You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to the Mind of a Murder. I'm Kristin
Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by Sarah Sherman. Saul
here to talk to us about the Root twenty nine stocker and potential connections with
the Long Island serial killing suspect Rex Huerman. Sarah, thank you for joining
us again on the pod. Thank you both so much for having me.
I am such a fan. We were trying to figure out when it was
that you were on here last did we ever figure it out? I think
it was not this past August, but the August before that. Just remind
our listeners, what were we discussing the last time that you joined us.
I actually came on. The first episode was a discussion about the disappearance of
a woman here in Charlottesville, Virginia, where I'm from, by the name
of Sage Smith, and I wanted to mention that she actually went missing eleven
years ago yesterday. I would just like to say that, come on,
Charlottesville, solve this murder, because I really don't believe they're working their hardest
on this. I would have to agree it's a missing person's case, but
I don't think Sage is going to walk through the door tomorrow. I think,
right we discussed that last time. Yeah, I don't think any of
us do. It's good that you mentioned that. We appreciate being able to
mark anniversaries that way. And then I did the second episode with you all
on a woman from Lynchburg who was murdered on the campus of Liberty University,
where a convicted serial murderer and rapist went to university. Jesse Matthew is his
name. We discussed her on that second episode, and we discussed the phenomenon
that is missing white woman syndrome. Both of these victims are persons of color,
and in both examples they did not seem to get the kind of attention
that other cases did right around the same time. We're not criticizing any family
member or member of the community for that matter, who had a concern about
a missing person or a murder case. It's very striking how much of a
difference there was in terms of media coverage and partonarticular. Really just so sad.
Still. I had to go back now and I look at stuff about
Cassandra and stuff about Stage every year, at least every year, and it's
just the difference in press coverage, the difference in search efforts between dare I
say, these white, petite, gorgeous young women compared to these black females.
Sage was transgender as well, so that's another strike against her as far
as law enforcement and looking for her. They both Cassandra was doing some sex
work and she was a drug user. And I was just so struck by
the difference in coverage. And none of us are criticizing Morgan Harrington's family or
Hannah Graham's family or anyone, no, no, no seeking as much coverage
as they received because they obviously had situations where their daughters had gone missing and
they needed the media attention as well. It's just very hard not to contrast,
particularly since these cases were happening around the same time and in the same
area, how much publicity Morgan and Hannah received comparatively was on CNN, it
was everywhere massive searches of Hanagram was the largest search in the history of the
Commonwealth. When we discussed last time, like what strikes me so deeply and
hit so hard is when Sah Smith's father is commenting on the search for Hannah
Gram and when the helicopters flew by his house and he's just thinking the whole
time, like, why didn't they do this for my kids. That was
a great discussion and thank you for having me back. We wanted to spend
some time today because we knew that when a certain set of newspaper articles crussed
our mutual desks, we figured probably you would be in the best position to
talk about it, just for some context for our listeners who may not be
aware. There have been some articles that have appeared in the media recently stating
that Long Island serial killer suspect wrecked hereman appears very similar to the suspect sketch
of the Route twenty nine Stalker. As soon as we saw that, I
said, oh, I bet Sarah has a lot to say about this.
Sarah. For anybody who may not remember the twenty nine Stoker, can you
give just a really brief rundown of what that case is so that we can
jog everybody's memory before we get into the rescuer mint of it all. The
Route twenty nine Stalker case begins well on It's pretty self explanatory on Wrap twenty
nine. Kristin, you described it really well in you All's episodes about the
Wrap twenty nine Stalker. It goes from Maryland to Florida. It's a thousand
miles it Bisex Virginia, if I can borrow your words, and it's a
really long road. And it starts out with the case of Alicia Showalter Reynolds.
She's a pharmacology student. She's twenty five years old, and she attends
Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. She's traveling south to meet her mother in my town
of Charlottesville at a coffee shop off twenty nine called Greenberries, and they're gonna
grab a bite and some coffee, and then they're gonna go, excuse me,
dress shopping. March second, nineteen ninety six. Alicia's supposed to show
up at ten thirty, and she doesn't, and so her mother calls Alicia's
husband, Mark at eleven thirty, so she gives it an hour. Mark
doesn't know and they don't know where Alicia is. And Alicia's body was found
on May seventh of nineteen ninety six, so it was quite a while.
