, Shannon's mother, who tirelessly kept the fire lit underneath the cops' butts to continue looking for her daughter's body and kill her, Oh,
jeez. Unreal, right?
Did I say why?
Yeah, why?
Hold on.
She then took a fire extinguisher and began to bludgeon her mother with it in the face and head.
Oh my gosh.
Then she took the hose of the fire extinguisher and shoved it into her mouth where she then sprayed it.
Whoa! Dude, this is crazy.
The daughter, Sarah, does have a history of significant mental health issues going back many years.
She would tell one officer who arrived at the scene that before she killed her mother, she
Wow, so she's literally crazy.
The younger sister of Sarah would tell detectives that she had to adopt Sarah's son in 2016 because Sarah drowned a puppy in front of the child.
Oh, man.
So, yeah, this is all throughout.
I mean, mental illness.
It's unpredictable.
It's crazy.
And then she says she thought that the puppy was actually the rapper Eminem who wanted to hurt her.
Oh, that's not a joke.
I know.
I might start using that to get out of coming to work.
It was Eminem.
He's gonna kill me.
He's gonna hurt me.
Sarah had been in and out of psychiatric wards and hospitals, at least seven, and had been on a plethora of medications to treat schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder of the bipolar type.
Her sister told detectives that Sarah did not always take her medications.
Which, as we know, makes the medication absolutely ineffective in its overall purpose.
Exactly. You have to take it as prescribed or just it's not going to work.
Yeah. And as much as we disagree with Big Pharma here at the Paranautica Podcast, we are not going to tell you guys what you should and should not do in regard to your health and medications.
Oh, yeah.
I'm sure you're not fooled, but don't be fooled for a second.
Neither of us are doctors or have a medical degree of any kind.
Just opinions.
Nope. We're not doctors, we just don't like Big Pharma at all.
Damn right we don't.
Hey, fuck you, asshole.
Whoa, hey now.
No, no, no, no.
Not you, dude.
No? That sounded like you were referring directly to me.
In fact, your eyes were intimately locked with mine as you said that.
No, man.
Mosquito. I think something bit my fucking ankle.
I don't know.
Maybe not.
Something hurt.
Felt like a mosquito biting me.
Well, whatever.
I'm good.
You good?
Ow. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm good.
Yeah. It's all good.
You want me to get a band-aid and some salve and maybe a couple pain relievers and a juice box with one of those little straws?
Oh. Well, I mean, if you're offering.
No! Damn it!
Oh, man!
Alright, my bad.
Anyway, younger Sarah thought that she was going to be a huge success as a songwriter because when she was four, someone at a doctor's office told her she would be.
Then she was watching American Music Awards and someone said the word legendary.
Which she thought was a code name for somebody who wrote famous songs, and she thought they were referring to her.
Oh, man.
Yikes. Sometimes I just kind of want to be in that mental state to see what the hell is happening.
Me too.
Everything's a sign.
You're just like, oh, that's got to be crazy.
I knew this day would come.
And you believe it, like 100%.
Yeah, that's the scary part.
That's the scary part.
Then she had to go to a psychiatric facility for a while, and when she was there, she said that she saw black in everyone's eyes, which said to her, These motherfuckers are demons!
Well, I mean, it's pretty on brand.
So, yeah.
And she didn't even believe her sister was dead.
She was sure that they switched bodies.
But moving on, she was sentenced 25 years to life in New York State Prison.
Okay. At least, even with all the crazy and whatnot, she didn't get out of it, because, I mean, she clearly committed this murder, and I'm glad they put her behind bars.
She's just too unpredictable.
It's unfortunate, but...
All right, so, the police were closing in on Rex.
Woo, buddy!
But how, and why?
The first thing that led the police toward Rexy was because Rexy was being Rex-less.
Oh, man.
He had gone to West Babylon where Costello lived back in 2010 and had caused some weird ass scene where he went into her house and as he went inside, he started acting like he was
Later. Interviews were conducted with the witnesses and said that the guy was a large white male,
approximately 6'4", 6'6", in height, and he was in his mid-40s with dark, bushy hair, and he had large oval-style glasses from the 70s.
And so these witnesses were able to give a pretty good description of the guy, and one witness even saw him drive a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche, which had been parked in the driveway.
So remember that.
These witnesses saw a large-ass man get into a large-ass truck.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
So are we talking a large-assed man or just a large-ass man?
Because that's a very different...
I feel like that's two very different descriptions.
Both would work for this guy.
