"THE ARCHITECT OF DEATH, PART TWO: Rex Heuermann's Daughter Says He's 'Most Likely' Guilty While Wife Visits Him in Jail"

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter, and welcome back to Celebrity Trials. Yesterday we walked through the horror of the Gilgo Beach discoveries. Eleven bodies found along Ocean Parkway, four women wrapped in burlap, seven more scattered across Long Island. A corrupt police chief who sabotaged the investigation. Families who waited thirteen years for answers. Today we're talking about the man accused of being the architect of death, literally, Rex Heyerman, the six foot four, two hundred and seventy five pound Manhattan architect who prosecutors say lived a double life for thirty years, devoted family man by day, serial killer by night.

0:51 The man whose own daughter now says he most likely did it, while his ex wife visits him in jail and insists he's innocent. Let's talk about who read X Hoyerman was before July thirteenth, twenty twenty three, because that's the fascinating part. This wasn't some drifter, some loner living in his mother's basement. This was a successful architect with an office in midtown Manhattan, a man who worked on projects for Target and American Express, a man who gave interviews about navigating New York City building codes. February twenty twenty two, five months before his arrest, Rex Heyerman sits down for a YouTube interview about his work. He's articulate, professional talking about the complexities of New York City's Department of Buildings Regulations. It's not a pleasant process, he says, about dealing with bureaucracy. You know what else isn't a pleasant process? Rex being murdered and wrapped in burlap. He'd been doing this work since nineteen ninety four, founded rh Consulting and Associates, worked out of an office on Film Avenue.

2:00 Commuted there every day from his childhood home in Massapequa Park, the same route, the same routine, for thirty years. The house. Let's talk about the house. One hundred five First Avenue, Massapequa Park. If you've seen the pictures, you know this wasn't some pristine suburban home. It was falling apart, overgrown vegetation, peeling paint. The neighbors called it the eyesore of the block. While everyone else maintained their lawns and updated their sighting, Rex's house looked like something out of a horror movie inside over two hundred guns legally owned supposedly for hunting. Rex was known as a hunter. He'd talk about it openly.

2:43 His daughter Victoria said in the New Peacock documentary, it was no secret he hunted. It was no secret he had guns, but he wasn't hunting deer. The evidence against Rex Heyerman is overwhelming, or is it. Let's break it down, because his defense team is fighting every piece of it. First, the DNA. This is where it gets controversial. The prosecution isn't using traditional DNA testing. They're using something called whole genome sequencing. Traditional DNA testing looks at fifteen to twenty four points of comparison. This new method one hundred thousand points the difference between a sketch and a photograph. Male hair was found on the burlap wrapping Megan Waterman's body.

3:27 That hair's DNA matches Rex Heyerman's pizza crust. One in five trillion chance it's not him, prosecutors say. But here's where it gets weird. Female hair was also found on the victims. Hair that matches Rex's wife, Asa Eleup and his daughter Victoria. The prosecution says it's transfer DNA Rex used materials from his house. His family's hair was on his clothes in his car on the burlap innocent transfer. The defense says this is magic, not science. Michael Brown, Rex's a attorney, literally called it magic in court. They want the DNA thrown out. Say this whole genome sequencing has never been used in a New York court. Say it's unproven, unreliable. March twenty eighth, twenty twenty five, a fry hearing begins. That's where the judge decides if new scientific evidence is admissible. Doctor Kelly Harris testified that whole genome sequencing is reliable and generally accepted in the scientific community.

4:32 The defense brought in their own expert who's been in school for ten years and only has a bachelor's degree. The prosecutor actually said in court, you've been in school for ten years and have only obtained a bachelor's degree. In all this time, you're supposed to be an expert. The hearing's been going on for months April, May, June July, still no decision. The judge, Timothy Masey, a former prosecutor himself, has to decide if this DNA ever and comes in if it doesn't, the prosecution's case gets a lot weaker. But it's not just DNA, it's the pattern. Every victim disappeared when Rex's family was out of town, every single one.

