Gilgo Beach Killer LISK: Rex Heuermann's Plea Broken Down Live with Eric Faddis

This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Ruski and Robin Dree.

A man charge, the allegedly killing seven women across nearly two decades on Long Island

is now expected to walk into a courtroom and plead guilty.

After almost three years of maintaining his innocence after his defense fought to throw

out DNA, split the case in a separate trials, dismiss a murder charge for insufficient

evidence and point the finger at another convicted killer Rex Hewerman reportedly has decided

to stop fighting.

The question nobody can stop asking is, why now?

And whether this was always inevitable or whether the prosecution boxed him into a corner

that he couldn't think his way out of, joining me to discuss this new development in this

horrific case, Eric Fattis, former prosecutor defense attorney, and of course my co-host

Robyn Drake, retired FBI special agency for the counterintelligence behavioral analysis

program for the FBI.

Eric, let's start here, a man stands before court for nearly three years, saying he did

not do this, and then reportedly decides to plead guilty to seven murders from someone

who's sat on both sides of this Eric, what exactly is happening inside of those conversations

between Rex and his attorney that seems to have brought us to this?

Sure, Tony, from the outset with a client, you kind of have a strategic plan.

You're kind of like, okay, we're going to explore these defenses, we're going to assert

these potential constitutional violations, we're going to file these motions, and we're

going to try to improve your legal position.

But as the trial is looming, and as it gets closer, reality starts to really kick it, and

the client hopefully kind of appreciates their exposure at that juncture, and it's not

uncommon for plea agreements to happen once trial is getting closer and people start to

get freaked out.

So Eric, what do you think he's pleading for?

On this one, I guess that's the huge question, there's so many questions this one, but inside

New York, no death penalty, so it's not like the coberger case where they're trying to

leverage life for coberger with a plea deal, so that's not in it.

And the son of Sam Law, I researched it, but you probably know this better than me, so

I'm curious about your take on whether this impacted or not.

So son of Sam Law says that he cannot profit from any proceeds from his story, but his

family can't according to law, but it really depends, I guess, on what the judge says,

is that true?

I mean, how's, what do you think was the motivation?

Yeah, good question.

There could be certain provisions included within a plea agreement whereby Haramann could

not benefit in some form or fashion from selling his story to HBO or something like that.

But yeah, what is his incentive?

Because there's not death on the table, and usually the step down from that is life without

the possibility of parole.

I can't imagine that they're offering some sort of cap on prison time, like a cap of 40

years or something.

But then again, you know, he might just kind of be done and ready to resolve this and

sort of see the writing on the wall, but what are the benefits he might be trying to seek?

Those are a little bit unclear.

I don't know if it's prison placement.

I don't know if it's-

Is that on the table?

You think so?

Sometimes it is and sometimes it's not.

Does the judge have the ability or does the court have the ability to do prison placement?

It usually depends on the jurisdiction, oftentimes not, oftentimes it's up to the bureau of prisons.

But there are certain things that can be written in to a plea agreement that might be valuable

to Rex.

And so perhaps those are being negotiated, Presley.

I mean, even if they do have some sort of initial set of like, okay, we're going to send

you off to this prison here.

Isn't that ultimately always up to the bureau of prisons at the end of the day?

I mean, like, okay, well, initially we'll send you here.

Couldn't that just switch at any moment in time?

Did they- I mean, maybe I'm completely off on this, but I don't believe that, you know,

at some point in time, they were like, well, no, we can't move this prisoner because

of the part of the plea agreement says he's going to be housed here indefinitely.

Is that ever part of it?

You bring up a good point because usually the court does not have jurisdiction over the

bureau of prisons.

Yeah.

So the prison, what to do, it can make a recommendation.

Yeah.

It can say, hey, you know, it's the court's hope that that the bureau of prisons, you know,

accommodates what's listed in the plea agreement, but yeah, that's not set in stone and it's

not something that's really enforceable.

It's really aspirational.

People roll the dice all the time when it comes to this sort of stuff, especially when

it comes to like, proper agreements and things like that, where they're going to sit

there and I will give you your information that you need.

And at the end of the day, I'm going to get this out of it.

I'm not going to be prosecuted or, you know, like we saw in the example of the, the

opair affair recently where everyone thought, oh, well, Jesus is going to go back to her

country of origin after that.

Nope.

Surprise.

You get 10 years because there wasn't, it wasn't completely in stone.

It was suggested maybe you'll get this, but at the end of the day, someone can still

make a decision.

That's a strong suggestion and suggestions aren't necessarily set in stone.

Do you think he is, is he, is this where he's at, where he's at, at this big of a, of

a disadvantage where it's, it's like, well, I'm going to hope that maybe I get a good

suggestion here and have little to no control over anything.

Is this how little control this man has left and is this him trying to grasp at that

last little hair of it, pardon the pun?

You know, that very well could be in, and Tony, as you would rob and know, there are other

killings within this vicinity over the course of time for which Rex Furrowman was suspected.

And so perhaps there's something like, I'm just speculating, but if he, you know, cops

to these seven orders, if that's what the believerman looks like, then he could somehow

have immunity from the additional suspected killings, you know, is that really a tangible

benefit for him?

I don't know, but it's an optics benefit, may help his family in some form or fashion,

may reduce potential restitution that he and his family would have to pay.

So there are some bargaining chips, but they're very small.