Oh, wow.
His ass has a large ass.
Jeez. Anyway, they saw this guy get into a Chevrolet avalanche back in 2010 at Costello's place and then took off.
Later that day, the guy wanted to meet up with Costello again, but said that he didn't want to go to her house because of the fake boyfriend thing that he made up, but what it really was was a ruse for her to leave her house to meet him.
And over the next couple of hours, there would be multiple phone calls and texts, and finally Costello left her house, and witnesses say that they saw a dark-colored truck drive by, assuming it was them.
She also left her phone behind, and that was the last she was seen or heard from.
During a follow-up interview with the alleged pimp of Costello, this pimp would say that he saw the guy and described him as a large ogre and was able to identify the ogre's vehicle.
It was a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.
Oh, man, got him.
Looking good so far, right?
Yeah. So let's fast forward to just last year, February 15th of 2022.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison, after only less than a year on the job, would come out and announce that a new task force was being put together to finally put some elbow grease into some good old fashioned police work.
Wow. Well, there you go, man.
Singing kumbaya.
Yeah. That's a good way to get some work done, though.
Something's gonna happen.
It's gonna shake something loose.
And back in 2010-2011, when the four bodies of the Google 4 were found and sent to the forensics lab, there was a female's hair found on three of the victims, which did not belong to those three victims.
There was also a male's hair found on one of the victims.
At the time...
The lab said that Harry was unsuitable for further DNA testing at that time due to where technology was at that time, I guess.
That's pretty crazy because that wasn't that long ago.
It was like 13 years ago.
Right. So you'd think that, you know, we were still fairly modern at that time, but I mean, it's all come a long way since then.
And then in March of 2022...
All of that elbow grease and shy, under-the-table footsie finally paid off.
They were finally able to connect Rex to a registered first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.
Oh boy, good for you guys.
They just decided to call up the DMV finally.
This vehicle had been visible to anyone and everyone.
It was even photographed by, I think, Google Street Maps and available to easily locate.
The police had the description of both the vehicle and the man.
The DA's office would even come out and say, Oh yeah, we had that tip early on in the investigation.
We certainly did!
And they had the results of the registration by that time, which linked it directly to Rex.
But they didn't act for two months.
Several media outlets would question the police on their delayed response, but as of the writing of August 23rd, there has not been a response.
Then, come July 31st, 2020, A DNA profile is made for that male's hair.
They found that the hair belonged to a male in the mitochondrial haplogroup V7A, which means, uh, well, Scott, why don't you tell our patient listeners what that means?
Now, I don't want to sound all ho-hum and leaden, drudging, and rather aseptic, or maybe dullish is a better word to use here.
I hope to refrain from sounding prosy or vapid, dispiriting in a way.
Some may call it palling, others plodding.
I call it exhilarating and quite the delight, rather.
What a romp we'll have.
God, man, get on with it.
Yes, right.
Mitochondrial haplogroups refer to the differences in human mitochondrial DNA, meaning regional populations in different areas of the world share a similar mitochondrial DNA sequence.
And then you have the groups.
In this case, we see that the hair belonged to the haplogroup V7a.
Now, this tells us a lot.
This tells us that the mitochondrial DNA comes from mostly Slavic countries, but also Scandinavia, Germany, as well as France.
Now, if you had V8...
For example, as the subclad, as they're called, then you'd have DNA lineage from only Sweden, V12, only Germany, V20, only Norway, etc.
So, yeah, the hair probably belonged to a man that had some Slavic in him.
Oh, he definitely has some Slavic in him right now.
Oh! They also got the results back from the female hair, which came from the mitochondrial haplogroup K1C2.
This group appears to come mostly from Ireland, but is spread far and wide through Europe, Africa, and Asia.
And so now they had a pretty good suspect in their sights, and they were zeroed in on Rex Howerman.
They began to stake out his house and place of business and did what undercover investigators do.
They scoured his garbages, and on July 21, 2022, one such undercover cop retrieved 11 bottles from the Howerman's home.
Swabs would be taken and promptly sent off for testing at the Cephal Crime Lab.
Then, on January 26, 2023, undercover detectives would find some leftover pizza in a pizza box tossed out with the garbage outside his Manhattan residence.
Linda! Linda, did you throw us out all that leftover pizza I still had in the box there?
Linda! I had, uh, crust in there, Linda.
Linda? I had so much crust left over from that pizza, Linda.
Oh, Linda, Linda, Linda.
What are you doing?
