president of the screen actors guild, fran drescher, will join us in moments. welcome to the lead, i am jake tapper. we re going to start with our law and justice lead and the hunt for a serial killer. any moment, state and federal investigators in long island, new york, will update the public on the first arrest in their dede-long investigation into the gilgo beach murders. this is a case tied to at least ten sets of human remains discovered since 2010 along the shore in suburban long island. earlier this afternoon, a married father of two and a new york city architect named rex huerman was arraigned and pleaded not guilty. he s connected to the serial murders of three women and is the prime suspect in a fourth. those three women were part of a group known to law enforcement as the gilgo four. their bodies were found near each other, wrapped in burlap, discovered within 2010. they were all in their 20s and offered sex services on craigslist. as details emerge showing hum
searches, and we learned what the individual what the defendant was searching. in a 14-month period, he had over 200 searches pertaining to the gilgo investigation. not only was he looking at investigative insight, he was looking, trying to figure out how is the task force using cell phones to try to figure out what s happening. what are the developments with regard to the task force. and this this really supported our decision to keep our investigative focus secret because we knew that this one person would be watching, and we didn t want to give him any insight into what we were doing. and we also didn t want him to know just how close we were getting. so we maintained the grand jury s secrecy and maintained the integrity of our
rex huberman after he had his court appearance, and he did say apparently to his attorney that i didn t do this, he said he was doing it through tears and seemed distraught about these charges. this is a i know we keep talking about he s an architect, a family man. his physical appearance is interesting, too, because that s also something authorities have tied him to. witnesses for one of the murders say he seemed like an on,egory. and if you saw him in court, he is a very big man. i think we re about to hear from the district attorney. let s go live to long island, new york, where the suffolk county district attorney and other law enforcement officials are giving an update. let s listen in. homicide detectives and has been indicted in a grand jury presentation by the suffolk county district attorney s office for the murders of melissa bar that will few, megan waterman, and amber costello. the investigation of maureen brainard barnes is ongoing. these young women went missing
and his database and his analysts, we were able to continually stay one step ahead of the defendant. so thank you, sheriff tulan. i want to thank the fbi. i know assistant director in charge michael brodack is here. i want to thank his entire team. you know, when you have the fbi not only do you have tremendous resources and insight, whether it s the behavioral sciences unit, whether it s cast, whether sart, which is a computer unit, but you also have the carolina.o seize a car in south i can t seize a car in south carolina without the fbi. so thank you for that. and thank u r your partnership, and thank you for yourilngness to work with us. i want to thank the new york state troopers. i know major udesis here and his team. you know, this case is
that individual was rex huberman, the defendant. and right away there was some commonalities that came right to the fore. he s 6 4 , a large person, not necessarily muscular, but a very physically large person. he has glasses. dark hair. he owned at the time that first generation chevy avalanche. there was more. he lived at 105 1st avenue which was located within that box area that the fbi first discovered in 2012. but there is more. also, he worked at the time at an architect he owned his own aritectural firm at an address at 19 west 36th street in midtown manhattan, and that was also the area of interest that was identified by the fbi in