Suffolk County District Attorney discusses arrest in Gilgo Beach murder case

good afternoon ladies and gentlemen thank you all for coming you know I'm standing here with my law enforcement Partners in the Gilgo task force to announce the indictment of defendant Rex Andrew Herman 59 years of age he's been arrested by the Suffolk County Police Department's homicide detectives and he's been indicted in a grand jury present a presentation by the Suffolk County District Attorney's office for the murders of Melissa Bartholomew Megan Waterman and Amber Costello the investigation of Maureen Brandon Barnes is ongoing these young women went missing between July of 2007 and September of 2010 they were found in December of 2010 by the Suffolk County Police Department and then there was nothing absolutely nothing for their for the next 13 years their cases went unsolved until today when I took office in January of 2022 I made Gilgo a priority I made yoga a priority before I took office I met with the victims families uh some of whom I'm proud to have standing with us today and I told them that we were going to handle this case differently we were going to do it differently and that when I showed up you weren't going to see me calling the media and being on Gilgo Beach with a giant uh unifying lens looking for Clues 12 years after the case what I was going to do was I was going to work with my task force on this task force and we were going to work together and we were going to we were going to use the grand jury the power of the grand jury to cut to to reach a determination in this case because the grand jury has two things it has power it has reach you can obtain documents you could interview Witnesses but the other thing that the grand jury has the grand jury has secrecy no one knows what you do when you operate a grand jury proceeding and we knew that when we were investigating this case and it when we dealt with the media or whatever it was we were doing um we were we were playing uh before a party of one because we knew uh the person responsible for these murders would be looking at us so we were very careful uh how we we handled the investigation we maintained the Integrity of the investigation uh most importantly most importantly of all we maintain the secrecy of that investigation and I think that's uh that's paid dividends as we've seen today now um I you know I I I think that uh you know when we had the uh the task force uh the first thing we did got together with uh um Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison uh we formed the task force our first meeting uh was February February 1st of 2022. uh and what we did what all of the agencies here we made the commitment we were going to take our talented our most talented investigators so in the district attorney's office we took uh uh Ada's myself included we took analysts we took detective investigators and they worked on a daily basis with other talented investigators from all of the agencies here um and uh we started that in February 1st in 2022 six weeks later on March 14th 2022 the name Rex Yurman was first mentioned as a suspect in the Gilgo case a New York state investigator was able to uh to identify him in a database uh and from that point on we use the power of the grand jury over 300 subpoenas and search warrants uh looking into this this individual's background to bring us to this day so I'm I am uh I'm proud I I know that this case is over but I'm proud of what we've accomplished up to this point I know we have more to accomplish but I'm also uh thankful thankful for the partnership of of the task force because certainly without the participation of the task force we wouldn't be standing here um you know before I I you know I thank some some folks and and turn it over to uh to uh our our partners I just want to talk a little bit about the the evidence in the case uh I know a lot of people know about the case as I indicated uh the uh the victims went missing between July of 2010 and September uh I'm sorry July of 2007 and uh September of 2010 uh and uh in December of 2010 they were uh their their bodies were recovered uh they were buried in a similar fashion in a similar location um uh in in a similar way all the women were petite uh they were um they all did the same thing for a living uh they all advertise the same way uh and they were uh immediately there were similarities with regard uh to the to the uh the crime scenes uh all the women's all the women were bound at the head uh at the midsection uh or at the chest and later at the legs um the other thing I think that that um uh was was that's been talked about in the uh in the media was they were Bound by um burlap uh me uh that has taken a life of its own in the media and the burlap has has been described or thought to be uh the burlap that's used at a nursery for uh that's not the burlap that was used in this case the burlap is it was camouflage burlap uh used for duck blinds of hunting um uh so uh obviously it it was used to hide uh purposely hide the bodies um one thing that became immediately apparent uh was at the time of the of each of the murders uh the murderer the the defendant human uh he got a uh you got a cell phone uh and a burner phone which uh which is prepaid and Anonymous and for each of the murders he got an individual burner phone and he used that to communicate with the victims uh then shortly after uh the death of the victims uh he then would uh would get rid of the burner foam uh and uh right away in December of 2012 uh FBI uh cast analysts uh special agents with the cast unit of the FBI they immediately began looking at that sell site uh uh data they've compared the victims phones with uh with the burner phones and they immediately honed in on some some similarities specifically uh in the Massapequa Park area and they looked at the an area of a Confluence of four cell towers uh and they realized that this was had a significance because uh the the uh perpetrator of these crimes was probably