It was a couple months. I'm not quite sure why they haven't released a
cause of death. I've heard that she was fairly decomposed. They haven't really
released a lot in the stalker case, so I'm also wondering if that might
be because they want the killer to say, I'll hold back, Yes,
hold hold back, Okay, yeah, I thank you. Okay. So
then we have which you both know very well, Julie Williams and Lollie Winan's.
They are found dead at a campsite in Shannona National Park in May of
nineteen ninety six. So nineteen ninety six was a really bad year for us.
They were a lesbian couple who were camping and just having a great time
out in the Shenandoah National Park and they were found with their throat slit and
naked and bound. Then we have Anne Carolyn McDaniel, who was twenty years
old now. She was last seen leaving a group home in Orange, Virginia,
which is also right off twenty nine, and that was on September eighteenth
of nineteen ninety six. They found her four days later, ten miles away
from where they found Alicia Showalter Reynolds. They found poor Anne burned. Her
remains were burned. She had died of asphyxia, but was burned after.
We also have a lot of people that they mention when you look at the
Route twin and nine soccer. But from our episode that I came on and
did, we have decided and murderer people have been convicted for certain cases that
are still on the list of the Rat one nine stalker Samantha Clark. We're
pretty sure that a man named Randy Allen Taylor is good for that. I
think that's pretty solid at this point. It really is because he was the
last person to call her cell phone she's an orange. Is she really going
to run into another monster just out leaving our house? That's Randy Taylor.
I think given the high level of communication that Taylor had in the days before
she disappeared, particularly on the last day of her life, as far as
we can tell, I think Randy Taylor is definitely Samantha Clark's killer. Ironically,
he does not seem to have ever been forthcoming with information about where Samantha's
remains can be found. Hope still exists that somehow we'll find a way to
offer Randy Taylor something something wants and Bill. Isn't it interesting how that same
day they found Randy Taylor led them to Alexi remains, that Samantha Clark's case
was reclassified from missing in danger to homicide. I don't think that's a coincidence.
I think that some limited amount of information must have been offered. Obviously,
law enforcement and the people responsible for overseeing Randy Taylor's incarceration would very much
like to see additional information. I talked to Alexis's aunt about this several years
ago. Trina and I were discussing this off the air, about what,
if anything, you could offer someone like Randy Taylor in exchange for information like
the information he provided regarding where Alexis could be found. Kristin and I had
talked about this. Sometimes serial offenders like this will focus on areas where they
have a high comfort level. Sure, we couldn't help but think that there
was a possibility that Samantha Clark's remains might be approximate to where Alexis was found.
Interesting, but Kristin was also explaining to me, I'd never been to
Orange, Virginia. Just how beautiful and rural it is. Yeah, it's
gorgeous. Oh yes, and it's vast. And I told you guys last
time they drained lakes by my mother's house looking for her. They've done a
good job here. They've tried really hard by Samantha. We've we've really tried
looking for her. We've literally drained bodies of water. So I think Samantha
Clark is clearly linked with Randy Taylor, which probably takes her off the twenty
nine stalker case, unless you're going to try to build a scenario that positions
Randy Taylor is the root twenty nine stalker. But I don't think that's the
case. I don't think that's the case either. We'll get into it later,
but it takes a special kind of someone to be able to pull over
twenty women. That kind of leads into Alexis Murphy, who disappeared on August
third of twenty thirteen. She was headed from her home in Shipman, Virginia,
and she was going to Lynchburg. She was caught on CCTV in Lovingston
at this Liberty gas station and Randy Allan Taylor was there, who would later
be convicted for her murder. I still don't know how he got her to
go with him. Trina doesn't believe it was about marijuana. Trina may be
right. She's not trying to position Alexis as some sort of saint. Trina
may be saying is that Alexis, if she was going to buy marijuana,
she would buy marijuana from someone she try else, and this creepy older guy
that she ran into at the gas station might not fit that kind of scenario.
