← Criminally Obsessed
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone. I'm Ann Emerson. This is Criminally Obsessed. I've spent a lot of my time learning what makes a serial killer. Forensic psychologist Dr. John de la Torre knows. He can tell you how they think, how they feel or don't feel. How did he make those decisions as far as who. Who he would sleep with versus who he would actually kill?
- [00:24]
B
Ultimately, everything is compulsive for these kinds of guys. They do things because they can't exist in the world without doing them.
- [00:33]
A
Serial killer Rex Heuermann will be sentenced in June for strangling and dismembering eight women. He confessed his crimes to his daughter Victoria and his ex wife, Asa Ellerott.
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C
He said he killed eight women.
- [00:47]
B
Eight.
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C
Eight.
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B
Who was the ape? Because he's charged with sex.
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C
I didn't ask.
- [00:51]
A
In Gilgo Beach Killer, House of Sea, a documentary on Peacock, Heuermann's ex wife and daughter. Tell us what it was like to hear the brutal truth. Their loved one was a monster. And what he told them was textbook serial killer stuff. The FBI even wants to study him. He murdered most of his victims in his family home, in his childhood bedroom. Dr. De la Torre can tell us why. Be sure to like and subscribe to Criminally Obsessed so you don't miss any of these conversations. Let's get into it. He told the daughter that he did not see these women as. As human beings. The. The women, his victims. That he killed these women. He. He was disassociating them from. From actual human beings and that they were just objects. Right.
- [01:44]
B
Yeah, I. I know that's pretty standard. I think that's pretty common. And. And part of me is a little bit concerned about why the BAU would want to spend so much time with Rex Euroman to make this deal. Because nothing about him really stands out as being wholly unique other than maybe the amount of kills that he has. But when he. I do remember him saying that he just viewed them as objects. Right. Serial killer.
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A
Yeah. Right. That was very.
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B
Yeah, that's something that I say that you say as someone who's, you know, reporting on true crime.
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A
Yeah. They're objects to him.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so how does he do that, though? How does he do that?
- [02:24]
B
So the. The way in which you transition from seeing another human as merely an object for whatever it is that you want to do with them is about maintaining distance. Humans, by their nature, don't really want to be isolated. We want to be connected with other people. Now, most of us can tolerate the frustrations of another person. Is going to make different choices, they're going to make different decisions, right? They may do things that harm me, but ultimately humanity as a whole is okay and good. Someone who is on the line towards psychopathy or willing to cross boundaries to harm another person has to start believing that the individual person is going to either be a threat to them, right? So threat to me or that they're somehow lesser than. Than me. The more that I can tell myself that someone is lesser or more of a threat, the more disconnected I get to be from that individual. And the more I can see them as an opportunity to either satisfy a need or manipulate to get them to satisfy a need.
- [03:35]
C
I said to him, so, Mr. Heman, I understand that you are confessing to me on these murders. Can you please tell me how many of these women did you kill? He said eight.
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B
Eight. Was there any hesitation when he said eight?
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C
No, he just told me the answer at one point.
- [04:00]
A
Rex does say, you know, according to the, the documents that into what he told Assa, from what we understand that there were women that he did not have sex with. I mean, that he did have sex with, but he did not kill. How did he make those decisions as far as who, who he would sleep with versus who he would actually kill?
- [04:23]
B
I think part of that is, you know, he takes this deal and you know, he's supposed to be talking to the behavioral an analyst unit at the FBI. And I think that's probably the exploration that they're going to be doing. Ultimately everything is compulsory for these kinds of guys. They do things because they can't exist in the world without doing them right? That they have to do them. They're driven to do them. And so each of each of the victims has to satisfy a specific set of criteria or else the compulsion, compulsion, the satisfaction you get for having completed the compulsion isn't there. Obviously there. He's gonna have biological drives, right? He's gonna want to have sex. And so I think some of the individuals that he interacts with, I think he thinks he's probably gonna go for. And then the victim does something, okay. And it's not, it's not satisfying. It's may be physiologically satisfying, but it's not satisfying the compulsion. The, the. The drive that's underneath the, the, the desire to kill. And so therefore he doesn't do it. So I think it has more to do with what the victim either does or doesn't do. And in some ways I don't know that he recognizes what those things are. It just, in his mind, it just I think he would say it just didn't feel right. Right. It just didn't feel like. It didn't feel appropriate or. I. I'm not trying to justify. But. But it's. It's. It's him trying to tell himself it's. Yeah. That it's not. It's not going the way that I needed to go, so I'm just going to let this go.
