A Guest Post from Jack Seney

Mr Seney reviews a 2018 crime novel that bears a resemblance to the case of the Gilgo Beach, Long Island serial killings.

In the midst of the arrest of one Rex Heuermann in the infamous case of the Gilgo Beach, Long Island serial killings of prostitutes in New York, one might read "Please See Us," a crime novel from 2018 bearing resemblances to the case.

In the current news cycle, few have noted yet that bodies found near Atlantic City, New Jersey have also figured in Gilgo Beach investigations over the years, though this will likely become a factor in the investigation of Heuermann before long. Those Jersey murders are the fictionalized basis for "Please See Us."

The focus here is on a young Atlantic City boardwalk "fortune teller" and con artist-thief who thinks she might have REAL psychic powers. And those powers have lately been focused on the unknown bodies of some girls in a marsh near the city.

Another main character is the failed talent agent who has come to Atlantic City to escape her past and make some money as a beautician. Over the course of a burning summer the fate of these two women will become entwined with those of the lonely bodies of the girls in the marsh.

Author Caitlin Mullen writes very well in this pulpy crime vein. She approaches a literary bent with her writing and dives deeply into each character she presents as well as various side characters. Her focus is on the telling of the stories of various desperate people in depressed Atlantic City, not on cheap suspense or crime action. I would read anything by Mullen at this point as she has proven herself to be of a more artistic bent among our current army of popular crime writers.

As for the Gilgo Beach case, I am not sanguine about the charges brought against Heuermann and have long been suspicious of the endless investigation by dubious Suffolk County and state police that finally led to the charges.

Former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota, an old foe of mine from my earlier journalism days who ended up found guilty of obstruction of justice charges, was for too long too heavily involved in that very poor Gilgo investigation.

As Spota no longer had innocent Catholic priests to persecute and was in a position where he and his own incompetent police chiefs were in the spotlight, he tried to cover up for a dirty police chief crony and BOTH of them ended up found guilty. The point being that any investigation of Gilgo Beach that was conducted by cops like this and D.A.s like Spota was suspect from the get-go, and must remain so until more irrefutable evidence is found.

Rex Heuermann's attorney Michael Brown has said that there are several other suspects who were not seriously pursued over the last decade-plus, including the creep who hired Gilgo-connected victim Shannan Gilbert as a hooker. From that creep's house Gilbert went fleeing in the wee hours of the night, never to be seen alive again and eventually found long-dead near Gilgo. The search for her led to the Gilgo Beach case and to the discovery of the many victims' bodies.

Suffolk cops have done nothing but strangely make excuses for this suspect, Joseph Brewer, from the get-go, and claim that he had "nothing to do" with the Gilgo case. "Nothing to do" with it, huh? Never mind that he hired Gilbert as a hooker and that she fled from his house making frightened calls for help on her phone!!

Furthermore, the "evidence" against the accused Heuermann does not include anything overwhelming yet. It is claimed that "We found DNA from his house on the bodies!!" But what does this prove except that Heuermann may have interacted with the victims? Something like multiple murder is not proved by it at all.

If so far there is no great evidence against Heuermann the question should be 'Why not?" And with defense lawyers pointing to other obvious suspects like Shannan Gilbert's client and pimp on the night of her disappearance, "reasonable doubt" might not be a hard thing to achieve.

Gilbert's client Brewer had ordered a prostitute for his house out by the beach. Brewer and Gilbert's pimp-driver "Pak" both claim that Gilbert "just went crazy" and ran off into the night. Just like that, huh?

911 tapes show Gilbert as terrified and trying to reach the police for help. Other witnesses, one of whom separately called 911, describe Gilbert as fleeing from one home to another seeking help at a time that "Pak" and Brewer were pursuing her.

Suffolk cops only feebly attempted to find Gilbert that night. "Pak" and Brewer took off from the scene. Clueless cops concluded that oh, the girl must have left with them. But her body was found near the beach about a year later, with "inconclusive" results stemming from autopsies.

Because of the missing-person case of Gilbert and her mother's persistence, OTHER bodies were found at Gilgo Beach. Other girls with prostitution histories who had been murdered. YET THE SUFFOLK COPS CLAIM TO THIS DAY THAT THOSE OTHER CASES ARE UNRELATED TO GILBERT'S!!

That's right, Gilbert "just happened" to have vanished in terror right near the same place that a serial killer was burying other prostitutes just like her! Many people actually believe this absolute baloney, as if desperate to believe SOMETHING in this case, even if it relies on the same Keystone Cops law enforcement which featured Thomas Spota as its "leading light!"

I have smelled a rat and a cover up from the very beginning of this case when it was under the auspices of stupid Spota, who now stands convicted of perverting justice. The general media want to focus on Heuermann and convict him before trial based on little clear evidence, without investigating others OR, for that matter, Heuermann's possible connections to others.

If the public wants to be trusting and dumb and just swallow everything that Suffolk and state cops say that is up to the public. But I would advise against it.