Dr. John de la Torre (3:12)

Well, I mean, listen, I. I appreciate the documentarian's focus on the question of how could you not Every single episode really comes back to this. The thesis of it would be impossible for a spouse to not know the severity of what their partner is doing. And I think. I think that's the key, because it's not just that, you know, Rex Huberman, you know, killed one person one time randomly, like 40 years ago or something like that. It was really just the length of time that he was doing this. And I. I also want to caution the audience that just because someone says something on camera doesn't mean that that's actually what they believe. My. My experience of watching her throughout all of the episodes, it was really. It was really a struggle for me to kind of see that she was recognizing the gravity of. Of everything that was kind of being told to her. And I think everything that she was doing was maybe some kind of weird protection against, you know, real threats to who she is as a person.

Asa Ellerup (4:36)

He said he killed eight women.

Dr. John de la Torre (4:38)

Eight.

Asa Ellerup (4:39)

Eight.

Dr. John de la Torre (4:40)

Who was the ape? Because he's charged with something.

Asa Ellerup (4:42)

I didn't ask.

Dr. John de la Torre (4:44)

He sat and told you he killed eight?

Asa Ellerup (4:48)

He said, I wasn't home during all of them.

Dr. John de la Torre (4:52)

And so the level of denial that I think we saw, especially kind of in the first couple of episodes is. Is someone who's really entrenched in the belief that the person that they married is not capable of doing anything wrong. And no matter what that wrong is. Right. We're talking about someone who committed heinous acts of murder. But I think from her perspect, wrongness is not a spectrum, but more just a category, like all of these different misbehaviors, that any partner would say, no, that's. That's a line you can't cross. I think she's willing to tell herself that Rex was never capable of doing any of those things. So in her mind, you know, Huberman really is kind of the. The best partner she could ever have wanted.

Ann Emerson (5:43)

And he never did anything wrong, so categorically not him. It's not him. It's just not him.

Dr. John de la Torre (5:50)

Yeah. And it wouldn't have matter. I mean, this could have. This could have been serial rapist. Like, he didn't kill anybody. Serial rapist or serial cheater. Right. Like this. Like this could have been a Dirty John type, you know, conversation. And I think she would still have categorically believed that he was not capable of doing anything wrong. No matter what it was. No matter what. I mean, he, he could do no wrong in her mind.

Ann Emerson (6:15)

Do you believe her?

Dr. John de la Torre (6:19)

I don't believe her. But it's not for, yeah, it's not for me to believe her. It's whether or not she's lying to herself. You know, how much does she believe? I, I, okay, I, I think I, I don't think she comes to a true realization the way that she acknowledges it at the end of the series, right? At the end of the series she says, you know, I had this conversation with him and he's told me everything kind of flat out. And now I believe that he is, you know, the Gilgo beach killer. Right. She says that, right. I mean, I'm not in the room, right? I'm seeing, I'm seeing her watching tv. Right? And so I don't, I don't, I don't think she believes it. I think it's just something that she says. However, there might be some other underlying sort of socio cultural issues that might be at play because she is from, you know, a different region of the world and it's possible that, you know, those kinds of embedded socio cultural dynamics are presenting itself. And we're just assuming that because, you know, she's living in America that she has to, you know, be American, behave like an American.

Ann Emerson (7:41)

Right? That's such a good point. I mean, is it her tone that's, that's got you?

Dr. John de la Torre (7:45)

It's her tone. It's the, the, the flat, the flatness of it. And you know, she, she just kind of, she kind of seems naive and she seems kind of childlike and she seems that way throughout. And you know, a psychologist that is more sort of psychodynamic oriented so more Freudian in nature would say, well, she acknowledges that something that she experienced an assault when she was younger and so therefore she became stuck, right? That the, the, her energy force wasn't able to kind of mature past that trauma that she experienced when she was younger. So of course she's going to be more juvenile and naive and sort of, you know, not really present to how adult relationships can easily morph into coercion and manipulation.

Ann Emerson (8:38)

There was this document, this sort of hunt kill document, right. So we see her in the documentary when it was explained that it was found on his computer and that it couldn't have come any from anywhere else. She laughs at it and is like, this is absurd. This is Dexter style. Like, this is absurd.

