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Translated By The_Proffs

MAN: Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us.

A predator that ruined families.

WOMAN: It's sick, it's senseless. It is pure evil.

REPORTER: Many in the community find it hard to believe that Heuermann

is the notorious serial killer.

TOULON: The fact that he had a thriving business in New York City

is not something that you find most serial killers having.

You know, people are like, "How do you not know?"

He was pretty much a monster living a double life.

The difference between his Dr. Jekyll and his Mr. Hyde.

They're like two different universes.

If these claims are true,

we're tying this man to six bodies.

This is stuff Hollywood movies are made of.

REPORTER: Investigators pulled over 200 guns from his house.

JIMENEZ: I was at the range with Rex,

and I made the mistake of touching the gun

when Rex was downrange picking up targets.

This is the sound that Rex heard.

He pulled out his gun. He starts running to me.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

He got this close to me like this,

and I put up my hands and I said:

"I'm sorry, Rex." "Sorry, sorry, sorry."

Rex, put the gun down. Rex, put the gun down.

He goes, "You scared the shit out of me."

"I thought you were gonna kill me."

I'm like, "I'm really sorry."

And he holsters it.

It was really, mm, scary, yeah.

Thinking back now,

I think that was the monster that's hiding in there.

Rex at home, his family,

his wife and his kids respected him.

But I also think that:

"Oh, you don't wanna piss dad off."

Could it be that they feared him?

You're with a monster, but the monster is good to you.

Maybe you can have both things.

You can be nurturing, and caring,

and have this double life.

It's just horrible. It's just horrible.

[***]

MURPHY: Ten months after the arrest,

there's this huge moment in the investigation

when the investigators using computer extractors

are able to get this HK Microsoft Word Document

from Rex Heuermann's computer.

He had composed it on his laptop, then deleted it.

And the thinking is

that he assumed that it was gone for good

and wouldn't haunt him down the line.

But through modern science,

investigators were able to dig this stuff up.

Investigators speculated that the name of the document, "HK,"

referred to Hunt and Kill.

And it was a blueprint used to plan and execute his kills,

as if he was describing a hunt.

Because of its detail,

and because of the similarities between what it contained

and what investigators found in the case,

it seemed like a strong corroboration

of the entire case against him.

Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann,

today, he was back inside a Long Island courtroom

to face new murder charges

for the deaths of two additional women,

bringing the total number to six.

REPORTER: Sandra Costilla, whose remains were found in 1993,

and Jessica Taylor, a sex worker

whose body was found back in 2003.

FITZGIBBON: Jessica Taylor's body was dismembered.

She was decapitated. Her arms were removed.

Remember, the Gilgo Four, their bodies were found intact.

So the MO was different.

The other interesting element of the Costilla indictment

was that Rex was killing before his marriage to Asa Ellerup,

which again changed the profile, expanded the profile.

MURPHY: On one of Heuermann's digital devices,

there was a copy of his datebook,

his calendar from July 2003.

So now, the task force could cross-reference the dates

from the datebook with the phone records

from the time when Jessica Taylor disappeared.

They see a familiar pattern.

On July 20th, the day before Jessica Taylor disappeared,

Asa and her children went on a one week trip to Vermont.

[***]

The only thing I was thinking about while on vacation

is trying to do something fun with my kids.

VICTORIA: The reason that he didn't come on vacation with us to Vermont

was that he had to stay home, and he had to work.

MURPHY: That very same day, Rex Heuermann visited a gun club

that was just a 5-minute drive from Mill Road,

which is very close

to where Jessica Taylor's remains were discovered.

VICTORIA: On that vacation in Vermont, there was a summer camp,

and I played with other kids, I made friends.

MURPHY: Investigators believe that Rex Heuermann

referred to Mill Road as a DS,

which is acronym for dumpsite in his planning document.

There was pools and stuff, and it was a lot of fun.

MURPHY: So you have to wonder, was Rex Heuermann doing

one last recon of his dump site

the day before Jessica Taylor disappeared?

This year has been 21 years

since she was taken from us.

Longer than the chance that she got to be alive.

I can't express what this day means

after waiting and hoping for answers.

MURPHY: Jessica Taylor was last heard from

on July 21st at 8:41 p.m.

VICTORIA: While we're on vacation,

he was always calling multiple times a day.