You know, that'll be really interesting there because so if you're going down the road

of what a typical, I don't know if you want to use a word, typical serial killer is a lot

of them are about that, you know, that large narcissistic sociopathic grandiosity, always

looking for more, you know, BTK is a great example, grandiosity, look at me on the best,

I did this, this, this, I really wonder if that was part of that calculation in mind of

his is like, all right, I'm not going to get away with this, but if I get a plea deal

and I don't have to be charged more, I can try to get a suggestion of where I get to live.

And my family gets the profit from the stories.

If he's, if he feels compelled to put out more, if his driving focus is that grandiosity

and being like the best at this, that might have played into what I wonder, it's like

he feels at liberty then to start trickling and exposing this, this, this, and this.

That's an interesting take on it.

I wonder if that'll play into it, it'll be interesting.

And also, when you think the victim's families were thinking about this, are that you

think they're part of this discussion, this dialogue, and what do you think the impact

of them is going to be from your experience?

Yeah, that ego piece could very well be a part of it.

You know, maybe there's some subjective perverse benefit to him in saying that, hey, you caught

me for these ones, but I know in my mind, you didn't catch me for these other ones.

I'm not saying he's not necessarily did the other killings, but there's a strong suspicion.

So, and then in terms of the victim's families, yeah, they're going to, they by law typically

have to be involved in the plea negotiation process, have to receive notice of it, have

to have an opportunity to give their position on what the plea offer might be.

What do you think there's is going to be?

With, with this many potential homicides, I can't fathom the prosecutor doing anything,

but life without the possibility of parole, and like I said, maybe there are some minor

concessions that they could give him if he's willing to come to that.

Right. Thanks.

We're trying to figure out, you know, what, what inspired him to, to, to take this route.

Um, we got the, the housing area, you know, maybe there's something with that.

Do you think, do you think any of this comes down to his family?

Do you think there's, there's any emotional lever here that he has decided to pull that,

that this somehow is, is to protect his family from going through this, this trial,

and in all that they're going to be drugged through and all the extra exposure that they're

going to face. Do you think it ended up being a conversation? Because apparently,

Osas still been visiting him in prison. I mean, in the, the doc that was made more than a year

ago, and the doc, she said that she still, you called him his hero. I have no idea what

Osas opinion of him is today, and it could easily have changed within the course of a year.

But I do wonder if, if there's something there of, he's doing this, you know, on the surface,

for them, but, but maybe at the end, it's more so it will prevent a trial and it will prevent

them, maybe, maybe even her. I don't know. Um, from possibly exposing Rex for other crimes.

I mean, I'm wondering if there's something there, and I'm not accusing Osas of committing any

crimes or anything of that nature, but it does seem like she is a bit of a vulnerability to him.

In, because whether she knows it or not, she knows more about Rex than most people do.

And, and she would be able to connect some dots and expose him probably in ways that she's

not even aware that she'd be exposing him, but he is. And I'm wondering if this, there's something

there that there was a lever and it makes strategic sense for him. Maybe he was pressured into

confessing by her to not be put through this. And he's, he's, he's rolling the dice going,

my odds are better if they'll keep her shut up more. And her less in the spotlight if we just kind

of get this stuff, you know, push through and wrapped up. Tony, that's kind of where my head went to

because like you said, the white loss has been kind of by his side. At least it is certainly early on

or at least supportive and not something we often see in cases like this. And so, yeah, was,

was it some sort of way to protect the family from, from this crucible of trial? You know,

they've already had to deal with so, so much due to Rex's alleged actions. But over time,

five, 10 years from now, that can blow over. However, if there isn't nationally publicized multi-week

trial, multi-month trial potentially, that goes into the nauseating details of everything Rex did.

And that could reflect on the family. Maybe he wants to protect them from that. Maybe he's even

vying for some kind of immunity for his family if there is any sort of suspicions in terms of

knowledge or complicity or something else. Yeah, I tell you, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because,

I mean, you have these incredibly psychopathic serial killers, which typically don't have empathy,

they feign empathy, so they can victimize people and a lot of them are just pure actors. But then,

but you see these behaviors like BTK, I know we keep bringing up because there's so much

similarities here. You really wonder, is there a true bond with the human beings in his life,

especially because, you know, it's here, a point Eric, the children. You know, maybe he doesn't want

his daughter and his son exposed to the true horrors of everything he did because of that. I wonder

if that did weigh on him at all when making that decision. Yeah, very well could be. I mean,

these people are human now, you know, barely. But they still have at least the theoretical

capacity for those emotions. You know, Robin, you say, you know, he does he have a bond there

with his kids and his wife or his ex-wife and, you know, that there's a bond, but what is that bond?

Yes, it is. Is it a fool or, yeah, is it, is it a lever that he can pull? Is it, is it, is it a

transactional bond? Because a lot of people have bonds that on the surface to the rest of us who

don't have transactional bonds and the bonds are there because we genuinely care and we have

love and relationships that are built on on those, you know, tenants of life and in meaning

that, that, that build true strong relationships and there's people who have surface bonds that

are built on transaction. And, and I think sometimes those folks who live in a world in a life where

their relationships are solely based on transaction, they don't even contemplate a deeper meeting.