located within this area uh during at or around the times of the murder and that was mapped out that was called the box and it was an area uh in Massapequa Park the FBI also managed to do that for an area in mid Midtown Manhattan um and so that was that was an investigative lead the other uh investigative lead at the time was even though there was a significant amount of time that elapsed with regard to uh before the the uh the victims were recovered there was some uh some significant evidence recovered uh specifically there was a uh um hair recovered from Maureen Brainerd Barnes for a belt buckle that was around her legs uh there uh with regard to Megan Waterman uh there were three hairs recovered um uh from from her uh one uh from around her head area one from around her her leg area in the burlap and then there was one caught in between the tape uh and uh that was recovered uh amber costell also had a hair a significant hair that was recovered uh during the time uh during the time of the recovery but uh again uh the crime scene because it was out there for so long and because uh it was exposed to the elements uh those hairs were degraded so you couldn't use traditional DNA um analysis on it you would uh you would have to wait uh and use mitochondrial DNA and back in 2010 the technology wasn't there for mitochondrial DNA so the investigation proceeded but also technology preceded as well uh and then in January and February of 2022 we've we've formed the task force we began working uh collectively uh and then a mere six weeks later on March 14 2022 Rex yerman was identified for the first time uh and the manner in which that was done was uh the New York State investigator looked at a database uh amber Costello the day before her uh disappearance on September 1st uh 2010 uh she uh uh she met with an individual for the purposes of of having him pay her money uh for for her Services um but she uh she would involve she involved herself in a ruse where once the the individual gave her uh gave her money and uh other individuals came into the the house pretended to be a significant others confronted the individual uh with the purpose of of making that individual uncomfortable having him leave without retrieving his money and that's exactly what happened uh so uh that individual was identified as as a person who was between six four and six six uh a a large man thickly built not necessarily overly muscular but just a naturally a big person with glasses white uh and and dark hair uh also of significance was um that the fact that he was driving a dark colored black uh uh first uh a first generation Chevrolet Avalanche with a a very uh unique feature that was between the it's a pickup truck so it was between the cab and the bed and that was identified again that was back uh in uh 2010. uh but it wasn't until uh March of of 2022 uh that that database uh was by was was this was searched uh by the the task force uh and this individual uh uh was was identified uh that I uh that individual was uh Rex Sherman the defendant and right away there was some commonalities that came right to the four Rex German 6-4 largely uh a large person not necessarily uh muscular but a very uh physically large person uh he has glasses uh he has he has that the dark hair and also a particular note he owned at the time that first generation Chevy Avalanche there was more uh he lived at 105 First Avenue which was located within that box area that the FBI first uh discovered in in 2012. uh but there was more uh also he worked at the time at an architect as an art and uh he owned his own architectural firm uh at an address at 19 West 36th Street in Midnight Midtown Manhattan and that was also the area of interest that was identified by the FBI in 2012. again that was March 14 2022. uh and from that point on our po our partners and my office we use the grand jury to continue to investigate and we executed over 300 subpoenas search warrants pertaining to this individual to find out more information uh one of the things that we did is we followed him because we wanted to get an abandonment sample of his DNA which we were able to do uh we also got uh DNA samples abandonment samples from his family and then we went back and we got mitochondrial DNA testing and with regard to um you know and you know uh there's an inch there's a an aspect of New York state law that doesn't allow me to talk about uh DNA testing uh specifically at press conferences it's um so I can't do that however at the um at the uh arraignment and also when we filed our bail letter we talked about the significance of that uh evidence so if anyone needs to see that but but uh suffice to say uh that evidence was was significant uh especially with regard to uh the other evidence that we had developed but it was uh there was uh another interesting aspect we looked at the yerman Family Travel records and we learned that during the murders of uh the last three women um Bartholome Waterman and Costello that during the commission of those murders the the uh the defendant's wife and children were were out of New York State and he was alone in the tri-state area uh we also went back and looked at his cell site records and we were we we compared his personal cell site records with that of the four Target phones and we saw that there was areas of commonality in other words that whenever the the Target phones would uh would would bounce off a cell tower if if the uh German uh personal phone uh bounced off a a tower it was always consistent and in close proximity uh with the Target phones and at no time was there ever an instant where those Target phones were for instance in New Jersey while uh the defendant was was on Long Island so that was completely um uh consistent the other thing that we looked at was uh we looked at his use of burner phones uh and we we followed using the grand jury using the great investigative help from our partners we followed his use of burner phones we were able to identify seven separate burner