If you're going to do something that's a little bit risky. I don't
think buying pot is a super risky behavior, you guys. I've met dudes
at gas stations and gone to get weed from them. I shouldn't have done
it, but I regret it. I'm glad I'm alive, but it totally
it happens. I agree with what you're saying. Built she had a lot
of options. She could have gotten that from anybody and not some creepy old
Randy Taylor. Didn't have to be a creeper like Randy Taylor. Agreed,
though. We all struggle with this, and we won't ever know unless Taylor
tells us why Alexis went with him that day. It's always troubled me.
I don't think we have answers there. We're not going to know. And
what's so interesting that he led them there? He led the cops there.
He says, yeah, come to my house. The guy's so stupid.
There's a bloody T shirt and her and eye lash extensions and fingernails and he
just he's so dumb. I have this on good authority from several people who
know him that I know, like guys just dumb as a post. There's
not much going on upstairs. In addition to all the things you described inside
the trailer. Then we have a search outside the trailer, and if I'm
not mistaken, her smashed phone it's found fifteen feet away, and when you
see the photographs of the trailer, it's just horrific. Definitely, it's awful,
into the horder kind of category. It's a very strange, bizarrely disorganized
way to live. I can't evaluate him from a distance, but I don't
think the guy was a rocket scientist. No, he's not. It's a
shame. Also, I should mention Sage Smith. She was a transgender female
nineteen years old, last seen in Charlottesville on November twentieth of twenty twelve,
waiting for a date near downtown, which again is not far from twenty nine.
Nothing is far here from twenty nine. We are pretty sure that the
person who is responsible for the disappearance of Sage Smith is named Eric McFadden,
and he happens to be in the wind right now. He's a fugitive from
justice and the cops need to find him and bring him down here and talk
to him. Oh. Absolutely agreed on that one, one hundred percent.
Yeah. I'd be willing to bet a fancy dinner that McFadden is good for
Sage Smith. Without question. I think McFadden was involved in a relationship with
a woman whose name will leave out of this thing, because she's a victim
as much as anyone, in addition to also being involved with Sage and so
there's a romantic triangle going on there, which is always high risk. Yeah,
and I don't think McFadden was being honest with the other woman he was
having a relationship with. So I think McFadden is all over the Sage Smith
disappearance without question. I definitely do too. And that brings us to Cassandra
Morton going missing ten days before a woman called Morgan Harrington goes missing. Cassandra
Morton goes missing on November tenth, two thousand and nine, from her home
on Park Avenue in Lynchburg, which I did go to and scoped out.
I went to the site where they found the body. I went to her
parent house. We still don't know what happened to Cassandra, but I think
Jesse Matthew is probably good for Cassandra Morton. I'm a little less certain,
Kristin, how do you feel some of them? We already have suspects in
custody for Jesse Matthew, like you mentioned, Randy Taylor, like we also
mentioned, But then you also have people like Cassandra Morton that maybe you can
loop them in as being somebody who's responsible. But at the same time you
also have to look at some of these things and go okay, maybe not.
Well sure. The most complex areas of this case for me is all
of the potential areas of overlap, and we're never really going to know.
I think for Cassandra, was this as a result of some of the sex
work that she was doing or was she a victim of Jesse Matthew. That's
I feel like where the interesting complexities of the twenty nine Stocker case come in.
