Accused Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann allegedly took delight in describing his acts of stalking and butchering animals to his colleagues.
According to New York magazine article written by Mary Shell, 59-year-old Heuermann caused employees to feel uncomfortable at the small Manhattan architectural firm he worked at, which spurred some of them to eventually lock doors and take extra precautions for their safety.
Shell, who starting working with Heuermann as a consultant in 2007, said he preferred hiring petite women that resembled his alleged victims; he smiled and turned red-faced like a “shy teenage boy” when he met her.
“His office was mostly staffed by women like myself, young and petite, the girl-next-door type,” Shell wrote. “We knew he was married with a family in Massapequa, but he never spoke of them.”
When he wasn’t ogling attractive women, he reportedly gushed about his bear-hunting trips, and invited Shell to join him several times. She declined.
“My former colleagues described how he gushed about his bear-hunting trips in particular: baiting an area and lying in wait. More than once, he gleefully described the process of dressing the game, seeming to delight in grossing his employees out.”
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Heuermann was arrested July 13 for the deaths of three of the four women known collectively as the “Gilgo Four.” The bodies were found within days of each other on Gilgo Beach in December 2010.
Heuerman has been charged with six counts of murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Megan Waterman, 22; and Amber Lynn Costello, 27; and is the prime suspect in the death of 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Shell met Heuermann a few months after Maureen Brainard-Barnes was killed. She said she didn’t know who he was at the time, but by 2010, when she began working for him directly, “he was onto his next victim.”
Months later, in December 2010, police searching the Gilgo Beach area found the four victims’ bodies, as well as the body of Shannen Gilbert. As of now, Heueremann has not been charged with Gilbert’s death, after the Suffolk County Medical Examiner said her body was too deteriorated to determine the cause of death.
Shell also recalled the accused killer’s infuriated reaction when when a female employee left for another firm and began leasing space in her former employer’s office.
“This enraged him. Knowing they kept late hours, he was spotted outside the building, gazing up into the second-floor windows in the early evening. My colleagues’ minds went quickly to his gun collection, and they began locking the elevator and the doors.”
Shell said that when she heard about Heuermann’s arrest this year, she was shocked.
“Even though his face was on the [social media] post, my immediate thought was how strange it is that there are two people named Rex Heuermann,” she said. “Then it dawned on me. I called a former co-worker immediately and asked, ‘Is this real?’ ”
Heuermann remains behind bars at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverhead, without bail. Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon said Heuremann is in an isolated cell alone and appears to be “comfortable.”
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[Feature Photo: Rex Heuermann/Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office via AP]