- [06:02]
A
Well, why didn't. I mean. And this kind of follows your. Your line of thinking. I think as far as, you know, he has these compulsions. They have to meet a certain set of criteria. In. In other words, because this was so mechanical, the way he kind of handled this horrible, heinous crimes, the. That. That Asset and Victoria weren't killed because of. Why. Because this was. This wasn't part of the. The way he had things structured.
- [06:34]
B
Could be. I. I think the daughter is a little bit different of a story. I. I think, you know, it's a. It's a myth that psychopaths don't have emotions. Psychopaths do have emotions. They just don't experience them the way any typical person would do it. So it is possible that he had actual fatherly feelings and connections with his daughter, right? That is absolutely possible. How he expressed them, obviously, was wildly inappropriate, but he didn't seem to cross any boundaries with her other than completely destroying the one location that is always supposed to be safe for a child. But she didn't recognize. She didn't know that. She didn't know that that was happening, but that's what he was doing.
- [07:22]
C
He said, I wasn't home during all of them.
- [07:27]
B
Were any of them killed in the house?
- [07:29]
C
He said, yes, they were killed in his room downstairs.
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A
He used his childhood bedroom that he had grown up in. Still had his trinkets all over the place. Because you see him in the documentary as the actual room where he did. He did the kills.
- [07:46]
B
Yeah, Yeah. I. I think, you know, I could. I can certainly see where some people would, you know, kind of interpret that a certain way. I think from my perspective, I think he did that on purpose. I think he wanted people to be very confused with the environment that they found themselves in. I think. I think he enjoyed.
- [08:06]
A
Oh, you're talking about the victims.
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B
Yeah, that, you know, he could have done anything in that room. It literally could be anything. But it's staged to look like. Like, you know, what it was. All of the trinkets and all of his stuff from. From when he was growing up. I can see someone following a rabbit hole of, well, obviously, you know, you're stuck in your childhood and, you know, you can't really come out. But I think if you look at it from a different perspective, why would Rex want it? Because he's very meticulous with how he's doing everything. Why would Rex want it this way?
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A
Right?
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B
We would want it this way because if they opened their eyes and saw what was around them, toys and all kinds of stuff, imagine the. The psychological trauma that you would be experiencing. As he's about to engage in physical trauma. You see childhood stuff kind of around you, and it seems old and it seems unmoved and dusty. You. You. I think as a victim, you start. You start thinking about, oh, my God, you know, like there's. There's more psychological torture that's happening because the room is just so confusing. It's not just a metal slab. So I think he enjoyed the confusing element of. Of. Of.
- [09:15]
A
He actually enjoyed it as part of the torture. So you're telling me that you think. And this is really disturbing because in my naive brain, I'm thinking, oh, God, please let these women, these victims already be dead before they go into this room, before the dismemberment.
- [09:31]
B
And no, no, I don't think so. No, I think I. I don't think there's any really joy in that. I don't think there's any. There's a lot of. This has to do with the amount of fear that I think he can impose on someone else. He recognizes who he is. Right? He sees himself in the mirror all the time. He's a big, strong, imposing figure. And so I think not utilizing that would probably be sort of detrimental to the overall compulsion. Or else, you know, he could, I mean, just wear a mask, right? Just be in all black. I mean, he could have just covered himself in anything If. If his figure and what they saw wasn't important, it wouldn't be like this. This is not how it would look like if it was completely devoid of the victim seeing what was happening to them.