They think everybody works on transaction. And, and I'm wondering if that's part of it,

if like I was saying, if there is a transactional detail to that relationship with his family

that somehow it works to his advantage to, to make this specific move, the other aspect of this

that I, I come to wonder about is kind of the coworker aspect of it. Why did coworker do this

at the very last minute to at the 11th hour? I mean, basically the evidence was there. He was

going to be crucified. And the mask was going to not only slip. It was going to be ripped off

and exposed whether he liked it or not. And I'm wondering if there's an aspect to Rex

here, I'm in like that too, where I mean, this was a very, very secretive man. At least nobody was

was digging deep enough for the majority of his existence. And I'm wondering if all those secrets

that he spent decades trying to protect, I mean, a lot of them have already been revealed. But

there we're going to, we're going to get in there deep if this went to trial every little aspect,

every piece of dust, all of it is going to come out and exposure to personalities like this. And

it's hard to read him completely in his personality type. But if he is anywhere along the dark

triad and has some of the narcissism going on there, that removal of the mask is like kryptonite.

That's the worst possible thing. You really want them to feel shame or whatever it is that makes

them feel bad. That would be the way to do it. And if you're going to have this done seven times

over in a courtroom for seven different victims, I wonder if his just, if his give a shit just kind

of got to a point of like, I don't want, I can't take that. That's too much. Yeah, I agree with

the Tony to, I'm highly skeptical as well of him using, and they may, he might even say it or

they'll put out a release like he's doing it for his family. But I seriously doubt he has

capacity to do it because like you said, that transactional. And, and also with these serial killers,

I mean, that imagery that they do for their own wacky sexual satisfaction of their trophies and

how they align them and place them in woods or whatever they're doing, to have that no longer

secret. It kind of bursts that that bubble of theirs in their mind and that fantasy world are

living out. And so if it all gets exposed, he's left with nothing going to. Yeah. So I think that's

probably more likely like like you and Eric were saying. Yeah. And you know, you look at briefly the

like the zodiac killer, for example, that person got off on the fact that he's not going to be found

out. You're not going to learn the details of what they're doing. You're not going to, you're not

going to get into the inner workings of that. And when that is exposed as creative chaos,

if I said in the comments, that that rips the control from Rex Herman too. This could be a way

that he still maintains control over those details. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's the other aspect.

I mean, this is, I'm sorry, Robyn, it's clearly it's a lever of control that he's trying to pull

because he has none and the extreme level of control that this guy operated under. I mean,

I mean, I mean, he was almost comically bad where he like literally writing notes like take the

head, cut off the tat. Like you, you're, you're doing this. You, you really need notes to remind

you're like, Oh, shoot. I forgot I was supposed to take the head. Tarnit. If you're only recording

that down part of the fantasy. If only that was on notes, I'll put a posted about it next time.

And he does. And he does. There's another element to this. The judge still has to accept the plea.

Eric, talk about this. This is like a legal end of this. What would it, what would make the judge

rejected? Can he reject it? Is that a real possibility or is that just a formality at this point?

Oh, it's definitely a real possibility. And I've seen countless police rejected by judges.

You know, judges usually have substantial discretion in that Tony. And it's, it's kind of like,

does the judge think this is fair? Does the judge think this is just under the circumstances

now oftentimes the judge will go along with a mutually agreed upon plea agreement, especially

if the victim's families are in favor. But for some reason, if the victim's family is presented at

court during the plea hearing and said, Hey, this is not fair. It needs to be more serious in some

fashion. The judge could say, Hey, we've got, you know, a multiplicity of killings over the course

of decades. And, you know, these concessions or whatever is built into the plea that my benefit

racks just might not want that. So it could be rejected. Yeah. Is that typically what

sways the lever of influence on the judge is families or is it something else about whether to

accept or not, except that, you know, in your experience, what is the driving most of the driving

factor? The family's position plays a huge role. And, you know, the judges want to do their best

to do right by these victims families. So that could absolutely, that's usually the driving

factor when a plea is object. If he wants to plead guilty here, the judge can obviously reject

the terms that they come to and say, Nope, here's what it is. There's there are no concessions for

him. It's exactly what I'm going to say. It's going to be take it or leave it and Rex could take

it or leave it. He can't necessarily force a trial to take place if Rex is going to plead guilty.

I guess only if Rex were to not agree to whatever the plea agreement would be, would be what would

force a trial, correct? Uh, yeah, yeah, that's correct. If, um, uh, yeah, Rex didn't agree to it,

he would still have his right to a trial and he can always change his mind, even if they're

in a criminal place. Yeah, you know, the things, things could change. So many interesting angles

to this, just in your opinion, do you, do you see a world here where where the judge may reject

whatever, whatever comes down the line? I mean, number one, the prosecutors would, you know,

be kind of rolling the dice a little bit if they're going to bring something to a judge that they

think may be rejected. I'm going to think they're probably going to bring something that they're

pretty confident in would be agreed upon to. What didn't they? Uh, yeah, absolutely. You, you

always, um, consider that as a prosecutor. You're like, if I extend this plea offer, uh, it's

meaningless of the judge doesn't agree to it. And so you've got to have that forward thinking

of like, hey, is the judge going to view this as acceptable? So I would anticipate that. But if

there is any cap on prison, for example, even like 40 years, like up to 40 years in prison,

I wouldn't be surprised if a judge looks at that and says, that's too lenient. Things can happen

in prison. Um, you know, sentences can be reduced. He might get out later. I'm not going to accept

that. I wouldn't be surprised if a judge showed such a position. That's interesting. Your thoughts

in the comments section on Substack and YouTube as we continue to break down Rex Hiramon. Uh,

and uh, his supposed plea deal that has not yet taken place, but we are in the anticipation

of Substack and YouTube. The links are in the description to continue the conversation there.

