A DISGRACED cop who botched the crucial early stages of the Long Island Serial Killer probe should be investigated in connection with the case over potential snuff film links to Rex Heuermann, a lawyer says.

Heuermann, 60, appeared in a New York court last month and was charged with the murders of two more women on Long Island, Sandra Costilla, and Jessica Taylor, bringing the total counts against him up to six.

Saturday marked one year since the hulking, six-foot-four former architect was arrested on a busy Manhattan street.

In court documents released last month, prosecutors unveiled a trove of evidence against Heuermann, including a deleted document recovered from his hard drive that officials allege he used to meticulously plan his killings and map out steps to cover his tracks.

Detectives also allegedly recovered a cache of violent pornography from his computer that they claim aligned with how Costilla and Taylor were found.

The horrifying images included depictions of “breast mutilation, vaginal torture, sex substitution, sexualization of decapitated women, bondage and whipping,” the documents state.

Violent sexual videos documenting actual murders or the violation of corpses are otherwise known as snuff films.

Prosecutors did not state where they believe the material originated from or if the material was homemade.

Details in Heuermann’s alleged “planning document” detailed reminders to get “PHOTO FILM” and later “DISPOSE OF PIC’S [sic]”.

The inclusion of such details in the court documents was of particular interest to attorney John Ray, who represents the family of Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker found dead on Long Island whose disappearance in 2010 kick-started the Gilgo Beach investigation.

By the end of 2011, a total of 11 sets of remains would be found along and near Gilgo Beach, including Gilbert’s.

James Burke was sworn in as Suffolk County Police Chief the following year and oversaw the crucial early stages of the Long Island Serial Killer investigation.

Burke has been widely criticized for mishandling the investigation. He actively blocked the FBI from assisting his department in what critics believe was an attempt to conceal the corrupt culture he was harboring and hide his own sordid exploits, which included patronizing sex workers and taking hard drugs.

John Ray Presser on Gilgo Beach Killer

His three-year tenure as chief was marred with controversy and ended in 2015 after he was arrested for brutally beating a handcuffed suspect who’d stolen a bag from his patrol car containing sex toys and pornographic materials.

The suspect, Christopher Loeb, would claim years later on a podcast that Burke’s bag contained incriminating evidence, including a DVD of a “snuff film”.

Loeb alleged the footage depicted a sex worker being tortured. He claimed the woman was bound and crying as she begged for her life.

The allegations have never been verified, nor have they been disproven.

Since John Ray joined the case in 2011, he says rumors of snuff films and a local group of “sickos” exchanging the materials have been rife.

One law enforcement source allegedly told Ray that Burke once watched a snuff film at work and openly laughed at the distressing images depicted on screen.

A former colleague of Burke’s, Rob Trotta, also told The U.S. Sun last year that Burke once asked him if he knew “where to get a snuff film?”

Ray urged investigators to re-examine Burke and explore any potential social ties he may have shared with Heuermann.

Speaking on June 7, he said, “I’ve always suggested that Rex Heuermann was involved in very serious, dark web porn, and that has now been confirmed by prosecutors.

“And now we’re looking at whether Heuermann recorded that kind of material himself, and the inference I got last week is that he was taking photos or possibly making films of his victims.

“The chances he did are very high, they might just not have been found yet – and that’s a big yet.

“And in that regard, we have to see whether he was connected to former chief Burke because it seems that Burke had a similar taste and similar interest in this kind of material.”

Ray added that Bruke needs to be “looked at right now” by detectives working the Gilgo Beach probe.

He said he believes there is a “tapestry of perverts” operating on Long Island and exchanging the kinds of materials described in Heuermann’s indictment.

“The connections are widespread and bizarre, there’s no telling where it’s all going to take us,” said Ray.

“But there’s a whole web of these people, and they do know each other, either just online or maybe in passing socially, but they’re all in the same field of perversion.

“Is Bruke connected to all this? It’s something investigators need to look at.”

HORRIFYING ACCOUNT

Burke’s lawyer has been contacted for comment about Ray’s remarks.

During a symposium in January, Ray shared previously unreleased statements from several women claiming to have shared frightening and violent past encounters with Heuermann.

One of the statements, issued by a woman identified under the pseudonym Alice Poe, established alleged social ties between Heuermann and Burke.

