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Criminally Obsessed
What Will the Suspected Long Island Serial Killer Admit To? Inside Rex Heuermann's Guilty Plea
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A
Welcome to Criminally Obsessed.
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I'm Ann Emerson. It's 2023. An investigative reporter, Kristin Thorne has been reporting on women brutally murdered and then
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dumped along Gilgo beach on Long island in New York for more than a decade. And at five in the morning in July, her manager calls her and says, you need to get out to Massapequa park neighborhood. There may be a break in the case. And they think it's an arrest in the Gilgo Beach Martyrs. Kristen gets into her car, waiting for that phone call to tell her it's nothing to just stop and turn around already that it's a false alarm. Then she gets to the house and it is swarmed with other media, law enforcement, and there's crime scene tape up all over the place. Could this be the break that she was waiting for? Could the police really have found the killer? A 62 year old architect and family man, Rex Heuermann. He's sitting in a jail cell right now on Long island. But on April 8, we will find out if he plans to plead guilty to some of the most heinous and grisly murders that have ever been discovered. After Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to killing
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four University of Idaho students back in
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2022, hundreds of documents were released. We learned a lot more about what Kohberger was doing in the moments leading up to the murders, during the murders, and how the police figured it all out. This could be our chance in the Gilgo beach serial killings. Now part two of our insane conversation with a reporter who witnessed the whole investigation for herself. Now let's get into it.
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C
The media is everywhere. The police are there. The, the police tape is up outside the house. And I. Now, even at that point, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. It means we have a police presence in Masspequa park at this house. But then I just remember the moments waiting for the name, you know, who, what is the name? So then we start running the address, right? We start running the address and then we end up finding. We didn't broadcast it at first because we don't have. In terms of a defamation, you have to be very careful with that. But we knew that the home belonged to a man named Rex Heuermann. But we had to wait till police came out and said that. And then we got the video of him being arrested in midtown the night before. And yeah, it was just wild.
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B
Yeah. And he just, his, his physical presence, Kristen. I mean, I think someone had, you know, described him as like ogre. Like he's so huge and, and his features are kind of bulbous.
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C
Yeah, that's a good word. So I've been in court. I've seen him twice in person, and. And he is. He is a very big man. I mean, he towers over even some of the court officers. Right?
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A
Yeah.
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B
The pictures are crazy to see him next to, like, the person who's arresting him or holding him. Right.
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C
And by the way, Mike Brown, his attorney, is not a small dude. I mean, Mike Brown is. Is a pretty significant. Of significant size, but. But Rex Herman really, you know, towers over him. And so he.
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A
He.
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And he even walks like he's got this sort of gait. Right? Cause, I mean, he's so big, so that this sort of like. Yeah, it's. And there's always this moment when you see people in person in court where you. He. That was just what struck me. You know, I wouldn't say I got this evil, which I've gotten with some people.
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B
I'm not. I'm not.
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C
I'm not saying he isn't guilty or not guilty. That's not for us to decide. I'm just saying I didn't get this. The only feeling I got when I first saw him was how big he was. That. That's what really struck me. I've certainly been in courtrooms where you feel this, like, incredible evil, like, fill the room. I didn't. I didn't get that. I think I was just more kind of looking at his. His stature.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And I think, you know, just that speaks to his alleged victims.
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Were.
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Were to so small. I mean, five, five.
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Average height.
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I think it just seems very small.
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C
Yeah, five. Actually five feet or less. I think the tallest victim was five one. So they were very. Oh, yeah. No, very, very small. Yeah. Oh, God, that's like.
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A
That's like a foot and a half at least, or maybe almost two feet shorter than him.
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B
Wasn't he six, eight.
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C
Yeah, he's six. He's got to be six. Six, at least six, seven. Something around that.
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B
Literally a monster, Kristen. Like, that's. That's monstrous, at least.
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C
Yes. And these victims were very small. And by the way, his. His searches on his computer actually found some of them here. Actually had them right here. But I don't see. At one point, he did. I mean, some of his searches. Let me not read. Ones that are two Medieval torture of women, New York City escorts, How I was raped, audio.
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B
You know, these are like Google searches that they.