For me, We're just never quite sure. Yeah, it's definitely interesting
and it's frustrating, that's for sure. I should say that Cassandra Morton was
found five weeks after she went missing, so again with Cassandra, we've got
no cause of death. And then Morgan Dana Harrington attends a concert here at
the John Paul Jones Arena. She's going to attend a Metallica show and that's
on October seventeenth of two thousand and nine, and she's abducted by now convicted
serial killer and rapist Jesse Matthew. Her body, however, is not found
till January twenty sixth of twenty ten, which is I believe one hundred and
five days if I'm mapping correctly. Interestingly enough, we had two blizzards while
she was laying there, and so her mother said, even her bones were
beautiful. I'll never forget that, morbid, but it's I don't know,
I just just harkens such a striking image, a horrific image. It was
September of twenty thirteen. Hannah Graham is a UVA student and the University of
Virginia is located in Charlottesville, and she was trying to find a party this
one night. She got lost, and she also had been pregaming, meaning
like drinking. She found herself on the Downtown Mall, which is an outside
shopping area. Kristin, I took you down there, and I showed you
where they got. You're on the CCTV and everything. And a man called
Jesse Matthew, who would be later convicted for this, stalked her all down
in Downtown Mall and Buddy butted up with her in I think trying to be
in the guise of some kind of savior. She didn't much want anything to
do with it. She really tried to push him off and lose him several
times that evening, and he just kept popping back up. It was like
she stood no chance. And he was supplying her with drinks towards the end
of the evening at a bar called Tempo, which is no longer in existence,
obviously because they got in a lot of trouble. After that, they
end up at his car and there's witnesses even I know you know this,
but there's witness is going He's gonna f her up all these things, and
the police station's like right up the road. I struggle with this because if
I saw Jesse and Hannah that night, I often wonder could I have helped
her? I would have asked, can I call someone for you? People
saw this, They saw it all night and they remarked on it. The
dogs found Hannah, they sent they smelled. This was the first case in
history, I believe, where the canines actually smelled Hannah's fear. The dogs
actually caught her scent on his car, and it was fear. One of
the things that came out during the investigation is that Morgan Harrington and Hannah Graham
were Jesse Matthews tight and when they asked people at the bar who knew Matthew.
He hung out there frequently. He was known to look for pretty,
blonde, incapacitated young college women, and these two women and many apparently fit
the same pattern where he would find these women. He was working part time
as a cab driver, and of course that afforded him the opportunity to sexually
assault a number of women. He could be involved in other sexual assaults and
murders. Certainly he was linked initially to a case in Fairfax where he had
sexually assaulted a woman. But you can see a pattern and a pattern of
escalation with Matthew over a period of years. And that night, the night
that he abducted and killed Hannah. That night, you guys, he was
just I think at Jim Clemente would call it unraveling because he's like picking women
up at the bar, He's like spinning them around. He took a woman's
shoes off, and he said that a woman who takes care of her feet
takes care of everything else. Lah, this guy's just he's going to kill
someone that night. He is just losing it. And Bill, you brought
up a good point. However, I don't think Jesse and I interviewed my
friend who owns a bar called Rapture downtown, and she told me, Sarah,
he always hits on the drunkest girl at the bar. She would warn
then, don't go home with this guy. She knew. She didn't know
he was a murderer, but she got a really bad vibe often. And
anybody, I think, if you're a bartender, if you're an establishment owner,
and you notice this creep or person like hitting on the most disadvantaged girl
at the bar, you're going to keep that in your mind and store that
for later. So he had. He did have quite a reputation. Although
part of me wants to say that's the kind of guy that should be banned
from your bar. It it prouble should be people that are known to slip
drugs surreptitiously into women's strengths, which has been just endemic in the past several
years. These are things that bartenders and waitresses and the owners of bars need
to be watching for. There were people interviewed after the Jesse Matthew case began
to come together that said his reputation seated him for years, and he was
known as a creeper, and he was known as a rapist, and this
was permitted to go on. He always, like you said, on the
drunkest woman at the bar, because he knew that he could take them home
or take them out to his car and sexually assault them, and many of
them would never report it. So I think he's responsible for any number of
other unsolved and perhaps unreported sexual assaults. You're listening to Mind over Murder.
We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at
mindover Murder. I think it's very interesting, Sarah. We've talked about a
number of cases here that are twenty nine Stocker adjacent. We've mentioned Jesse Matthew,
who is a known serial killer. We have mentioned Randy Taylor, who
also is good for or we're fairly sure to murders Samantha Clark and Alexis Murphy.
But now this idea that has come up recently in the press that maybe
another he's only been accused, not convicted, but another accused serial killer,
Rex Heureman, was apparently maybe spending some time in Virginia right around the same
time of the twenty nine Stoker case. So this article crossed our desks.
Bill in mind I think about a week ago maybe, and in a week
it took me a little bit to be able to catch up on it.
