The Lost Girls case ended up solved, so it’s time for Liz Garbus to clock back in and tell us how. Garbus, who directed the 2020 narrative film Lost Girls for Netflix, about a serial killer on Long Island who targeted escorts, is now making a documentary series on the case. But why, one might ask, is Garbus heading back to this same case? Well, between the film giving the case more publicity and now, the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force opened in February 2022 and, in July 2023, a suspect was arrested. Rex Heuermann was charged with first- and second-degree murder, according to the New York Times. Lost Girls, based on the nonfiction book Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, focused on police negligence within the case. Now, Garbus is returning to the scene of the crime post-arrest.
“The series will foreground the stories of the victims’ lives, with exclusive access to their families, and examine the history of the police investigation and recent breakthroughs that led to the identification of Rex Heuermann, who had been hiding in suburban Long Island in plain sight,†the Netflix press release says of the new series. The series will contain three parts, and the press release notes that the case “continues to unfold in real time,†which might explain the current lack of a release date. “With the arrest of suspect Rex Heuermann on July 13th of this year, a new chapter began in the decades old investigation of the missing and murdered women found in Gilgo Beach and beyond,†Garbus added. “And yet, just as some questions start being answered, new ones emerge.†Foreboding. Exactly what we want in a doc. While we wait in suspense for a release date, how about a visit to the beaches of Long Island?