phones that he used we were able to use fictitious or fraudulent email addresses and get Google warrants and from there we got his searches uh and we learned uh what we what uh the individ of what the defendant was searching uh in a 14-month period he had over 200 searches pertaining to uh the Gilgo investigation uh not only without uh was he looking at uh investigative Insight uh he was looking trying to figure out how is the Task Force using cell phones to try to figure out what's happening what are the developments with regard to the task force and this uh this really um um supported our decision to keep our investigative Focus secret because we knew that this one person would be watching and we didn't want to give him uh any insight into what we were doing and we also didn't want him to know just how close we were getting so we maintained the the grand jury secrecy we maintain the Integrity of our investigation uh in addition to those those uh um Gilgo searches he was searching compulsively searching pictures of the victims but not only pictures of the victims pictures of their uh their uh relatives their their their sisters uh their children and he was trying to locate those individuals in addition to that there was a lot of torture uh porn and and uh um what you would consider uh you know uh um depictions of women uh being abused uh being raped and being killed in addition to all of that we continue to look uh and uh we uh were able to uh determine uh that that Chevy Avalanche that was used during the commission of the Amber Costello crime uh that Chevy Avalanche was in South Carolina and again with the help of our uh Partners uh we were able to capture uh we were able to seize that uh Chevy Avalanche pursuant to a search warrant and was certainly going to analyze that in addition to that uh pursuant to the arrest of the defendant last night by the Suffolk County uh police department we we obtained one of his burner Thrones his last burner phones uh the investigate as I said the this case is not over it's only beginning we're continuing to execute search warrants and we anticipate getting more evidence uh before I I turn it over to my partners I I wanna I Wanna Thank A lot of people in the room first and foremost I want to thank the victims in this case you know it's always inspiring as a prosecutor when you get to meet uh the victims uh and while sometimes our defendants could embody the very worst of humanity it seems that invariably our victims embody the very best of what it means uh to be human and in this case it was no no different I've gotten to know the families and I'm inspired by them and I'm impressed by their patients uh and by their their dogged uh persistence and not only supporting uh their their lost uh sisters or or or or mother uh or or daughter but also really uh you know freely standing for victims everywhere so I I wanna I wanna I wanna thank them all uh so much uh and I want to let them know that we're going to continue to work this case um the next thing I want to do I just want to thank I want to thank our partners I want to thank uh Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison um you know we said it was a change and when we talked about you know not going before the media if you see um you know Rodney did go before the media uh but it was always in a very controlled Manner and it was always with the controlled purpose again we did that because we knew we were playing before a an audience of one person uh and so I want to thank Rodney for his partnership uh most importantly I want to thank Rodney for his Integrity I think in the past what the reason why uh uh these various investigations fell short was because there was a lot of outside influence a lot of people who had nothing to do with the investigation nothing to do with the um uh the the investigation or any of the agencies that were actually handling the investigation they still asserted pressure on those investigations that did not happen with our task force our task force was was run by our members and we did uh what we thought was in the best uh the best investigative steps and what was in the best interest of the of the investigation so I want to thank Rodney for that uh and his whole team I I know that we have Suffolk County homicide here Kevin Beyer uh we we've got inspector Rowan and I know that they've been around and I know that they're here and I know that they stand in the shoes of their past investigators and I want to congratulate them and I want to thank them for their partnership I also want to thank uh Sheriff Errol Toulon everything I said about uh Rodney I could say about Errol uh Errol uh is an unbelievable partner he was an unbelievable partner in this case uh during the dependency of this case and one of the reasons why we we had to take this case down was we learned that the defendant was using these alternate uh um identities and these alternate instruments to continue to patronize sex workers which of course made us very nervous uh but with with the help of of um the sheriff and his database and his analysts we were able to continually uh stay uh one uh one step ahead of the defendant so so thank you uh Sheriff Toulon I want to thank um the FBI I know um assistant director in charge Michael brodak is here I want to thank his entire team you know when you have the FBI not only do you have tremendous resources uh and insight uh whether it's the behavioral sciences unit whether it's cast uh whether it's cart which is their computer unit but you also have the ability to seize a car in South Carolina I can't seize a car in South Carolina without the FBI so so thank you for that uh and thank you for your partnership and thank you for for for your willingness uh to work with us I want to I want to thank the New York state troopers uh I know major yudice is here and his team uh you know uh this case is is emblematic of of great cooperation but we always get that same level of cooperation from the state police no matter