Just killing me.
Every day, something new.
Peter this, Peter that.
I don't even know who Peter is.
It's not even my name.
Oh, Linda.
Pissing me off.
Yeah, I mean, I can understand where angry husband is coming from.
I mean...
I'm probably gonna eat that fucking crust, dude.
And that's just not cheap.
Yeah, man, that was probably like four bucks worth of crust.
At least.
Damn right, Sonny.
That half-eaten pizza was taken to the crime lab, and it too was swabbed up and down, side to side, and a little bit of that diagonal.
A few circles, even.
Nice. Gotta get all that pizza DNA, man.
Hey, Joey, this looks like mozzarella, don't it?
Uh... Hey, Joey, it looks like mozzarella, but it tastes more like blue cheese.
Bobby, let me come taste it real quick.
Gross, dude.
That's fucking disgusting.
And so on February 24th, 2023, the DNA found on the bottles would match the DNA profile from the hairs.
The match would link Asa Ellerup, Rex's second and soon-to-be ex-wife.
Ooh. Got him.
Then, on March 23rd, 2023, one of the pizza swabs would be sent to another lab for further testing.
Better testing.
And on June 12th, 2023, the DNA from the hair would be found to match the DNA from the pizza swabs.
They were sure that they had their guy.
Yikes. Yep.
caught him pepperoni handed.
With over 300 subpoenas, search warrants, and other legal papers gathered in order to obtain any and all evidence at all of Rex Howerman's properties, storage units, etc.
On June 13, 2023, Rex left his office and walked out the front door of the building with his bag over his
He had no idea that several men in dark suits standing around the street looking oddly suspicious were actually plainclothes police officers.
And once Rex was a certain distance away from the building's entrance, they surrounded him and placed him under arrest while the very busy street filled with bustling flappers and berries were going about their merry way, heading in every which direction, lost as all hell.
I'd probably think it was pretty suspicious if I walked outside and I saw a bunch of guys in dark suits.
I'd be like, hang on, I forgot my phone.
Go back inside, you know?
Lock the 17 locks on my door.
Shink, shink, shink, shink.
Just locking yourself in there.
Oh, man.
And the reason they arrested him there in the street was because the police knew that Rex Howerman had an arsenal of firearms at his home and weren't sure if he had a weapon in his office.
And they definitely did not want to risk a possible shootout or even a possible suicide by Rex.
Yeah, good point.
And plus, if he had an arsenal of firearms, the standoff could last for so long.
Yeah, so long.
So far, some of the details of what the police have gathered from his properties and storage as evidence has been released.
Some of those items include a vast collection of at least 279 weapons.
Damn. Yeah, which authorities say far exceeds the 92 legal permits.
That's a lot.
Wow. There's also a filing cabinet, which who knows what you'll find in there.
And there's some really weird painting of a head of a blonde woman with what appears to be shoulder-length hair, and her eyes were sunken and dark all around.
She looked sickly and frail, and either there was some gnarly gash on her cheek or it was a rip in the canvas.
I can't tell.
Can you see that?
Yeah. It's really gaunt and scary-looking.
Yeah, it's really freaky.
Yeah, man.
Now, Scott, so look at that painting of the blonde girl, and now look at the pictures of Shannon Gilbert.
It's true that there are some, you know, I mean, if you were to put them side by side, like, you could see a comparison.
It looks eerily similar to Shannon Gilbert.
Agreed. Like, that looks, it looks like her.
It looks like he painted her.
Yeah. Either he was infatuated with the case.
And so maybe he painted this picture that he saw in the newspaper.
That's really creepy.
Maybe. Or he was involved in her killing and as a memento, he painted her.
So who knows?
Who knows?
At this point in time, we don't know.
Yeah. Spooky.
The investigators described the Howerman home as very cluttered as they spent 12 long days sifting through every item in the house.
Rex's estranged wife says the police completely destroyed the house.
And she allowed the post to take exclusive footage from inside the home after the police search.
And yeah, it's a fucking disaster.
A rectangle was cut out of the side of the bathtub.
Tiles were pulled out and missing.
Everything they owned had been tightly stacked into corners of rooms after they were looked at and placed off to the side.
Other boxes of things were just left strewn about.
Other rooms looked like things were just tossed in there, like no shits were given.
There were litter boxes that Asa says the police just threw over the top of everything else.
She said her family photos were just strewn everywhere, and they took her son's guitar, which they broke, and the guitar stand as evidence.
