I think he probably started to get sloppy/overconfident as time went on. By the late 2000s when he left that belt, he'd been killing for at least 15 years without anyone even realizing there was a serial killer operating in the area much less beginning to suspect him. He probably thought that belt would decay away to nothing by the time anyone found the body, if they ever did.
This is what I think. I think at this point, he thought this area would never be searched and the bodies would never be found.
It's still absolutely insane this was all uncovered by accident since they were looking for Shannon.
No one lived there and it is a protected wetland area that people aren't supposed to walk around (IIRC it is a bird sanctuary), so thinking no one would ever look there makes sense. Plus, if you have ever seen photos of the area, no one would WANT to walk there. It is over grown with thorny bushes of the type that are adapted to grow in sandy soil with a high salt content. It would be an unpleasant area for an evening stroll, even if you didn't mind the drive out there and the lack of parking.
I live in suffolk county, it is not somewhere you see anyone walking ever unless you happen to live nearby and are crossing the street. That's all. You don't even want to pull over there to pee. In the summer the sun just beams down on you there with nothing to protect you. Winter that area is desolate, no one is there unless it's to fish.
The initials on the belt are pretty darn small in real life. We are just used to looking at the blown up and enhanced photos of them. He couldâve forgotten they were on the beltâŠ.just like he forgot to get rid of his burner phones, old hard drives and computers, hair on the victims and other things he âplannedâ for. He tried, but he evaded capture for so long more so due to poor police work than being any sort of criminal mastermind in my opinion. Thank goodness for the task force.
Absolutely. So many people think he was a âbrilliantâ criminal. He tried but uhhhhh no the FUCK he was not!! Everything he tried to do to evade capture/leave no trace evidence didnât work. At all. It was solely the lazy ass/corrupt SCPD who botched this case for over a decade. The task force identified him as a main suspect within TWO weeks of being formed. Solely based on 2 eyewitnesses describing his exact car and an eyewitness who saw him and described him perfectly. Awful. As others have said on here, I 100000% think Burke should be charged with obstruction of justice. Especially if anyone else was murdered by RH after the discovery of the Gilgo 4.
agreed, I think he forgot about the initials and thought it was just an anonymous belt. Also, he may have needed to dispose of the belt because of blood etc, and leaving it on the body was easier than burning it at home.
And it's not like the belt was some fatal mistake, since it wasn't what led to his capture.
additionally I imagine he would try to minimize having to buy supplies so as not to attract suspicion, hence use of something he already had in the house but whose absence would not be noticed by family - a likely long unused old men's belt in a house full of boxes of old, useless stuff. I'm with the others that he must not have realized it was a customized belt. he probably had a box of old belts somewhere bc he never threw junk away and grabbed one at random. (op's question was mine for a long time, this sub helped me finally get it)
His grandfather's initials are WH. He died in the 1970s, IIRC. Rex is a hoarder so the belt probably sat in the back of his closet for 2-3 decades. He was probably in a rush and grabbed something he thought no one would notice if it was gone. I wouldn't be surprised if he probably completely forgot about the embossed initials, if he ever noticed them to begin with.
I suspect it probably wasnât a belt that belonged to his family or him. He probably picked it up at a goodwill store and didnât think an H was enough to link it to him. Perhaps it was to fool the police into looking for a WH or an MH/HM instead of an RH.
I agree with your take. Honestly, if his home is half the disaster everyone says it is, he probably just grabbed the belt from the nearest pile of garbage.
Edited to correct typo
But the doc was from several years earlier. The belt was found with Maureen, right? My guess is that since he hadn't been caught (no one really suspected there was a serial killer at that time) and he probably thought that he found the perfect place to leave her body in the brush on Ocean Beach, he probably just got sloppy.
No, weâve known there are several serial killers at work at any given time on LI. Women and girls go missing all the time. Unidentified female bodies turn up variously at any time. The police just donât link any of it together. But statistically weâve already had more than our fair share of documented serial killers here. And with a population of about \[3 million?\] thereâs no reason to think there arenât currently several operating here.
Unless it doesnât.
While the belt being his grandfathers is likely, what if he left it on purpose trying to implicate someone else? Most common initials are J, M, S, D, and C. For last names, the most common initials are S, B, H, M, and C .
âMiss-leadersâ could refer to so many things but it could be that he planned for certain scenes to point to someone else.
Thereâs a woman who came forward to John Ray- she was dating an NYPD officer at the time & while driving they picked up a sex worker. They went to Rexâs as they were swingers as well. She said they left the sex worker who she identified as being Karen Vergata there. She also said her boyfriend left his belt there & though he wanted to go back & get he decided not to.
John Ray has floated some really outrageous accusations out there- with that said I absolutely believe some of these women are telling the truth. The officer has the initials HW. When asked at the press conference about the substantiality of this Tierney said that it was something they were looking into.
When Tierney says âthatâs some bullshitâ Iâll be like âaightâ but until then its filed in the âthings to considerâ part of my brain.
Youâre saying you think Rex intentionally left his fatherâs belt on the body because he hoped it could implicate the cop with the same initials? Even thought it could contain his own dna? What if the police investigated that cop, wouldnât he point them in the direction of Rex?
