How Did Sandra Costilla's Case Change The Entire Rex Heuermann Timeline?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers' half year in review. A look back at some of the most compelling cases of 2026 so far.
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:16)
One more case. Seven women allegedly killed across nearly two decades. And for over a decade after that, nothing, no arrest, no suspect named publicly. The Gilgo Beach case sat cold while families buried what they could recover and waited for a system that seemed to have forgotten them. Now with Rex Heuermann reportedly preparing to change his plea to guilty. Uncharges connected to all seven victims. This case enters a brand new phase, one where the questions don't get simpler. They get a little bit harder. Jennifer Koffendaffer is with me and Robin today, retired FBI Special Agent. Jen, Rex Heuermann maintained his innocence for nearly three decades. His defense challenged the DNA, fought the split trials, filed motion after motion and lost every single one.
Let's talk about this. As someone who's built cases against violent offenders, when a defendant who's been fighting that hard and has maintained this secrecy, this veil for all of these years, fooling his friends, fooling his family, fooling everybody, he decides now, I'm guilty.
What does that tell you about what's really going on behind the scenes?

**Jennifer Koffendaffer** (1:27)
Behind the scenes, he and his legal staff believe they've exhausted everything. They've exhausted what they can't exhaust. And then that's coupled with the fact that Asa, he's got his daughter. And basically, I don't think he wants to run all of this through the mud. Look, I mean, we already know because of his journals, the absolute salaciousness and nastiness of what he's going on.
That's been made public. But can you imagine what that would mean in a trial? He doesn't want, so threefold. One, I think he thinks he's going to lose. Number two, he wants to save his family. And number three, he wants to save himself. And I should probably put that at the top because he doesn't want all of this out here. That's my opinion, why he decided to do it.

**Robin Drake** (2:17)
Yeah, so Jen, we were talking about this yesterday, too. Totally agree. And I'm with you. I think he's put himself above his family. Because again, the human in us, people with empathy, think that he would be taking these actions for family.
But no, he's incapable, I think, because of what he's done. I think he saw his family as a tool to help him do what he wanted to do to other women.
I'm curious, with your experience, with people like this, can they use, because the only thing I had as a possibility, information that he can have and still withholds about other potential victims he has might be used as currency. Can he be using that maybe as currency, if he can hold that information and control it for himself? Once he already knows and accepts, all right, I'm going to be behind bars, the only currency I have is more information. Do you think that's a possibility?

**Jennifer Koffendaffer** (3:08)
I do, and I like where you're going with this. Of course, we're talking about a non-death penalty situation here. Usually, what these chips are used for, but could it be used for a bargaining tool to get parole? Look, he's not going to get it, so I don't think it's as much of a bargaining tool, but I could still see him using it again like a BTK to maintain their power and control over the narrative.
You know, I absolutely think he could be using it.

**Tony Brueski** (3:40)
But let's talk about like that with BTK for a second, because he's always from behind bars, left little breadcrumbs. That's what he likes to do.
When people have questioned him on certain cases, he's been either elusive or he's been flat out saying creepy shit like, well, that wasn't my work, which just kind of gives you shivers when you think about it. I mean, obviously, BTK is not out on parole, he's dying in prison right now. But did he get anything for little nuggets that he would drop here and there? I mean, was that lever ever fully pulled on his part, or is this something where maybe Heuermann could pull it more because the odds that there are several other from Heuermann that are connected to him are very high, maybe even more than BTK?

**Jennifer Koffendaffer** (4:31)
So first of all, I'm going to call him Dennis Rader, because and I should have called him that, it was my fault I opened with that because he wanted to be called that.

**Tony Brueski** (4:43)