what uh case we're working so I want to thank them their investigators did a great uh um did great work on this job and uh in this case and we couldn't have done it without them lastly I want to thank Nassau County Police Commissioner Pat Ryder I don't know if he's here did he make it um you know this this case as I said spans you know 13 years and during that time um you know Pat Ryder has been our neighbor to the west when it started I think he was a sergeant uh detective Sergeant maybe uh uniform Sergeant but whatever whenever we needed something to be done or whenever the task force needs uh something to be done uh Pat Ryder would do it and he would do it quietly without much fanfare and we know he would keep the confidentiality of our grand jury and our investigation so I want to thank him for that um and with that I will turn it over to uh commissioner Rodney Harrison it's good afternoon today is a good day and before I acknowledge the individuals that had a role in get into this place I would first and foremost like to offer my deepest condolences to the family members to the family members of Amber Costello Melissa barthelemy Gan Waterman I Can Only Imagine what you had to adore over the last decade regarding knowing that your killer was still loose God bless you thank you thank you for your patience so I've I've had the privilege of being the police Commissioners nearly about two years now and I have had that investigative experience in NYPD as a detective as the chief of detectives and when I was going through the process of being the police commissioner my engagement with the county executive was I was very familiar with this unfortunate homicide homicides and I wanted to let it be known that this was going to be our number one priority but I also want to make this very clear that this arrest was made by the investigators assigned to the task force I announced during a press conference 18 months ago about a new team effort that was going to investigate the homicide and that was going to consist of people from attorney's office from Mike Braddock FBI Mike thank you so much State Police Steve appreciate your support Dr Earl Salon Jr thank you sir as well as the investigators from the homicide detectives in Suffolk County gentlemen thank you for all you've done working together with us making sure we are here today I also want to thank my partner Pat Ryder Pat good seeing you man and uh former NYPD police commissioner Keyshawn Sewell for providing resources to assist in the investigation that brought us here today so one of my first acts was to survey the scene when I first got assigned as a police commissioner me and Kevin Breyer went over to Gilgo Beach I want to thank heaven you know when I first met Kevin he broke the whole case down and where we stood he knew the case like the back of his hand he worked tirelessly in his case uh Kev was in charge of overseeing the task force since his creation and you did a phenomenal Jack Kev thank you so it is something that I learned from a former NYPD police commissioner James O'Neill which is in order to fight crime or to solve investigations you have to make sure you're working with your law enforcement partners the blueprint in making this arrest was a whole team effort everybody left their egos at the door and made sure that they brought the knowledge and the resources to this investigation fresh eyes on his case and the resiliency of our investigators allowed us to identify Rex Herriman ladies and gentlemen Rex Sherman is a demon that walks Among Us a predator that ruined families and not for the members of this task force he would still be on the streets today however even with this arrest we're not done there's more work to do in this investigation regarding the other victims of the Gilgo Beach Bodies that were discovered I'm going to encourage anybody that still has information call our Crime Stoppers hotline [phone]-tips I want to recognize and thank my chief of detectives John thank you for your great work Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Carter both of you who provided update information regarding the case and let it be known if there was any resources that they needed that you brought it to my attention since the discovery of the first victim it's been a lot of scrutiny and criticism regarding how this investigation was handled I will tell you this the investigators were never discouraged they continued and and uncovered evidence and followed the leads they never stop working and will continue to work tirelessly until we bring justice to all the families involved last but not least I want to thank my predecessors they came before me the work that they did I want to thank them for really laying the foundation that helped us get to here today thanks man thank you good afternoon my name is Michael brodak I'm the FBI special agent in charge of the New York office's Criminal Division the FBI expanded its full set of resources in support of our local and state Partners to advance this investigation the charges show that we can overcome the most difficult challenges when federal state and local law enforcement work together under one task force while nothing can fill the void caused by the loss of a loved one through today's announcement we are hopeful that the families of the victims begin to experience a sense of peace closure and justice and at the general public feels safer knowing that an alleged killer is no longer roaming free the actions taken today should serve as a reminder that the FBI along with our law enforcement Partners will continue to be Resolute in our determination to bring all offenders to Justice no matter how many years has passed I would like to thank Suffolk County district attorney Ray Tierney and his prosecution Team Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison and the Suffolk County Police Department the New York State Police and the investigators and staff of the FBI New York field office including the Long Island