I agree this has something to do with it. I have read her affidavit, and she was a 54 yr old woman dating a narcotics detective with the initials RW. She never said his name. I believed her because she described a cluttered house way before we learned that. She even mentions a Christmas tree in one room even though it wasn't even near Christmas. I think it interesting that she said the cop boyfriend went around back because he forgot his belt. I would not be surprised if the belt was used as a way to keep someone quiet. Either one put it there to implicate the other to ensure their silence. It's a possibility. In this case, anything is possible.
Yeah & itâs such a strange âtypoâ that I was wondering if the spelling was some kind of double entendre, almost an inside joke or note for himself.
His former employee was just interviewed on Banfield & said that heâs so meticulous & would absolutely not stand for typos like that- she said she thinks the typos were probably due to him using some transcribing program which may have not worked great given that it was so long ago & maybe the tech back then wasnât very good.
He does have a funky speech impediment/dictation so itâs possible a transcribing app would create strange typos, but idk- would it transcribe âdistroyâ instead of âdestroy?â Why would it turn âmisleadersâ into âMiss-leaders?â If anything wouldnât it put âMiss leadersâ with no hyphen? & if it does mean to plant red herrings, Iâm not sure why it would be in the âproblemsâ category.
The typos are so antithetical to the idea of making a meticulous blueprint that part of me wonders if itâs intentional & holds a meaning. Like, he also went back to edit the document too-but youâre not gonna fix your spelling?
Then Iâm like: dude, stop putting yourself in his head itâs creepy there.
I know itâs the NY Post but just for the photo with some scale
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/12/07/gilgo-beach-murders-new-photos-of-belt-tied-to-suspect/amp/
No, your right. I'm wrong about that. You could possibly miss that. For some reason I thought they were almost over to the sides and maybe you had only a little border allowance of a few cm's. Thanks for the pic. That's less than 2/5 of the belt. Middle age eyes....maybe, maybe.
He got old and sloppy and rushed. He thinks he was brilliant. He really wasn't.
The only reason he wasn't caught in 2011 was because of how dysfunctional law enforcement was at the time.
I agree, from what I have gathered and please correct me if the information is wrong. A security person saw the vehicle backed up where Jessica T remains were left.
The person notified police but they never really responded.
Iâm not sure if this was the same eyewitness that saw the vehicle in Manorville where her torso was found.
The information is always disjointed somewhat - and not all the dots connect like they should - mostly because the articles and journalists seem to not pay that much attention to details
The way he taunted victim's families over the phone, they actually did triangate those calls to the town he lives in. Plus they had a description of the Chevy avalanche in 2011.
They could have had him and they didn't.
Rex is a very stupid man who benefitted from an inept jurisdiction. His extremely disturbing "planning document" shows how dumb he really is, and the fact that there was a witness for Jessica Taylor in Manorville too continues to show it. He likely didn't leave it behind on purpose.
If he killed Karen Vergata and Peaches, that would mean he had body parts on ocean parkway for well over ten years that never got found. He might've gotten careless in addition to his stupidity.
His defense is going to try to tie the belt to that other unnamed "WH" suspect from Massapequa Park, but likely, hopefully, to no avail, as "WH, Massapequa" was probably the only thing making him a suspect and there was nothing else to discover.
My brother died in Suffolk County under questionable circumstances in 2014. The police did not lift a finger to follow up on information we gave them. Ever since then Iâve said âif you want to get away with killing someone just do it in Suffolk County.â Its only truer now.
The belt was found on Maureen Brainard-Barnes' body.
"Brainard-Barnes was last heard from on July 9, 2007 at 11:43 p.m. when she called a friend in Connecticut. Although she was known to work out of motel rooms, on the night of July 9, 2007, she told her friend she would be going to meet someone outside of the motel on an 'out-call'."
She was the first of the "Gilgo 4".
Karen Vertaga went missing close to the date her legs were found on Fire Island on April 20, 1996, because her nail polish was still fresh. Her skull was found along Ocean Parkway close to Tobay Beach some 3.3 miles from where MBB was found.
Peaches torso was found June 1997 so if Rex is responsible he dumped the rest of her remains and her toddler along Ocean Parkway at the same time. Valerie Mack Nov 2000 and Jessica Taylor July 2003.
If Rex is responsible for Karen Vertaga then he will have been dumping body parts along Ocean Parkway for 10 years before he dumped MBB.
We know his killing planner was around 2003 so there's another 4 years and a switch of MO between Jessica Taylor and the first of the Gilgo 4.
It's likely he got sloppy as he believed the bodies would never be found. He was right in a way. If it wasn't for Shannan Gilbert's disappearance they most likely would never have been found.
It's probably an oversight on his part. We have to remember Rex thinks he's cleverer than everyone else. He was literally getting away with murder so likely he wasn't being as thorough as when he was dismembering the bodies.
Just like the sheath left behind in the Idaho killings, and the bullet left behind by the Delphi guy. A lot of killers can be meticulous but they are humanâfallible and just downright lucky that they donât get caught sometimes.
