The golden age of serial killers is over. It's not over. It got worse. It just moved. Meaning you got to talk to a guy like Mark Safrick, right? Former, former lead investigator with the BAU, right? Doesn't look at serial killers anymore because we don't have as many sexual status. Why? They're all become mass shooters. The same people who were golden age serial killers now, because we are living in an immediate society, you know, and slightly more self-involved have moved into mass shootings. So now it's, now it's no more like I'm going to write a letter to the press and, you know, we're going to play this cat and mouse game. Now they're like,
I'm going out in a blaze of glory right now. Same thing, dude. Same people, same bullying, same incel guys, same guys who can't interact with society and don't have what they need and have a revenge thing or want to take revenge. It's the same thing. It's just the type of killing moved, but the dudes are still there.
Hey, Missing listeners. We are replaying an episode of Crawl Space here on Missing. This was a recent conversation that we had with filmmaker and podcaster Joshua Zeman. I think you're really going to like this. We talk a lot about the Long Island serial killer, but also Josh's documentaries, which are fantastic. Lance, what did you think of this conversation? We have been waiting to talk to Josh for a long time. We've been fans of his documentary Cropsy. If folks haven't seen that, please go check that out. It's an amazing documentary. He's also got a ton of other ones that are incredible. He's got the Sons of Sam. He's got Murder Mountain. He has...
Checkpoint Zoo. He's got The Killing Season. He is a very prolific documentary filmmaker, and very insightful, too. I think people are going to get a lot from this conversation. Yeah, definitely a really fun conversation, and we do get maybe a little bit philosophical with some of this, which is kind of fun. So yeah, really enjoyed speaking with Joshua, and definitely check out his movies, and check out the podcast Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer. Okay, please follow us on social media at MissingCSM. We're going to break quick for commercial here, and we'll be right back with Joshua.
Welcome to the podcast, Joshua Zeman. Joshua, how are you today? Hey guys, how are you? We're doing okay. I feel we need to talk about this because before we started recording, we're having issues. We need to call out Riverside because behind you, you have Cropsey is right back there. One of the first true crime documentaries that I ever watched where I was just...
astounded at. I think I watched a few parts of that a couple of times after seeing a certain scene, rewinding it, watching it again. It's actually really cool that we finally have you on the show. We've been huge fans of you. Oh, thanks. Your face isn't blurred, which is awesome, but we're going to hold Riverside's feet to the fire here. We should. With a blur effect. Get your act together. Get your act together. We've never seen this before. Would you mind introducing yourself to the audience, anyone who doesn't know who you are? Sure. My name is Josh Zeman. I'm a filmmaker, a documentarian, mostly in the true crime space. Started out with Cropsey, which was kind of like, at the time, nobody quite knew. We were like, okay, let's make a horror documentary. Actually, I'll tell you the truth.
Blair Witch had come out. Right. And I was trying to do my own horror film and I'm like, and a narrative horror film. I couldn't find the money. And I took a walk through like the woods in the area and like the mental institution where it takes place. This is Willowbrook mental institution, right? Snake pit mental institution, infamous place. Like everything was still in the woods. Like the old playground swing set. It was like.
you know in the old like there was a tree growing through the old like merry-go-round or whatever you want to call it that the kids used to play on and i was like i was like oh my god it's all right here like if we like no production designer could ever do this in a world and it would and it would be as good as this and i was like you know what we can make a documentary about the same thing and blair witch had just come out and i was like i bet you we could do something just as creepy but real so that was it and we had made like we called it a horror documentary people like what's a horror documentary i don't understand anything about what that is and then after that we made killer legends and then murder mountain which was very interesting in the true crime space nobody had done anything about like weed and murder but like it makes sense it's like chocolate and peanut butter and then sons of sam i had always been into the whole kind of cult legends of son of sam based on maury terry's book and maury terry gave me his files and then The Killing Season, of course, that was a big one about the Long Island serial killer that we did back in 2000. Started shooting it in 2013, but it came out in 2016. Incredible body of work. Sons of Sam was fantastic. We actually had the privilege of interviewing Carl De Niro. Oh, yeah, yeah. Carl's great. Carl's great. I'm blessed in a lot of ways because I just get to make documentaries about things that I'm truly interested in. So I want to go like examine.
the story that really fascinates me. And is it real or is it not? Like, was there a cult or wasn't there? It's cool that I get to be able to do that in the documentary space because it just allows me to be like a sick researcher. Absolutely. And I've been waiting years to ask you this question. The scene in Cropsey that kind of changed my perspective on how I view true crime was when I think his friend was shown a picture.
