Gilgo Beach “ogre” Rex Heuermann hired petite women who looked like those he is accused of killing – then demeaned them by forcing them to perform petty tasks, an ex-coworker told The Post on Friday.
The hulking, 6-foot-4, married architect and dad had a history of hiring women who “fit that description” of the Long Island serial killer’s victims, with them having thin builds and typically standing only 4-foot-11 to 5 feet tall, according to the former staffer, who asked to be referred to only as “Eric.”
“It was almost like he had a fascination with those girls that he was working with,” Eric said.
Heuermann, 59, was often “very demeaning to women, not very nice” to the female staff he hired, too, giving them menial tasks ranging from getting him coffee to moving his car, the former colleague said.
Heuermann also bragged about his guns and once ordered a staffer to research New York City strip clubs “for months,” although the person “didn’t know why,” Eric said.
The ex-staffer said he worked with Heuermann on and off for decades starting in the late 1990s and provided proof including emails from the suspect around the times that multiple victims’ remains were found along the marshy beach.
Heuermann wrote in an email March 25, 2011 — just before days before Jessica Taylor’s partial remains were found along Ocean Parkway — that he was “at home sick.”
Another missived showed Heuermann was away from his office from April 21 to April 26, 2011, just weeks after the remains belonging to an unidentified baby and an Asian man were found in the beach area, among a total of 11 bodies discovered.
Eric said he stopped working with Heuermann because he was “cheap” and claimed he was “not surprised one bit” to learn about his former colleague’s arrest.
“He always had this sinister look in his eyes,” Eric said.
Heuermann, who police said was found with up to 300 weapons in his home, was “very braggadocious,” too, including when it came to firearms and shooting guns, the former co-worker said.
But Eric also described the New York City-based architect as “brilliant” when it came to building codes.
He said the suspect seemed to hide behind his knowledge.
“He was a very good person at blending in and being a regular, nerdy guy about his topic. And that was his kind of cover,” Eric said.
Heuermann was arrested late July 13 near his Manhattan office. He has so far been accused in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, Amber Lynn Costello, 27.
The bodies of the three women were found along the same stretch of Long Island’s Gilgo Beach between June and September 2010.
Heuermann is also being eyed in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, whose body was found on the same beach years earlier.
The towering, shaggy-haired boss is accused of being the same “ogre”-like figure with “dark bushy hair” who was seen soliciting sex from one of the victims months before her disappearance.
Who were the Gilgo Beach victims?
Suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann — a New York City architect and married dad of two — was arrested in connection with the long-unsolved Gilgo Beach murders. The arrest is tied to the so-called “Gilgo Four,” women found wrapped in burlap within days of each other in late 2010.
The years-long investigation that led to the arrest revolved around the discovery of more than 10 sets of human remains along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County between December 2010 and April 2011.
Most victims were petite female sex workers with green or hazel eyes. But there were also two exceptions: a 2-year-old girl and a young Asian man.
Melissa Barthelemy, 24
- Barthelemy was a sex worker who lived in the Unionport section of the Bronx and dreamed of one day opening her own beauty salon. She was last seen alive in her basement apartment on Underhill Avenue on July 12, 2009.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25
- Brainard-Barnes was living in Norwich, Connecticut. She went missing after taking an Amtrak train from New London, Connecticut, to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on July 6, 2007.
Amber Lynn Costello, 27
- Costello, 27, was a sex worker and heroin addict who lived in West Babylon, New York, at a home with a woman and two men. She advertised on Craigslist and Backpage to support her and her roommates’ drug habits. Costello was found in December 2010 after having been last seen leaving her home that September.
Megan Waterman, 22
- Waterman, a 22-year-old mom of one, was last seen on June 6, 2010. She lived in Scarborough, Maine, and earned a living as an escort. She was last seen by her family boarding a New York-bound Concord Trailways bus in Maine. Her body was found on December 13, 2010, on the north side of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach.
Jessica Taylor, 20
- Remains belonging to Jessica Taylor, a 20-year-old woman working as an escort in New York City, were found in a wooded area in Manorville on July 26, 2003. Her additional remains — initially labeled “Jane Doe No. 5” — were discovered on March 29, 2011, along Ocean Parkway.
Valerie Mack, 24
- Valerie Mack was 24 years old and living in Philadelphia when she went missing. She worked as an escort, using the alias “Melissa Taylor.” Relatives last saw Mack in the spring or summer of 2000 in Port Republic, New Jersey, but she was never reported as missing to the police. Her partial skeletal remains were found in Manorville in September 2000 but were initially known as “Jane Doe No. 6.”
Unidentified Asian man
- The skeletal remains of a yet-to-be-identified Asian man were found along Ocean Parkway on April 4, 2011. It is estimated that the man was between 17 and 23 years old at the time of his death. He was approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall with bad teeth.
‘Peaches’ and her daughter
- An African American woman’s partial remains were discovered in Hempstead Lake State Park back in 1997, and she had become known as “Peaches” because of a bitten tattoo of a peach on her left breast. On April 4, 2011, police uncovered the remains of a toddler, who was about 2 years old at the time of her death. DNA testing confirmed that one of the skeletons was that of the 2-year-old girl’s mother, “Peaches.”
Jane Doe No. 7
- Remains found on April 11, 2011, along with the body of the woman dubbed “Peaches” was linked by DNA to a body that was found 15 years earlier on Fire Island. On April 20, 1996, skeletal remains of a young white female were discovered in Davis Park on Blue Point Beach. Two sets of remains, collectively known as “Jane Doe No. 7,” have not been identified.
Shannan Gilbert, 23
- Gilbert was a Craigslist escort who lived in Jersey City, traveled with her driver Michael Pak from Manhattan to meet a client, Joseph Brewer, at his home in the Oak Beach Association on the morning of May 1, 2010. She spoke with two neighbors before disappearing. Her body was discovered in a marsh near Oak Beach — about half a mile from where she was last seen alive — on December 13, 2011.
Among investigators’ evidence were cellphone records, analyses of burner phones, Google searches and Heuermann’s DNA from a half-eaten pizza linking him to the killings of Barthelemy, Waterman and Amber Costello.
Prosecutors alleged Heuermann had a secret life of seeking prostitutes, searching for child pornography and obsessing over the women he’s accused of killing and their families.
He allegedly taunted those close to the victims despite living what looked like an otherwise normal life.
He made extensive searches on the Gilgo murders and family members of the victims, including more than 200 searches in a single four-month period, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said.
One search allegedly asked: “Why hasn’t the long island serial killer been caught.”
Another allegedly stated: “Why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by the long island serial killer.”
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges agaisnt him and is being held without bond at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead.
His wife has since filed for divorce.