But then people started sending me copies and copies and they're like, have you
followed this? The conceit here, I think is that the Route twenty nine
stalker suspect sketch looks very similar to Rex Huerman, who is the accused Long
Island serial killer, the list killer. Yes, what are your thoughts on
that? Sarah? When you saw that suspect sketch and you saw that picture
of Rex Huerman, did bells go off for you with like a ding ding
moment or what are your thoughts on this? It was a little bit of
both a ding ding moment and then a not so much moment. But he
does look like the sketch with that wispy reddish brown hair. And I've been
told I can't find a picture of him from ninety six. I haven't been
able to yet, but I've been told by several sources that he wasn't as
big then. He's tall, but he wasn't apparently as round then. I've
seen some photographs of him and he was definitely thinner, and his face was
face is thinner. He's still round faced, but not as beefy looking as
he is now I think as correct height as six' four, but yeah,
big guy. My initial thoughts were, Wow, this is interesting,
right of course, because he does look like the sketch. And I talked
a little bit off air about Hureman and his profile. It has been rumored
to be able to convince sex workers who have been at this a while to
do so, sir, and things that sex workers wouldn't normally do, as
in leave their cell phones. What always bothered me about the Alicia Showalter Reynolds
case is that I know she's twenty five, She's a graduate student at Hopkins.
Like this is a smart person who is going to convince her that her
car is having sparks and your car is having trouble and pull her over and
get her into a car? What man? And then I thought about the
psychopathy of Rex Heureman, and he does line up with that. He could.
I think he could probably talk Alicia Reynolds into a car, So that
was interesting to me. However, I have to say that I'm not You
guys both know I'm not formally trained, I'm not quantico, but I've certainly
schooled myself from the very best for years. And Rex Hureman is doing one
type of thing in Long Islands since probably nineteen ninety six, and that is
girls trolling, escorts, strolling sex workers, whether that be on the street,
in sex clubs. It's most of the time he's doing it on Craigslist
or what was called Backpage. He is trolling for his preference is sex workers
who look very childlike. He is very driven to find this specific victim for
this specific time and for this specific purpose. Do you know what I mean?
Yes? And so I think that it's a bit of a stretch to
think that Rex Huerman has suddenly decided to pull over random women and start telling
them that there's something wrong with their car in hopes of killing them. It's
just not his mo. And I realize that serial killers switch emos. I
realize that happens. I just don't think it's statistically happens in this way.
I would like to mention that, of course, it's very strange that Hureerman's
mother was living fifteen miles away from me in a town called paul Myra,
Virginia, in a development called Lake Monticello, which has always It's so funny
that development has always reminded me so much of that place Shannon Gilbert from the
Long Island Serial Killer case went missing from, called Oak Beach. It just
has this kind of similar vibe, especially at night. And I also found
out a really interesting thing. And I'm allowed to say it because I talked
to a lawyer friend of mine a couple of days ago, okay, and
she told me, I'm totally cool to say it. Lake Monticello, where
Hureman's mother was living, has a thriving swingers club. Oh my. And
it's interesting with this swingers club down here. And then there's been talk of
Rex and his wife attending a swingers club the night that they met Karen Vergatta,
who was formerly known as Fire Island Jane Do. So you have these
little interesting colonels around this Alicia Show, Walter Reynolds case and Rex Heureman like
he For example, I mapped out his route, the route that say he
would have taken if he was going to visit his mother that day from Massapequa
Park to Palmyra, Virginia. And he's on her route if he's on ninety
five and she's going from Baltimore to Charlottesville. She's on ninety five, then
she's on twenty nine. I always thought that Alicia, that someone caught her
in their sites closer to Culpepper, and then with this hereman development, or
that this hereman maybe possible tie in, it makes me wonder that's interesting,
like if it was Hureman, did he get her in his sights much more
closer to Maryland if it was him, and did he stalk her? Because
he certainly was a stalker. He loves troll. He stalks the victims' families,
he calls them. He's a actual satis, so he likes to even
after his victims are dead. He likes to prolong the torture and inflict it
upon the families and friends. He's quite a piece of work. I find
it all really interesting. However, I do find it a reach, just
given who Rex Hureman is compared to who I think the Route twenty nine stalker
is as far as their profiles, that sounds like a pretty good assessment to
me. And I know that when a bunch of people reached out and said,
hey, have you read this? What do you think? My first
impulse was to say, oh, this is interesting and certainly the sketch has
some similarities to Hureman, but my first impulse was to go, Okay,
are we trying to link what we think is the serial killer of the moment?