And it's the picture of the individual who you're focused on. And he says, if I were to tell you that this person was a horrible monster who did horrible things to children, you know, this isn't the exact wording, but you would believe me. Or I could tell you that this guy just got out of a burning building after saving an entire family. And that's one of those parts that I went back and I watched again because it is this switch that happens when you're watching this movie. It becomes this like perception that I didn't have. And I don't think a lot of people had when they were looking into true crime. How did that scene even happen?
You know, we picked up this crazy dude and brought him into the back of a pizza place and said, hey, can we interview you? You know, I put the picture on the table and he just comes up with this like beautifully prescient and really important idea about crime and perception. And I think today we see that all over the place because there's so many people with their opinions. You know, we live in a world of opinions and we live in a world where true crime and true crime opinions and everybody's got opinions, you know, and they've got opinions about opinions. So it becomes so subjective.
And you realize how you in your bias or narrative, you can change the narrative of the crime based upon what you see or you can't get through your head that it's something else. We actually had a funny moment with some colleagues of ours because we interviewed somebody who's associated with the Netflix show Monster, the Ed Gein one, and how that is giving you a narrative. And those series of movies are giving somebody the narrative that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It's a fantasy. And this was one of our colleagues points. She said some kids nowadays don't even really know how to Google anymore, which is the equivalent of us saying.
some kids don't know how to open up an encyclopedia, right? So they're not Googling the right things because of the perception being put out there by these productions that are introducing a fantasy to the facts. Well, that's Ryan Murphy for you. Ryan Murphy. I was reading something like many years ago, Asylum, right? American Horror Story Asylum came out. Oh, that sounds kind of familiar. And then, and then I'm reading something. He's like, Oh yeah, I watched this documentary Cropsey and that gave me a lot of great.
two kids walking through the woods. Oh my God. They're walking through the abandoned mental institution. I was like, son of a bitch, you know, but listen, that's the other problem of this Franken signs monster that we've created of true crime, right? Like we don't want to bite the hands that feeds us. You know, I love it. Yet at the same time in Hollywood, there's so many people kind of like fighting to tell a version of the same story. So as a result, different versions get out there and that may not be the right version. We've lost the ability to Google. You know, I did.
I did something about a whale and it was like, we were going on a search. It's like, nobody goes on searches anymore. They don't search. They don't take the time. You know, that's something I tell my audience all the time on the podcast that we do. Like when we did Cropsey, there was barely any internet. It was like aim. Like, like that's what we had, you know? And so I was like, how did we do our research? We went around and we knocked on people's doors. And today that's so foreign. I can't tell you like all the clues that I've learned speaking to somebody through their screen window. That's investigating. That's really getting in there. Just because there's a narrative online doesn't mean that's the narrative.
And for anyone who's unfamiliar with your documentary Cropsey, can you just give us a little bit of info on what it's about? Yeah, sure. So I grew up in Staten Island, New York. And throughout the years of my teenage years, there had been a number of kids who had gone missing over the years. And there had also been this mental institution that was in the middle of our island where we all used to hang out as kids. And there was always an urban legend about an escaped mental patient named Cropsey who would hang out in the basements. And if you went there for like keg parties or something, he would snatch you. And that was like a cautionary tale, I think, that had been put out there so that we didn't go to this very dangerous place.
And, you know, smoke pot or drink or whatever. But we ended up finding out, well, basically, I think when I was 17, there was a girl who disappeared from our neighborhood. Her name was Jennifer Schweiger. And she went missing. Basically, what happened was we found out there really was a guy who was snatching kids. And the police had like kind of never been able to catch him. And so somehow there was this real story about these missing kids and this guy they could never catch. And then there was this urban, there was this mental institution and the urban legend of Cropsey was floating out there. And somehow it all morphed into this.
true urban legend common true story. And so as adults, myself and my co-director Barbara Ancaccio kind of decided to go back and see what was real. Was it the urban legend? How did it all form? And it's just kind of a small town nightmare story, if you will. Yeah. How often do you think that happens where an urban legend, a not too old urban legend in terms of just storytelling, you know, history, this isn't a very old urban legend, but how often do you think that happens where it actually has some root in truth that is right there, like in current times? I actually think it happens quite a bit.