Investigators pulled a deleted word document off Rex Hiramon's hard drive,

allegedly created in around 2000, modified over several years with sections on supplies,

problems, disposal sites and targets. They matched his DNA to hairs found on and near multiple

victims using a technology never before admitted in a New York courtroom. And they built the initial

connection from a pizza crust to eat through in the trash while being surveilled. When you lay down

those pieces side by side, the question isn't whether the prosecution had a case. It's whether

the defense ever even had a chance. Eric Fattis is with us to help break down where this case

is at and where it's going. Uh, prosecutors have recovered that word document from Hiramon's

basement, that hard drive with the sections that allegedly outlined a lot of very specific things.

Things he tried to delete off of it as well. When evidence like that lands on a prosecutor's desk,

I mean, what does that do to the trajectory of a case? And also, obviously, if it's on a prosecutor's

desk, the defense knows that it's there too and that this is going to be part of the evidence.

I mean, how do you, as you've seen both sides of this, how do you absorb that type of information?

I mean, it seems like a slam dunk if you're the prosecutor like, oh, he's got a document

talking specifically about dismembering and doing these horrible things that were done to the victims.

And then also I have a client that has a document that talks about doing exactly what he's accused

of doing. Not a good place to be in Eric. Yeah, you know, as a prosecutor, it's kind of like

Charlie in the chocolate factory and that's the golden ticket. I mean, that's going to take it to

the promise. That's essentially going to be construed as a confession and confessions are some

of the most compelling types of evidence. And so the weight of that alleged document cannot be

overstated. Sure, there are ways to challenge it, but that is a tremendous problem for defense.

What would be the way you challenge it? So, um, a few things, especially with modern digital

forensics, you know, you would look at who had access to the device from which that document was

tight. You look at, you know, IP addresses, where, where, was that, where, where was that document

generated? If you can look back that far, it depends on number of factors. And then also,

you can look at, you know, whether there had been any modification or manipulation since the

prosecution got it, digital forensics folks could look at that. And if you find something suspicious

or curious in terms of modifications that might be made, sometimes you can sort of try to hang

your hat on that and further open that hole, widen that and and and alleged that, hey, there's

some fishy stuff going on on the other side. Are you sure this document's authentic in its entirety?

There are ways to do it, but you know, I guess because if if he wrote it and drafted it and

they're able to show it in his in his secret hidey hole in his house or no one else had access,

that was probably as damning as well. That'd be a big, that'd be a big problem. Yeah.

Very much so. Well, so whole genome sequencing has never been admitted as evidence in a New York

trial before this case. The judge ruled that yes, it can be and would be and would be certainly

part of this. Now it gets to be someone else's battle, I guess, and in another case to be admitted

at another trial. You know, the fact that it was going to be admitted here, I guess there was

a long fight of this, you know, over a long period of time. Should it be at it? Should it be allowed?

Should it not? It was allowed. Obviously, if the trial never takes place here, how does that

then how does it affect other other cases going forwarded in New York where they're going to

eventually use this is because it's newer technology? Can they look back on this case and go see

it was going to be admitted they never actually used it? Or is it make it I guess a hotter potato

for another case that could be attempted to be argued in another courtroom? It's it's most certainly

a precedent that that that that has been set in New York. In that sense, this case is kind of a

story. Now, because it was set by a trial judge, it would not be binding on any other trial judge,

it would not be binding on a pellet court judge or a Supreme Court judge. So it's binding, but it's

what's called persuasive authority. And and that happens all the time when there are disputes

about experts testimony and the attorneys say, hey, look, this judge said it was sufficiently

reliable to admit our case is very similar. New judge, you should admit this and and we,

you know, as practicing attorneys, we have a cachet of orders from judges on issues like this that

we then cite to in subsequent cases saying, hey, look, this judge thought it was good enough,

you should think it's good enough to. You know, it's really interesting. From what I've researched,

again, this whole genome sequencing thing is new to me too, because they're just rolling it out,

right? But from what I understand in Tony, you probably know more about this than I do.

They got it. They're used to because of the hairs, really, is because it's the first time

they're actually able to extract the whole DNA sequence of someone from hair and they couldn't do

it typical DNA that's been done past cases. So just my my thought experiment on this, as

Hugh Herman's learning about this whole DNA sequencing and seeing how sloppy he was with human hair

for so long, maybe again, part of that that mental gyration he's doing about how to keep everything

secret so he can keep it in his own little narcissistic head. He he might have hairs all over that

house all over everything else that they'd be able to sequence and he'd lose control. Again,

I think it all comes back to that control. Yeah, no, I hear you. You know, I think some of these

folks are kind of detached from reality and have this delusion that they're smarter than everybody

else including the law and when these revelations come out, it can be a bit of a reality check.

It's I still think that's a huge part of this case in a long other cases of serial killers

that span decades, really, where you start your criminal enterprise of murdering people

when technology was saying I can behave this way, the technology and forensics involved and they

didn't. There have been cases in the past where people have pled guilty and then I've gotten

out later because they found out somebody else did it and that they pled guilty for whatever reason

they did at the time. You got seven murders here. So you could be and I'm not saying this is but

I'm saying you could be looking at a scenario where he is responsible for like five of the seven

or six of the seven. I mean, you could be having one where maybe he isn't. They've argued for a

long time. The very first victim from 93 was not him but they did find a hair on that one

and that's how they connected that one. It's it's not a ton of evidence that connects Rex

here and it was very first victim all the way back in 1993. Let's just for the sake of argument

without getting into the weeds too much. Let's say something happens here and somebody comes

forward or there's there's undeniable evidence that one of the seven was not Rex here. But for

whatever reason he's pleading guilty because he's is responsible truly for five of the seven or

whatever it may be. Let's say that comes along in the coming years. What does that do to this?