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C
Google searches that they uncovered, and some of them. I don't have them here in front of me, but I know they talked about small, you know, small women. That, that was something he had, he had looked for.
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B
And you hear that in like other. I'm thinking other cases concern about pedophilia, like childlike stature, you know, those are the kind of things that immediately might ear go off.
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C
Yeah, I think that there were some. I, I don't have it in front of me, so I don't want to speak out. But I know that they had looked for evidence of child pornography. Most of the, most of the pornography that they found, they say was extremely violent. You know, torture, torture porn, women, women being killed. You know, really, really violent, scary stuff.
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D
Terrifying.
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I mean, we've got to talk. I mean the, the way he was caught too. Can you take me through how they managed to, to, to grab Rex?
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C
So they had their. I. Once they had established, by the way, this happened very quickly, like as soon as the trooper had recognized this, this took only a few months, like for them to really start their investigation and surveillance of him. And so they, they got his name, they, they knew. So they found where he worked and they started watching his office in Midtown. And this is what I've said about this case. This is good old fashioned police work, right? They had, they knew they had DNA from these victims hairs, various hairs on the victims, obviously. Thankfully, when these victims were found, they took very good DNA evidence. And so. But they need to make a match. Okay, well, we've got the DNA from the victims. Let's see what we have for Rex Herman. So they, they kept watching him. And they, they. What they're waiting for is something to be thrown out, something that the, the alleged suspect has eaten. So they were surveilling his office in Midtown and one day he comes and by the way, he, I think they probably knew that he went to get pizza. It was a regular thing because I've interviewed his secretary who worked for him. So he was. Pizza was one of his things. And so they probably saw that he was doing this routinely. And so they waited and you know, same time at lunch and all this sort of stuff. We all have our habits, right? And so he, they waited. And one day he dropped in the trash can right outside of his office a pizza box, a full pizza box. And they, so they wait for him to go inside and the detective runs over with his gloves and he grabs the pizza box and he opens it up and there is a little crust of pizza left, right. So he ate it. So they take that and then they end up doing their DNA analysis and find that the DNA On. Well, to be very clear, Rex Herman could not be excluded from the DNA that was found on these victims. They did a similar thing with his daughter who they. Because they had found some female DNA hairs on that did not belong to the victim and did not belong to Rex Herman because he's a male. And so they had to figure out where, where, who. Whose hairs are these? And so they ended up doing the same with his daughter. She ended up throwing out. They've tracked her on the L I R our local commuter train and she threw out a monster energy drink that she had and then tossed in trash can. They received. They retrieved that and that's how they were able to pinpoint that Asa Ellerup's hair. That is Rex Herman's now ex wife. Although I'm not sure if the divorce has gone through. But either way, that was her hair. Asa Ellerup's hair was on the victims. And that's a whole other. You know, Asa Ellerup is not, she is not being looked at for any of this. So let's be very clear about that. She is. But it does bring up questions of whether the victims were in his car, in his home. You know, there's a reason that Asa's hair was found on them, by the way. You lose a ton of hair every day. So if people are like, well, how could that happen? You. You shed all day long and so
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B
I shed all day long.
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C
Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's so it may seem, you know, oh, she must have no involved. Be very clear, police have never said that she was involved in any of this. And they did look at. They had. Did question her, obviously, and look at. At that possibility.
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B
So, and to be clear, Asa is his wife and he also was living with two children, two older children. Two older children. And so one of the victims who was killed in 2007, I believe, Maureen Brainard Barnes, there's been concern that maybe she was held in their basement. Speaking of finding that hair on some of the victims, does this kind of play into that?
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C
Yeah, so the reason. And. And I really do believe that Maureen had been held for a period of. Because do you remember back when we had phones and when our. When cell phones kind of back in that error, 2007 time when you wanted to check your voicemail, that people may not know this, the younger people listening, you had to call your phone. Remember, you had to call your phone and you had to put in a code to get into your voicemail. I know this is hard to remember. And when I was reading the charging documents I had to think back and I'd forgotten about this. And so Maureen Brainard Barnes phone had been turned off and then came back on, then was turned off again and then came back on. And at some point someone checked her voicemail. Okay. And that leads us now, a few things could have happened. He either got her passcode before allegedly killing her, or she is alive and he needs the passcode. Right. Your passcode is a four digit code. So people know it was a code you would punch in to get into your voicemail. And so he. There, there. So that's what leads me, and I think a lot of other people who look at this to think that she had to have been held somewhere, that her phone is going on and off and on and off, and then someone is getting a passcode to check her email and she would have had to relay that information. She couldn't, she couldn't have been dead unless the passcode was. Was obtained before he allegedly killed her.