- [10:23]
A
Well, they. They played it out pretty well as far as far as helping us understand, like, the fact that as a teenager, he was looking at all of these death scenes, seen magazines and porn. And, you know, they were kind of laying it out for us a little bit about these sexual fantasies that started as a teenager in his formative years. Is that what actually led to this reality?
- [10:47]
B
I'm not going to say that. Like, I'm not going to say that just because you looked at porn when you were a teenager that all of a sudden, you know, that's. This is who you're going to turn into. What I will say though, is those are not uncommon for individuals who are on that path to engage in some kind of violence. The, the combination of the misinterpretation of sexual behaviors when it comes to pornography, coupled with the imagery of, you know, violence and death, those can condition you to start thinking about what sex and relationships and what death are actually supposed to be. And so I'm not going to say that those are the type, the root causes of, of why he did what he did, but while I say is that those were the starting points. Every behavior chain has a starting point, and those were the starting points of him going down the path of objectifying other people. It just so happened that that's when it was happening, could have happened at any time. So.
- [11:50]
A
Yeah, good point. So, I mean, it is, it's something that I think they point out because they have that evidence, they have that physical evidence that that was actually happening. But, but it, it just plays a part in all of it is what you're saying. But the, the room itself, the way he took pleasure in. And this is so grizzly and this is so horrible, but that they actually talk about how possibly the victims were held, hung by rafters, that there was a dismemberment that could have happened at that point. To me, it reminds me of what I heard about him as a hunter. His ability to slaughter animals. This play time, they call it, it post mortem. Is that his important time? Is that what he was looking for?
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B
Maybe, you know, I think, I think
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A
what does that even another myth, like, play time?
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B
Well, so I, yeah, I think, I think another myth that we have about serial killers is that they have a compulsion and their M.O. right, right. The, their modus operandi is already set. And the truth is, is that as you're exploring the fantasies, you know, we've had conversation about fantasies on other cases as you're exploring the fantasies of what it would be like to engage in the thoughts that you've been having. You want to explore, right? You want to see, you know, does this fit the, the narrative of, you know, my compulsion? And so the playtime is that opportunity for him to sort of riff a little bit and maybe make a little bit of change to see how he likes it. Does he, does he like the dismemberment to happen before he. Them or after? Like, you know, all of these different kinds of things is just his exploration of the physiological sensations that he's Getting to, to explore what he can do next. How much further can he push a victim before they pass out? How much further can he go before they beg for him to stop all of these things? You know, he's kind of just exploring to figure out does it fit what, what he wants to do the next time.
- [13:55]
A
Yeah. And what he needs for sure. And, you know, one thing, the planning docs something that I think was hard to understand a little bit was, you know, when he went to dump the bodies, it was all about getting it down to a time like the, the two, 32 to 37 seconds. Why is that important to him?
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B
He's trying to be more efficient. You know, know, I, I think, you know, when, when these bodies were getting discovered and as we were exploring, I say we, I mean, the true crime community, as we, as we were exploring more of, you know, who would be doing this before we figured out it was Rex Heuerman, There was always this conversation about, well, is he dumping these bodies because he wants the, the, the area to be afraid of him? Like a Jack the Ripper type thing. I was never under that assumption, but it certainly comes across now as though everything was about efficiency. Everything was getting. The timeframes in which he had the opportunity to engage in his compulsions were getting smaller. His wife's getting older, his child's getting older. Right. Jobs becoming more, you know, stressful as he gets, you know, more involved in it. So time is compressing for him to engage in the things that he wants to do. All of these outside influences are kind of now getting more in the way of, he has less control of them, the outside influences than he had previously. So the more that he can be efficient in what he's trying to do while also satisfying the needs and compulsions that he has, I think in his mind, the, the, the better everything is going to be.
- [15:29]
A
Well. And the psychotherapist that was brought into to speak with the whole family, boy, what a, that must have been extraordinary. Right? Can you even imagine, like that, that's, that's unprecedented to talk to the family of a serial killer, going with the serial killer.