violent crime task force thank you good afternoon my name is Dr Earl D Toulon Jr and I'm the sheriff of Suffolk County I would profoundly like to thank the district attorney and the police commissioner for including me not only here today but for including the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office and recognizing the importance of jail intelligence is extremely important when you realize that we created our human trafficking unit in 2018 that there are victims in our community and that intelligence is being shared by many of the men and women who are incarcerated today and we have seen many disjointed investigations occur and leading up to the leadership of these two men have really brought everything together I am proud that today we stand here a little bit closer to Bringing closure to the families and extend my deepest condolences to all of you because of the nature of this case and recognizing that human trafficking and Corrections intelligence is so important we realize that there are many other cases that are going on that will we will help to solve going forward so I thank my intelligence staff and team that are here today for the diligence and their work while we did our part in this investigation we continue because we have to house this individual we have already designated uh or talked about certain locations where we will house them and in addition the security measures we will Implement in our facility uh to make sure that this individual is brought to Justice the way he should be thank you very much and have a good day good afternoon uh I'm Colonel Richard Allen the field commander with the state police and I want to start by expressing my sincere condolences to the family members that are here today although losing a loved one you can never completely get rid of that pain but hopefully these steps that are taken here today are a step in the right direction for you to start in the healing process or work through the healing process I want to thank the members of the task force all the agencies you see behind me when we were approached in 2022 to be part of this task force we were fully engaged I'm glad to be part of this and we we assign investigators on a full-time basis you know what you see um being done here today is the end game of agencies working together as it was said before with no egos all egos put aside with the sole mission to find Justice for these victims you know um here in troopel major Steven yudis oversees the operations down here he has been intricately involved in this task force since we became partners with it and I'm going to ask him to come up and say a few words or expand upon this a little bit of our role in the task force thank you thank you colonel good afternoon I'm major Steve eutis New York State Police Troop L Long Island troop Commander I'd like to take this opportunity to start off by acknowledging the D.A Ray Tierney and commissioner Rodney Harrison for having the vision to see that forming a task force might breed new light into this investigation the state police were asked in early 2022 to join this task force and once requested we were more than willing to do so we were also very pleased that we were able to make some very meaningful contributions in this case to help Propel it forward I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of the task force members from the different agencies and congratulate them on a job well done I think this case represents an example of what we as law enforcement can do when we pool our resources together and we work together I would also like to mention the state police member assigned to this task force you were provided with a mission and that mission was to participate in this task force put everything else that you were doing aside assume Place 100 percent of your attention on this case and help push this case forward you more than accomplish that mission I congratulate you on a job well done and I commend you for your outstanding work to the families I'd like to say that on my behalf of myself and the New York State Police we offer you our deepest condolences we recognize that these crimes may have happened years ago but that pain continues our hope is that this development today provides you with some relief and some comfort knowing that the person responsible for the for your loved one's death is now being held accountable and he's no longer a threat to anyone else in society I want you to know additionally that the state police is not done here we are remaining committed and will continue to support the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office the Suffolk County Police Department and this task force as we move into the next phase of this process that's the prosecution I would also like to say something to everyone watching this with us today there's been a lot of discussion here today about charges about the suspect about what happened but I would also like everybody to take the time to join with me and keep the families of the victims and the victims themselves in your thoughts and in your prayers each one of these victims was a family member and a loved one and their void and their loss caused Great pain and they did not deserve this nobody is deserving of this we hope this development today will bring some comfort to them as they move forward thank you does anybody have any questions you know sure before I do that I just you know I'm standing back I realized I didn't thank my own team um so uh so I I want to thank uh I want to thank my chief investigator Richards uh who is uh without uh I am so lucky to have I want to thank uh Nick Santa Martino Ada Nick Santa Martino on Ada Michelle Haddad Ada uh Andrew Lee I also want to thank my chief uh assistant uh uh Alan Bodie and I want to thank all of the incredible incredible analysts uh that we have working for us at the Suffolk County DA's office so uh having said that I'll not answering your question um so uh you know I think that there was attention