And what information that's going to give them?
Anyone's guess.
That's messed up, dude.
Well, I mean, okay, so you got the person, and they're guilty.
I mean, how much of a fuss can they really make, right?
But the stuff like the guitar, I mean, you don't gotta be busting stuff like that up.
Like, come on, man.
They have to take it.
It's the son's guitar.
Like, why are you taking the son's guitar as evidence?
Although it wouldn't be the first, like, father who tried to hide things in, like, their daughter's diary or, like, their daughter's, like, jewelry cabinet or somewhere where you think the police wouldn't work.
So it's kind of, it's a tough call.
It's like a 50-50, you know.
And they even tried to take her daughter's Dungeons& Dragons magic cards, which have a shit ton of value these days, but they were able to hold on to them somehow.
Damn. And she said her couch was completely shredded, and the backyard was absolutely demolished, and she had a greenhouse back there.
Asa and the kids couldn't even find chairs to sit on, but they said that they'd be speaking with the DA's office.
Asa is actually battling both skin and breast cancer and will soon lose her health insurance because she can't work and she lost her job.
She's since started a GoFundMe page and will be reaching $100,000 soon, if she hasn't by the time this airs.
As of August 18th, more than $50,000 had been collected, so damn.
Wow. She says the money will go towards fixing the house, paying her medical bills and attorney's fees for the divorce filings against Rex.
It would be, I mean, just, I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if suddenly you found out that you were married to a killer, like a true killer, even though this is still ongoing.
It's just like, at least money could help.
It's not going to fix anything, but it could help.
If the person who is married to said individual is truly innocent, you know.
And hopefully she is, man.
I hope she is.
Hopefully she is.
Yeah, I hope she is too.
I mean, there are two kids.
We obviously don't know.
Or I guess they're both adults right now, so it doesn't matter.
But one is the son is a special needs kid, so.
Right, right, right.
But investigators would end up collecting and compiling eight terabytes of evidence against Rex.
Eight. Eight.
That's so much.
So much.
It's incredibly voluminous.
That is 8 trillion bytes of information.
And 1 terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes or 1 million megabytes or 1 trillion kilobytes.
So you can store at least 16 million high-resolution photographs in 8 terabytes of storage.
Or like 1,600 full-length films.
More films than you'd probably like ever watch.
Or like watch Oppenheimer once.
No, I'm just kidding.
Did you go see that?
I did.
It was a long movie.
It's long.
Now, how they were able to link Howerman to each of the victims he is charged with murdering is pretty complicated, but we'll leave a link to the detailed bail request denial that the prosecution filed and explains everything.
But the authorities were able to connect Rex Howerman to several burner phones that had made calls to and received calls from those three victims.
There is a cell tower near his home, which is only about 20 minutes from Gilgal Beach, and the police were able to triangulate generally where these calls were coming from.
Other calls were made from the vicinity of his Manhattan office, which were routed through a cell tower near them.
Damn! Real police work.
So if all of that shit hasn't been damning enough, the police would also subpoena Rex's internet service provider and provide warrants to do a thorough sweep of his internet search history.
You know, just see what old Rexy Rex was interested in.
Oh god, let me guess.
He's a brony, isn't he?
He's incredibly fascinated with My Little Pony.
I mean, not as far as we know, but we can't say that he is not at this time.
It was found that Rex had been searching compulsively for pictures of the children and relatives of the victims.
It is strongly believed that he was actively trying to locate those children and relatives.
Like, the cops are sure that he was.
Freaky. And he was searching for photographs of the dead victims and of the crime scenes.
But that's not all.
He was also searching for sadistic and torture-related pornography and child pornography.
Some of these searches include, but are not limited to, pretty girl with bruised face porn, girl with face beat up, tortured redhead porn, chubby 10-year-old.
Jeez! And he had also made searches which included...
Why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by the Long Island serial killer?
Why hasn't the Long Island serial killer been caught?
In Long Island serial killer investigation, new phone technology may be key to break in case.
Inside the Long Island serial killer and Gilgo Beach.
Long Island serial killer update 2022.
FBI active serial killers.
Serial killers by state 2023.
map of all known serial killers, unsolved serial killer cases.
He also made many other searches on the internet with relevance to the murders and how the investigation was carrying on.
In other words, he was clearly conducting counter surveillance and trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities.
There's a lot of details that are similar to the Idaho killer, just in the amount of research into it.
No hiding of any tracks.
Like, what did he think?