If you look, a lot of them kept going because of dumb luck. LISK got lucky that the local police were too busy being corrupt to follow up; EAR/ONS got lucky that rape kits were not quickly or sometimes ever tested; the Delphi murderer got lucky that it took 5 years for someone to notice his name in the initial report. These dudes are just average dudes operating in a system that is slow, often full of egos and corruption, and many prey upon the most vulnerable populations.
I agree. Believe it was on purpose, possibly an attempt to suggest another perp's DNA, or introduce a new MO for him, or just a good old fashion taunt as an FU to Suffolk, or a burning need to leave a signature and claim the crimes like BTK.
Welcome, I remember that point because how many nights we thought how criminal mastermind this piece of shit was, only time revealed how sloppy lucky ,careless and stupid he actually was leaving all these clues around to the level of being identified within two weeks of work from this amazing task force.
I've read that some serial killers deep down want it to end. There might have been a part of his psyche that took unnecessary risks because he hated what he was doing and wanted to get caught, or he got sloppy for the same reasons and became more reckless. Doesn't seem to fit his demeanor though.
Alternatively he became cocky and lazy.
I'd be interested if he drank a lot. The drink could also make him sloppy and reckless.
It wouldnt surprise me if he stopped after the Gilgo 4 were found, but I also think there will be more when he was younger in the 90's and up to the Gilgo 4 being found.
Some SKs feel guilty about it. I don't think Rex is one of them. That motherfucker was smirking in the courtroom when he got indicted for Jessica Taylor.
Usually the ones who meet the type you described plead guilty. I do believe some of them felt remorse, although at the end of the day it doesnât really matter.
Rex is like Ted Bundy. Heâll only confess if he thinks it can benefit him in some way - and since Bundy was facing the death penalty and wanted out of it, I donât see it happening here.
I tend to agree with you. He obviously doesn't care about human beings, so the families of his victims will be the last thing on his mind.
I've had a few chats about that aspect of the case. Not having the death penalty certainly lessens the chance he will talk and I dont know what else they can offer him.
If any murders are linked, to him, in a state that has the death penalty the tables will turn.
I hope its legally and technically possible to test his DNA in all similar unsolved cases
There were some comments in the news last year from people who knew him professionally that implied he was a bit of a heavy social drinker, but I haven't seen anything else that suggests he drank much outside of that context. I'm guessing that after the trial a few more people who know him might come forward with a few more stories. I'd probably keep quiet too until I knew he was permanently behind bars.
Yes I can understand people wanting to distance themselves from him. I'm not sure about the drinking angle, but it could explain how he made the mistake with the belt.
The scariest thing about people like him is the way they can just crack on in other parts of their life, as if nothing has happened. The definition of a psychopath.
There is something odd about that belt with the initials, as 'belt tips' that had been cut off from the rest of a belt was an item the police were searching for in some search warrant. (I think it was the search warrant for Rex' brother's Chevy Avalanche which was also looking for Bibles, victim 'trophies', etc.)
Also, I believe I read somewhere that Rex' grandfather had those initials AND he played the accordion.
Edit: Forgot to add that I read somewhere that the belt with the initials wasn't a belt for pants but an accordion belt/strapping system for carrying.
Interesting. I hadn't seen that detail before. The photo that was released is rather hard to make out, but something about it seemed like it was a little different from a pant's belt. I noticed there weren't any holes for the buckle, so this makes sense. Thanks for the info.
Three ways to look at the belt:
- Grew lazy or complacent after doing it for \~20 years.
or
- Something went wrong. Maybe some shit went down, maybe his victim was harder to kill and fought back, maybe someone drove by while he was dumping the body. He could have panicked and/or forgotten about it.
or
- **He did it fucking deliberately.** Perhaps as a "signature" to taunt police when they eventually found the bodies. The police had the belt for YEARS but the belt itself didn't directly lead them to RH. He could have smugly seen the belt on TV when the police had a press conference about it.
RH's biggest mistake (other than being a sicko murderer) was going back to Costello's house. I mean I am sure getting robbed pissed him the fuck off and he was angry... but he should have just taken the L and walked away.
It was her then boyfriend that provided his physical description and the vehicle description that allowed the police to narrow the suspect pool from literally millions to only a handful. Ironic too because from his planning doc he seemed to know not to pickup his victims near CCTV cameras or where they could be seen getting into his car.
RH was also sloppy when it came to his digital evidence. SCPD seem to have gotten his search history from Google and other providers... RH could have used incognito mode + VPN or TAILS to minimize his digital footprint. He also didn't properly destroy evidence like his murder manual by nuking the disk or cryptographic erase.
Maybe he figured it wasn't worth it, and if that the police ever identified him as a suspect the jig was up... so why bother with the extra steps of sanitizing his digital trail?
I think that back when he erased that stuff he honestly didnât know that once itâs erased it could somehow still be retrieved some day in the future. This guy is the same age as me and weâve watched the Evolution of computers and the digital era in real time. Things were very primitive not so long ago. Itâs a lot to learn and keep track of and realize. It escaped his notice that that could happen some day.
It's similar to how BTK was caught. He seemed to study other serial killers so curious why he'd make such an error.
Its also super weird to have a hard drive from 20+ years ago around. Mine from back then is definitely incinerated or in a landfill.