Dr. John de la Torre (8:59)

I, I mean I, I think, Yeah, I, I think that goes back to this idea that I think instinctively people understand that there is misbehavior that lies on a spectrum. Right. That some people do bad things, but they're not as bad as, you know, doing something even worse. Right on. We live on a spectrum of misbehaviors that some are lesser than other things. And I think for her, anything that would be considered a problematic behavior. So she doesn't view problematic behaviors as a spectrum. It's a category. You are a bad person. Right. And. And everything exists under the category of bad person. Rex Heuerman is my husband. He can therefore not be a bad person. And so everything that he's done would always be sort of pushed to the side, laughed at, or kind of justified or excused or rationalized as a joke or, you know, you don't understand him, you know, and his personality. Right. This is an inside thing between us. Whatever it is, she. She could easily use some kind of excuse, some kind of rationalization, because I don't think she views what. I don't think she views problematic behaviors in a way that the rest of us do. And she can't view it that way when it comes to him, because I think that would be too threatening to her as she exists in the world.

Ann Emerson (10:30)

Yeah. Because it was like some. If you start blurring that line, then she's living in the serial killer's world. Right.

Dr. John de la Torre (10:36)

Were any of them killed in the house?

Asa Ellerup (10:38)

He said yes, they were killed in his room downstairs. All except one.

Dr. John de la Torre (10:43)

What was the hardest part for you to hear?

Asa Ellerup (10:45)

Well, I put a warp.

Ann Emerson (10:48)

He was doing this when they were on a vacation. Right. He was doing this when his family left and. And quite successfully for decades. And she would come back and unwittingly come back to live in this house. I mean, as a serial killer, as someone who's doing this sort of heinous behavior in the house with the kill room downstairs, in the basement, how does he keep from these two worlds colliding? How is that even possible?

Dr. John de la Torre (11:17)

You know, I, I. On its surface, it's hard to believe that it is possible. I mean, just the length of time and eventually you get complacent. Everybody gets complacent. Everybody does a job for so long, and for him, it's a job. Right. For him, it's was compulsory, meaning that he needed to do it. But he also. Right. With that document and how he staged everything, it was, it was mechanical. It was. It was like a machine was operating these kinds of things. And so you would think that eventually you would just grow to be complacent. And I think that. I think serial killers often choose who they want to spend their actual time with on purpose. And, you know, I. We, obviously, we all do it on purpose, but what I mean is that they're purposefully selecting individuals that won't cause problems for them, that they won't challenge them, that they. That. That. It's hard for me to believe that she didn't know something, but what is. What. What is happening is that she doesn't want to see it. She doesn't want to see it because of who she is as a person. And Rex Heuerman knows people. Right. He's selecting his victims. Right. On purpose. And so therefore, he's going to be selective of the individuals that he doesn't kill. The people that come into his home are going to be just as select. Selected as the victims that he chooses to kill. So he chose her on purpose because I think somewhere he knew he could coerce her and manipulate her, and she would never challenge him. She would never be aware that those tactics were being used against her. So even if she saw, she didn't see.

Ann Emerson (13:01)

Right? So she. This was just complete control. Power and control, not only just over his victims, but over his family life.

Dr. John de la Torre (13:10)

Yeah. I mean, this is a big guy, right? He's. He's a. He's a big, tall guy. He's a scary, intimidating guy. I. I mean, they. They. He was described as an ogre. And I can see. I can see where the ogre. Nish. You know, where that's coming from.

Ann Emerson (13:27)

Huge guy.

Dr. John de la Torre (13:28)

And. And as a. I mean, I've never been a woman, but what I would say is, as a woman, why. Why would you put yourself in a position to. To challenge someone like that? I mean, you know that. That he could hurt you. You've been hurt before, right? She describes having been assaulted previously. So she recognizes the pain of being assaulted. I don't know why she would do that again with. When she's interacting with someone who could so easily do it. And I think she sees that. I think everything had to do with. He chose her. He chose to marry her. Even though he knew he had these underlying drives and compulsions, he chose her specifically because he recognized that she would never challenge him. That. That no matter what happened, she would never say, hey, you know, just come with us while you stop taking off work. She was never going. She may have said it, but it was never going to be like a fight. It was never going to be a Battle between the two of them. If he said that he wasn't going to do something, that she wasn't going to come back at him and say, please do it, like she was never going to beg and plead for him. And I think he recognized that because he knew that he could just push her off and she'd never say anything.