MURPHY: Rex Heuermann worked in the very same vicinity

where Jessica Taylor was known to street walk.

VICTORIA: It's never occurred to me that he's checking to make sure

that we're not coming home early.

MURPHY: Four days later, on July 25th,

a witness sees a dark-colored Chevy pickup truck

backing into the woods in Manorville, Long Island.

And the next day, Jessica Taylor's remains are found.

This is all being spoken about in this document.

My eyes were popping out of my head.

It's very hard to imagine these allegations.

While we were having fun on vacation,

he was home murdering, dismembering women here.

FITZGIBBON: This is like a modern-day horror story.

It just gets bigger and bigger.

We start with four bodies,

a professional white collar architect

living a quiet life in Long Island.

Works in Midtown.

And now we're tying this man to six bodies.

Sex workers. Some of them grossly mutilated.

This is like once in a lifetime.

MACEDONIO: Thank you everybody for coming.

One year ago today, which is July 13th, 2023,

Asa Ellerup's husband, Rex Heuermann,

left for work in the early morning.

And as we all know, never returned from work.

Since that day, Asa and the children's lives

have been turned upside down.

It's honestly waiting on eggshells every day

because they've been removed from their house twice.

In their minds, is it gonna be a third time?

What I'm here to talk about is how Asa has spent the last year

putting her life back together.

Miss Ellerup has taken each day to try and rebuild her life.

Nobody wants to believe their family member, their dad,

their husband would be capable of these kind of crimes.

Do you plan on staying here? Is this the long term goal

after all of this is over?

The family plans on staying

until the conclusion of the criminal case.

From there, there will be decisions made

depending on the outcome.

This is the one-year anniversary.

Any reflection on that?

Everybody seems to have an opinion on this case,

yet nobody has seen any evidence.

There are protective orders, and all the documents

that have been turned over to defense are sealed.

So nobody, not anyone in the media, or us,

have seen any of the evidence.

Thank you. Appreciate everybody for coming.

The allegation is that, when you married Rex,

he had already committed a homicide.

Had you had any knowledge of that,

you wouldn't have married this man,

and have children with him. Correct?

No, there's no abnormal behavior that I ever actually noticed.

And if there was any knowledge at all,

some unusual behavior in that man,

I would have walked out the door.

You wouldn't have brought your young son... No.

...to live in an environment like that. No.

MACEDONIO: Let's take a walk downstairs.

This is the main room to the basement.

I know you feel the police tore up your house,

so I would like to go in detail,

what happened with the execution of the last search warrant?

And maybe it will help you understand

why they came back a second time.

Their theory in the bail application

is that this was the "staging room"

where people were murdered and or their bodies mutilated.

[***]

[***]

MACEDONIO: Everybody down.

Several panels were taken out. Ceiling tiles were removed.

And then all of this rafter was all taken out also.

FITZGIBBON: When they go through Rex's devices,

they find a huge trove of really sick pornography

about sexualizing decapitated bodies, mutilation.

And more significant, it does seem to tie to the condition

of Jessica Taylor's body when it was found.

Jessica Taylor was originally from Poughkeepsie, New York,

and she came to New York City early, at 17,

under the sway of a pimp.

RAY: Jessica Taylor was a very young girl

when she was murdered.

She was 20 years old.

She had been in sex work only a very short time.

She was a lonely, gentle girl

who had a troubled life growing up,

but loyal to her family.

One of the things that tells you

some insight to her true character

was that she carried with her in her purse a Bible.

That's who she really was.

Jess was somebody that I looked up to.

She was a force,

one of the strongest women that I know

with a heart of gold.

She was, and still is, loved immeasurably.

She had fallen under the control of a pimp named Remy.

She had a tattoo of his name, Remy's angel.

Remy was the nickname for Khalil White, her pimp.

Her tattoo had been mutilated

so that it couldn't be identified.

And right there in Rex's planning document,

he prioritizes getting rid

of visible marks, including tattoos.

That light bulb immediately goes off in your head,

that he carried out his plan.

So in the basement, they were looking for DNA.

The whole speculation is he's butchering these people

in his own basement.

MACEDONIO: On those hard drives found in the house,

there was a planning document.

and the planning document laid out steps that were taken,

allegedly by Rex

in prepping for victims,

and then how these homicides were committed

and what he was doing with them.