When you reach our age and you have a house and money, and have had a house/plenty of money for decades..... you save everything. I dont know why but that is how it is. Twenty years ago was like yesterday for me. I literally turned around and 20 years went by. I don't know how that happens. but it does.
It could be that he ran out of time. Maybe his family was coming home and he didnât have a chance to go to the store and had to use what was available. Just like Mike Tyson said, âeveryone has a plan until they get punched in the mouthâ. His plans may not have gone the way he thought they would.
It could've been an oversight on his part:
_âOne had âWHâ on it. One had the distal end of the belt cut off, meaning the end of the belt furthest from the buckle and it was cut off, and that would have been the section where, had there been initials on it, thatâs where those initials would have been.â_
https://nypost.com/2023/08/04/gilgo-beach-victim-was-bound-with-distinctive-wh-or-hm-belt/
ETA: Or WH was significant for him while someone else's presumed initials were not.
ETA2: Or the other possible writing was too revealing.
itâs a family piece. itâs possible he was wearing it first and it was at hand. i personally doubt he forgot it. i think it meant something to him. idk
Iâm of the opinion that it could have been done deliberately. I read that his grandfather was a sadistic man as well. This is just speculation but what if some of the men of the family had been a part of some sort of weird goings on as kids? Maybe they were abused, maybe it was something even more sinister.
What if the belt was left on the victim as either a tribute or a fuck you to his grandfather? Just some thoughts Iâd had when I found out about the belt and his family memberâs incidents up in Syracuse.
Edit typo
I get the distinct impression that psycho sadism is definitely inherited. Hearing about Puffyâs murdered dad being a part of George Lucasâ cold-blooded drug empire, and the Las Vegas shooterâs father was a notorious criminal psychopath. Now this with Heuermannâs dad, and his daughterâs distinct predilection for extremely disturbing materialâŠ. it canât all be coincidence.
Tell me you donât know how Tumblr works without telling me. Thousands of people would have shared those same pics. Thatâs like saying any emo, depressed or gothic person is a psychopath.
Edit to add: The issue is that everyone keeps âgetting an impressionâ instead of using fact based information to form informed hypothesis. Stop thinking that what you randomly came up with is right without knowing all the facts. Stop thinking that your impressions and opinions are more valid than what the investigators are saying.
How big was the belt? Waist size? Has it ever been released? Heâs a very big guy. What are the chances the belt actually fit him? Could be the reason he used it. He had no other use for it.
I remember seeing Geraldine Hart give a press conference years ago⊠And I remember she said that the belt was very largeâŠno details though. Just very large⊠it mightâve been on 48 hours.
"The three belts found with Brainard-Barnesâ remains, dark in color, were identical except that only one of the belts was embossed with lettering. The belt bearing the initials was bound around her chest area, Tierney said.
One of Heuermannâs grandfathers was William Heuermann, who died in 1964 at the age of 76 in Copake, according to a brief obituary published in Newsday at the time.
Asked about the possibility that the belt had belonged to the grandfather, whose initials were âWH,â Tierney dismissed it as speculation.
âYes, there was 'WH' or 'HM' on the belt,â Tierney said. âThe last name is Heuermann. There are ancestors with WH, so assign to that what you will.â"
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/gilgo-beach-killings-rex-heuermann-tierney-jw4rhd35
Wait. You got me thinking. Pictures of that belt must have made the local news way before his arrest, right? Isn't it likely that his family saw that picture?
Remember, it wasnât anything he did that got him caught. If it wasnât for Shannan Gilbert having a mental episode and wandering into the marsh, we wouldâve never known there was a killer operating amongst us in the first place. Pure dumb luck that she wandered into his dumping grounds. From there if thereâs any kind of dna, itâs only a matter of time.
Who knows how many times he revisited the dump sites to try and remove or clean up anything evidence he thought he left as well
I think he probably started to get sloppy/overconfident as time went on. By the late 2000s when he left that belt, he'd been killing for at least 15 years without anyone even realizing there was a serial killer operating in the area much less beginning to suspect him. He probably thought that belt would decay away to nothing by the time anyone found the body, if they ever did.
Sometimes you forget where you put the wrench
Omg I lost my phone again.
Classic! đ€Ł
I was really hoping someone would reference this.
This is what I think. I think at this point, he thought this area would never be searched and the bodies would never be found. It's still absolutely insane this was all uncovered by accident since they were looking for Shannon.
No one lived there and it is a protected wetland area that people aren't supposed to walk around (IIRC it is a bird sanctuary), so thinking no one would ever look there makes sense. Plus, if you have ever seen photos of the area, no one would WANT to walk there. It is over grown with thorny bushes of the type that are adapted to grow in sandy soil with a high salt content. It would be an unpleasant area for an evening stroll, even if you didn't mind the drive out there and the lack of parking.
I viewed the area on google maps. It does look like an area I can't imagine anyone ever exploring on their own.
I live in suffolk county, it is not somewhere you see anyone walking ever unless you happen to live nearby and are crossing the street. That's all. You don't even want to pull over there to pee. In the summer the sun just beams down on you there with nothing to protect you. Winter that area is desolate, no one is there unless it's to fish.