- [15:47]
B
It's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a weird call to get. I, I, I will say that, you know, that you get a call from an attorney that you've worked with from before, and then the next thing they tell you is, hey, you know, you're going to be talking to the family members of, you know, this guy that you've been seeing. In the news. Not. It's not a. It's not a call I think a lot of people kind of expect to get. And it's. It could be especially, especially difficult to know how you want to approach treating these individuals because in some ways they don't really want to be treated well.
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A
And you don't know at that point, honestly, you're just getting a call from an attorney whether or not they have any involvement. Yeah, you don't know. You don't know their role yet. Like, you haven't dug in there yet. So it. I can only imagine that's. That's very. That's crossing a line in some ways. But when the, when the, when the therapist talked to talk to Rex, from what I understand, he said he stopped killing because he wasn't getting the same gratification out of it anymore. And once the bodies were found, it, you know, it was in the news, there was more of a risk. Is it. Is the risk enough to curb those kind, those kind of urges, or is he just saying that?
- [17:03]
B
It depends on how strong the compulsion is, because a level of risk can also be thrilling. And so the ability for an offender to escape the risk despite the risk being high adds to the physiological sensations that they're getting. So there are some individuals who engage in this behavior who wants a high level, high degree of risk of getting caught because it's more thrilling. I can certainly see someone like Rex Heuerman, who is more mechanistic, who is definitely more planning about how he's going to be doing all these things. Seeing the level of risk is not worth the, the satisfaction that I'm getting. And the older that he's getting, right. Just.
- [17:51]
A
It's harder.
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B
It's harder. It's. It's. I mean, as big as you are, like, you're not going to be strong forever. So it gets harder to lift people. It gets harder to convince people, right, you're not as young anymore, so maybe you're not as charming. So there's a lot of different things that are happening that can be very confusing to an aging serial killer that eventually they could say, you know what? I'm just not going to. I'm just not going to do this anymore.
- [18:14]
A
It's not worth it.
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B
It would be rare, but it is something that can happen because we don't really have a lot of aged serial killers. Usually we catch them when they're fairly. Not young, but sort of in the. At least in their middle age. It's. It's only been recently, like the golden State killer and go, go beach and stuff like that where we're catching them when they're a lot older and they haven't really been doing anything well.
- [18:40]
A
And he says he, in the, in the documentary we hear that he feels remorse for his family, but of course he doesn't feel it for the victims. I wasn't surprised to hear that about the victims. But I have to admit, like, maybe it's just because I, you know, I don't, I don't feel like I believe everything that I heard out of his mouth but, or nor should we really. It's all kind of manipulative. Right? Does he feel remorse? Does he feel remorse for his family?
- [19:07]
B
I, I, I, maybe he feels something that is similar to remorse. I, I mean there's, there's nothing to say that he isn't emotionally intelligent. I mean there's certainly an element to suggest that he knows what feelings are supposed to feel like and how to label them appropriately. But just because someone says that they're feeling that way doesn't mean that they actually are. We don't see him, so we can't see, right. His, like his physical state when he's describing that. We just hear his voice. But again, you can't believe, you cannot believe whatever they say. Their behaviors will tell you more of the truth. And you know, since we can't see his behaviors. No, I mean he, he could be feeling it, but I have no reason to believe that he actually is.
- [19:56]
A
Is he a psychopath? Would you say this guy's a psychopath?
- [19:59]
B
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean the, the, the level of, the level of manipulation towards others, the objectification of others, the level of violence and the, the power and control dynamics pushes him past this anti social personality disorder and into the realm of psychopathy. Just I, I want people to understand that not every psychopath needs to kill to be a psychopath. There are some psychopaths who don't kill, who don't engage in these kinds of physically violent behaviors. So he can be successful. He is a successful architect. I mean he's, you know, was on television describing, you know, his job and stuff like that. So he can be all of these things all at the same time. Multiple things can be true at the same time. That he can engage with others appropriately and also he can kill them in a malicious and heinous way.