Ann Emerson (14:43)

That kill room was like feet from where Victoria, as a child, said she used to watch television.

Dr. John de la Torre (14:51)

He's nothing in that house, I think, was for the family. I think everything in that house and how the house was, you know, because they. They show the clip of, you know, what the neighborhood looks like and then what their specific house looks like, and it's very different. Everything about that was him there. There was. There was no outside influence. By outside, I mean, no partner, no child, nothing like that was there. Everything was specific to him. This was his space that he was allowing them in because he knew that there wouldn't be any questions. If he thought that there were going to be questions, they either would have been, you know, discarded long ago, or they would have been part of the overall victim count that there would have been.

Ann Emerson (15:37)

Well, they're still living or in. In this documentary, they choose to. To stay in the house. I think at some point, we do hear that they're gonna. They're gonna move out, but they live in that house. Why are they staying in that house? What does it say about this family?

Dr. John de la Torre (15:54)

I think it says more about the economic coercion that Rex had them under. They may not have the ability to afford anything. And it's not like law enforcement is just going to release all of, you know, their bank accounts. Right. Like, that's not going to happen.

Ann Emerson (16:08)

So frozen.

Dr. John de la Torre (16:10)

Yeah. So it may be that they have to stay there just for economic reasons. And I think, you know, in some ways that some people, I think audience members would say, you know, no, I'm just. I'm going to, you know, spend whatever I have to do. I'm going to do whatever I have to do.

Ann Emerson (16:25)

I got to live on the street. I live in a cardboard box. And I'd go live in a cardboard box before I walk back in that house.

Dr. John de la Torre (16:32)

And that is a 100 great thing to say. It is another thing to actually do. And so it could be. It could be that Heuerman was such a. Such had such control over the economics of the house that they can't afford to leave. But it could also be that there is no other place for them to go, that anywhere else they go won't be safe. For them, at least in that house, they know the demons that are there.

Ann Emerson (17:06)

And Asa decides that she's going to go live with the demons, like there. I mean, she goes. Doctor, she goes into the basement, moves into the kill room. On what planet are we supposed to be able to understand why Asa chooses to go live in. In the room where he tortured these poor women?

Dr. John de la Torre (17:28)

Austin's planet, which clearly not ours. I mean, you have to go there. And the reality is, is what we see, what the visuals that we see of what that space is, it's almost trapped in time for her as well. You know, we were talking about how it was trapped in time for. For Rex, where, you know, all of his trinkets and stuff like that and everything seemed to be old and dusty and haven't moved. What we see for her space is it's bright and it's pink, and it has a bunch of squishmallows. Right. And, you know, it has a bunch. Again, it's very. It's very young, and it's very juvenile, and it's very immature. I think this is why I'm saying is that the. The ending of. Of where we leave doesn't tell me that she's grown. It tells me that she's probably regressed even more. The idea that she could be there in a space to transition it from the evil that was there to. To the positivity just tells me that. I don't think she recognizes just how much she was being played, just how much she was being manipulated. I think she's doing that in order to. To reach the wrecks that lived in that room from before. The age range that she's living, that she's designed that room to be, would match the age that Rex had that room from before. So I think she's trying to simply reach back into the past to a Rex that she recognizes before this one in order to, I don't know, stay closer to him, not to the victims.

Ann Emerson (19:02)

Yeah, because that's what she says. Like, we. She's. We see her holding pictures of the victims and. And crying over the. Or not crying. That's another point that we're going to get to. But the. Just looking at these photographs and talking about how they're haunting her through the entire night and how she wants that to happen. You're telling me that's not what's going on here?

