On Rex Heuermann's guilty plea, April 8, 2026

From my interview with WNYC on the day of the Rex Heuermann’s guilty plea to eight murders in the Long Island serial killer case. (Link here for entire segment.)

Q. Why do you think he admitted to the additional murder?

I think that the tide turned against him in the pretrial. He lost all of the efforts to throw out DNA evidence, and so the writing was on the wall. And he probably only saw a downside to a trial at this point because it would mean other people would be taking over the story from him, talking about things he left behind, mistakes he made, how he got caught. This way, once he pleads guilty, he could control the flow of information.

Q. Is Heuermann getting anything out of confessing if he's just likely to do life in prison either way?

According to his lawyer, he gets to spare his wife and kids the pain of watching him at trial. The lawyer also made some statement about how it’s also better for the victim's families not to sit through a trial, but it's not clear that Rex Heuermann himself actually believes that. But I think it also is convenient for him — because it means if anyone wants to find out more for him, they're going to have to come to him and not sit and listen to a lot of other people.

If you look at the notes that he left on his computer during the period when he was killing people, it seems pretty clear that he wants to be one of the greats. He wants to go down in history as one of the big names in murder. And so it seems to me wants to continue living that life in prison.

Q: Do we have any idea as to whether investigators are looking at this connection to any of the other unsolved cases?

Part of his plea is that supposedly he's supposed to cooperate with the FBI. So there may be more news coming from him for sure. We've seen in other cases, Joel Rifkin was very forthcoming after he was found guilty. He gave lots of details about the murders that he committed, and many others have done the same.

Q: What are you looking for as the case progresses here?

The real unsolved mystery in my mind is what happened to Shannan Gilbert.