Yeah, we just don't recognize it. What the truth is, a lot of it has to do with crime. We went back and looked at other urban legends and yeah, they're older, whether it's like Wendigo connected to actual crimes about cannibalism or whether it's even take a modern day version of that Slender Man. You know, that is kind of an urban legend come true, whether that comes out on creepypasta and then it's a story that goes around and then kids end up thinking it's real. That's ostention is what it's called. It's like when you almost invoke something by believing in it or you make it real by actioning upon it. There had been Slender Man, this guy, and then there had been the two girls who actioned it.
by actually believing it and then stabbing somebody. So they make the urban legend real. When we talk about Slenderman, and don't get Tim started on Slenderman because that's a sore subject for him, but the two girls- Why is that? I think I've had some rants about this in the past. Basically just what you said, like that it didn't exist. Like that these girls weren't driven by it. They stabbed their classmate and used it as an excuse. What I will say, Tim, is that I went to the trial in Minnesota because I was very interested in this because in some ways it was like a Cropsey 2.0. Here's the thing. There are a lot of monsters out there in society.
you know, real and imagined. And I think what happened was we're dealing with somebody who's mentally ill, one of the girls, and then we're dealing with a real case of filia do, you know, a real case of filia do. So people who have issues are going to latch onto a story that fits their internal narrative. Right. And they're going to then action that story. Like it almost gave them the reason. So it wasn't like they like stabbed it and look for a reason. They I will tell you, they truly believed it as children. You know, they're 14, they're 12 year old girls. You know, they got it in their head because of mental illness, because of some other issues. I actually think that there was some sexual issues going on with one of the girls where she was being abused. And so, you know, a male figure, big, tall, coming into your room at night with a lot of arms. That might fit. You know, it's not my father.
It's Slenderman. All that makes much more sense than anything I've ever heard about this. Yeah, not a lot of people know about the alleged abuse. So when you look at it like that, you're like, and that's what happened to me. I'm like, oh, shit. Wow, I think we finally have put a temporary pin in Tim's. Well, I mean, my rant is still that valid. It's just it's it wasn't the monster that they, you know, this slender, this tall Slenderman exactly this paranormal figure. But yeah, no, they I see what you're saying. And I do appreciate the this line of thinking and discussion. Very interesting. Also.
One other important point is everybody was condemning these girls for believing this shit that they read on the internet, right? But there's a whole bunch of dudes, cops, judges, who are also believing stuff that they read on the internet and believing it even though it's not true. So we need to step back and say, you know, what is belief? What is make-believe, right? Look at the term. That always something that freaks me out, make-believe. And so there's those issues as well. And then, you know, parents freaking out about the internet. Oh my God, you know, so there's so, it's complicated. One thing I will tell you, it almost relates back to Son of Sam, is that when the cops first looked at these girls and they were like, one of the cops called a demonologist.
rather than social services. On the Slender, Slenderman girls? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They called it demonologists instead of social services. I don't know if it was first, but... Around the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What they didn't say is, hey, what's going on at home?
Because that should be the first question. Yeah. Not all the other bullshit. But I do know they call the demonologist because I knew the demonologist because I had interviewed him for the son of Sam. And he's a nice guy. You know, he just, you know, he's a demonologist cop. A demonologist cop. That's a good 80s schlock horror movie right there. It could be a good 2026 horror movie if you ask me. Hold on. Wow. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. I didn't realize we're going to go down the path of this conversation, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. You kind of reminded me of the police officers and law enforcement.
representatives who believe in or promote the idea of the smiley face killers. Cord struck. Now my rant comes in. you know, I don't even know what to say. Nice guys. I know one of them, nice guys, but it doesn't make sense. There's not large roving groups of people who are killing people for no reason whatsoever. And then leaving smiley faces around next to water. Give me a financial motivation. First of all. Right. I do feel like we're a lot of the topics where we're already hit on here. I come back to kind of creating your own reality in some sense. And I, with watching the news today, like it's never been more apparent how dangerous creating your own reality is.
I'm not even involved in the Karen read. Like I've walked away from that like wicked early, but like, I was just like, wow, there's like nine different, like huge conversations going on. Talk about creating your own reality off another crime. I feel like every once in a generation, these, these crimes happen, right? You have, you have like man, the Manson murders you have.
OJ Simpson, Karen Reed, like it's these generational type culture shifts in the true crime industry here, this genre, we always have to try to be ahead of it. What do you do to keep ahead of something like that where you're getting the right information? And when you're starting a project, when you started working on Lisk, how did you keep ahead of information and try to make it as responsible and informative as possible? That's a great question, to be honest with you. That's a really great question because even today, people watch a lot of movies, right? And so it's, you know, even in the Lisk case, they're like, it's a cobble of eyes wide shut men killing women. And I know that's a convenient idea, but it's not true.