Dr. John de la Torre (19:24)

I mean, not to give a little inside baseball, but, you know, some producers are definitely quick to hand over something to, you know, their, you know, their subject to say hey, take a look at this while my B roll camera is rolling at this moment. So I, I, I wasn't there in the room. I don't know who she is. But it seems staged, and I. Is it staged because this is a docu series and we're trying to get, you know, ratings, or is it staged because legitimately the producers were dealing with a child and that hadn't. They had no way of getting a story out of her other than to put her in a position to tell them something that ends up being fairly ridiculous?

Ann Emerson (20:11)

Yeah. Because, I mean, when I heard that they were haunting her all night. Okay, first of all, like, I would have run screaming out of that. I mean, my producer and I talked about. We're like, literally, like, no, like, no. That is so disturbing. What you, the idea of sleeping in that room. But you, you buy that she's sleeping in that room. You just don't buy she's doing it because of the victim. She's doing it because she wants to. She wants to be that young girl that Rex rescued.

Dr. John de la Torre (20:36)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's definitely not there for the victim. She's there. She's there for Rex. Because I think what she recognizes is that was Rex's safe space. No matter what he did in that room, that was his safe space. And so I think she wants to be. She wants to be that little girl that could be the little boy with Rex, because maybe in her mind that if she was there from the beginning, number one, she wouldn't have been hurt. But number two, maybe she thinks that she could have stopped all of this stuff from happening had she been there from when he was 10, 11, 12, 13, or whatever. So. But again, that goes back to the immature and naive sort of juvenile thinking that she presents or that at least that's how I perceive her to be, that it's just. That's just not possible. It's just not possible. And so she needs to then have a good reason as to why she's doing it. The best reason is to say here for the victims, because who can challenge that? Right? Who can say, you know, oh, you're there for the victims. Thank you for you being there for the victims, because at least someone is there. But I, I, I don't buy. I don't believe. Did you feel you were sitting across the table from a stranger?

Asa Ellerup (21:53)

No. When he started talking, he started feeling like, that's the Rex I know. But I didn't want to see that one. I wanted to see the one I

Ann Emerson (22:00)

needed to see the way Assa describes him, he's two different people, literally two different people that she has to get to know. Is that her problem or his problem?

Dr. John de la Torre (22:11)

That's her problem. Because all people are one is one person. I mean, we have different sides, different masks that we wear. And, you know, with one group of friends, we're this way, and with another group of friends, we're a different way. So all of us wear masks, to be sure, but we all recognize that we are the same person. We are just presenting differently based on the energy level of the people that were around. Her problem is that she categorized Rex Euroman as being, because he's her husband, a good guy. That's where she's getting this problem of it's two different people and why she's still, at least from my mind, perceived as being somewhat naive and immature of the reality of what exactly it is and who exactly it was that she was interacting with.

Ann Emerson (22:58)

I felt like it was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde issue. And it to the point where she literally called him Mr. Heuerman. I think, yeah, he had two people that she, she had to deal with. Now, I don't know if they ever came together. Did they ever come together for you? Do you feel like she ever was able to, to marry, for lack of a better term, these two sides of her husband?

Dr. John de la Torre (23:24)

No, not at all. I, I, I, I still, again, all I see is what the camera is allowing me to see. I don't like, we can't, we're not in there in her private time, in her private space, in her mind, really seeing what she's seeing. But how we leave the docu series makes me more concerned that the things she was saying to the camera at the end weren't real. Like that, that she, she wasn't seeing the world and Rex the way that we were seeing the world and Rex

Ann Emerson (24:00)

now, you know when we hear calls from Rex from prison, right. And when he calls Asa, he calls her dear and they had this sort of smile and, you know, this moment where they like, are back to the wrecks that she recognizes and you're getting calls from a serial killer who's just been locked up for killing seven women will admit to eight. Now, why would you take that call? The fact that she could take that call, what did that mean to you?