Are we trying to link Rex Hureman to everything up and down the East
Coast that's unsolved, because it does feel like sometimes that happens. We've heard
in our case, Oh Zodiac did Colonial Parkway murders? Oh Edward Edwards did
it great? Like insert serial killer of the week, someone has tried to
connect them. So I will admit that my first thought when people started sending
this to me it was multiple people. My first thought was, this is
interesting, But is it only because Rex Hureman was so recently in the news
that it's happening, or is this a legitimate piece of well oh, Bill
and Kristen. I do want to mention that Rex has property in South Carolina
and they are looking at a girl that I truly believe could be a victim
of his down there, named Julia Bean. The story it just adds up,
and then there's texts after she disappears that I don't think are from Julia.
It's quite interesting. So we do have him traveling down the coast,
which is I found interesting, And of course they do this every time with
the serial killer of the week. When someone gets arrested, they want to
look into him for other things. Yeah, recently think that this link,
that this should be investigated. Thoroughly agreed. And one interesting development from my
perspective as well, is that Alisa Showalter Reynolds's siblings have now stepped forward,
and as we were discussing off air, this is for the first time that
I'm aware of Patrick Showalter, who's actually Alicia's twin brother, and her younger
sister, Barbara Showalter. Joseph Hans if I'm saying that correctly, have both
spoken out and done interviews in the media saying that they think similarities are substantial
enough that they believe the Virginia State Police should be coordinating with New York authorities
and of course the FBI to at least take a look at Huerman as a
potential suspect in their twenty nine stocker case. And Bill, I believe that
they are because I had a conversation last night with John Ray, who is
Shannon Gilbert's family's attorney up in Long Island, and he represents some of the
other victims' family members as well. I was calling him because I really wanted
to know what kind of vehicle Hureman was driving back in ninety six, and
I couldn't, for the life of me find it. A friend of mine
said, why don't you just call up that guy, John Ray and see
if he can help you out. So I did, and he called me
back, and they are trying to find that vehicle. Now they have not
been able to find it either, but he told me some interesting stuff that
we know that Rex Huerman bought two Chevy Avalanches in a row. Those are
pickup trucks. The vehicle he had when he was arrested. He purchased the
first one in two thousand and one when the Chevy Avalanche came out, so
those weren't were not released before two thousand and one, so he wouldn't have
been driving that in nineteen ninety six. The point that John Ray made to
me was that he did favor pickup trucks, so this goes back. I
think that's also a little interesting seeing as our POI for the twenty nine Stalker.
Everybody says it's a dark Ford or Masta pickup truck or a pickup truck
with zigzags. We know that Rex likes trucks. I guess that's a maybe
you could check that. I was disappointed in that I didn't get to find
out the exact make and model of the vehicle he was driving in ninety six,
although mister Ray said that Rex had access to several vehicles throughout the years.
Interesting as well that in the twenty nine stalker case they also felt that
the offender had access to multiple vehicles because there were several different pickup trucks described
as being used by this potential offender. It's also interesting that close to twenty
women came forward after Alisia Showalter Reynolds disappeared and was found murdered, and they
had said that someone attempted to pull them over. And my recollection is that
at least three to five of them actually did pull over. So he was
was able to convince some of these women. And remember some of this is
during the day as well. He's not necessarily doing this at night, where
I think people's antenna would be even further up in terms of potential problems along
the road. This twenty nine s soccer suspect did manage to convince a fair
number of people to pull over. Some of them interacted with him at gas
stations. At least one victim climbed into his pickup truck with him after getting
this same line about, oh, there were sparks under your car, you
need to pull over. I'll take you to a safe spot. And she
actually managed to escape his truck after he attempted to stab her with a screwdriver.
She jumped out of a moving vehicle broke her ankle, as my recollection
broke. She did survive, and she's actually one of the people who provided
the description which resulted in the catch. It is true. I don't think
there's much way around this. From my point of view, Rex human does
look a fair amount like this sketch. He really does. I just have
the problem with is he really gonna switch his whole mind up and decide to
go after women who are not sex workers, women who are lone travelers on
the road, And he's going to start with this thing of hey, not
either's sparks flying from your car. We need to find you a mechanic.