But the sad part is, like, what I keep telling people is, like, they didn't even need to do that, the cops in Long Island. They didn't need to, like, have this, like, folie du, you know, killing women. You know, it's not about that. It was, like, just a bunch of gross cops partying, you know, with escorts and cocaine. You know, it doesn't need to go to the craziness. And sometimes I think with these crimes is the reality is just either unsexy or kind of disgusting and gross. But people want to assign a more narrative, more baroque, more interesting answer. And sometimes it's not true.
Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your new podcast on Lisk? Yeah. So what's very interesting is, first of all, we did a show called The Killing Season for A&E all the way back in 2016. We did an incredible amount of investigation back then. And this was before anybody had ever caught Rex Hewerman. We were like trying to figure out why the police weren't talking about it and why the case hadn't been solved and why, you know, these women weren't getting the kind of justice that they needed. So we shot all these interviews. You know, that comes out and everybody's like, oh, that was great. Real investigative piece. There's a whole bunch of other documentary series that come out, blah, blah, blah. Rex gets caught. When Rex is caught, I'm like.
holy shit, we've heard about this guy in some respects. And we go back to these old interviews, especially one that we did with Dave Schaller, who's the roommate of Amberlynn Costello, one of the last girls ever disappeared. And he's telling us, he gave us a number of guys to look at, but he's like, look at one of these guys. He's a huge guy, drives a Chevy Avalanche. It was all right there. Now we missed it. You know, people would be like, well, why am I even listening to you? You missed the clue. But there were a number of reasons like why we missed the clue that could have broke the case. The same clue that was handed over to the cops that the cops ignored. We had thought the cops would obviously have figured this out if they got this great clue. So we're like, well, the cops have this clue. So there's no way they're going to miss this. So it can't be true.
But it was. So we go back and we look at how close we came to catching this killer in some respects through six episodes. And in doing so, we actually realized that the police narrative, well, you know, it was a piece of information that got filed, lost in files. And we realized, nah, it wasn't lost in the files. Not when you went back to this guy three times. Not when you brought him up a list of like a lineup of vehicles. Not when you got corroborating. Like you didn't lose it. Something happened to this piece of information. And the question is, why? Was it intentionally withheld? Why was it intentionally withheld? So that's what we tried by the end of the sixth episode to kind of go into an answer.
We've had five episodes come out. You can watch all five, listen to all five episodes for free. And then on Monday, our final episode drops. So check it out. The Long Island serial killer case is a crazy case that continues to unfold in real time in terms of answers, more police corruption. Like literally something just happened last week where they arrested a boyfriend or of one victim who we believe is actually a victim of the serial killer. But now a different law enforcement agency says no. So we're actually, we have a show I'm going on with a guy, Joe Jackalone, True Crime with the Star. He's a great guy. It's great to have a cop.
where I could go back and like go through all my theories. Cause I'd be like, what is it? This is it this, why would the cops do this? Cause as a journalist, I have my theories, but to hear from the cops perspective is really cool. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsor.
And a thank you to our sponsors. Back to the program. It is a little wild to hear that there were several different serial killers on Long Island at that time. And you sort of touch on maybe, I guess, the possibilities of how that happens. Can you share that? There were four active serial killers on Long Island in 1993. I'm not talking about like, I'm talking four dudes who are actively killing women all at the same time. The question is like, how does that happen? If you go back and you look at Washington State and the Bundy Age and the Ridgeway Age, you know, there's those conversations about what was happening in the Pacific Northwest at the time. Here in Long Island has its own little...
cluster, if you will, cluster of serial killers. And I think you do get a little bit of that in the LA Slayer situation as well. Was it, you know, they thought it was one or they thought it was many. So how does that happen? I don't know. I think that's the real question. Like Long Island is the original bedroom community. The original one. Levitown was started in 1950. When you have that pressure to like conform, right? In bedroom communities and keeping up with the Joneses. And when you have that pressure to conform, I think that creates hardcore aberrations in people. That's a great.
observation because we often theorize and we have people on who talk about the age of the serial killer and and why we think that that is the 70s right we have the 70s and 80s so some people theorized it was a product of world war ii and graphic novels and how you know they had these old graphic like pulp novels i do see a lot of that pulp conversation but then i see a lot of creators who are like yeah i love those pulp things i was like these guys aren't serial killers that was my point you can you can say well i mean how there had to have been something that was in the person that isn't in somebody else when they're looking at these pulp books so it can't just be one thing do you find that You have people very aggressively defending their opinion that it has to be this one thing. One thing I will say is I think people miss a portion of this conversation, which is the golden age of serial killers is over. It's not over. It got worse. It just moved. Meaning you talk to a guy like Mark Safrick, right? Former lead investigator with the DAU, right? Doesn't look at serial killers anymore because we don't have as many sexual status. Why? They're all become mass shooters. The same people who were golden age serial killers now, because we are living in an immediate society, you know, and slightly more self-involved have moved into.