In the "Things to Remember" section,

"To utilize pushpins to hang drop cloths

from the ceiling, not tape."

Tape would pick up hairs. The pushpins would not.

The theory is, in their bail application

that push pins, similar to this push pin like this,

was used to hold up tarps...

...to prevent splash of blood, DNA,

or any kind of biological evidence.

That's why they took out ceiling tiles.

They want to forensically test

to see if there's any kind of DNA.

At this point, we don't know if they found any.

We won't know until the trial.

Concerns regarding sound travel

indicate that referenced incidents

would have occurred indoors

and likely inside of the target residence,

which is a controlled environment

where Heuermann would have access

to said tools and supplies.

He's trying to prepare so much that he's worried about sound.

Getting in or out from where the killing takes place.

He talks about birds outside.

He doesn't want the sound to escape

from the lair of the killer.

PUGLIESE: The prep section has five entries set up stage.

Holding area, build table, crossbar, and hardpoint.

The crossbar is placed under the table

to provide structural support.

VICTORIA: "The hard point in the ceiling

that supports the weight of an individual

being suspended off of the ground."

When I was hearing about hard points,

that deals with sexual bondage and suspension from a ceiling.

Did he suspend these poor women from the ceiling

for hours on end, possibly days on end?

What did he do to them?

How long did they have to go through this torture

before they were killed?

MACEDONIO: They believe Rex committed these homicides

in the room we're standing in right now.

I know. Heh. I'm sorry.

That planning document is so Dexter-style.

It's absolutely absurd.

The document says it was created locally,

which I've explained to you, means on the keyboard

that was attached to that device

could not have been imported, transferred in by an e-mail,

or any kind of, you know, external person.

See if they really did happen down here,

he really must have been like Superman

for us not to have noticed anything ever.

This used to be like his bedroom growing up.

A lot of his, like, not only just gun stuff,

but a lot of his childhood stuff, family heirlooms,

were in this room.

So for him to do that in this room,

a little unrealistic, but I guess not impossible.

No, sorry. You wanna know how I feel?

They are picking, picking, picking,

making assumptions for their narrative.

I know that. I've known Rex since I was 18 years old.

I know what this room was originally used for.

And...

they're just allegations.

[***]

He's never said to me, "Don't-don't use my computer."

He's never said, "No, I'm not gonna give you the password."

There is nothing off limits from Rex Heuerman.

VICTORIA: I'm not picking a side just yet until I see the evidence.

The part of...

Okay, so, yeah, me standing my ground

and wanting to see the evidence first is,

in a way, protecting myself, but it's protecting me.

It keeps my head on straight

with everything everybody is saying.

One person saying this, one person saying that,

prosecutors saying this.

But my memory says this.

So, yeah. The fact that I'm way--

I'm sticking, I'm standing my ground

and I need to see the evidence

is keeping my head on straight from all this.

VICTORIA: Maybe even with all this growing evidence against him,

maybe there is some loyalty still to my dad,

and to my mom too, like...

Listen. Whether the world likes it or not,

whether I like it or not, he's my dad.

That's not-- And they can't take that away from me.

I don't know what acceptance looks like.

Acceptance to me is just:

"Fuck it, I have to move on."

I think, you know, if he was guilty,

it's gonna start to become, like, a love-hate relationship.

This is my dad, and I love him as my dad.

The hate is it's other side of him that came out.

And going forward, I'm not gonna

interact with him the same way.

I would have if this never happened.

Both the feelings love and hate can coexist.

[***]

LINKLETTER: Once Rex Heuermann was charged with the murders

of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla,

the fifth and sixth murder charges in June of 2024,

you just... are sick to your stomach.

Because it means that he could be responsible for more murders,

going back to at least 1993.

FITZGIBBON: Rex Heuermann is charged with killing six of them.

But we're talking 10 or 11 bodies

that were out there on Gilgo Beach.

REPORTER: So far, the remains of 11 individuals

were discovered in that region.

Suddenly, there's this whole new realm

of possibilities that open up.

MURPHY: Asian Doe was a biological male dressed as a woman,

found very close to the Gilgo Four.

REPORTER: Described as an Asian male in his late teens or early 20s

when he was murdered.

The victim of obvious trauma,

this body too, has no ID.

MURPHY: He was intact like the Gilgo Four.