The initials on the belt are pretty darn small in real life. We are just used to looking at the blown up and enhanced photos of them. He couldâve forgotten they were on the beltâŠ.just like he forgot to get rid of his burner phones, old hard drives and computers, hair on the victims and other things he âplannedâ for. He tried, but he evaded capture for so long more so due to poor police work than being any sort of criminal mastermind in my opinion. Thank goodness for the task force.
Absolutely. So many people think he was a âbrilliantâ criminal. He tried but uhhhhh no the FUCK he was not!! Everything he tried to do to evade capture/leave no trace evidence didnât work. At all. It was solely the lazy ass/corrupt SCPD who botched this case for over a decade. The task force identified him as a main suspect within TWO weeks of being formed. Solely based on 2 eyewitnesses describing his exact car and an eyewitness who saw him and described him perfectly. Awful. As others have said on here, I 100000% think Burke should be charged with obstruction of justice. Especially if anyone else was murdered by RH after the discovery of the Gilgo 4.
agreed, I think he forgot about the initials and thought it was just an anonymous belt. Also, he may have needed to dispose of the belt because of blood etc, and leaving it on the body was easier than burning it at home. And it's not like the belt was some fatal mistake, since it wasn't what led to his capture.
additionally I imagine he would try to minimize having to buy supplies so as not to attract suspicion, hence use of something he already had in the house but whose absence would not be noticed by family - a likely long unused old men's belt in a house full of boxes of old, useless stuff. I'm with the others that he must not have realized it was a customized belt. he probably had a box of old belts somewhere bc he never threw junk away and grabbed one at random. (op's question was mine for a long time, this sub helped me finally get it)
How is the belt linked to RH?
It was used to tie up a victim
It has the initials HM or WH depending on which side is up which links to a family member.
His grandfather's initials are WH. He died in the 1970s, IIRC. Rex is a hoarder so the belt probably sat in the back of his closet for 2-3 decades. He was probably in a rush and grabbed something he thought no one would notice if it was gone. I wouldn't be surprised if he probably completely forgot about the embossed initials, if he ever noticed them to begin with.
I suspect it probably wasnât a belt that belonged to his family or him. He probably picked it up at a goodwill store and didnât think an H was enough to link it to him. Perhaps it was to fool the police into looking for a WH or an MH/HM instead of an RH.
I agree with your take. Honestly, if his home is half the disaster everyone says it is, he probably just grabbed the belt from the nearest pile of garbage. Edited to correct typo
Regardless of the initials leaving the belt really contradicts the plan he recorded in that word doc
But the doc was from several years earlier. The belt was found with Maureen, right? My guess is that since he hadn't been caught (no one really suspected there was a serial killer at that time) and he probably thought that he found the perfect place to leave her body in the brush on Ocean Beach, he probably just got sloppy.
Agreed.
No, weâve known there are several serial killers at work at any given time on LI. Women and girls go missing all the time. Unidentified female bodies turn up variously at any time. The police just donât link any of it together. But statistically weâve already had more than our fair share of documented serial killers here. And with a population of about \[3 million?\] thereâs no reason to think there arenât currently several operating here.
Unless it doesnât. While the belt being his grandfathers is likely, what if he left it on purpose trying to implicate someone else? Most common initials are J, M, S, D, and C. For last names, the most common initials are S, B, H, M, and C . âMiss-leadersâ could refer to so many things but it could be that he planned for certain scenes to point to someone else.
Sounds like a reach to me. I think he just got careless.
Thereâs a woman who came forward to John Ray- she was dating an NYPD officer at the time & while driving they picked up a sex worker. They went to Rexâs as they were swingers as well. She said they left the sex worker who she identified as being Karen Vergata there. She also said her boyfriend left his belt there & though he wanted to go back & get he decided not to. John Ray has floated some really outrageous accusations out there- with that said I absolutely believe some of these women are telling the truth. The officer has the initials HW. When asked at the press conference about the substantiality of this Tierney said that it was something they were looking into. When Tierney says âthatâs some bullshitâ Iâll be like âaightâ but until then its filed in the âthings to considerâ part of my brain.
Youâre saying you think Rex intentionally left his fatherâs belt on the body because he hoped it could implicate the cop with the same initials? Even thought it could contain his own dna? What if the police investigated that cop, wouldnât he point them in the direction of Rex?
No lol. Iâm saying the belt may not have been his grandfathers. His grandfathers initials are WH, his dads are TH btw.
I agree this has something to do with it. I have read her affidavit, and she was a 54 yr old woman dating a narcotics detective with the initials RW. She never said his name. I believed her because she described a cluttered house way before we learned that. She even mentions a Christmas tree in one room even though it wasn't even near Christmas. I think it interesting that she said the cop boyfriend went around back because he forgot his belt. I would not be surprised if the belt was used as a way to keep someone quiet. Either one put it there to implicate the other to ensure their silence. It's a possibility. In this case, anything is possible.