mass shootings so now it's now it's no more like i'm gonna write a letter to the press and you know we're gonna play this cat and mouse game now they're like i'm going out in a blaze of glory right now same thing dude same people same bullying same incel guys same guys who can't interact with society and don't have what they need and have a revenge thing or want to take revenge. It's the same thing. It's just the type of killing moved, but the dudes are still there. Yeah. And also the act of killing somebody in a mass shooting with a gun from a distance that's further away than strangling or a knife. That moment where someone's deciding whether or not they can do it, I'm sure that factors into the decision. The fact that they don't have to actually look the people in the eyes when they do this, that they don't have to actually watch them die with their own hands around their throats. You know, they can move on to the next victim with the next bullet. Yeah. I mean, I think that's why it was originally sex workers.
You know, because that's like, you know, in their mind, it's a half person, you know, it's not a real person, you know, so I could kill them and it's okay because I don't really know them or they're not like, you know, theoretically, these great parents or all that other stuff, you know, so now it's just gotten that much more removed. So that's why I have a problem with the conversation. People are like, oh, this age of serial killers is over. I was like, actually, it got worse. You know, what are you talking about? I got to follow up on this topic here.
Serial killers are known sort of for their cool down period after they commit a murder. Mass shooters. And we just saw it with this Brown shooting in this MIT shooting. This guy took his own life last night. Does that run into like what we were just talking about, about creating your reality, your own reality? And do you think like it becomes too real after you do that? Because you clearly you made these people that you're targeting the bad guy in some way or another in your own head. Right. You've justified that to some degree. And then when you commit the act, is it like it's too much to handle the actual reality of it? And then juxtaposed to the serial killer, they they were aware of what they were going to do. And so they just kind of.
treat, whereas the mass shooter, their reality kind of crashes and they end their life. It's like what we're talking about with opinions. You know, this day and age, everybody's just like 1000%, whether it's with your opinion or whether it's with anything, right? So even in mass shooting, it's like, I'm all in, you know, at first, like before, because we're not in this reactionary world of like, I could just go online and like, you know, and do my opinion immediately. So because, because some of those filters are off, we're very much more reactionary. We hold back less. And I think that affects even in crime, if we're going to go, we're going to go all in plus.
Again, it's one thing, and I say this in the most tragic sense of the word, it's one thing to kill a sex worker and then kind of retreat. And it's another thing to go get an AR-15 and wipe out 15 people. There is no retreat. It's really hard to go back from that. I don't know. I mean, we're really talking off the cuff here, and probably some psychologists should be coming out of the woodwork to smack us across the face. But this is anecdotally, I think, what we're seeing. Yeah, we all react to what we've seen, whether it's in the news or in our social media feeds. So even though we're not licensed psychotherapists here, we're still having these conversations whether or not...
we're licensed to have the opinion that's accurate. You know what I mean? Like these are conversations we're going to have anyway. And in some ways, isn't true crime a weird barometer of the nation psychologically? It really is. It really is in a weird way. You know, I did this interview on a, I have this, I mentioned, I have this YouTube channel that we just started called Sinister, right? I did this interview with Dr. Joni Johnson. She's like the B'nai Brown of serial murder, right? And she's like, we're a world of edge sitters. Like before there weren't edge sitters, but now there's all these people who are like on the fringe who are waiting to act. And the true crime world like attracts the edge sitters.
Right. So there's this subset of the true crime world who are edge sitters waiting to act and they're almost waiting for us or the right story to push them forward. That's interesting. I've never heard that before. The edge sitters and really remarkable to think that there could be something that you put out there on your show or we put out on our show that would convince somebody to hop off the edge. It's not your responsibility. They're looking for it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. There's nothing you're going to do that's going to like they're going to find their motivation somewhere. But look at Kohlberger, who.
took Catherine Ramsland's class. I was doing this whole show about how Rex Hewerman picked up Mindhunter book and like looked at the book and tried to like get away with what he was doing. He's like, oh, I'm going to mutilate this person to appear disorganized because the disorganized killer looks very different from me. So he was like trying to throw investigators off by trying to seem disorganized, like the crazy dude in his parents' basement, not the dude who's the psychopath who has like the whole family. You know, they are reacting to everything. And, you know, it goes back to that same old like.