5:14 That's not a coincidence. That's planning. That's scheduling murder around your wife's vacation. Plans. The burner phones. Prosecutors say Rex used multiple burner phones to contact victims. Those phones were purchased in midtown Manhattan, near his office. They pinged off cell towers that trace a path from Massapequa Park to Manhattan, Rex's daily commute. The searches over two hundred searches for the victims and their families. Searches for news about the investigation. Why hasn't the Long Island serial killer been caught? Searches for violent pornography, torture, porn, child pornography, thousands of searches. The witness Dave Shaller, saw Amber Costello get into a first generation Chevrolet Avalanche Dark Green described the driver as an over Rex Hoyerman owned a Chevrolet Avalanche. Rex Heyerman looks like an ogre. The planning document. They found a computer file that prosecutors call a blueprint for murder, detailed plans for killing and disposing of bodies, problems to avoid mistakes, not to make like he was planning a construction project, not human slaughter. And then there's the timeline of charges.

6:25 They started with three victims, the Gilgo four, minus Maureen Brainerd Barnes. Why they needed more evidence for her. They got it. January twenty twenty four, they add Maureen to the charges. June twenty twenty four, they add two more, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Castilla. Sandra was killed in nineteen ninety three, thirty one years ago. If Rex did this, he started young, twenty nine years old, living with his mother, already killing. December twenty twenty four, they add Valerie Mack. Seven victims total, now seven women. Prosecutors say Rex Heyerman murdered over seventeen years. But the defense wants separate trials, five separate trials. They say lumping all these murders together is prejudicial, creates a where there's smoke, there's fire mentality.

7:21 The prosecution says, no, this is a serial killer case, one killer, one pattern, one trial. Back in a moment, welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm reed, Carter and we're discussing Rex Heyerman and the Gilgo Beach murders. Let's talk about the family, because this is where it gets really complicated. Asa Eleurop married to Rex for twenty seven years from Iceland. Originally she filed for divorce six days after his arrest. But here's the thing. She doesn't believe he did it.

8:04 Still doesn't. She visits him in jail, takes his calls. In the Peacock documentary that came out in June, you can hear her on the phone with him from jail. My husband was home here. He is a family man, she tells the cameras. They are telling me he has been soliciting sex from sex workers. The cognitive dissonance is staggering. Your husband's DNA is on dead bodies. His computer is full of murder plans and torture porn. But he was home. He was a family man. She's selling the house and moving to South Carolina. Says it's for financial reasons to protect assets. But you have to wonder, how do you sleep in a house where prosecutors say your husband tortured and killed seven women. Victoria Heyerman, the daughter twenty eight years old, Fine arts degree, worked at Macy's, then at her father's architecture firm. She was in the office the day he was arrested. Imagine that moment FBI agents walking in.

9:05 We're here for Rex, Heyerman, your dad, your boss, the man who taught you to ride a bike. In the documentary, Victoria says something remarkable. I believe he's most likely guilty, most likely. Her own daughter thinks he most likely did it. But there's still that doubt, that hope that somehow this is all a mistake. Christopher Sheridan, Rex's step son, thirty five years old, has developmental disabilities. His mother says, he cries himself to sleep, doesn't understand what's happening. How do you explain to someone with developmental disabilities that your stepfather might be a serial killer. The family was always out of town during the murders, always Atlantic City, Iceland, Maryland.

9:48 Was this Rex being protective keeping them away from his crimes, or was it practical He needed the house empty, needed the freedom to bring victims home. Victoria admitted something interesting in the documentary. There were times as a child she didn't know where her father was. He'd miss family vacations. July two, thousand and seven, they go to Atlantic City without him. Maureen Brainerd Barnes disappears. July two thousand and nine, they go to Iceland without him. Melissa Barthelemy disappears. Where's dad working? Always working? The neighbors have their own stories. Barry Auslander lived next door for Rex's entire life, told reporters Rex was creepy but not violent. Used to see him working on his cars late at night. Always those cars, the Chevrolet Avalanche that Dave Shaller described. Rex had multiple vehicles over the years, always working on them, always maintaining them, keeping them clean, maybe destroying evidence. Possibly. Another neighbor said Rex would stare at her teenage daughter, made her uncomfortable, but nobody thought serial killer. Nobody ever does. The house searches have been extensive July twenty twenty three, twelve days after the arrest. November twenty twenty three, they're back with ground penetrating radar March twenty twenty four, searching again, May