His skull, though, had been smashed.

So it was a brutal murder.

One of Rex's searches was Asian male twink.

The fact that the DA included that search

in the bail documents

suggests that there is a connection there as well.

McGARVEY: Once you start looking at it

through the lens of everything's changed,

then it's just a Pandora's box of locations.

And there's really no telling where it could go.

FOY: More clues now on the Gilgo Beach murders.

Investigations surrounding

suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann

are expanding far beyond the Gilgo Beach area.

TIERNEY: We've learned a lot about the defendant and his movements.

We're willing and able to share that

with law enforcement partners in other jurisdictions.

TOULON: This is a multi-jurisdictional effort right now

in South Carolina, Atlantic City, Las Vegas,

and even some across the eastern seaboard.

As the investigation continues to unfold with DNA

we will be able to at least identify

Rex Heuermann to other potential victims.

So now, police in all those other cities

try to connect the dots.

Is there a DNA match to Rex

with other unsolved murder cases?

REPORTER: Investigators on Long Island

are coordinating with police in Atlantic City, New Jersey,

to decide if Rex Heuermann is connected

to a series of murders of women there.

MURPHY: In 2006, there were four sex workers in Atlantic City.

Rex Heuermann used to make trips to Atlantic City,

Also Valerie Mack,

she was last seen 17 miles from Atlantic City

in Port Republic, New Jersey.

REPORTER: The search for evidence has now expanded.

Then all of a sudden, bam! Law enforcement finds his car.

REPORTER: This truck towed from Chester County,

connected to the investigation

of a suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer, Rex Heuermann.

The truck seized is a Chevy Avalanche.

MURPHY: The first generation Chevy Avalanche that's

at the heart of identifying Rex Heuerman as a suspect,

that was found in South Carolina,

where Rex Heuerman has property,

and his brother has property.

Also in South Carolina,

investigators were curious about

a missing teenager, Aaliyah Bell,

and also a woman, Julia Ann Bean, who is 36.

Perhaps, Heuermann was tied to their disappearances.

REPORTER: Eighteen year-old Aaliyah Bell went missing back in 2014.

Now, officers say her disappearance

could possibly be correlated.

Bell disappeared around 20 miles

from property owned by Heuermann.

MURPHY: In Julia Ann Bean's case,

apparently, her daughter saw a picture of Rex Heuermann

and said, "That's the guy that I last saw with my mother."

She recognized him right away.

She said that was the last person

she ever saw with her mom.

There's no doubt that she was more than likely escorting.

MURPHY: How many other people potentially were killed

by Rex Heuermann?

They are looking at hundreds of unsolved cases now.

They have a list. It's a big list.

REPORTER 1: We are following breaking news out of Long Island, New York.

REPORTER 2: We begin this hour with breaking news.

REPORTER 3: Now, to a major development

in the Gilgo Beach murder case...

Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann

has now been charged with a seventh murder.

REPORTER 5: For years, she was known only as Jane Doe number six.

But now, we know her name.

And prosecutors say they know who killed her.

Rex Heuernann was charged today with killing Valerie Mack

24 years ago.

ALGAR: Valerie Mack was originally from new Jersey.

A very, very troubled childhood.

In her infancy, she was put up for adoption.

She was eventually adopted by a family,

and while she was still in middle school,

both parents passed away.

So she had lost two sets of mother and father

at an age that's sort of unfathomable.

She would have a child in her teens,

and quickly fell in the grip of addiction and escorting.

Until she was eventually last seen

in the year 2000, in Manhattan.

Now, Valerie Mack is five foot tall.

She fits the description of the women that he preferred,

and she's a sex worker.

We're here today because we wish to support

the family members of victim, Valerie Mack.

My clients have also lost a loved one

as a result of a homicide.

And as a result, many of them have experienced despair,

depression, anger, trauma, and grief

that results from such a tragic loss.

ALGAR: So, once again, this expanded the scope of things,

because now this is the second person

whose remains were partial at Gilgo,

and also had a connection to Manorville,

where parts of Jessica Taylor's remains were found.

ALLRED: Even now, decades later, in 2024,

let's be clear, none of the victims deserve to die.

They were all innocent,

and they were just trying to earn some funds

to support themselves and their families.

They were, and they are loved.