video games and comic books, you know? So your thoughts on Hewerman, are the victims that are believed to be his, the Lisks, do you think they're all Hewermans? Look, here's the thing, like, it's very hard to speculate, as you know, but having done the research, I would say yes. I look at it from not like, well, he didn't go after, you know, a black individual, and therefore, what is this black individual doing there? Like, this dude was trying to throw investigators off. And when you realize that he's trying to throw investigators off, everything is on the table. There's just a couple things in the signature that really...
are important. Number one, remains of all the victims being found on Ocean Parkway, his trophy garden, if you will. So I believe that there are a number of victims. The other thing that we have, though, that makes it so difficult is we have a police department that at the time is extremely corrupt. And therefore, we throw a lot of misinformation out there that serve them. So it's really an unbelievable puzzle to disentangle. You were saying before about all the serial killers in the Golden Age, you know, I think every generation gets the killer it deserves. That's Manson, that's Son of Sam, that may be OJ.
You know, and Rex Heurman, at least for this community, is the killer that they deserve because he's a product of true crime, our interest in true crime. Like, I love Mindhunter. It's a cool book. I read the book and I love the show and Rex does too. He's using it to get away with it. You know, I think right when he started, Silence of the Lambs came out. So that's what I think is important, at least in this case. And again, what's so interesting to me is to be delving into a case where we don't have all the answers because the trial hasn't even started. And so we're actually getting to figure out the truth in real time.
It's just slow. And we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors. And now we're back to the program. Can you take us more into his personal life here? How does somebody do this and keep it a secret from his family, keep it a secret from his neighbors? You're looking at a real BTK. You're looking at a BTK type of guy. You know, BTK's family didn't know what was going on. I also think he picked the right family. Yeah, interesting. 100%. He went for the right woman, the wife, who wasn't going to ask questions and who saw him as her savior because he rescued her from a marriage. Did she know something was going on? I'm sure she knew there was something strange about her husband, but I don't know if she knew he was, you know, doing exactly everything that he was doing. People say, well, you know, the wife and the child are suspect. And it's like.
Yeah, but sure, they're suspect and like they're part of a mask, but they're not like, oh, dad's going to go out and kill a sex worker today. And then we're going to come home and have dinner. You know, like that's not happening. So again, I think people watch a lot of TV, you know, post-peak TV. We could do anything in TV and you would believe it. So I think unfortunately that really tends to affect people. But this was a guy who from his childhood, first of all, by the way, very interesting. We have an episode coming out where we speak to a childhood friend of Rex and I knew he had been bullied.
right? That's a big thing. Even Rifkin, another Long Islander, bullied. And by the way, bullying is something that we see in so many of these cases. We see it in the golden age of serial killers, and we see it in mass shootings today, the bullying. It's not an excuse, obviously, but it's just very interesting to see that's how people create revenge fantasies. And then Rex Seward was a sexual sadist. And what I wanted to know, and we got in this in episode five, is how does a sexual sadist really, like, how does that really happen?
Like what allows a human being to get off on torturing somebody else? And it was very interesting. That woman, Joni Johnson, again, was like, you have to have revenge. You have to like be bullied or have like serious revenge at the time that you hit puberty. So that revenge gets.
added to puberty and all like the sexual feelings. And then you find the right type of violent pornography. And then it kind of gets codified in this like sexual script. And I was like, wow. And then he has to be somewhat of a psychopath not to have the empathy. I was like, wow, that's super interesting. Like, and so all this was happening in Rex's childhood. What I learned because he's so big, right? Here's another thing. He's like Kemper. He's so big, right? So you would think he'd be a tough guy, but his father died. So he was emotionally wounded and everybody bullied him because of how big he was.
I was like, Oh, it's like Shrek. You know, it's like a Shrek thing, you know? And then one of the guys told me, he's like, and I was like, Oh, the guys, the guys, he's got the guys. He's like, Oh no, it was the girls. The girls bullied him because he would ask them on dates and they would laugh in his face. And I was like, Ooh, you can see how that.
forms, right? Yeah, absolutely. And you said something interesting there that he wasn't fully a psychopath. And I'm wondering in your opinion and just in the work that you've done, is that a thing? Like, do they have the tendencies to be a more full-blown psychopath and they just don't do it? But for whatever reason, Rex did. Like he committed himself and went down that path. You know, the thing that you learn is like, it has to become the perfect cocktail. It is nature-nurture. They say genetics loads the gun, but environment pulls the trigger. That's almost even too simple. Like it has to be the perfect cocktail. If the dad didn't die at 12, would he have become this? Maybe not.