Dr. John de la Torre (24:33)

It's less about taking the call and more about who do you become when you answer the phone. So she could have taken the call and on camera just absolutely berated him and just gone after him about what he was doing and the lies that he was telling throughout their entire marriage, she could have done that. It would have been just equally dramatic for the docu series as well. But what I'm saying is we fall back into the old patterns of our relationships, even though we may not have communicated with that individual for a period of time. Think about when you go back and you talk to your mother or your father, right, or to an ex spouse or anybody else in your life. Just go think about who you are when you interact with them and who you become, even though you may be a different person when you're interacting with other people. So it tells me more about the level of control Heuerman had in this relationship that she takes this call and doesn't really seem to be all that disturbed by anything that he's saying.

Ann Emerson (25:43)

That's bizarre. Now, I mean, also going back to what you were saying at the beginning, you know, how did she know? How did she not know? The. The questions that we all have. I mean, they were yelling it out at the end, right? They were. They were. Even as we're hearing the media, you know, yelling, how could you not know this, Asa? How could you not know? Why do you think that's an important theme for. For the. Why do we hold on to that? Why do we hold on to that? Why is this so hard for us?

Dr. John de la Torre (26:15)

I think. I think it is a concept explored well in the British TV show Broad Church, right? That's the same theme of how could you not know? Is the same theme that runs throughout that series as well. And it explores the. The ways in which intimate relationships are much more coercive and manipulative than we recognize. We give a little of ourselves when we say that we're going to partner up with someone. Some of. Of who we are as an individual naturally needs to kind of bleed away or in some ways move into the next person. And so at that point, there is a level of trust that needs to be maintained. Now, when the trust is broken, most times people are able to kind of extricate themselves from that relationship. But there are other times when the relationship means too much and you maybe have entered into a relationship that is much more manipulative and coercive, you don't recognize that the trust has already been broken. And so in order to keep everything balanced and undisturbed, you don't challenge. You may always see, you may always hear, you may always have an underlying feeling, but you always then have a justification as to why you. You're wrong. And I think that's why we hang on this so much. How could you not know? Because we think that we would know. And the reality is, is that until you're in that situation, you can't actually know what you will see and not see.

Ann Emerson (27:58)

And as his. He was the caregiver, he was a provider. He was a sole provider. He was the person who saved her from her traumatic assault. Right? Like he, he came in. How could that person be what they describe? Right?

Dr. John de la Torre (28:17)

And that's how you put someone in a category of being just a good person. Even, just, even, you know, just the little things, right? Little things that just annoy pet peeves that happen in any relationship. She probably never viewed it as being a problem because Rex had to be a good guy. That's the category that he was in because of what he did and who he was. Not recognizing that that's a problem because people aren't categories. And that's what led her to be in a position to be constantly questioned about whether or not she could see or no.

Ann Emerson (28:52)

The, the other thing is that, you know, spend enough time looking at people on stands and things. And I kept on thinking about that as far as. Did they cry? Did they really cry? Did they cry at all? What do you see behind those sunglasses or whatever? I did not see, and I'm not judging them for this. I'm not trying to re. Victimize them for this, but I did not see Assa or Victoria crying or shed a tear in this entire thing. I don't know if they stopped camera. And like you said, we don't have everything on the cutting room floor. I never see these two even show emotion.

Dr. John de la Torre (29:32)

I think that's another myth that I think audience members probably need to recognize. So let's just say that they weren't crying. Does that mean that they're not sad? No. What we have to recognize is that there are other ways for someone to kind of emote that they are feeling negative and vulnerable and crying is merely one of them. But it is also possible that Rex Hurman created a household in which expression of emotions was inappropriate and could be met with severe consequences. We don't really know how he controlled the people that were in the house. We just know that he did it. If someone is that physically violent to people, strangers, that's, that's. It's not a far leap to be that person towards family members. In fact, it usually goes the other way. You're usually pretty intensely violent to family members and then you extend into strangers. So it's absolutely possible that over.

Ann Emerson (30:36)

They were Conditioned for this.

Dr. John de la Torre (30:37)

They were conditioned to act no matter what. If they cried anywhere, they were going to be met with some kind of discipline. And so after decades of being conditioned that way, you just stop, right? Just to protect yourself, you just stop.

Ann Emerson (30:54)

So, I mean, Victoria said that she, she forgives her father for what he did. Asa says that's up to God. Two different ways to approach this, right? Does it, does it lend anything into seeing what this, what they're thinking?