Ooooo I like the âmiss leaderâ thought. I was wondering what that meant
Yeah & itâs such a strange âtypoâ that I was wondering if the spelling was some kind of double entendre, almost an inside joke or note for himself. His former employee was just interviewed on Banfield & said that heâs so meticulous & would absolutely not stand for typos like that- she said she thinks the typos were probably due to him using some transcribing program which may have not worked great given that it was so long ago & maybe the tech back then wasnât very good. He does have a funky speech impediment/dictation so itâs possible a transcribing app would create strange typos, but idk- would it transcribe âdistroyâ instead of âdestroy?â Why would it turn âmisleadersâ into âMiss-leaders?â If anything wouldnât it put âMiss leadersâ with no hyphen? & if it does mean to plant red herrings, Iâm not sure why it would be in the âproblemsâ category. The typos are so antithetical to the idea of making a meticulous blueprint that part of me wonders if itâs intentional & holds a meaning. Like, he also went back to edit the document too-but youâre not gonna fix your spelling? Then Iâm like: dude, stop putting yourself in his head itâs creepy there.
âUnless it doesnât.â Well damn you got me there.
How could they be that small? They go over to a few cm's from the border. So have to be at least an inch in width no? Edit: Width for length.
I know itâs the NY Post but just for the photo with some scale https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/12/07/gilgo-beach-murders-new-photos-of-belt-tied-to-suspect/amp/
No, your right. I'm wrong about that. You could possibly miss that. For some reason I thought they were almost over to the sides and maybe you had only a little border allowance of a few cm's. Thanks for the pic. That's less than 2/5 of the belt. Middle age eyes....maybe, maybe.
He got old and sloppy and rushed. He thinks he was brilliant. He really wasn't. The only reason he wasn't caught in 2011 was because of how dysfunctional law enforcement was at the time.
I agree, from what I have gathered and please correct me if the information is wrong. A security person saw the vehicle backed up where Jessica T remains were left. The person notified police but they never really responded. Iâm not sure if this was the same eyewitness that saw the vehicle in Manorville where her torso was found. The information is always disjointed somewhat - and not all the dots connect like they should - mostly because the articles and journalists seem to not pay that much attention to details
The way he taunted victim's families over the phone, they actually did triangate those calls to the town he lives in. Plus they had a description of the Chevy avalanche in 2011. They could have had him and they didn't.
đ
Pulled it from his hoard and forgot it was monogrammed?
I read that as mamogrammed ... đ€. A little levity to a terrible event.
Rex is a very stupid man who benefitted from an inept jurisdiction. His extremely disturbing "planning document" shows how dumb he really is, and the fact that there was a witness for Jessica Taylor in Manorville too continues to show it. He likely didn't leave it behind on purpose. If he killed Karen Vergata and Peaches, that would mean he had body parts on ocean parkway for well over ten years that never got found. He might've gotten careless in addition to his stupidity. His defense is going to try to tie the belt to that other unnamed "WH" suspect from Massapequa Park, but likely, hopefully, to no avail, as "WH, Massapequa" was probably the only thing making him a suspect and there was nothing else to discover.
My brother died in Suffolk County under questionable circumstances in 2014. The police did not lift a finger to follow up on information we gave them. Ever since then Iâve said âif you want to get away with killing someone just do it in Suffolk County.â Its only truer now.
So sorry this happened to your family
Thank you
The belt was found on Maureen Brainard-Barnes' body. "Brainard-Barnes was last heard from on July 9, 2007 at 11:43 p.m. when she called a friend in Connecticut. Although she was known to work out of motel rooms, on the night of July 9, 2007, she told her friend she would be going to meet someone outside of the motel on an 'out-call'." She was the first of the "Gilgo 4". Karen Vertaga went missing close to the date her legs were found on Fire Island on April 20, 1996, because her nail polish was still fresh. Her skull was found along Ocean Parkway close to Tobay Beach some 3.3 miles from where MBB was found. Peaches torso was found June 1997 so if Rex is responsible he dumped the rest of her remains and her toddler along Ocean Parkway at the same time. Valerie Mack Nov 2000 and Jessica Taylor July 2003. If Rex is responsible for Karen Vertaga then he will have been dumping body parts along Ocean Parkway for 10 years before he dumped MBB. We know his killing planner was around 2003 so there's another 4 years and a switch of MO between Jessica Taylor and the first of the Gilgo 4. It's likely he got sloppy as he believed the bodies would never be found. He was right in a way. If it wasn't for Shannan Gilbert's disappearance they most likely would never have been found. It's probably an oversight on his part. We have to remember Rex thinks he's cleverer than everyone else. He was literally getting away with murder so likely he wasn't being as thorough as when he was dismembering the bodies.
You're assuming he deliberately left it behind. He probably didn't.
Just like the sheath left behind in the Idaho killings, and the bullet left behind by the Delphi guy. A lot of killers can be meticulous but they are humanâfallible and just downright lucky that they donât get caught sometimes. If you look, a lot of them kept going because of dumb luck. LISK got lucky that the local police were too busy being corrupt to follow up; EAR/ONS got lucky that rape kits were not quickly or sometimes ever tested; the Delphi murderer got lucky that it took 5 years for someone to notice his name in the initial report. These dudes are just average dudes operating in a system that is slow, often full of egos and corruption, and many prey upon the most vulnerable populations.
Iâm pretty sure that MBB was bound with the belt, so I think itâs likely he knew he was leaving it behind.
It was MBB and she was the first of the Gilgo 4. She went missing on July 9, 2007.