in in the task force and it was it was a it was a good tension uh because you know there's a tension between getting the the evidence necessary to charge somebody but also keeping the public safe and that's the tension that we always deal with uh so as we were working forward we were and and you know we had uh Suffolk County PD we had the FBI surveilling the defendant obviously that can't be all the time uh but we were you know we were reasonably assured with that but this individual was was was a person that continued to patronize sex workers at all hours of the night uh he continued to use fictitious um email addresses fictitious identities burner phones and so as we we worked through the case and we got closer and closer all of a sudden and we built the evidence suddenly the balance tips uh in favor of of Public Safety so uh you know I think we we wanted we all wanted as a task force to continue it but I think collectively we felt that it was time uh to to you know to strike that balance and and to take him off the street so that's what we did I I don't believe they uh does that does anyone anybody want to say anything no they're they're here they're there I could tell you they're the watermen uh uh Bartholomew and Brainerd Barnes family members but uh they're here uh they're here first and foremost to support uh their loved ones and we're we're happy and grateful I have them here are multiple people responsible for the remains for the murders the uh this this portion had to deal with the deaths of these four young women uh and that's what we focused on that was what the grand jury investigation was focused on I talked about the commonalities uh and the commonalities uh all those commonalities that we talked to were unique to these uh four separate cases uh so that's what we're working on I think the other members of the task force said you know we're going to continue uh you know and continue to work and investigate and try to get a small measure of closure for all the victims families but for right now uh this defendant uh it's this defendant with these these these uh these four victims um I'm I'm here to talk about uh what we did with regard to these four victims and as I I opened my my um my ad address by talking about the need to maintain uh investigative secrecy so we are going to maintain that investigative secrecy and when I talk about other individuals and other cases it will be after they have uh they have handcuffs on New York State officer made the link with her many look at data and that's when Herman came up shortly after the passport the uh so I mean you know we talked about uh we talked about you know some of the evidence that was there uh you know obviously the cast that's uh that phone evidence uh was was was great evidence um and then there were other commonalities there were other investing investigations but I think one of the good things about having a task force is basically you strip it all down uh and you start from scratch and then you use the DA's office because the DA's office has to get you uh light the lifeblood of of an investigation is information and the way you get information on a cold case is the District Attorney's Office issues subpoenas in conjunction with the investigators and execute search warrants again in conjunction with the with the um uh the investigators and then you then you mine all that data and then and then you let that data take you where you need to go so that's what we did in this case and six weeks in uh the uh the break in the case a significant break in the case was was the uh was the Avalanche and the fact that this guy uh you know he was described by witness as an ogre he he matched the description of the ogre and where he lived well I mean it was it was a lot of things right it was it was it was his uh physical size it was his uh where he lived where he worked uh the fact that his uh family members were out of the country at the time of the commission of the three murders uh the fact that um he he now then you start looking into him and then you start getting burner phones well he has uh did we had up to seven burner phones he's using these fictitious email addresses um so then so then you you follow him and you get an abandonment sample then you go back to some of the old evidence so it's you know there there are there are I mean March 14th uh 2022 was a huge day for the task force but uh you know it's it's never one piece of evidence well there's I mean there's there's like that what they'll call Lawman searches and basically what it is is you run a certain make model of a car and certain other you know where you live or what you do for a living and then you get data and then you mine that data for something that would would uh match with uh with your uh with your case and you do that you don't do that just you know you do that a hundred times you know until until it hits until you get the right data points suspect say anything when he was arrested cries did he admit to those murderers so we can't we can talk about um we can't talk about ethically in New York you can't talk about any statements the defendant made but he uh you know he made we're not turning over any statements uh um I would say he was yes yeah so that in between the in between the bed and the and the and the the cab there's like a little triangular uh uh um ornament almost and it's it's Unique in the way it's configured it's Unique to to the Avalanche it was unique to the Avalanche at that time and that was something that was pointed out by by Witnesses well you know the investigation is is continuing and I would never say never um and we're going to continue to look at again now this is a watershed event in the in in this case uh and so we've now uh all going out and we're we're executing more search warrants we'll get more information more data and you know together uh we'll look at that and see where it leads feeling today today I'm sorry which uh so so this investigation had to do with um uh these