What does that do to this this conviction or his guilty plea? Does that give him any sort of

advantage down the line if he were to be like, yeah, what maybe this was a bad idea? Maybe prison

doesn't suit me so well. And then this person over here is truly responsible for this one that I

pled to and clearly it wasn't me. I've been saying that along. I just did it to these. Is it where

they can look back and go, well, yeah, you're still there for the other six and those all stand

or does that blow the whole damn thing up and then have to make it be retried because they're all

interconnected into one specific case really. Another separate charges but it's all in in the one

ruling. I'll ask a great question. So the appellate courts usually favor finality. They don't like

to reopen stuff. They don't like to send stuff back to the trial court overtour convictions. They

prefer to have this secured finality within these cases. So if they were to take place, I think that

newly discovered exculpatory evidence is always a potential reason to withdraw a plea of guilty.

And so would it be withdrawn, it could be withdrawn with respect to that one specific killing.

Could that cast further down on the other killings at a future appellate stage? It's at least

possible. Rex could say five years from now if that were to happen that, hey, actually this

other guy did this. When I copped to these, please, I was not in my right mind. I had been a custody

for a long time. My whole life had fallen apart and everything else. So there's no certainty

that all of the other convictions would be upheld, although an appellate court judge would,

I believe, try to angle towards upholding the other conditions.

Now, is that something a defense attorney is going to counsel him on about a possibility

of doing or if they, or if they, because again, these are questions I love throwing at Bob

mod 2 is like, hey, are they just going to do their job and grind it out and give them all these

options or they're going to say to themselves, I'm not going to strategize that with them because

he's a guilty douche. You have to at least advise the client about, and I've had that conversation,

not not those specific words, but you have to advise the client as to post-conviction consequences,

potential post-conviction remedies. So you can speak in broad general terms about it,

but at the same token, if you're the lawyer and your client's going in there to plead guilty,

you have to have a reasonable belief that that is a valid plea. And so you can't kind of

be like, hey, if someone, you know, great happens later for your case and you can try to,

you know, wiggle out of this or something, you kind of have to go in there saying, hey,

we are taking responsibility and we is the defense and that implicates the attorney.

Right. And that's my question. I'm sorry, Tony, because I love Tony's thought experiment on

that. That's really intriguing. But same time, though, is that something that defense attorney,

I guess, is really going to do in those circumstances, given the fact that like you said, hey,

if we're pleading guilty, and it means we're taking ownership of it all at good point.

Yeah, yeah, that's usually how it goes. I mean, like in the coburger situation where part of

this stipulation was there's no going back here. Once you're pleading, you're done, there's

no appeals. You're not allowed to appeal. I would imagine, I mean, do you see a world here where

the judge is going to accept whatever agreement this is where he doesn't remove all possibilities

of any sort of parole or any sort of appealing this in any way, shape or form down the line,

no matter what. I think the prosecutor is going to be diligent in terms of

divesting. Rex Huriman of any potential rights down the road to try to undo this.

That being said, the judge doesn't have complete control over what happens in the future.

And if in your hypothetical, it was proven that someone else did at least one of these killings.

Even if the judge said, hey, there's no resettancing, there's no reconsideration of the plea,

there's not going to be any of that. You don't have that right. I think hypothetically, the

Constitution would confer that right and that would trump anything that is in the plea agreements

or anything the judge's order. What do you think made him make this decision? Was it

obviously just conjecture? Do you think it was him as an attorney sitting down going,

having to come to Jesus' meeting of like, look, we've lost everything that we've attempted

to throw in front of this judge leading up to this trial. All of our emotions have failed.

All the things we try to get excluded are coming in. This is not going to go good. It's just not

Rex. And if you want anything, if you want to save a little bit of whatever exists for your

family, whatever little bit of dignity you have left, you should probably plea. Or do you think

this was Rex going to his attorney and saying, I'm out. I think we should end this right now.

I did it. I mean, how do you think, how do you think that went down behind closed doors?

I got to imagine it was sort of at the attorney's desk because Rex Herman just doesn't strike me

as the kind of guy who's going to come, oh, hadn't hand and saying, oh, you know what, I'm going

to do the right thing and take responsibility. And I'm going to save these victims' families,

all of this nightmare of stuff that's going to happen at trial. You know the strike, like that kind

of guy, but I just don't know. I think the attorney is more like, hey, dude, we've exhausted

all of our potential outs. You don't have any other outs, man. If you want to save, like you said,

some modicum of dignity, some very trivial minor concessions that we might be able to build into it,

now's your chance to do it. And that's how I imagine it went down.

Yeah, I wonder, you know, at some point, Eric, I mean, do you see this at all in clients

of Annie Age, where I mean, Rex is an elderly, but you know, he's getting more up there.

You know, he's got a handful of good years left. Do you see, is there any correlation between an age

at which someone says, screw it, I'm just whatever, I got 10, 20 years left. If I keep fighting this,

I'm just going to be going in and out of court rooms until I'm dead. Versus, I'll just, I'm going

to make peace with this and I'm going to figure out what life is like behind bars. Do you ever see

more backing down versus more fight depending on the age of the of the defendants?

