Rex Heuermann client details ‘bone-chilling’ encounter
It was a usual Friday morning, on July 14, for real-estate agent Jeffrey St. Arromand — until he received an alarming phone call from one of his clients in hysterics over what she had just heard on the news.
The suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer, who was allegedly responsible for a series of haunting murders on Long Island more than a decade ago, had been caught.
The suspect: architect Rex Heuermann — the man they had worked with closely for the past year on a Brooklyn brownstone project.
St. Arromand, of Serhant, remembers his encounters with Heuermann vividly. But it was his client, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, that recalled her bizarre encounter with Heuermann, which left her in shock.
She had worked with Heuermann several times in the past. In the span of a year, he was the expeditor and architect on her longtime Crown Heights home she purchased in 2002. She sold the home two decades later, in 2022.
Heuermann, 59, had worked on renovating the deck and adding several additions to the property, which was built in 1800. He was also in charge of providing a Certificate of Occupancy, which allows new occupancy in the home after inspection.
“I met with him and her at her place,” St. Arromand told The Post. “And he was in the backyard… there was an extension that he had to look at. And they left.”
“She drove him home one time because she actually relocated to Long Island,” St. Arromand recalled, adding that the route was pretty “dark and desolate.”
His client briefly recounted that evening to The Post.
“I was only with him in my home to review the scope of work,” she said. “I even gave him a ride to his home in Long Island from Brooklyn. At one point on the drive we talked about the Gilgo Beach murders — we even discussed the burlap and why someone would use that. In retrospect, thinking about that conversation, it’s just bone-chilling.”
The client recalled other moments during the time she was trying to sell her home, that — now looking back — she found quite odd.
“Throughout the transaction he was becoming very difficult to work with, even becoming belligerent at times. He was constantly arguing with the plumber on the job and questioning his work. Just very odd behavior,” she said. “For some reason in this transaction he would constantly say, ‘I’m not doing anything to get a fine or open an investigation of my license.’”
The client said that ultimately that was her final experience with Heuermann.
“When we ultimately were able to close on the property, I had such a bad experience with Rex that I told him not to attend the closing,” she said. He still needed to pick up the balance of payment, and “He went to the attorney’s office separately to pick up the check.”
“Apparently he had some disagreement with one of the woman associates at the firm. This associate was so uncomfortable with her exchange with Rex that she refused to be in the office when he picked up the check. Ultimately the partner at the firm gave the check to Rex when he arrived with his daughter.”
St. Arromand said the home eventually closed to a celebrity buyer. But due to a secret trust, he’s unable to identify the individual.
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.
“She’s someone that really supported this guy,” St. Arromand said of his client. “She always spoke highly of him in his work.”
St. Arromand told The Post he mostly served as a mediator because the plumber on the job was getting frustrated with Heuermann.
“In real estate, we always say we have so many hats, so many roles. One of them is being a therapist,” St. Arromand said. “We’re a therapist throughout a transaction, when people are getting nervous and uncertain, and we’re a therapist post.”
“And Friday was a classic example of that, because she was completely just, you know, melting about this whole process. She is very angry. She really supported him.”
“She needed the weekend just to decompress,” he added.
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