According to Alice Poe, she met Heuermann in 1993 at a party hosted by James Burke at a Budget Inn along Montauk Highway, in Patchogue, New York.

Alice was a 16-year-old runaway and living at the motel at the time.

Alice claims she was invited to a party one Friday evening by a young mother she befriended who also lived out of the hotel, per a copy of the affidavit obtained by The U.S. Sun.

Alice said the woman led her to an L-shaped room with two beds and little else that was being occupied by a group of men who were drinking heavily.

“There was one other white man who was there. He was the life of the party, talking to everyone. He tried to convince me to get mad at my boyfriend, who was not there,” Poe’s statement reads.

“This boisterous person was James Burke,” she further claimed.

“I was told by someone at the party he was a cop, and that another one of the men was a cop.

“I have seen pictures of James Burke when he was a cop […] I am certain that this talkative man at the party was James Burke.”

Alice alleges that Burke was passing around a crack pipe to the other men at the party and goading them to smoke it, though she didn’t see him consume the drug himself.

At one stage, she claims the cop repeatedly attempted to force her to take a “hit of the pipe” but she refused, causing his demeanor to change from the life of the party to “hostile” and aggressive, the affidavit reads.

Later, Alice claims there was a knock on the door, and a “large man” she believes was Heuermann entered the room.

The large man’s presence caused a commotion among the other people already at the party, Alice recounted, and she took the opportunity to attempt to leave.

However, she claims that Burke ran and blocked the door to prevent her from doing so.

“I began to feel frightened and tried to think of a way to get out of the room that wouldn’t appear like I was attempting to leave permanently,” wrote Alice.

“I approached the man with the brown hair and asked him if I could have a cigarette and if he would come outside with me to smoke it.

“I planned to tell him I was going to go to my room for my cigarettes, once outside, because I didn’t like his brand. He agreed and we went outside.”

Once outside, Alice claims she encountered Heuermann, who was wearing a flannel shirt and leaning up against a wall of the motel, crouched at such an angle that she could not immediately see how tall he was at first.

“He was pleasant to me. He seemed nerdy to me. I had begun to relax,” recounted Alice. “I asked the man where he was from. He told me they were friends from Long Island and liked to party.

“He told me that when they wanted to hang out, the men would tell their wives they had to take a trip for business purposes. He told me he wasn’t married anymore. He said he owned a car dealership.”

Alice claims she made a sarcastic joke that a car dealership owner wouldn’t need to go on a business trip, but the comment failed to amuse the tall man.

“He began to look at me like he was angry. I told him I was going to my room to get cigarettes and began to walk past him,” wrote Alice in the affidavit.

“He quickly stood up from his leaning position and encircled me with his arm, urging me toward the door of the motel.

“He was now standing very close in front of me and I looked up at him. I could see that he was huge. I exclaimed that my god, he was tall. I could see he was pleased at my shock.

“I tried to joke but he remained serious. I did not want to go back into that room.”

To stall, Alice said she feigned interest in a nearby car and asked the tall man to show it to her.

“When he brought me to the car, we were in the light, and I could see him clearly. His size, face, demeanor, and attitude deeply scared me,” she recounted in the affidavit.

“He no longer spoke nicely to me. I told him that if he would wait, I just needed to get my own cigarettes. I told him that I was scared because my room was far and in a dark area of the motel.

“I asked him to watch me and wait for me to return to keep him from suspecting that I was trying to get away. He let me go.”

Alice said that, once out of sight, she ran back to her room terrified.

Later that night someone knocked on her door twice but she didn’t answer and she didn’t look outside.

Alice said she never saw the man again.

SOCIAL TIES?

Years later, in July 2023, she said she was watching the news when a report of Heuermann’s arrest flashed on the screen.

She immediately recognized Heuermann as the tall man who’d frightened her that night in 1993, the affidavit states.

Ray believes Alice’s testimony establishes a concrete social link between Heuermann and Burke that speaks to a wider conspiracy at play in Suffolk County.

He alleged that personal relations between the pair may have hindered Burke from properly investigating the Gilgo Beach murders and Heuermann as a suspect.

The hunt to find the Long Island Serial Killer began in late 2010 when the remains of missing sex worker Melissa Barthelemy were found along Ocean Parkway during a search for Shannan Gilbert.