Good question. Oh, you'd be surprised totally. So, you know, you might have a 20-year-old client,

and let's say the evidence is significant, and the offer is five years. Well, to a 20-year-old

five years, that's a quarter of their life. That seems like forever. They're like, hey, I'm not,

I'm going to throw away my life to do this. Let's fight this. Whereas, if you're talking about

someone in their 50s, 60s, 70s, you know, beyond, sometimes they do not have that, they have a

different perspective, perspective in terms of time, in terms of headache, in terms of trauma,

how shitty is this going to be for me? And is there a less painful alternative? I see that a

lot more folks who are up in age. It's at Donald Adelson. Well, Donna, I think probably believes

she will live forever. I think you get deep down with her. I think she might think she's a deity

of some sort, you know, if you really, if you really do the digging. Yeah, everybody's thoughts in

the comments section and sub-stack in YouTube on this segment. The links are in the descriptions.

Seven women have names attached to that guilty play, but the families who've waited decades to

hear those names spoken in a courtroom won't get a trial. They'll get a hearing, a sentencing date,

and silence, where cross-examination should have been. And they're not the only ones left without

answers. 11 sets of remains were found along that stretch of Long Island and authorities have

said they don't believe he remained as responsible for all of them. Shannon Gilbert's case remains

its own unresolved chapter. The question hanging over all of this is whether a plea closes the

book or just closes the chapter. Everyone was still reading. I think that's the other thought that

I had come to my mind right away when I heard always making a plea. There's a lot of remains

that still have not been connected to anyone. And remains, it seems like every handful of months,

we hear another one that gets connected to Rex. So the idea that Rex here, I mean, may not

end up in a courtroom for a murder trial, I don't think is completely impossible. It just may not

be with these seven victims, although who knows if he is to be connected to one he may do the same

thing and plead guilty. In any way, shape or form does him pleading guilty to the seven,

hinder, slow down, prevent or do anything to not connect him possibly with these other

mysterious murders that have been out there. Is this in any way shielding him from any sort of

connection out there? I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I think I do, but I'm not sure.

From a legal standpoint, what do you think? So yeah, two things and they're sort of divergent.

So from a legal standpoint, I think it makes it more likely that they'd be able to prosecute him

because once he has entered this plea for these seven killings, there's a concept called

modus operandi. Like this is the, he took similar actions in other circumstances that have distinct

characteristics that can potentially tie him to these other things. So it makes it more likely

he did that and past acts, including prior homicide convictions, can be used to prosecute

other homicides for which he has not yet been convicted. On the other hand, practically speaking,

my concern is the authorities are going to be like, hey, we gave it our best shot. We got him on

seven, you know, we've got, this has been decades of the make. We've got, we're going to close

this chapter. We've got other priorities to work on. And that is really the tragedy for these

families. Can you imagine how it would feel if, if like you lost your loved one years ago,

had no answers. And then they finally find a guy who seems like you might be suspected in it.

And they get them on the other stuff, but not on your loved ones case, like to be devastated.

So here's what could be good though. You know, if we have great investigators, which I believe

their department has great investigators, like, so here's my mindset. As soon as you rolled

that out, Tony, the first thing going through my mind cited, I got excited because, oh my god,

I can go talk to this guy. Finally, he's not in the middle of a trial. You know, the rains are off.

I can go interview him. I can talk to him. I get access to all the data, all the information,

all the leads. And so if you do have some hungry investigators that are trying to close these

cold cases, trying to figure them out, especially I can only imagine now you have a lot of families

of these unsolved deaths and unsolved missing people that have been hounding that department,

other departments that now that you are the once again, once the police accepted and sent

things done, they will have access to him. If he's willing to have the access and have those

dialogues, I think there's a lot of children there. Again, I'm glad he's glass half full on these things.

Yeah, it's a important point. I guess my concern would be this, everybody's human.

And we know sometimes we've seen cases where you have somebody that's in prison for

but they're stack of murders and there's these unsolved cold cases out here. And then if you go

and try and tack it onto the guy who's already in there who's already admitted to all these,

sometimes they just, yeah, I did it. I'll take that one to whether or not it was actually true or

not. Then you actually don't get to the bottom of who was behind the actual murders. Is that,

I mean, are we looking at that? I mean, being a real risky kind of possibility there,

where once you do get him behind bars, are we going to see a bunch more get tacked onto him

with the prosecutors hoping that, you know, maybe he'll just admit to those two and we can just

kind of move along down the line and get these off of my list of active cases that we're investigating

and just shove it down the line. Or is this more glass half full? Does this take us into a territory

where maybe we can actually find the answers to some of these and maybe they do lead us to

Huwerman, but it is kind of one of those things where you're taking humans and letting them be

humans and humans aren't always the most accurate creatures. I would say if you're asking him,

I'm sorry, Eric, you know, before you go, yeah, I would think if you're asking him where the

bodies, like not just, you know, like do missing people as well. So that's like singular information,

I think you could lead to potentially anyway. So sorry, go ahead, Eric.

Yeah, no, no, I hear you and there's some potential there for further justice. There's some

potential there for the absence of just the facade of justice, something that is hollow whereby

Rex just says, yeah, whatever that was me. And, you know, how satisfying is that to a victim's

family? Sure, it gets a conviction, you know, marked up on the docket, but how meaningful is that

if we can't place faith in it? Is this something where once they got them in the corner, he's

obsessed with control. If he is responsible for more murders and I believe he is, I think a lot

of people do. I don't think he went silent from 93 to 2000. I think there's plenty more out there.