- [20:55]
A
And John Douglas came in. Now he's this super famous FBI profiler, really wrote the book, right? Literally wrote the book. And he said that the BTK Killer Raider would have been jealous of Rex. Because he had a room to lock them up in. Did that stick out to you? This. This. This kill room was his comfort room sort of idea. And that Raider would have been jealous of something like that.
- [21:23]
B
You know, I can't imagine that Dennis Raider was ever jealous about anything because I don't. I don't know that he experiences feelings like jealousy.
- [21:32]
A
Right.
- [21:33]
B
So I. I think. I think that's more for drama. I think that's more for, you know, the. The element of the docu series and the camera being there, because I can't imagine that BTK really cared about really anybody else other than what he was doing, his experience, you know, it's.
- [21:50]
A
I like. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, he was. What you're just saying is, like, you can't put these two traumatic events in the same sort of. Can they don't live together.
- [22:02]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I. If. If BTK really wanted to have a kill room, then why not just go get a house that had a. A basement for. For him to use? It's not like. It's not like he was, you know, he needed to stay in Kansas. Like, he didn't need to. No one needs to stay anywhere. If that was really something that he had wanted, he would have done it. But that wasn't what he wanted because that's not the thing that was thrilling to him.
- [22:27]
A
Yeah.
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B
For human. He needed to have the distinction because of what he was doing. You know, he was driving to. To midtown Manhattan. Right. He was an architect. He. He needed to have a separation of space. Now, he got lucky in that he was able to have his, you know, his old home, his childhood home. So he was able to already feel safe in that space, and he was able to keep that space sort of cloistered and, you know, cut off from time.
- [22:59]
A
Yeah.
- [23:00]
B
And that's really kind of the overall control that he wanted. Time meant everything to. To Rex Humorman didn't mean anything to btk, so what does he care? But it meant everything to humor, I guess.
- [23:12]
A
Just before we go, I want to ask you, like, I always wonder this with serial killers anyways, but with Rex specifically, could there be more victims? We know of other places that he lived. South Carolina, where I am. We've heard. We're hearing rumors. Do you think he'll ever. Does he have any reason to tell us about other victims?
- [23:34]
B
No, he's got no reason to tell anybody anything anymore. He's. He's already made a deal. He's already made a deal and the deal that he made already gives him the spotlight again. I mean, maybe it's not the general public spotlight that I think a lot of other serial killers like, but he gets constant tension from people who say that they want to study serial killers and the psychology of it. So he's already getting everything that he needs. He has no reason to take to, to, to close, to give justice to anybody else. And I think there are more. Clearly, there are, there are more. This is, this is a guy who's way too efficient to, to have just a handful. So he has no reason to do it. The deal's already been made. So everybody else that was kind of in that wake may never get the closure that they need. But, I mean, closure is, you know, for when you talk to your therapist, not when you know the serial killer who may have entered into your life took someone of yours.
- [24:33]
A
Do you. Can you tell when he's lying and when he's telling the truth now, but
- [24:39]
B
I just have to. Was. I think, I think people would say that, you know, oh, well, he's, you know, looking up into the right. Or, you know, he's slouching. Right. His body language, right like that, that's complete nonsense. There's no scientific background to any of that body language stuff. But what I will say is that as humans, we can tell when the person is lying to themselves. And the thing about a psychopath is that they believe everything that they say. So we as, as the audience need to, to remind ourselves everything that they say is not the truth. It is simply the story that they want us to hear.
- [25:18]
A
Well, Dr. John de la Tr really knows how to get into the mind of a serial killer, doesn't he? Rex Heuerman is scheduled to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on June 17th. His attorney says he's likely to speak at the sentencing like and subscribe to Criminally Obsessed. So you don't miss any of the updates on that. I will be at CrimeCon Vegas at the end of the month. I'll be hosting two panels there. More information coming soon, but if you'd like to attend, we have 10% off. Just use the word criminally obsessed, all one word at the CrimeCon website and we will see you there.