[SIRENS WAILING]

LINKLETTER: He's really upped the ante,

as far as serial killers go,

and he really does appear to be

this new breed of super predator.

His ability to manipulate his family.

His ability to compartmentalize his life

in a way where he could function as a professional,

function as a father,

engage in relatively normal social interactions.

Going on dates with sex workers,

and having conversations about mundane things.

When you look at what he was doing

with all of his digital devices,

sort of the web he weaved with his fake e-mail addresses,

with his identities, with his burner phones.

I mean, you've seen nothing like him.

You wanna compare Rex Heuermann against the Ted Bundys,

against the BTK's.

And Rex really does just stand out against the rest.

[***]

REPORTER 1: One of history's most prolific serial killers,

Dennis Rader, known as BTK.

REPORTER 2: Rader called himself BTK

because he bound, tortured and killed 10 people.

REPORTER 1: Rader, now weighing in on the Long Island serial killer case

from behind bars.

The man who bound, tortured

and killed ten people in Kansas,

writing in a letter to a national media outlet

that Rex Heuermann is his clone.

So in July of '23, immediately, my thoughts went to the family.

I heard he had a wife and two kids,

and they were similar ages to when my brother and I were,

when my father was arrested in '05.

I'm Kerri Rawson. I'm the daughter of Dennis Rader,

better known as the BTK serial killer.

I know what it's like to live with a psychopath.

So maybe I can actually lend some support

or help or speak up.

[***]

RAWSON: On the day that Rex was arrested...

REPORTER: A suspect is in custody in the so-called Gilgo Beach murders.

My PTSD hit right away

because of what my family had gone through.

I was concerned especially when I heard he had a family.

Rex Heuermann. A husband, a father, an architect.

RAWSON: Rex was 59 when he was arrested. My dad was 59.

They both had had long marriages.

His daughter was 26, the same age I was

when my father was arrested.

My heart just like... broke in two.

I was shocked by the similarities.

REPORTER: Rader writes, quote: "I was arrested age 59,

married, two kids, longtime serial killer,

lives in a neighborhood undetected.

DNA and electronics, his downfall. Much like me."

[***]

RAWSON: My father lived a double life.

He was hiding in plain sight for 31 years.

REPORTER: Heuermann who's been hiding in plain sight in a modest home

in Nassau County on Long Island.

I know what it's like to live with a psychopath.

So maybe I can actually lend some support

or help or speak up.

[KNOCKING]

ASA: Hello.

I'm Kerri. Nice to meet you. Good.

How are you? Okay.

Want something hot to drink? Hot coffee?

Yeah, I'll take some coffee.

Hi. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

RAWSON: I saw the pictures that came out.

Like I was horrified what they had done to your house

'cause I was following things closely

as soon as it was announced

because of what my family had been through.

In my case, there was one interview with the FBI,

and then they left my family. They didn't help us.

They didn't get us victim support.

We had no trauma support. Nothing.

She screamed and I jumped on the bed

and strangled her manually.

RAWSON: They just left us.

And you're looking at Asa's family,

and, I mean, they came in, they completely trashed their home.

And I understand that they needed

to come in and get evidence,

but they should have sent a team in to fix it

because it traumatized the family.

When you're talking about a father,

their actions get placed on the family.

The public and the society are putting blame

back on the children.

I wasn't alive for seven of the ten of my father's murders,

and I was, at the most, 12 years old for the last.

Why are you, as a society, putting that back on me?

Why are you doing this to Rex's kids?

They had nothing to do with any of this.

ASA: The FBI lady, she tells me that my husband

was soliciting sex from a sex worker

two days before Thanksgiving.

I says, "No." I says:

"He was not doing that on that day." Right.

RAWSON: I'm seeing that Asa's stuck in that loop of going...

He was here on this date,

and he was gone this day, and he did this.

And I understand what that's like, that fog of not knowing,

and questioning everything.

Then she says to me that he was

dumping a body on Gilgo beach the night before he called me.

And then I'm sitting here saying, "No!"

And I'm saying to myself:

"Okay, what was my husband doing,

doing during that time period?"

And he was... he was fixing up the bathroom.

[***]

I have been asked a million times,

how did you not know?

And I still get, "Your mom must have known.

She must have been culpable. She must have been involved."

So the question of how did you not know,

especially for the adult,

it never goes away.