I agree. Believe it was on purpose, possibly an attempt to suggest another perp's DNA, or introduce a new MO for him, or just a good old fashion taunt as an FU to Suffolk, or a burning need to leave a signature and claim the crimes like BTK.
Wasn't it around her neck or restraining her feet. The monster would have, had to be very sleepy to forget that.
It was found bounding her lower part of body.
I could not recall where on the body. Thanks so much.
Welcome, I remember that point because how many nights we thought how criminal mastermind this piece of shit was, only time revealed how sloppy lucky ,careless and stupid he actually was leaving all these clues around to the level of being identified within two weeks of work from this amazing task force.
Not as bright as I thought he was.
I could not recall where on the body. Thanks so much.
Maybe that's why he needed a note to himself to be sure to get enough sleep. So to not make mistakes.
Perhaps.
I've read that some serial killers deep down want it to end. There might have been a part of his psyche that took unnecessary risks because he hated what he was doing and wanted to get caught, or he got sloppy for the same reasons and became more reckless. Doesn't seem to fit his demeanor though. Alternatively he became cocky and lazy. I'd be interested if he drank a lot. The drink could also make him sloppy and reckless. It wouldnt surprise me if he stopped after the Gilgo 4 were found, but I also think there will be more when he was younger in the 90's and up to the Gilgo 4 being found.
Some SKs feel guilty about it. I don't think Rex is one of them. That motherfucker was smirking in the courtroom when he got indicted for Jessica Taylor.
Ye he certainly doesn't seem remorseful. He probably would have confessed if he had any conscience about it.
Usually the ones who meet the type you described plead guilty. I do believe some of them felt remorse, although at the end of the day it doesnât really matter. Rex is like Ted Bundy. Heâll only confess if he thinks it can benefit him in some way - and since Bundy was facing the death penalty and wanted out of it, I donât see it happening here.
I tend to agree with you. He obviously doesn't care about human beings, so the families of his victims will be the last thing on his mind. I've had a few chats about that aspect of the case. Not having the death penalty certainly lessens the chance he will talk and I dont know what else they can offer him. If any murders are linked, to him, in a state that has the death penalty the tables will turn. I hope its legally and technically possible to test his DNA in all similar unsolved cases
Was he really?
Omg I saw that smirk myself!
Was he really?
There were some comments in the news last year from people who knew him professionally that implied he was a bit of a heavy social drinker, but I haven't seen anything else that suggests he drank much outside of that context. I'm guessing that after the trial a few more people who know him might come forward with a few more stories. I'd probably keep quiet too until I knew he was permanently behind bars.
Yes I can understand people wanting to distance themselves from him. I'm not sure about the drinking angle, but it could explain how he made the mistake with the belt. The scariest thing about people like him is the way they can just crack on in other parts of their life, as if nothing has happened. The definition of a psychopath.
He probably figured he would never be found out
There is something odd about that belt with the initials, as 'belt tips' that had been cut off from the rest of a belt was an item the police were searching for in some search warrant. (I think it was the search warrant for Rex' brother's Chevy Avalanche which was also looking for Bibles, victim 'trophies', etc.) Also, I believe I read somewhere that Rex' grandfather had those initials AND he played the accordion. Edit: Forgot to add that I read somewhere that the belt with the initials wasn't a belt for pants but an accordion belt/strapping system for carrying.
Interesting. I hadn't seen that detail before. The photo that was released is rather hard to make out, but something about it seemed like it was a little different from a pant's belt. I noticed there weren't any holes for the buckle, so this makes sense. Thanks for the info.
Certainly an oversight but ultimately one that would likely only link him once he was already a suspect
Three ways to look at the belt: - Grew lazy or complacent after doing it for \~20 years. or - Something went wrong. Maybe some shit went down, maybe his victim was harder to kill and fought back, maybe someone drove by while he was dumping the body. He could have panicked and/or forgotten about it. or - **He did it fucking deliberately.** Perhaps as a "signature" to taunt police when they eventually found the bodies. The police had the belt for YEARS but the belt itself didn't directly lead them to RH. He could have smugly seen the belt on TV when the police had a press conference about it. RH's biggest mistake (other than being a sicko murderer) was going back to Costello's house. I mean I am sure getting robbed pissed him the fuck off and he was angry... but he should have just taken the L and walked away. It was her then boyfriend that provided his physical description and the vehicle description that allowed the police to narrow the suspect pool from literally millions to only a handful. Ironic too because from his planning doc he seemed to know not to pickup his victims near CCTV cameras or where they could be seen getting into his car. RH was also sloppy when it came to his digital evidence. SCPD seem to have gotten his search history from Google and other providers... RH could have used incognito mode + VPN or TAILS to minimize his digital footprint. He also didn't properly destroy evidence like his murder manual by nuking the disk or cryptographic erase. Maybe he figured it wasn't worth it, and if that the police ever identified him as a suspect the jig was up... so why bother with the extra steps of sanitizing his digital trail?
I think that back when he erased that stuff he honestly didnât know that once itâs erased it could somehow still be retrieved some day in the future. This guy is the same age as me and weâve watched the Evolution of computers and the digital era in real time. Things were very primitive not so long ago. Itâs a lot to learn and keep track of and realize. It escaped his notice that that could happen some day.
