Who is John Ray? Lawyer representing Gilgo Beach victims’ families got threatening calls before Rex Heuermann's arrest
MASSAPEQUA PARK, NEW YORK: A lawyer representing two families of the alleged victims of Rex Heuermann has now claimed he got terrifying and horrifying phone calls for months. However, those taunting calls reportedly suddenly stopped just a week before Rex Heuermann, the suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders case, was taken into custody by cops.
The 59-year-old alleged serial killer was arrested Thursday, July 13 and on July 14, he was arraigned with three counts of first and second-degree murder in connection to the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello. But he has pleaded not guilty. As per his lawyer, Michael Brown, “There’s not much I can tell you, folks, at this point in time. I will say to you folks that it’s extremely circumstantial in nature. In terms of speaking to my client, the only thing I can tell you that he did say, as he was in tears, was 'I didn’t do this.’”
Who is John Ray?
Ray is an attorney hired by the families of Shannan Maria Gilbert as well as Jessica Taylor. Both women are believed to have been murdered by Heuermann more than a decade ago. Following the arrest, he told The Sun, “[The families] were tearful, emotionally charged, and destroyed at the same time. I think a bittersweet reaction is probably the best way to describe how they're feeling right now.”
He also went on to reveal anonymous troubling calls he received for almost six months from a man and a woman. He explained, “The same language is used, the same tape recordings are used, it’s the same eerie voices and crazy sounds that are used in every one of those calls."
“They play news reports from the Shannon Gilbert case from sometime around 2011 or 2012 and make noises in the background at the same time. Then they say some nasty things or weird things to let us know that, whoever it was, they wanted to make sure we connected the call to the Gilgo situation.”
‘We're also concerned’
Disclosing further, Ray continued, “One time they called us, and I had just got home at nine o'clock and we were eating a late dinner, and the phone rang and they said, 'I hope you're enjoying dinner.' Then this person, a few seconds later, said, 'I hope you enjoy your pizza.'”
“Within seconds, our doorbell rang, and - we live up in a dark area up on a hill - there was the guy delivering three pizzas. And we didn’t order the pizzas. So we call Pizza Hut where they were coming from. We called the police, and the Pizza Hut person who took the order said it was a woman with a man in the background pretending to choose toppings that had made the call,” he reportedly noted.
Ray shared his belief that the unidentified callers are also somehow connected to the deaths of the Gilgo Beach victims as he went on to express his hope for additional arrests. He added, “Right now we have seven victims, besides the four, and there are likely more that haven't been found yet. So while the news of the arrest came as a great sigh of relief for me and these families [...] we're also concerned, to make sure that the other potential murderer or murderers are still going to be actively sought after.”