I call it the peanut gallery effect.

Like the public asking, "How did the wife not know?"

I understand having reasonable questions.

Is she in denial? Is she lying? Is she disassociated?

The thing is, when you're sitting

in the cheap seats with the popcorn,

you're in hindsight land, that's what I call Hindsight land.

You've got all the information, or most of the information,

and you can put it together.

You're not sitting in everyday with a normal man, right?

I would have never in a million years thought my father had.

I even, after all the murders,

I was like, "Whoa, what is this?"

So you're not even in that mental state

of even thinking of-of him in that way.

And then you're finding out, like, how perverse he could be,

and then he's doing that to people.

It just doesn't calculate.

[***]

REPORTER: The lawyer representing Rex Heuermann's wife

says the family was, "Completely blindsided."

Even if they did know a little thing here or there,

you have to remember, they're victims.

Her and her children are also victims.

Their lives have been destroyed.

Now, knowing what we know...

it's hard to feel sorry for Asa.

I do see her as a victim,

but I see her as a victim of manipulation.

I see her as being duped.

I see her as a victim of trauma.

And I don't place her

in the same camp as the other victims.

Now, that's assuming she knew nothing at all.

RAWSON: You don't understand,

in a case like my family and probably in Rex's family,

how much control is going on by the perpetrator.

How much they're controlling, and manipulating, and lying.

My father's a pathological liar.

He's the best liar I know. He lies like he breathes.

If we reach into our bag of empathy,

we have to understand that

Asa and her children had nothing to do with this.

They claim, and I believe them,

that they had no idea what Rex was doing.

And a lot of people want to blame Asa Ellerup

or blame her kids.

Like, we don't know how she was treated.

LINKLETTER: Rex Heuermann was allegedly killing

before he married Asa Ellerup.

Maybe he handpicked somebody

who he could manipulate, possibly control.

RAWSON: Did Rex prey on her?

Picking somebody that's a little more traditional,

a little more submissive, or trusting,

or needing financial stability and protection, and care.

ASA: Rex was the kind of person that you could call

even if you just wanted to talk.

And that's it.

We were friends.

Everybody needs a friend.

RAWSON: And I'm not doubting that Rex loves Asa,

and cared for her in appropriate ways.

People like my dad, and with Rex,

they can have very normal, stable families,

and homes, and lives,

and they're compartmentalizing that.

And it's not even that they're using it

as a cover to hide their behavior.

They literally are that,

and then they're switching and are this.

But they're always both of those things.

RAWSON: Just on your own, how are you doing with everything?

Well, for one thing, my self-esteem

and self-worth is six feet under. Yeah.

I feel like I definitely do jump between depression and anger.

Mm-hm. Like why-- You know, like,

why am I even here anymore, you know? Yeah.

Like, there's people out there that want me dead. I was...

Yeah. Me too. I was like, 13 years old.

Like, why do I have to go, you know?

Yeah, I've had death threats. And people say, like,

my dad should have left an 11th victim. Her.

Have you seen your father since everything happened?

I visited him once.

What's scary is,

even when I saw him, like when I visit him in jail, like,

he just seems like, himself. How he always is.

And it's just so hard to even believe the fact that,

you know, he's this sick killer.

But at the same time, like,

because I was so young at the time,

I also don't know that he's not this sick killer.

At this point, I just mentally, mentally prepare myself

or mentally protect myself for the ultimate outcome.

Even though I knew factually, in part of my head,

that in my case, my father was guilty

because I was being told all these things.

It took a very long time to wrap my head around

that my father actually did them.

And I still have not fully, nor will I ever,

fully believe it in my heart

because it just doesn't fit the man I know.

And if you're like me, one day you might be mad at him.

One day you might be sad that you don't have him.

And that's completely normal and expected, right?

It's really easier said than done

just to not be so angry at it.

Sometimes you're angry, sometimes you're in denial.

Some days you're okay, right?

Some days you're recovering. Some days you're rock bottom.

Whether or not I believe my dad did it or not, that's,

I'm on the fence about that.

Like, there's part of me thinks he didn't do it.

Heavily believes he didn't do it.

But at the same time, like, I don't know. He could have just

totally had a double life.

RAWSON: Her and I's reality is

we're never gonna be able to separate ourselves

from our fathers and what they did.