Once he became a suspect, like, this wasn't going to happen?
But, you know, like, they weren't going to search through this stuff and find this stuff?
Oh, man.
He had also made searches for a man named John Bicholf.
Now, John Bicholf was a former suspect of the Gilgo Beach murders and was arrested in July of 2014 for killing two women.
Rita Tangretti and Colleen McNamee, whose bodies were found in 1993 and 1994, respectively.
He was also suspected in the murder of a third woman, Sandra Castilla, whose body was found in 1993 as well.
All of them were found on Monk Island.
He lived in Manorville, only about three miles from where the torsos of both Taylor and Mack were discovered.
But he was sentenced to life in prison on September 12, 2017, and is still suspected of being responsible for at least one of the other Gilgo Beach victims, if not more.
I guess time will tell.
The more they investigate, the more they find and dig up.
You know, who knows?
And John Bichoff, he was caught because his brother was convicted of violating a protective order, and he had to give a DNA sample in 2013.
And that sample turned up partial matches on Rita and Colleen.
So John's brother was eliminated as a suspect, but John was looked at a little closer.
Investigators would also comb his garbage and collect DNA from something he had discarded, and blammo, he was hit.
Oh, man, got him.
Now, there's something pretty crazy.
The adult daughter of murder victim Rita Tangaretti was the best friend of murder victim and one of the Gilgo Four, Melissa Barthelemy.
Wow, what a connection there.
Isn't that interesting?
That connection's crazy.
Investigators would discover that Rex had used the cell phones of both Maureen Brainard Barnes and Melissa Barthelemy after they were dead.
Investigators say that he would use their phones to check their voicemail and then to make taunting phone calls to the victim's families.
Yikes. Dude, this guy is so hit.
Yeah. You know?
And they found that on July 17th, July 23rd, August 5th, August 19th, and on August 26th, all in 2009, The phone belonging to Barthelemy had made calls to her family members in which the killer, a male, admitted to sexually assaulting and killing Melissa Barthelemy.
Investigators say that these calls came directly from downtown Manhattan where Rex's architecture business is located.
They also discovered that Rex's own cell phone was binging off the same cell towers as the burner phones used to contact the victims and their families.
I was going to say, at the beginning, when you said Rexless, he's being Rexless.
He really was.
I mean, there's, like, no attempt.
I mean, just like the typical, like, movie attempts.
Like, oh, I'll get a phone.
They won't know.
But not thinking about cell towers and search histories.
I mean, it's fucking crazy, dude.
Anyways. The investigators would say that they could not find any instance where Rex Howerman was not in a separate location from where these burner phones were being used.
Oh, man, just pegged right there.
Big time.
Yeah, that's crazy.
But so what about Asa Ellerup, right?
His soon-to-be ex?
You said that her hair was found on the three of the victim's bodies.
So I'm just, what happened with her?
Yeah, okay.
So at first, yeah, she was definitely looked at as being a suspect, sort of a husband-wife duo.
Right, right.
That's what I was thinking, too.
You know, because it's not the first time a husband-wife duo worked together in killing people.
No, no, not at all.
I can think of one, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady kidnapped, tortured, and killing young children around Manchester.
Huge case.
And that was between 1963 and 1965.
But they'd even go back to where they buried their victims and they would take photographs and have sex.
Dude, that's so crazy.
Yeah, that couple was fucked up.
And there were also candidates Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka, who, you know, they did what they did.
Carla, by the way, only served 12 years for her involvement and since has been released, like, in the early 2000s and has, like, three children.
And the man, like, that she married seems, like, cool with that.
So, I mean, that's kind of messed up.
And then, I don't know if you remember, this one was kind of far back, but in 1985 there was a lady named Catherine and a man, David Burney, who...
Over the span of about five weeks or so, they kidnapped, raped, and murdered four women.
And a fifth woman was able to escape, which is how they got caught.
But yeah, the serial killer couples do exist.
I mean, they're definitely out there.
Yep. Your neighbors could be a serial killer couple.
Oh, man.
Ladies and gentlemen.
You have to keep an eye on it.
Yours too, Scott.
But Scott, hey, do you remember John Ray, the guy I mentioned earlier a little bit ago?
Yes, he was one of the attorneys, right?
Representing the families of the two victims?
Yes, that's right.
Shannon Gilbert and Jessica Taylor.
So he came out and is accusing Asa of being wholly complicit in the murders and is as guilty as Rex himself.
He is saying that she is conning everyone into thinking she's innocent and all of this.
