The courtroom was silent as the verdict was read. Rex Heuermann, the 61-year-old architect who methodically murdered eight women over two decades, will spend the rest of his life in prison. For the families of the victims, it is a moment of bitter closure. But as one chapter ends in New York, another opens in London: Scotland Yard has announced a review of unsolved murders across the capital, raising questions about whether similar patterns of violence have been overlooked on this side of the Atlantic.
Heuermann’s crimes tore through working-class communities in Long Island, where the women he killed were often marginalised. They were sex workers, drug users, women who had slipped through the cracks of a society that did not care to look. The trial exposed not just his brutality but a systemic indifference that allowed a monster to hunt for years. ‘He chose women who would not be missed,’ the prosecutor said. And for a long time, they were right.
The cultural shift here is subtle but significant. In the past, such cases were relegated to the crime blotter. Now, there is a growing recognition that these women matter, that their lives have value. The #MeToo movement and broader awareness of violence against women have altered public consciousness. The pressure on law enforcement to revisit old cases is part of that change.
Scotland Yard’s decision is not just about justice. It is about facing a dark history. The Metropolitan Police has been criticised for its handling of cases like the Suffolk Strangler’s murders in 2006, which bore eerie parallels to Heuermann’s spree. Officers chasing ghosts of the past may find systemic failures: evidence lost, biases uncorrected, victims forgotten. The human cost of those failings is incalculable.
On the streets of London, the news lands with a heavy thud. In nail salons and estate agents in Kilburn, conversations pause. ‘It makes you wonder,’ says a woman outside a supermarket, clutching her shopping bags. ‘How many others are out there?’ The question is unanswerable, but it hangs in the air. We are forced to confront the uncomfortable truth: the monsters among us are often hidden in plain sight, and the systems meant to protect us can be achingly slow to act.
Heuermann’s life sentence is a necessary endpoint. But the ripple effects extend far beyond the courthouse. For the families, it is a quiet vindication. For the rest of us, it is a reminder that the work of justice is never truly finished. Scotland Yard’s review is a step forward, but it is also a mirror held up to a society that must do better for its most vulnerable members.