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Oh, boy.
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C
Yeah.
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I mean, and I know that they went into that basement multiple times to keep on investigating to see what could be found. I mean, I think one thing I did want to bring up is as they've been keeping Rex as a suspect, they were able to go into his computers and uncover a docum document. Sounds like the way he organized his. His alleged killings.
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C
Yeah. So he had written notes, according to prosecutors, had written notes to himself about how to do things like this. So a lot about hit, you know, hit her over the head, make sure that she's quiet, cover your tracks type of things. You know, things that. A lot about tarps and, you know, make sure to clean certain things and use bleach. And so. And he was writing these things almost as if he had done it. Allegedly he had done it already and then he was taking notes for the next time. So something didn't go as planned and. And then he had to fix it for the next time. And so those. And then they also ended up finding documents that. And code. It was like code language. But it wasn't that much code because even we could figure it out. But it was related to an address where one of the victim's bodies was found. Not in Gilgo, another area of Suffolk county, but it was in a way that was written that to police. They realized, oh, my goodness, this is the victim from 1993 whose body was found way up in a different part of Suffolk County.
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Her name was Sandra Castilla.
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I did some digging around in Rex Heuermann's bail application documents to learn more about her. They tell us that Sandra was found around November 20, 1993 by two hunters in the woods of Suffolk County, New York. The documents go into incredibly explicit detail about how she was found. I'll spare you the most upsetting details, but the 28 year old was found on her back, arms outstretched, with her shirt pulled up over her head. She had stab wounds all over her body, her face, her torso and her legs. That was 1993. It took until Rex Heuerman's arrest in 2023, the execution of search warrants, and the investigation of digital evidence to actually see anyone charged in Sandra's murder. What the records say about this digital evidence is so disturbing. Like disturbing is an understatement. Things I literally cannot say here. Heuermann's devices show the most graphic and unsettling content that you can even think up, dating back to 1994, which was right around the time that Sanders body was discovered. His devices showed his, quote, significant collection of violent bondage and torture pornography.
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End quote.
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And the grisly, unspeakable details of this content specific forms of brutality and violence showed similarities to the way Sanders body was found. Another shocking part of that digital evidence was Heuerman's notes to self.
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And he had written it in a way that. Yeah, so look, bottom line, according to prosecutors, he really was keeping track of what he was doing. Doing was. Was taking notes and evolving.
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B
Evolving his practice of his. Of his killings as well, right?
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Yes, definitely. Things grew more. More violent. I think the most disturbing one I saw was about, you know, make sure. Something about. Make sure to hit her over the head so she's quiet or something like that. That was just really. I mean, it's all disturbing. But I think, you know, when you talk about gloves and these other things, it's very general.
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Well, and as you're talking about these bodies that are now we're stringing up into. Into Long Island. Drex Heuermann's been accused of killing seven of these women. But we don't know where the trail ends necessarily.
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We don't. And I think there's a lot of concern about. He has various properties as well, throughout the country. One is South Carolina, correct?
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That's.
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Yeah, I was looking it up last night, and it's. It's very concerning. And there was also a woman who had disappeared. Her daughter had spoken quite a bit about it, and there's no connection right now that we're aware of. But this is the hope, right, that in Vegas there were also reportedly missing women within the Vicinity of, Of where this suspect's home was or property. So you've got these different places. You've got, you've got horrible amount of time in between the killings. You know, 1993, now we're looking at one, you know, so we have awful time lapses.
