The Massapequa Park man arrested in connection with the Gilgo Beach murders owns a Manhattan architecture firm and describes himself as a patient person.
Rex Heuermann, 59, was arrested Thursday night and has been identified as a suspect in the killings, police said. Police have been investigating the murders for more than a decade, when 10 sets of remains known as the Gilgo Beach homicide victims were discovered.
Heuermann described himself as an architectural “problem solver” who is adept at obtaining approvals for construction projects from the city’s Department of Buildings, according to a video interview of him by a French journalist on YouTube.
Asked for his best quality, the owner of RH Consultants and Associates said, “Patience. I don’t like to use the word tolerance, but sometimes you have to…and it’s not just with the city, it’s with the client.”
Heuermann, a stocky man with dark hair, appeared poised and personable in the video, enjoying telling stories about the business he founded in 1994.
He said he was born and raised on Long Island and started working for the city in 1987. He showed a knack for negotiating projects with the city and has made that a big part of his business, he said.
He said it helps clients who are “overwhelmed by the city — the size and complexity of the Department of Buildings.” He said many workers in the department are not aware of the rules. “Part of my job is to educate the city.”
Heuermann said his job has helped him understand people.
“It’s the people, how they’re all so different,” he said in the video. “How you deal with people is one of the most interesting things to come out of this job.”
He compared his way of working to a hammer.
“Sometimes I have to be the heavy framing hammer and sometimes I have to be the light hammer just to push things along,” he said.
His clients included Target, Foot Locker, Catholic Charities and American Airlines, according to his company’s website.
Heuermann attended Berner High School in Massapequa in the class of 1981 and was a classmate of actor Billy Baldwin, brother of actor Alec Baldwin, according to a tweet from Billy Baldwin.
“Woke up this morning to find out that the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect was my high school classmate Rex Heuermann. Berner High School Massapequa New York Class of ’81,” Baldwin said in the tweet. “Married, two kids, architect. Normal guy…quiet, family man. Mind-blowing…Massapequa is in shock.”
Etienne DeVillers, a retired New York City firefighter who lives next door to Heuermann, said he grew up on the block with his parents, who moved to the Carolinas.
“He’s been a quiet guy,” DeVillers said of the suspect. “We just say hello in the mornings and afternoons… Nothing special. We never partnered in any way.”
Barry Auslander, who has lived in Massapequa Park for 12 years, said he often saw Heuermann walking to the nearby Long Island Rail Road station, dressed in a suit and tie with a briefcase bound for Manhattan.
Although Heuermann’s house was often in ruins, both inside and out, the quiet architect never struck Auslander as someone who seemed threatening or dangerous.
“I never chatted [with] him, but he looked like a typical business owner,” Auslander said. “If you found him in a park you wouldn’t know what kind. [of] person he is It certainly didn’t look dangerous.”
Heuermann married Elizabeth R. Ryan in 1990 at a church in New Brunswick, according to a wedding announcement in the Central New Jersey Home News. The ad said he had graduated from the New York Institute of Technology with a degree in architectural technology and was working as an architect intern at Greer Construction in Freeport. His wife was a planner at an office products company.
Heuermann lives in the house where he was raised and was friendly and talkative, said neighbor Margaret Curley, who added that she has known him all his life.
“He would say hi and talk, about family stuff,” Curley said. “He’s just a regular neighbor.”
As for his reaction to his neighbor’s arrest, Curley said, “Exciting. It can’t be anything but shocking. It’s really not about him, it’s not about us. It’s about the victims, and how tragic and absolutely horrible” is that. .
With Robert Brodsky and Howard Schnapp
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Craig Schneider is a native of Long Island and an alumnus of Stony Brook University. In January 2018, he joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