these four victims so we've been in touch with the four victims through the grand jury uh process um with regard to victims in general and and other victims uh you know who lost people in the vicinity of that area you know we speak uh to to our victims all the time but that that's those are conversations that we keep between ourselves so uh you know it's um uh so first off Maureen brainer Barnes she the the other uh three one uh one was was uh was went uh Missing in 2009 uh I believe the others in 2010 um she was in 2007 so it was it was a little bit more remote in time uh we are um we are uh working through evidence a lot of that evidence has to do with forensic evidence uh and analyzes that are not completed uh but once those analyzes are completed uh we are we are we feel good about the case and we're going to just continue to let that process go and again I think the the the the um initial plan was to allow the grand jury investigation to go a little further but at a certain time again the task force felt you know we need to uh we we for for for reasons having nothing to do with the evidence in the case we need to take it down um you know he's uh you know it's it's it's um as a prosecutor and as investigators you know he is charged with a crime uh there are certain Elements which we we need to prove that crime we are going to prove those elements we're going to work hard we're going to convict him and we're going to hold uh him responsible for what he did and whether you know what I think of him personally whether I like him whether I don't like him whether I doesn't matter we are going to hold him responsible for what he did in this case um the grand jury is um it's a secret uh and we're going to keep it secret um but we have an investigation and it is continuing publicly by the Suffolk County Police Department a few years ago with initials on it I did one of the initials appeared BMW wh or wh or something obviously this guy's got an ancient his name sure does I mean uh you know he has an H in his name he is uh so it's what was it hm or wh yeah so he's got an H in his name and other um other relatives in his family have a w in their name what that means I don't know you talk about a legend why who's motive I um I think that when you look at his uh internet searches um you know I think that um provides a little uh in insight into his state of mind and again we don't have to probe motive we have to prove the elements and that's what we're going to do well uh you know you you uh you know you said woman um you know with regard to the sex workers what we did was uh we we had him under surveillance uh we had other means of monitoring him uh and again it's uh it's a um it's a process and and that process is you have to balance uh the ability to to prove to find enough evidence to charge them and hold them responsible with the balance of keeping the public safe uh and it's it's not easy uh and we decided at a certain point in time that the you know that we needed to take them down because we didn't feel comfortable with it so that's what we did um I don't think it was so much uh I don't I don't think it was so much uh the searches I think I think that the conduct of the defendant was was very consistent I think but uh the the quality of our evidence was increasing uh by the by the by the day by the moment uh due to the great work of our task force uh uh Partners so at a certain point of time we're like okay uh you know we can we can do this murder weapon or was it solved by physical uh the uh the um I believe the the cause of death is homicidal violence obviously uh given the length of time and and and the exposure to a very harsh environment uh forensically their their uh was not uh you know not a lot that that could be done with with the remains other than uh come to that conclusion he has uh he has uh he has uh uh permits for 92 guns he has a very large safe in which guns are kept uh we are uh continuing to um execute search warrants so I'm sure we'll have that uh answer shortly I'm sorry lost known to commit a prime in 2010 and in 2013. the passport is up in 2022 that's quite a large gap is there any concern I think there's I think there's there's always concerns I think you know we I I got into office in January 22. uh we worked with our partners we we had our first meeting uh February 1st uh and we worked and and you know March 14th was really that Watershed day and when I tell you you know I'd like to brag and say that my office was really working hard which we were uh but no other agency was working any less hard than we were once we realized what we had and we realized the stakes all of our partnership uh all of our partners really worked uh I mean I I think if you look at at the folks standing here uh I don't think that you know in the last 48 hours any of us have gotten more than three hours sleep Barnes the much more Beauty attacks in time into that uh we are going to continue our investigation and when we are prepared when we have concluded that investigation uh we will uh you know we will will bring that uh to a conclusion but we will not do it before all right thank you you have one more okay between all the search warrants and the subpoenas were you ever like do you ever think that you're going to lose them you know reading between all of the searching around and stuff you know I don't want to tell you you know exact uh investigative techniques because they're you know again part of the reasons why they're um effective is because people don't necessarily know what that uh what what it is exactly we do but uh always a concern but given the professionalism of our partners uh their diligence and their commitment uh we felt good about about the case or keeping the case going until we didn't and then we took it down thank you thanks guys

Channel: WFLA News Channel 8

Views: 7,631

Keywords: wflatampa, wflanews, wflatampanews

Id: mSw5QKSPSj8

Length: 53min 57sec (3237 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023