Alleged Gilgo beach serial killer Rex Heuermann targeted sex workers because he knew few people would look for them, according to his friend.
Hulking Heuermann, 61, is awaiting trial over the murders of seven women on Long Island and stands accused of luring petite, younger ladies with the promise of money for sex before killing them and dumping their bodies along Ocean Parkway, near his Long Island home.
“I don’t think it’s because he has a hatred of sex workers. It’s that they were easy targets for him,” David Jimenez, who first met Heuermann’s in 2006, told The Post.
David Jimenez said he had no idea there was anything amiss about Rex Heuermann during their decades-long friendship. Peacock
“The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets” premieres on June 10. Peacock“I’m not a psychiatrist, but I don’t think it’s the fact that they’re hookers is the reason he’s killing. I think he’s killing him because he wanted to kill.
“And they were the easiest prey,” added Jimenez, who tells of his friendship with Heuermann in new documentary “The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets.”
“Nobody supposedly cares [about sex workers] and he found them the easiest targets. It’s so warped I don’t even know what to make of it.”
Alleged serial killer Heuermann in Suffolk County Court for a hearing in April 2025. His trial is not expected to start until 2026. Newsday
Heuermann with his wife Asa Ellerup at their 1995 wedding. After Heuermann was arrested Ellerup filed for divorce. Peacock
Jimenez says Heuermann was always respectful to women when they were together. However, cops say he waited until his family were out of town and then murdered. PeacockProseuctors say Heuermann has killed seven women since 1993 and dumped their bodies, with the remains found between 2010 and 2011. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges against him.
The women he is accused of murdering are: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Costello.
Police say they uncovered a raft of heinous sex searches on Heuermann’s computers and phones including: “Tied up fat girl porn,” “Skinny white teen crying porn,” “medieval torture of women” and “skinny black slave girl,” according to court papers, which have also revealed ‘planning documents’ he kept on his computers.
However, Jimenez – who met father-of-two Heuermann as they both worked in the architecture business and used to shoot and hunt together – says there were no outward clues about Heuermann, who was married and lived in the same home he’d been in since he was a child, until his arrested in July 2023.
The Gilgo beach murder mystery and then Heuermann’s arrest and what has happened since have all been covered extensively in The Post. Peacock
Heuermann was a keen gun collector and police removed around 400 firearms from his home. Peacock“He hid the prostitute thing from me. I didn’t even know that. If he had said to me, ‘Look, I see hookers,’ I would say, ‘OK, like whatever’ but he didn’t.”
Police say Heuermann would wait until his wife, daughter and son were out of town to murder. Many feel the full extent of his alleged crimes has yet to be uncovered.
Jimenez added Heuermann took good care of his wife Asa, and never even seemed disrespectful to the opposite sex.
“He never showed any hatred to women or angry women or anything. Nothing chauvinistic like cursing people or saying ‘women are this or women are that,’ nothing like that at all.”
“The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets” premieres Tuesday, June 10 on Peacock.