Dr. John de la Torre (31:13)

Forgiveness is usually about the person providing the forgiveness as opposed to the person, you know, who's supposed to receive the forgiveness. I can't imagine the daughter wanting to have this level of pain and trauma for the rest of her life, right, as she's got a long life to live, and that would be very difficult weight to carry. As for Asa, what life does she actually have? I, I think from her perspective, her life is just as over as any of these other victims because Rex is gone. And so leaving it to God means that she no longer bears the responsibility of anything, right? Because now it's not even her choice. She's offloading what is hers onto a yet another person because she's too. Whatever it is that she is to, to confront it, and it's in order to, to forgive, you have to confront very negative and vulnerable emotions. The daughter may still be able to do that because she was very much younger and didn't experience the same length of time with her father that Asa did with her husband.

Ann Emerson (32:21)

Do you think Asa has said that she wants to get to know the other Rex, the other side of Rex, the killer? Do you think he's gonna let her do that?

Dr. John de la Torre (32:33)

She already knows him. I, I, I. It's, it's only her that thinks that she had that she needs to meet him. She has met him. She's met him multiple times. He's not any different than the man that, that she was looking at when they were in bed together. So it's, it's only her that thinks that she hasn't done it, as you know, whether Rex is going to do it is inconsequential because he is who he is.

Ann Emerson (32:56)

Right.

Dr. John de la Torre (32:56)

For Asa, though, I mean, she'll never, until she sees the reality of what is actual and factual with, with her husband, she'll always live in a state of disbelief, and she'll never get what she needs.

Ann Emerson (33:12)

Will she get to the why, why he killed them, what, what his triggers are, that sort of thing?

Dr. John de la Torre (33:17)

She'll never want to know that information. I mean, she may say it in front of a camera but she'll never want to know that information. She may even stop him. Right. If we don't know. Like, there could have been hours where they're talking of. Clearly, there isn't when you're in prison, there isn't hours of phone calls to have. But what I'm saying is that they could have hours together and a camera catch all of it. And the moment that he would have ventured too far into an area that is too distressing for her, she would have stopped him and said whatever it was to. To change the subject or stop him from. From saying it. Not to protect him. To protect her about him.

Ann Emerson (33:58)

Yeah, she doesn't want to. You're saying you don't think she wants to know? No, we. We gotta wonder, like, what's going to happen to Victoria and Asa going forward? You said Asa's life is pretty much right now. Feels kind of over because Rex is gone and Victoria's got a long life. But what does that look like? I mean, what does that look like for them to put one foot in front of the other, get dressed in the morning, brush their teeth, make coffee? Where are they going?

Dr. John de la Torre (34:28)

Yeah, I. I think. I think that's an interesting philosophical question. Because in a therapy sense, their life gets to be whatever they choose it to be, Right? However it is that they decide to get up and approach life is completely up to them. Unfortunately, though, because of the man that they are connected to who he is, they don't get to have that choice. So what their life is moving forward, unfortunately, may not be up to them. It may be up to the audience. And unless the audience is willing to forgive them and move on with the idea that they may never get a question as to how they could live in that house until the audience moves on. Unfortunately, neither. Neither one of the two other kinds of victims that were in that house, they won't get to move on either.

Ann Emerson (35:22)

Dr. De la Torre's analysis of Rex Heuermann's family and what they shared with Peacock was. Blew my mind. And wait until you hear his analysis of Rex Heuermann himself. In part two. Dr. De la Torre gets into the heart and soul of the serial killer. And it is not pretty in there. The four episode docu series is called Gilgo Beach Killer House of Secrets. And I suggest you binge watch the whole series if you haven't already. Heuerman is scheduled to be sentenced on June 17th. Like and subscribe to Crimly Obsessed so you don't miss any of the updates to this story. And a special note. Dr. De la Torre says he's going to be at Crimecon Vegas at the end of this month. I'm going to be there, too. I'll be hosting two panels. I'll have more information about that very soon. But if you'd like to go, we have 10% off for all of our viewers. Just put Criminally Obsessed one word at the checkout on the Crimecon website and I will see you there.