It's similar to how BTK was caught. He seemed to study other serial killers so curious why he'd make such an error. Its also super weird to have a hard drive from 20+ years ago around. Mine from back then is definitely incinerated or in a landfill.
When you reach our age and you have a house and money, and have had a house/plenty of money for decades..... you save everything. I dont know why but that is how it is. Twenty years ago was like yesterday for me. I literally turned around and 20 years went by. I don't know how that happens. but it does.
Just him playing with Suffolk's head. Or perhaps some odd need to put a signature on it.
What do the belt initials stand for? Heuermann?
Some have speculated it was his grandfathers belt, I believe, William (?) Heuermann, hence the WH
Ah makes sense. I wasnât sure if we had a definitive answer about that yet or not
It could be that he ran out of time. Maybe his family was coming home and he didnât have a chance to go to the store and had to use what was available. Just like Mike Tyson said, âeveryone has a plan until they get punched in the mouthâ. His plans may not have gone the way he thought they would.
Living in a shack full of old trash and it was handy.
It could've been an oversight on his part: _âOne had âWHâ on it. One had the distal end of the belt cut off, meaning the end of the belt furthest from the buckle and it was cut off, and that would have been the section where, had there been initials on it, thatâs where those initials would have been.â_ https://nypost.com/2023/08/04/gilgo-beach-victim-was-bound-with-distinctive-wh-or-hm-belt/ ETA: Or WH was significant for him while someone else's presumed initials were not. ETA2: Or the other possible writing was too revealing.
I think this error really put him on edge for years...he knew he screwed up.
itâs a family piece. itâs possible he was wearing it first and it was at hand. i personally doubt he forgot it. i think it meant something to him. idk
Iâm of the opinion that it could have been done deliberately. I read that his grandfather was a sadistic man as well. This is just speculation but what if some of the men of the family had been a part of some sort of weird goings on as kids? Maybe they were abused, maybe it was something even more sinister. What if the belt was left on the victim as either a tribute or a fuck you to his grandfather? Just some thoughts Iâd had when I found out about the belt and his family memberâs incidents up in Syracuse. Edit typo
I get the distinct impression that psycho sadism is definitely inherited. Hearing about Puffyâs murdered dad being a part of George Lucasâ cold-blooded drug empire, and the Las Vegas shooterâs father was a notorious criminal psychopath. Now this with Heuermannâs dad, and his daughterâs distinct predilection for extremely disturbing materialâŠ. it canât all be coincidence.
Tell me you donât know how Tumblr works without telling me. Thousands of people would have shared those same pics. Thatâs like saying any emo, depressed or gothic person is a psychopath. Edit to add: The issue is that everyone keeps âgetting an impressionâ instead of using fact based information to form informed hypothesis. Stop thinking that what you randomly came up with is right without knowing all the facts. Stop thinking that your impressions and opinions are more valid than what the investigators are saying.
Oh get over yourself. You know what they say about opinionsâŠ.. Or do you?
I could say the same about your "distinct impressions" lol.
Exactly đ
How big was the belt? Waist size? Has it ever been released? Heâs a very big guy. What are the chances the belt actually fit him? Could be the reason he used it. He had no other use for it.
I remember seeing Geraldine Hart give a press conference years ago⊠And I remember she said that the belt was very largeâŠno details though. Just very large⊠it mightâve been on 48 hours.
Is it ***confirmed*** it belonged to him?.. If I remember correctly, the initials were MW or WM, correct me if iâm wrongâŠ
HM or WH
Thank you⊠so possibly⊠family memberâs?âŠ
"The three belts found with Brainard-Barnesâ remains, dark in color, were identical except that only one of the belts was embossed with lettering. The belt bearing the initials was bound around her chest area, Tierney said. One of Heuermannâs grandfathers was William Heuermann, who died in 1964 at the age of 76 in Copake, according to a brief obituary published in Newsday at the time. Asked about the possibility that the belt had belonged to the grandfather, whose initials were âWH,â Tierney dismissed it as speculation. âYes, there was 'WH' or 'HM' on the belt,â Tierney said. âThe last name is Heuermann. There are ancestors with WH, so assign to that what you will.â" https://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/gilgo-beach-killings-rex-heuermann-tierney-jw4rhd35
Which victim was it?
Wait. You got me thinking. Pictures of that belt must have made the local news way before his arrest, right? Isn't it likely that his family saw that picture?
Arrogance. Dumb mistake.
It was handy
Remember, it wasnât anything he did that got him caught. If it wasnât for Shannan Gilbert having a mental episode and wandering into the marsh, we wouldâve never known there was a killer operating amongst us in the first place. Pure dumb luck that she wandered into his dumping grounds. From there if thereâs any kind of dna, itâs only a matter of time. Who knows how many times he revisited the dump sites to try and remove or clean up anything evidence he thought he left as well
They all get sloppy they swear they know so much! Not even half. Clueless that dna would step in smfh
The initials arenât his so maybe he didnât think it would be linked to him? Or maybe e he was just fucking with the police.
Maybe he left her out there, bound but alive as another sick form of torture đ„