Within two days, three more women would be found dead at the roadside, in similar positions to Barthelemy, bound with either tape or belts: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, and Megan Waterman.

By mid-2011, seven more sets of remains would be found, Shannon’s among them.

However, her death was quickly ruled an accident by police – although her official autopsy was inconclusive.

Ray and Shannan’s family have long contested that ruling insisting she was murdered and her death covered up by powerful locals who were friends with Burke.

Burke stepped down as chief after his arrest in 2015.

The following year, he pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of Christopher Loeb and orchestrating the cover-up of his crimes with the help of then-District Attorney Thomas Spota and a handful of other officials.

After his conviction, numerous details about Burke’s troubling past, corrupt antics, and alleged sexual exploits would come to the fore.

The allegations included frequent consumption of hard drugs, patronizing sex workers, cross-dressing, and a history of violent behavior.

Ex-Suffolk County detective Rob Trotta claimed Burke’s sordid escapades were an open secret among the department, years before his “long overdue” arrest.

Trotta and a handful of his colleagues authored an anonymous letter to County Commissioner Steve Bellone in 2011, months before Burke’s appointment as chief, urging Bellone to reconsider and highlighting a number of his prior transgressions.

Mentioned in the letter was that Burke was known to frequent prostitutes, routinely threaten his subordinates, and in 1995 – two years after his alleged encounter with Alice Poe – was disciplined after having sex with a prostitute in his patrol car.

Trotta – who reluctantly retired a year after Burke’s appointment – said he was unsurprised to see the wheels come off the Burke regime so quickly but he should’ve never been permitted to become a police officer in the first place, “let alone chief”, he charged.

“The rumors were always everywhere,” said Trotta.

“After I left the department and ran for office […] on two occasions I was in a room with Steve Ballone and I told him, ‘You’ve got to fire this guy. This guy’s crazy.’

“And Steve Ballone looked me in the eye and said, ‘I stand by him.’

“What message are you sending to the rank-and-file cops that you can go have sex with a prostitute in your police car and then you can still go on to be the chief of police?

“It blows me away.”

‘INVESTIGATE BURKE’

Rumors, conspiracy, and innuendo have followed Burke around for years.

After his arrest in 2015, various local officials, including Trotta, State Senator Phil Boyle, and John Ray, all called for Burke to be investigated in connection with the LISK case, believing him to be a compelling suspect.

Those calls were renewed by Trotta and Ray last year after Burke was arrested for attempting to solicit sex from an undercover cop in a Long Island park.

Burke has never been formally accused or charged with any crimes related to the Gilgo investigation.

However, Ray likened Burke to Heuermann, insisting the two men appear to have been cut from the same deviant cloth.

Ray held a press conference on June 13 and leveled a series of accusations about Heuermann’s daughter, Victoria Heuermann, and her alleged social media activity.

Ray was widely criticized in the wake of the press conference, with Victoria’s lawyer, Vess Mitev, discrediting Ray’s allegations as confused ramblings.

“This is bad legal kabuki intermixed with the deluded and confused ramblings of a man who also thought that the Harry Potter series was the work of the devil, so there’s nothing to comment on except that any coverage of this sad publicity stunt takes away from the actual investigation going on in this matter and the victims in this case, which have nothing to do with the sole client represented by this attorney,” shared Mitev.

Ray’s own client, Sherre Gilbert, Shannon Gilbert’s sister, also spoke out against him on social media.

Writing to X, formerly Twitter, Sherre said, “I do NOT agree with anything John Ray is doing. This is disrespectful and I had no prior knowledge of this ‘press conference’ or the ‘evidence’ he was presenting today.”

A second post read, “He should’ve been there to discuss Shannan’s case period!

“He cuts his nose to spite his face! I do not condone his actions whatsoever!”

HEUERMANN CAUGHT

It took eight years to finally snare Heuermann.

The key to identifying him as a suspect came from an eyewitness account that had been sitting under the department’s noses for years.

The account, shared by Amber Costello’s roommate, described seeing the slain woman getting into a Chevrolet Avalanche with an orge-like man on the day she was last seen alive.

Heuermann’s arrest came after a months-long investigation and he has since been charged with six murders.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is due to reappear in court on July 30.