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Yeah, I mean, I think, look. Yes. So Vegas, he had a condo there. He also had this property. It appears to be very rural in South Carolina. From the, from the pictures I've seen also a very kind of sketchy, sketchy looking property. Not the one in Vegas, by the way. The property in Vegas was very nice and was. But on a strip of Vegas that was known to have a lot of pro, you know, prostitutes and, and, and, and sex workers there. But either way. So look, I think, you know, as we get closer into what could be a plea deal here, which could be coming very soon, you know, I just hope that often we see in plea deals that we don't get a full accounting of, you know, what happened and the trial. I'm hoping that after, if there's a plea deal and he pleads guilty, that the Suffolk DA really opens up everything that they had, sort of have sort of like we've seen in the Brian Kohberger case, because I think that the public should finally have. And the media and journalists access to what was done all these years and, and what, and what prosecutors have. And so I just hope that if there is a plea deal that, that we do get some sort of. That we still get evidence and we still get to see a picture, because I do think that these are valid questions about South Carolina and about Vegas. And, you know, did he allegedly just kill these seven people? These seven women? I'm, I'm sure, but, you know, that, that, that, that, that could allegedly be possible, but, you know, it. Could there be more? I mean, I think that's a rational question.
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B
Absolutely. And I mean, there was woman. One woman who escaped. Correct.
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C
Is that the woman who went to dinner with him?
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Her name is Nicole Brass. She says she met Rex heuerman back in 2015 when she was working as an escort. When I first heard Nicole speak in the interview, y', all, my jaw was on the floor. She met him for a date, and you will not believe what he just started casually speaking about. He asked if she was a true crime fan, and then he brought up the murders he's now accused of.
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D
It didn't get weird until he asked me if I was a true crime fan.
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E
Wait a minute. He asked you if you were a true crime Fan.
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D
He asked if I was a true crime fan. And I am. Like, I am. I'm a serial killer buff. I won't even lie. I. So we got on the topic of a couple different serial killers. The one he focused on the most, I noticed was Robert Hanson. I'm not sure if you know who that is.
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E
Wasn't he a spy?
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D
No. So he would put ads in Craigslist and back pages and places like that lure women out for a date, and then he would fly them in his plane to Alaska, set them free in the wilderness and hunt them.
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E
Wow.
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And that was like.
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The idea that he's bringing this up as a topic of conversation is weird.
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I mean, you know, I feel like maybe if you're a super true crime buff, that you'd bring it up because it's something to talk about. And at first, that's what it seemed like it was. And I didn't mind because I also had an interest. It was when he. He said, well, do you know about the Gilgo beach murders?
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He actually brought it up.
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Yeah, he said to me, exactly. Do you know about the Gilgo Beach Mariners? And I was like, yeah, I'm from Long Island. Everybody from Long island knows about them. You know what I mean? And that's when he started talking about it. But here's the thing. When he brought it up, his whole demeanor changed.
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It changed.
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He sat up straighter. You know, he had, like, a smirk on his face. He seemed almost, like, too excited to talk about it. And then once he did start talking about it, it didn't seem like a true con fan who just knows information they've seen on TV or read. It seemed like somebody who was reliving it.
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C
Yes, she. She has done a series of interviews. She said that she was with him and that he started talking about the Gilgo beach murders. And out of nowhere, Right. Like, that's such a weird thing to just bring up on a date. Even if it's a date with someone who, you know, it's kind of an escort of sorts. It doesn't matter. It's just very bizarre. And she. She just said her body just, like, froze. She was like, this is really crazy. And so she. Yeah. Promptly did not go anywhere else with him.
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B
No, no, not at all. And the one thing I just wanted to just circle back. The DNA has been incredibly interesting in this case. You know, I always find it interesting when you have these cases that span decades. The way the technology finally feels like it's cooperating to some degree with being able to Find the suspect. Right. So the DNA in this case was specific, has been very controversial, but incredibly effective at the same time.