Can he now use, basically, he's just kind of, okay, I'm locked in the stadium now. Here's the

goal post. Here's where they're at. He can't get out, but he can choose where he sits. And I'm

wondering if that's something he's going to use to his advantage of, oh, you want to know where

the other bodies are? You want to get me on this one? Oh, that's great. But here's the, here's

what I want from behind bars to tell you where they are. I want this in myself. I don't want to

roommate. I don't want, you know, I mean, how much, I guess the question is, how much leverage does

an inmate have behind bars? If then they are convicted or accused of other crimes and he says,

yep, did those two, you want to find out where the bodies are? I want this. Is that something he

can use? Is that a lever he can pull once he is behind bars? Good question. I think we need to

look no further than Galein Mexican. Yeah, she was convicted of some horrendous

human trafficking crimes. And, you know, then when she started purportedly working with the

government, so you know, yeah, they're exactly what that looked like. But she got transferred to a

brand nice kind of white group president. And so there are partnerships that those folks have

on the inside. And this could in some perverse way allow them to retain some modicum of control

and he keeps being the puppet master back there. And that would be miscares of justice.

You know, Eric, when you said that, so the first thing that went through my mind when I saw this,

this potential plea was, oh my god, he's been behind bars long enough that he said, I figured this

out. I got it. Let me do this. So I maintain that control. I really think that's a lot of this

was he figured out the system inside saw that's survivable for him that what he wants to do for

his last few years of life. And he knew if he could actually use this liver of manipulation or

this one of this one using what he could hold in the bank, it actually thought he could set

himself up pretty good for that. That was what went through my mind. Yeah, I mean, it's almost like

he's he's come to the acceptance of he's never going to be on the outside world anymore. So how can

I make my inside world as good as it can be? And we're all looking at it as, oh, he's he's

scratching at the doors trying to get back to the outside world. No, I don't think he is. I think

he's pretty good where he's at. And I think he's trying to, you know, do what he always does,

control the environment around him. And I wonder if this is part of that play. I mean, is there

I mean, is there anything that a judge could do going into his his sentencing here? If he does

plea and if he accepts it and all these levers do fall the way we think they're going to fall,

where any of that could be prevented. Can they be can a judge be proactive in this sort of

shit to prevent somebody from pulling the Galein Maxwell card of like, you can do all the you

you can make your claims of this and do all you want. But you know what, at the end of the day,

none of it's going to matter because we've already said to you, no, I mean, and it's a shame

that maybe we're not going to find out where these bodies are, but you are not going to take

advantage of the system to your dying day with what little levers you have left.

Even the most righteous judge has very limited control over those things. For example,

the judge doesn't have jurisdiction over the bureau of prisons and Rex could make a deal with

the warden or whatever that doesn't even that that everyone sees the judge's desk. In addition to

that, the judge doesn't have jurisdiction over law enforcement. So Rex could talk with detectives,

he could talk with prosecutors and he could bargain for himself some kind of, you know, little

benefits here and there over which the judge has zero control. So the judge can put some aspirational

orders into different rulings, but at the end of the day, the judge can't say, you know, hey,

don't transfer him to this nicer facility. Just can't do that. Yeah, you can really see the

thought experiment maybe going through Rex's head on this where the only thing he's going to be

left with when he is behind bars and he came to that conclusion, there's no getting out of this.

So what does he have left? The only currency he can bring behind bars with him, he probably

witnessed this with other people is information. And as soon as that information's gone, it's so

longer currency, he can leverage for the things he wants. And so I think he he pled because he's

going to maintain as much as that control that information he has so he can actually decide what

he wants to spend it on for a life. Yeah, no, I tell you one more question. And in no way, am I

accusing Asa of the having knowledge of any of this or kids or anything I, you know, she may be

just as much of a victim as everybody else or she may be completely clueless. No one can argue

like maybe you should have been more aware of what was going on around you and your family

and your hot. I mean, that's a whole other conversation. But there's still a lot of people who look

at this, the dynamics of this relationship and go, you don't know anything. And there's a

difference between, you know, your husband's weird and you suspect he's up to weird shit,

but you don't know what it is. That may be all this is. But there's some folks who do think that

she might have been more involved or had more knowledge of what was going on. And I'm not saying

that she did. I guess I'm just asking this from a legal perspective of, is there any exposure

that she still faces or now faces with him pleading guilty to this? If he's the one who did this,

then we know flat then that basically says, okay, this shit was going on in this house where

she lived for all of those years. Does that put any sort of weight into any investigation

further into her or would they have already, do you think they've already exhausted those

roads and came up to the conclusion of she's got nothing to do with any of this? And so we're not

going to go after her. I mean, we've seen cases where they kind of pick family member off by

family member, Adelson's being one of them. You know, I'm just I'm just wondering, you know,

I get I'm not I'm not accusing her. I'm not saying she did. I personally think she was

just ignorant on the whole damn thing and told herself whatever she told the there's self to get

by and a lot of lines. Yeah, I really that's my personal feeling on it after watching this case

for three years. But I don't know the answer for sure. Only only a few people do. What's your

thoughts there? You know, I'm and like you Tony, I have zero evidence that the wife had any

knowledge or info, but just talking, you know, hypothetically, when you've got seven killings,

we've got these brutal murders going on. One for us men is not usually inclined to just give

some peripheral actor a pass. You know, if they were to uncover evidence tying her to some sort

of criminal action and association with these murders, I think they would be remiss not to at

least further investigate that and see if the see if there's any provable crimes there.