11:19 twenty twenty four, another search. What are they looking for? More evidence, more victims, trophies? They found hair, lots of hair in boxes. Why would someone keep hair? Prosecutors say, trophies The defense says he's a pack rat. The house was falling apart, full of junk. Maybe he just never threw anything away. But here's what haunts me about this case. If Rex Heyerman did this, he got away with it for thirty years, thirty years of killing, thirty years of driving past those bodies on Ocean Parkway on his way to work, thirty years of family dinners and birthday parties and Christmases knowing what he'd done. His daughter said something else in the documentary, My dad was an open book, No, Victoria, he wasn't. Open books don't have computer files with murder blueprints.

12:12 Open books don't have thousands of searches for torture porn. Open books don't have DNA on dead bodies. The trial hasn't started yet. We're still in pre trial hearings, still fighting about DNA, still arguing about whether to split the charges. The defense wants five separate trials, the prosecution wants one. The judge hasn't decided. Michael Brown, Rex's attorney, says his client is innocent. Says the police focused on Rex and then tried to make the evidence fit. Says the DNA is unreliable. The searches don't prove anything. The witness identification of the avalanche is shaky. But seven women are dead. Seven women whose phones all pinged off the same cell towers.

12:53 Seven women who all disappeared when Rex's family was out of town. Seven women who were all contacted by Berner phones purchased no Rex's office. That's a lot of coincidences. The trial, when it happens, will be massive. They're saying twenty twenty six at the earliest. The prosecution has to prove Rex killed these women beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense just has to create doubt. And with this new DNA technology, with the complexity of the evidence, with the time that's passed, there's room for doubt. But I keep coming back to the searches on his computer. Why hasn't the Long Island serial killer been caught? He was googling himself following the investigation, watching the news coverage, getting off on it, maybe or worried checking to see if they were closing in. They were. It just took thirteen years longer than it should have. Two days we've spent on this case. Two days on Rex Heyerman and the Gilgo Beach murders. And we haven't even scratched the surface. There are still four bodies that haven't been linked to anyone, in male, in women's clothing, the toddler. Are they Rex's victims?

14:04 Someone else's? Will we ever know? Rex Heyerman sits in the Riverhead Correctional Facility right now, no bail. He'll die in prison if convicted. Seven life sentences, probably served consecutively. He's sixty one years old. He'll never see freedom again. His family visits him. His ex wife still believes he's innocent. His daughter thinks he most likely did it. His step son doesn't understand what's happening. They're victims too, in their way, their lives destroyed by association. But the real victims are Maureen Brainerd Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Sandra Castilla, Jessica Taylor, and Valerie Mack. Seven women whose lives were cut short, Seven women whose families have waited years for justice.

14:55 The trial will be a circus when it happens. The DNA fight alone could take weeks. The defense will paint Rex as a scapegoat, a weird guy who liked porn and guns but didn't kill anyone. The prosecution will show the patterns, the evidence, the planning. But here's what I want you to remember. For thirty years, if the charges are true, Rex Heyerman lived among us, went to work, raised a family, attended parent teacher conferences, paid his taxes well sometimes he owed the irs eighty one thousand dollars. He was normal, boring, even an architect who complained about building codes and worked on strip malls. And allegedly he was also wrapping women in burlap and dumping them along Ocean Parkway. That's the horror of it, not that monsters exist, but that monsters look like architects, like fathers, like the guy next door with too many guns, and the overgrown lawn.

15:52 Tomorrow we're back to our regular coverage. The Menendez brother's parole hearing is next week. Nicholas Cassotis's dismember trial continues. The grandmother who allegedly orchestrated her son in law's murder goes to trial Monday. But today and yesterday we're about Long Island, about eleven bodies along a beach, About corruption that let a killer walk free, About families who never gave up, About a twenty three minute nine to one one call that exposed one of America's most prolific serial killers. I'm Read Carter, and this is celebrity trials. Check your Uber driver's reviews, meet clients in public places, and if someone offers you triple your rate to get in their Chevrolet Avalanche, don't see you tomorrow.