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C
So when the bodies were found, the DNA was so degraded because of the amount of time that the bodies were there. Remember, this is out in the elements as well. And so. But thankfully, detectives back then did a great job of storing it. And so at the time, they couldn't do any of this testing. The technology just wasn't there. But so that is why the DNA testing that they use now is still very controversial. It is. You know, they're getting at the teeniest. I mean, this doesn't even. This doesn't even sum it up. I mean, it's almost non. Existent, but the technology is getting better and better. And so they were able to go back to the samples that they had. The hair, the duct tape itself, you know, these little hairs were so teeny that they found. And. And bravo to the detectives who processed these bodies back then and. And made sure to get these teeny, teeny hairs, because that is what really also helped, obviously, immensely. Now, the. The Mike Brown, Rex Herman's defense attorney, has tried relentlessly to get this DNA thrown out. That's why we' delay this tr. This case was supposed to go to trial, gosh, a long time ago. Are we looking at. It's hard to get confused with time, but definitely by January.
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B
I mean, we're.
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C
We're way past. And it just kept delay and delay and delay. And a lot of this has been over the DNA fighting over it. And Mike Brown wanted it thrown out. The judge said absolutely not. And so I think that's why we are now getting closer and closer to a plea deal, because the only thing that Rex Sherman can have. I mean, I guess there are a few avenues Mike Brown could go, but the DNA is a tough one to get around. And if he couldn't get the DNA thrown out, then, you know, this is a pretty. Pretty tough case to try to get over.
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B
Yeah, the DNA is extraordinary, really, and the amount of DNA that we've been hearing about, but there were so many bodies involved as far as the murders that he's accused of. I mean, seven bodies. It's incredible to be coming to see this full circle. Kristen, what does that feel like?
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C
I have mixed feelings about the plea deal. I sort of really wanted to see this go to trial just because as a journalist, you know, you really want to witness it and be there. But, you know, I know how hard that would be for the family, so I want to respect how they would feel About a trial. Maybe some want it, maybe, maybe some don't. But I think that it's an odd, it's very strange. I mean as a journalist you don't often see these high profile cases sort of come to an end. I've said I honestly never thought that this person would be caught. I never, you know, I just thought that this was going to be a thing that would haunt Suffolk county for really forever. And I think again, we don't have a guilty plea or verdict yet, but I think that we're getting closer to that.
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B
Yeah, I think you are too. There's still a lot of question marks around missing people that have circled around this suspect.
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C
Yeah. And the cases that we're talking about from South Carolina and there's another in Vegas that is very similar to the profile. Right. As a sex worker, petite, you know. Now, you know, unfortunately there are many other people who could have, who could have committed the, these murders or the dis. Contributed to the disappearances of these women. But it does, it does obviously, you know, make sense that now I do hope that even if, you know, I would like though I would love for those families to have some closure as well. And I've done a little bit of research into. It's not going to be as easy as you think for prosecutors in South Carolina and Vegas. Let's say he is convicted. It's still, without getting too much into the legal situation, it's not as easy as he's convicted. Oh well now we can go and look at him for these other things. There's actually a lot of court decisions that have happened recently that, that don't make that that easy. And so. But that is what I would hope. I mean, I think that those families have legitimate concerns and I mean I want any missing person, whoever was responsible for contributing to the disappearance of somebody to be held accountable for that.
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B
Well, this is definitely going to go down as one of the most grisly, terrifying. We don't even, I mean we don't know if, if the suspect is going to want to, to offer up any details to, to bring closure either, especially with the plea deal. We just saw it with Co Burger, as you said, with Brian Coburger and the Idaho 4. Like it was so hard that we are left wondering what's going on in that mind.
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C
Yeah. And I do hope, you know, they can, the judge can certainly during a plea deal for some of this. I mean if they feel that he needs to make a statement about to the families, I mean these are things they will try to negotiate. I thought that was a little shocking in the Kohberger case. I thought that he. I felt as a journalist that he should have to make a statement about what he did and why. I hope that if that happens in this case and there's a plea deal, that he is forced to address the court and address the public and those families.
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B
Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Kristen. I just love talking to you. This is such a fascinating thing. So you're going to be in the courtroom?
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C
Yeah, I mean, I'm hoping to.
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B
We'll be looking for you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
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C
Thank you.
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B
We'll be waiting to see what happens
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A
at Rex Heuerman's next court appearance. That's on April 8th. Do you think he's going to plead guilty? Drop a comment below. Let me know what you're thinking. And be sure to like and subscribe to Criminally Obsessed so you don't miss any of the updates coming in this case.