It doesn't really add up for me, and it doesn't mean that it's He's
not the guy. I'm just saying that, with all the work and research
that I have that I've put into this list case, with everything I know
about criminals, which pales in comparison to some folks y'all know, I'm just
saying that the victimology, it's completely different. That part of it, which
is so important, It's just not there for me. I share your skepticism.
The one thing I'll say a thought that has crossed my mind while we've
been talking about this, is there any chance that Hureman is keeping himself entertained
if I've thought about that with the long drive sta Virginia to see his mother,
who does live in the area, he is thinking to himself, I'm
just going to try this out. Because even the Virginia State Police said at
the time they thought that the offender was escalating, he was trying to get
up the nerve to attack these women. This could have been the game for
the offender as well, a cat and mouse thing. Can I convince complete
strangers these women in these other cars to pull over based on my oh,
there's a problem with your vehicle beeping his horn and flashing his lights and pointing
under their vehicles, and it did actually work? Could this be serial Killered?
Cat and Mouse games? Right? And Bill and Kristen I also thought
of So nineteen ninety six is up in Long Island. That's when Karen Vergotta
goes missing, who was formerly known as Fire Island Jane Doe, and she
is associated with Rex Hureman. He has not been charged for her. He's
been only charged with three of the Gilgo Beach four. Karen Viergatta is in
ninety six. I'm thinking that's the first victim that we know of that we
can associate with human or possibly associate with human. I'm thinking I was thinking
on the other side of this, like you, Bill, this is a
serial killer who is just forming. So maybe he is going down to Virginia
and he is saying, hey, how about I try this. This is
exciting. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can get these women in
my car with me. Maybe I can do this whole different thing picture kind
of a baby serial killer. Maybe he's doing his thing up in Long Island
with the sex workers. Maybe he's in Virginia down here stalking and pulling women
over. There's a possibility. And there's one other thing I'll throw in the
mix here if this was Hureman, if he was not as well plugged into
access to sex workers in Virginia as he would have been in his home turf
of Long Island. When we talked to our friend Joe jacklone, longtime cold
case homicide detective, he felt that the Gilgo Beach for Long Island serial killer
offender now identified as Rex Huerman, had switched up his approach from initially picking
up prostitutes off the streets of primarily New York City and that area. Then
he transitioned over to using the newspaper, newsletter back pages and escort service ads
on Craigslist, and then ultimately moves more towards an Internet model as those businesses
shifted their focus. Each of those steps allows someone like Huerman to distance himself
a bit from being tracked in terms of making these connections with these sex workers.
He's moving away from picking up what were then called street walkers, and
then obviously he can be seen negotiating with and connecting with those women and then
inviting them into his vehicle. You can see how the change to print and
then the Internet gives him more distance, It gives him more anonymity. I
think exactly, and this was something that Joe jackalone had mentioned to us.
He believes that Hureman took advantage of those technological advancements as a way of creating
that distance. He's still making the connection into a paid sex worker encounter,
but he's doing it in a way where he's not actually going to be seen
because the whole thing ultimately shifts over to the internet. It does. It's
fascinating. It's really fascinating to think that Hureman could just be doing his thing
in Virginia. It wasn't linking up for me until you start, until we
really started to talk about it. I think a good question to leave this
on, because this is a fascinating conversation, but ultimately it's one that is
going to require further investigation from law enforcement as opposed to from the three of
us. Yeah, but I do think it is very interesting to note why
so many serial killers in your particular area of Virginia, Sarah, because there
have been so many many I went back to that with my husband the other
night, Kristen, just how many can there be? And then you guys
talking to fits about the probability and yeah, and it's just it's horrifying it
is, and I think that is something. Whether it turns out Rex Huerman
was hunting here or no, it is definitely something worth pondering. It really
is and it definitely deserves a thorough investigation. Listeners, we hope that you
will sound off in the comments for this episode. What do you think was
Rex human potentially hunting in Virginia as part of the Route twenty nine stocker case.
We would love to hear your thoughts. Sarah, Thank you so much
for joining us today. We appreciate your time and expertise. Thank you both
so much. It was my pleasure that is going to do it for this
episode of mind Ever Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see
you next time. Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another
Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo
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