Whoa, right.
Okay, so what is he basing this on?
Like, does he have any proof or anything?
Or is he just saying these things?
Like, what did he offer?
Well, I mean, he says he does.
But what that is exactly is unknown to anyone but him.
Oh! You mean he hasn't actually come forth with any concrete or solid evidence at all?
Nothing. Has not come forward with anything.
He's just saying these baseless claims and I don't know.
Wow. Yeah.
But he calls Ace's denial in involvement with the murders as nonsense.
John Ray says...
She's complicit in her husband's solicitation and use of sex workers in his home over the course of years.
She was in this tiny little home where she lived and he lived.
She was upstairs when he would be downstairs having sex with these prostitutes, and he spent enormous amounts of money on them, and it was a regular thing that happened.
So again, I'm asking, does he actually have any proof of this?
This is a real quote.
Right? Yeah.
That's a real quote.
Does he actually have proof?
Does he have any proof at all?
It appears he does, but I mean, he has not proffered any proof of anything that he's saying.
Wow. And furthermore, in the prosecution's bail request denial, they lay out very clear as day that Asa Ellerp was either out of the state or out of the country when each of the victims that Rex is charged with murdering went missing.
They were able to establish this through the plane tickets that she had, receipts she had, and her own cell phone records.
Therefore, the proper authorities do not consider Asa a suspect in any of this, at least not as of yet, because I was trying to look into anything about her being a suspect, and apparently the police haven't even interviewed her yet.
Oh yeah, I mean, if they were going to move on that, they would have a long time ago.
But she has a solid alibi.
Yeah, solid.
So it really seems like she's not at...
Part. Didn't play a part in any of this.
And when Rex Howerman was arrested in the street on July 13th, 2023, he had with him one of their burner phones cited in the court documents.
And the one that he had with him was the one that he had used to make all of those internet searches mentioned above.
Damn. Talk about incriminating.
Speaking of phones, though, do you know how a lobster would answer the phone if, you know, a lobster could answer the phone?
Uh... How's that?
Shallow! Nice, man.
Okay, okay.
How about this one?
As it was expecting an important call, the lobster crabbed the phone.
Shallow. Anyway, as you probably noted, Rex Howerman was denied bail, and he is currently being jailed at the Riverhead Correctional Facility in New York.
Initially, he was under suicide watch just based on his notoriety, but has been off for a number of weeks now.
The Suffolk County Sheriff, Errol Tulin Jr., Has told the media that at first, Rex stayed to himself and kept quiet.
He basically laid in his bed and sat at the ceiling day in, day out.
As these weeks have passed, Rex has come out of his little shell a little bit and has started to participate in religious services, which I'm not sure what religion he's practicing.
Wicca. For sure he's a Wiccan witch, I just know it.
A Wiccan witch brony.
Fucking sweet.
Either that or Scientology.
He's probably dedicating every Wiccan moment to what, Xenu?
Xenu? Xenu?
Xenu? Xenu?
Xenu? Yeah, I don't know.
Both work.
I think they mentally masturbate to either of them.
Yeah, I'm sure.
But no, according to his bio, Rex is a Christian.
They're not all good.
But the sheriff is saying that he is walking around the yard, keeping to himself.
He says he is quote-unquote...
Very comfortable in jail.
So yeah, apparently he's having a great time.
Oh, well, for now.
Earlier this month, he pleaded not guilty and is set to appear back in court on September 27th, one month exactly from the date of this recording.
Well, we'll have to keep an eye on that, won't we?
We will.
Scott, do you have anything else?
I do not.
Alright, so without anything further, we thank you all very much for listening in, as usual, and we hope you guys will join us next week for another episode.
And please check out the questions we have on each episode on Spotify.
We'd like to know what you guys think about each episode.
For sure.
Let us know what you like so we can bring more of that content.
Exactly. And you can email us at Paranautica at gmail.com.
I like that.
I like that.
Follow us on GoddammitX, formerly known as Twitter, at Paranautica.
Yeah, wow.
And don't forget to check us out on Facebook.
So until next week, enjoy yourselves out there.
Try to only use one square of the cheapest.
Toilet paper you can find after each massive she-hat or tiny shat.
It doesn't matter.
Just see the savings pile up, bro.
We'll see a lot of other stuff piling up, too.
Oh, thank you, everyone.
We'll see you next time.
Shallow. Shallow.
Shallow. What are you doing?
I had so much crust left over from that pizza to see.