I know in the bottom of my heart,

my father loved and cared for us, and protected us,

but he also, I know in the bottom of my heart,

committed murder.

You're never, ever gonna be able

to wrap your head completely around it.

I just can't. I can't.

[***]

LINKLETTER: We've seen daughters and wives of serial killers

coming out publicly with their story.

And seeing them grapple with the reality

of their loved one's guilt in real time.

And that may be what's happening here with Victoria.

Maybe she's slowly processing

all of this very seemingly airtight evidence.

And realizing, you know, horror of horrors.

My dad is, in fact, a serial killer.

REPORTER 1: The 59-year-old architect has been jailed

at the Riverhead Correctional Facility

since he was taken into custody on July 13th.

REPORTER 2: Aside from his attorney,

Heuermann received one visit

from a non-family member.

He mentioned to me that there was a friend,

but I don't know who it was.

REPORTER 3: Heuermann's been visited by a chaplain

and one unnamed acquaintance.

REPORTER 4: If we knew the identity of this person,

what might we learn about the alleged killer,

and what he's thinking and feeling inside prison?

REPORTER 1: Heuermann is monitored 24/7.

He spends the majority of his time in a 10-by-6 jail cell.

REPORTER 2: Heuermann's been visited by a chaplain

and one unnamed acquaintance.

I'm in a story that I never wanted to be.

I'm the best friend of a serial killer.

The odds are one to 150 million.

It's like I hit a lotto, but I didn't win any money.

You know, like-- And not a good lotto.

I decided to go visit Rex in prison.

It was surreal.

The guard lets me in, and that's when I see him sitting down.

In the middle of the room

behind a low partition wall.

And he says, "Hi, David. Thanks for coming to see me."

And I said, "Rex, this is really bad."

This is...

[SIGHS]

I said, "If you did that,

that's another part of you that I've never seen."

The Rex that I know couldn't have done that.

Everything I hear, it looks like you did it.

Convince me. Give me something.

I said they're even accusing you

of killing prostitutes in Vegas.

And he had a very visceral reaction.

"Huh. Vegas. All I did was gamble and drink there."

I said, "They dug up your house.

They're looking for evidence."

His reaction was, "Ha!

They're never gonna to find anything there."

Just like that.

So I said, "There's so much evidence against you."

"I don't even believe you, Rex. And you're my friend."

Unless you have something to explain to me

how you didn't do it, then come clean it.

Apologize to the victims.

Don't drag your wife through all this.

Do the right thing. If you did it, confess.

He was really drawn white, I mean, he's an empty shell.

Empty shell, like, just...

You could tell it's a destroyed human being.

So that made me think more

that he did it because he's hurt.

'Cause he's smart enough to know that that's wrong.

It's like, "Did you do it?"

And then...

He teared up... he teared up a little bit.

And he started crying.

I expected to hear:

"David, I'm innocent.

Can you help me out?"

And he's like this...

And that's when I get the feeling,

I think he did it.

MACEDONIO: Okay, where do we stand with Asa?

I've witnessed a woman

who was completely, emotionally distraught.

When this first happened,

her entire world was turned upside down.

Didn't know who to trust, what to believe.

The allegations against her husband being a serial killer

are pretty heinous.

It took a lot to get her to a point of stability.

MAN 1: And... you know...

[CHATTERING INDISTINCTLY]

MAN 2: Okay.

PRODUCER: All right, quiet, please.

No.

I'm not asking myself that question

because I believe that I would know.

And until I see definite, definitive proof,

there's no way I'm going to know for sure...

whether or not I saw the signs.

I have no idea that they're his.

I really, honestly don't.

MACEDONIO: We know what the allegations are.

We know, at this point,

what was taken out of the computers

and the forensic evidence

that may or may not have been removed

out of the house at the time frames.

I don't think she wants to know the answers.

I think Asa is an extremely intelligent woman.

I think she's what they call

a domestic Stockholm syndrome type of victim

where they come to love and respect this person

because it's the only thing that they know.

Circumstantial.

MACEDONIO: There's enough circumstantial evidence that a person

could come to a reasonable conclusion

that something may have happened here.

But you have to consider,

if these allegations are true against Rex,

some of these homicides took place

before Rex was even with Asa, or married to Asa.

And I believe he victimized her

by bringing her into the marriage

and continuing his crime pattern.