You know, if he wasn't so big, would that happen? Probably not. You know, it has to be, it's a real complicated cocktail and the cocktail has to be perfect. And he was smart too. He's not dumb, you know, but you have to have like the littlest bit of, you know, you have to be a little bit of a psycho, you know, psychopath. You have to be a little bit of a narcissist. Like you have to have all the ingredients. It's like a meal, right? You can have all the ingredients, but overcook it. It tastes horrible, right? Undercook it. It tastes horrible. You know, so Long Island is like, you know, it turned up the oven, you know, and this. And so it's everything. It's really a really complicated mixture that allows someone like this to become who they are. The calls that.
lisk made to the families of the victims is one of the more repulsive things I think I've ever heard in any true crime story. It's just so torturous for the people on the receiving end of those phone calls. Is that evil to you? And do you believe in evil, I guess? Oh, that's a great question. I ask myself this question all the time, right? Do I believe in evil? I mean, I've done a lot of occult crime stuff, so my version of evil is different, you know, than other people. I think it's too easy to say the word evil.
You know, it's too easy to use the word monster. You know, I'm always about putting the mirror up and not blame, not taking the blame off the victim, but putting the mirror up and saying, what does this say about society? It's psychotic behavior. It's narcissistic behavior. It's what a sexual status does. Is it evil? I just don't throw that term out widely. It's too special. Yeah, agreed. We try to steer away from that as well because it does, I don't know, it equates it to something that's not, that can be questioned as far as whether it's reality, right? All of a sudden you've made it sort of mythical or made it into a fantasy and that's.
not doing the entire story justice. Yes, absolutely. I think that the problem is, is when you do that, you kind of take away, you both give the guy supernatural power, which he doesn't deserve. You make him bigger and better, which he doesn't deserve. You also take away the idea that you can stop it from happening again. Yeah, that's a good point. So you take away the idea that you can stop it, right? Because evil is unstoppable. So it's inevitable. But isn't it?
Like, not evil, but isn't, like, serial murder or mass shootings, like, at this point. Okay. Did we have mass shootings in the 1970s like this? No. Okay, so if we didn't have it previously, does that mean we have to continue? You know, there was a time when there was none. You know, sure, take away all the guns, theoretically. You can at least cut them down. I'm curious, like, what would happen? You know, I know that's been talked about, and, you know, I'm not trying to get political with it, but... No, and I'm fine to have that conversation. Look, it doesn't happen in other countries. Yeah, but then is there serial murder if you take away that?
Sorry to go back into the circle here. It's kind of fascinating to me, though. Really fascinating. I don't know. You know, that's a hard one. Like, and then if you're looking at it from like a big picture society, is serial murder better than mass shootings? You should talk to the parents of Parkland or Sandy Hook and see what they say. But I don't know. That's a real hard one. That's a real hard one. But there is a point to going into all this, which is to recognize it. I do like to say, and it's easy and convenient for me to say it, but if there was a person, a coach, somebody who could have reached out to Rex Eurman as a child and, you know, become involved, could we have prevented the deaths of 10 women?
I think so. I think the world needs a little bit more empathy these days. You know, we're all spiraling down this really dark rabbit hole, dude. Empathy, that's a sign of weakness. We can't be weak. No, no, we've ranted against that. That is insane to say that. I think that's one thing that people in the true crime world and creators need to have. I mean, you've got to have empathy. That's actually what's most important. It's not just about telling the story and kind of being like, isn't that creepy? You know, it's about, you know, breaking it down important and having empathy. I don't know. So, Rex Yorman?
He's a very unique individual and very much a product of who we've become. The other question is, he may be one of the last. Like, I don't know if you're going to get a serial killer like this again for quite some time. If so, it's somebody who's been doing it for a long time in such a way that is almost undetectable and we'll find out long after they're captured, you know, and if they're ever captured. But you're right. This could be one of the last impactful serial killers that we see in this generation. I think so, for sure. I think we've just all kind of like Tim was saying, like we kind of just moved on. It is very interesting.
And the police corruption, of course, is very important. I think the other thing maybe we're all seeing in this true crime community is a little bit more critical lens on police, which I think is both good and bad. There were so many years in which we didn't have that critical eye. Somebody needs to be watching the detectives. We just have to do it in a responsible way. Yeah. What do you do as a journalist and a documentarian when you discover the potential, the possibility of police corruption that is tangible? You know, not just like a theory, but like you see something or you come across evidence of that. What's your next step? It's a good question. It's hard. You know, it's hard. I think the List case was unique because there was so much.
corruption. What really gets me these days, and I literally was telling this to myself in a conversation with myself, it's cool, yesterday, which is, you would think that, like, why are we still having issues about police ego and inter-jurisdictional issues? Why is that still a problem? Like, how many innocent people would not be in jail if ego wasn't involved? Like, I don't understand that part of it. Like, put your dicks away. You know, and ironically, it's not even, who I'm referring to is not even a guy. Like, why is it all about the press and all that stuff? Because why can't it just be about solving the crime? I'm very...