Would they already be there? Nobody know? Yeah, it's my question, too. Would it have popped up

already or no? You know, we've been doing this for several years with Rex Herman. I would

anticipate that yes. And in fact, the prosecutors would be smart to if they did have such evidence,

use that as as further leverage saying, Hey, you know, your wife, we believe may have committed

these crimes. That's going to be really a huge bummer for her. And also, we might call her to

testify against you in your trial. So I imagine they would have already taken measures in

furtherance of that if they had the goods. What's likelihood that they could actually that Rex

and his team could actually make her immunity part of that plea deal? Yeah, they would accept it.

Yeah, that's that's usually pretty, it's uncommon because usually an immunity deal is only for

the defendant for the party. But you know, could theoretically a person broker immunity for

somebody else? I don't know of any legal authority prohibiting it. And I think a defense attorney

could get creative. That's what I was just starting to wonder about to Robin when I was asking that

question of I mean, yes, I do wonder about that like like could they have come to him and said,

look, you know, you're going down for this. And you know, what we're going to take your wife and

maybe your daughter too, not because they were out there doing this with you, but because we can

prove probably to a jury that maybe maybe they did maybe they did that they had some sort of

knowledge of this. Well, we're at least going to maybe they're scaring Rex. Well, if we think we

have enough and we're going to throw this out there and we're or we can make them immune,

they can be witnesses for the state. But unless you go down this road, we're not going to grant

that immunity and we could prosecute them and we could put them behind bars. So what is it, Rex,

would you like to have your wife and your daughter go to prison for the foreseeable future? Well,

you rot in a cell or would you like to just go rot yourself? We think it's not because he likes

them or cares for them because of the exposure he'd have from being on trial. I want to go down,

keep going on the road of him being an ass. Not a caring individual. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, no, you better believe that those conversations happen oftentimes behind closed doors

between prosecutors and defensitaries. You know, you're you're trying to assess the

your client's exposure. You're trying to assess what horrible things could happen if we don't

take this plea. And the prosecutors are not shy about saying could there be additional charges?

Could there be additional defendants? Could all of this stuff happen? It could. But hey, how about

let's just, you know, copy it now and we'll avoid that huge nightmare. Yeah, I mean, could and would

and stick or two are very different things. I mean, I mean, that's that's the thing. But if you

presented as this could happen, and you know, would the right jury be good, even if even if there's

really not enough to truly because again, I don't think that they had knowledge. I mean, maybe

retrospectively, they may look back and go, I was weird. What happened on that Tuesday,

but I never really saw it from that perspective until now. I mean, there may be some of that,

but I don't think they were sitting there like, Oh, look what dad says in the document today.

Oh, why that tattoo dad? Why are you cutting that one off? I don't think it was like that by

any means. But if you can put that in front and and they must know they might know more, they might

be able to connect some of your actions to some of these other crimes. I do wonder. I really do

wonder. I think that might be that might be the inspiration lever that got pulled right there.

Because what they would and the final note on that, turning two, because what they would know. So

even if they weren't winning, like, it looks like they're not winning, but they they know the pattern

his behavior for all those years. Because remember, they were groomed into complacency. But

they have a pattern in his behavior of what he did and what he did with them when he's doing

these killings. And so they could actually then they if they went to continue to interview her,

they could actually uncover even more of his secrets based on not her knowledge of what he did.

But the knowledge of his patterns of behavior, they can then superimpose on all these other cases.

So that's why I think the exposure is is that the leakage she could have inadvertently towards

other things he had done is what they could get. Well, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't

believe Raks as a public defender, does he? I mean, isn't this a paid for defender or am I wrong

on that? I could be wrong. I'm not sure. If it is a private defense attorney, then the financial

piece could absolutely be playing a role, but off to check my notes on that. Yeah, because that would

that would also then affect because I believe that she got the divorce to protect assets and

things of that nature. But the money is somewhere. I mean, if he's getting if it's not a public

defender, he's being that he's getting paid somehow. And that money could either go to

Asa and the children existing or to defending. Yeah, now they're interesting lever.

Yeah, it looks like court appointed. It is court appointed. Okay.

Yep. There we go. That answers that.

Well, was represented by court appointed to sign council. Yeah, I'm like brown from my slip.

I didn't know Michael was okay. I didn't know. Well, that answers that, but the other one

seemed to stick. I don't know. Very interesting. Would we ever know the answer to that question,

Eric? When this once this all comes out on the plea deal is is finalized, would we ever know

if that was a lever that was pulled to motivate him to do this?

Unless it is written into the plea, probably not. And typically not, you know, those conversations

can be of a threatening uh, uh, uh, between the attorneys. And those don't necessarily see the

line of days. Sometimes that's a phone call. Sometimes that's a meeting in a hallway. Yeah,

interesting. Well, there you go. Such a, uh, fascinating case. We'll see where it plays out.

I still feel like there's going to be more twists and turns. I don't think this is the end of Rex

here. I mean, once he's behind bars, uh, just like so many of these serial killers seem to be

that way. Eric Fatt is defense attorney. Uh, as always, thank you so much for joining us and

giving us your insight into this case. Rob and Rick retired FBI special agency for the counter

intelligence behavior analysis program his book latest one. It's not all about me available wherever

you get your books go and check it out. You please press subscribe wherever you are listening or

watching us Apple podcast Spotify. So you know, miss any of our reporting and conversations on

these cases and give us your thoughts in the comments section on sub stack and YouTube. We'll

continue the conversation right there until next time. I'm Tony Bruceke. We'll talk again real soon.

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