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EXCLUSIVE: Law enforcement sources say 3 Las Vegas cases have 'similar circumstances' as Gilgo

A newly retired detective who has worked Las Vegas cold cases for years sat down with News 12's Tara Rosenblum for his first interview on possible connections to the Gilgo Beach murders.

Tara Rosenblum and Brian Heyman

Jul 27, 2023, 6:41 PM

Updated 496 days ago

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A newly retired detective who has worked Las Vegas cold cases for years sat down with News 12's Tara Rosenblum for his first interview on possible connections to the Gilgo Beach murders.
Sources say three cold cases in Las Vegas have similarities to the Gilgo killings and are being meticulously reviewed.
Rosenblum spoke with a Las Vegas homicide detective who has worked cold cases for years in an exclusive interview.
Rex Heuermann is currently charged with murder in three of the Gilgo slayings and is being looked at as a prime suspect in a fourth. 
Phil Ramos is a three-decade veteran of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Ramos says Heuermann is being investigated for "possible ties" to a string of unsolved murders that he investigated as a cold case detective until his retirement two months ago.
"I can just say that they're similar circumstances between these three murder victims," Ramos told News 12.
Ramos went on to say some of the victims had similar methodology as the Gilgo cases. Two of those cases played out in Las Vegas, with the third on the road to Los Angeles.
Ramos wouldn't provide names.
WATCH: DOCUMENTARY AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION - Gilgo Beach: Unsolved
"They were sex workers, and they were disappeared," he said. "And they were found out in the desert."
The women disappeared between 2003 and 2006. Property records obtained by the Turn to Tara team show Heuermann bought a time share in Las Vegas in 2004 at Wyndham Vacation Resorts. He later sold it for $51,000 in 2013. Public documents also show he still owns another time share at Club Soleil, a few miles off the strip. That was purchased on April 23, 2005.
That date could prove significant. Two weeks later on May 4, a 21-year-old escort who reportedly advertised on craigslist vanished from nearby Henderson and was discovered dead later that month in Illinois. A spokesperson for the family of Lindsay Marie Harris said her parents are asking for privacy and that any speculation regarding a link to Heuermann is premature. They added, however, that they are confidant police "will leave no stone unturned."
"It's all going to boil down to is there DNA evidence available to be processed on the victims' side from the crime scene... from where they located from their body and is that DNA viable enough to compare to his profile that's already been submitted," says Ramos. 
Ramos says he was looking at the Gilgo cases about a year ago to check on similarities but didn't get the chance to dig deeper. He expressed hope that the investigations he set in motion decades ago will result in justice for the families of the murdered Las Vegas women.