Pollyanna about it, but no, I feel the same way. And I've said it a number of times. Like it feels like more effort is put into being corrupt and actually doing your job and doing it. Why don't you just do the easier thing? Like, like, it's not about the press conference, you know? Yeah. Look, I think we get to, we have the benefit of seeing the negative aspect of it. Meanwhile, there's like the regular news media, which is just like banging on the door for an answer. So, you know, there's us and then there's them and we're kind of all responsible for the whole thing. I don't know.
The Heuermann trial is coming up in 26. I believe you were expecting a guilty verdict. I am expecting a guilty verdict, but the problem is all it takes is one. All it takes is one individual. And there is a lot of ways in which a defense attorney could get in there.
And there's been so much talk about this case over the years. There's been so many suspects. We're still, literally, as we are talking, there is a dude, Andrew Dykes, who is going to go to trial for one of the victims. I don't believe he actually killed the mother of his child. I believe it was Rex, but I think the Nassau County Police Department is, for some reason, wants to get in on it. They're literally going to try this guy, and I don't even think he did it, you know? And people would be like, oh, come on, how can that happen? It's happening. It's literally happening, right? As we speak, I spoke to the guy's son today. It's like, this guy would have had to kill this woman, theoretically, if you listen to what the Nassau County Police Department are saying. He would have had to kill this woman. He then...
dismembered her remains, put her in a tub in a place called Hempstead Park, then drove 22 miles out to this ocean parkway where Liszt put all his victims. He put one victim, again, his alleged, the mother of his child, next to a body of allegedly Rex Shurman, also dismembered. And then he went six and a half miles further and then put the baby, because there's a baby in this case, his own child theoretically, 211 feet away from where Rex Shurman put another victim. I don't know. It's just it's just like I said, this is a case that continues to have new surprises and learning new things every day. We're all very fortunate to have you one of the journalists who can cover this case with such great responsibility. So by the time this becomes a Ryan Murphy.
limited series, we'll refer people back to your show in this episode and refer them to Sinister and to Monster, the hunt for the Long Island serial killer. We'll refer them back to all of that. Lance, way to bring it back. Yeah, full circle here. Full circle, nice job. But I mean, in all seriousness, there will be a moment where we'll see his production. We'll be like, no, come on. And then we have to remind people, no, the truth is over here in Josh's show and this interview. But what's coming up next for you?
Working on the Eitan Pates case. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the Eitan Pates case. That's the first kid ever on a milk carton. Very interesting story. You know, this kid disappeared from a street in Soho in 1979. He was a six-year-old boy. He was on his way to a school bus stop. He disappeared. He vanished into thin air. And for like 33 years, nobody knew what happened to him. And then there was a dig that went on for his body. And out of that, somebody theoretically confessed. What happened was the police got a tip. They brought this guy in. He sits in an interrogation room for six hours. They don't turn the cameras on. This is the NYPD. Doesn't turn on the cameras for six hours. They turn on the cameras and there's a guy signing a confession.
have been two subsequent trials for this guy. His name is Pedro Hernandez. He has an IQ of 67 and suffers from schizotypic personality disorder. So he believes things that he shouldn't believe. Like maybe he believes he did it. He worked in a bodega very, very close to the crime. And there was one trial that happened and it ended in a mistrial. There was another trial that happened and he got convicted. And then recently a judge said that trial was not correct. So now they're going to try him again this coming June. And this is the kid basically who, along with Adam Walsh, led to stranger danger.
Like led to this crazy thing that we still deal with as parents and the kids who grew up during Stranger Danger. Well, can't wait to see what you've got on that one. That's all that was happening right when we were being raised. So that was like deeply embedded in me when I was growing up. So can't wait for that. And Joshua, thank you so much for joining us here today. This has really been an incredible conversation. Really loved speaking with you.
All right. Well, thanks so much, guys. Much appreciated. And please make sure you go tell your guys to go check out our YouTube channel, Sinister with Josh Zeman. And of course, Monster, the Hunt for the Long Island Serial Killer that you can get on iHeart and Spotify and everywhere you get your podcasts that the last episode is going to drop. The last eight episode is going to drop on Monday so that you'll be able to binge the whole thing over Christmas for free. You know, when you're done dealing with your family, you can delve into some serial murder for six hours.