I think Rex saw Asa as a weak, emotional person

that fit the profile he needed

to continue this course of conduct.

Somebody that was emotionally stable

would have maybe caught on

to some of the allegations a lot sooner,

or Rex would not have been able to get away with this

over the course of 25, 30 years.

No.

I'm not gonna believe

any of that information until I see it.

MACEDONIO: She doesn't want to believe it.

She looked at Rex as her savior,

her hero from her first marriage

to rescue her and Christopher,

and took them into his home.

And cared for them, and raised them,

and supported them when nobody else was there

to help Asa at a time of need.

So then we all have to wait for the court case to play out.

Period.

MACEDONIO: I don't know if she ever will believe it.

I don't think if Rex pled guilty...

she still wouldn't believe it.

My husband, he's a family man.

He's my hero.

What I wanna say to him is:

"I love you no matter what."

[***]

McGARVEY: This case is interesting for a myriad of reasons.

It, quite literally, was

one of America's longest serial killer cold cases.

The fact that there were so many murders in this case,

so many missing people that, over the years,

felt like no one really cared about them.

Why is that?

Well, the women that were missing

were sex workers.

BARTHELEMY: No family should have to go through

what we're all going through.

'Cause it's not just these girls that lost their lives,

we lost part of our lives too.

ALGAR: In almost all these cases,

these women were looking for something better in their lives,

and they wanted to escape their circumstances

that they were saddled with,

and through no fault of their own.

REPORTER: Megan Waterman was 22 years old.

She was a mother of a 5-year-old child.

Amber Lynn Costello, she moved to New York from North Carolina

to be closer to her sister, and to get sober.

Melissa Barthelemy tried to make it as a hairstylist,

but ended up an exotic dancer.

MURPHY: This serial killer mystery had multiple hooks.

It wasn't just about the sex workers

who turned up on this remote stretch of beach

out in Suffolk County, Long Island.

It was also about who were the players

that were surrounding this mystery.

We had a police chief who had been investigated

for consorting with sex workers.

And then there was this taunting that went on

on the cell phones to one of the victims' families.

Who was this guy?

Why was he taunting the sister of one of the victims?

But Rex Heuermann is not the only villain in this story.

So many people, when they look at this case,

and where it is today, wanna know

how Asa couldn't have known.

And that's what people need to understand

when they rush towards judgment.

People are deceived constantly.

Men have decades long affairs and their wives never find out.

Rex Heuermann was having an affair as a serial killer.

I mean, this is what he was doing in his spare time.

This is what he was working day-in and day-out

to conceal from his wife.

McGARVEY: At first, I felt sorry for Asa, and the family.

I could imagine how traumatizing

all of this was for that family.

You know, like, she is also a victim.

But then, you know, it came out

that she believed he was innocent.

[CHUCKLING] And I...

And then I, you know, any sympathy,

any empathy I had for her quickly dwindled.

I think we should always be careful to

not place her in the same category

as the real victims, because she still has her life.

As bleak as it may look, she still has her life.

The Gilgo Four and the three other women we know of,

they don't have their lives anymore.

And their families, they have suffered unimaginable tragedy.

RAWSON: There's real women

that have been lost.

Real victims,

real families here on all sides of it.

And allegedly, it is one person's fault.

His actions, his choices, his decisions,

and that's where the blame needs to go.

That's where the consequences need to go.

That's where the accountability needs to go on that one person.

They weren't just prostitutes, as everybody is saying.

They were daughters, sisters, cousins, nieces...

Mothers. Mothers.

Exactly. They were just Maureen,

Melissa, Amber, and Megan.

I think it's safe to assume there's more evidence coming,

that they have a lot more information on Rex

that they have not released for whatever purpose.

LINKLETTER: If there is a trial, everything we don't know about,

all the evidence they have that we're imagining they have,

like any blood or DNA that they may have found in the basement

from the two raids on the family home.

We're gonna to find out.

So I think everyone will be on the edge of their seat,

hanging on every word of this trial.

RYDER: Any good investigator will tell you it's not over

till they hand down the guilty verdict,

and the appeals are exhausted,

and he's sitting his rear end in jail.

That's when it's over.

REPORTER: A showdown in court today

as both sides argued over whether or not

DNA evidence can and should be admitted in this murder trial.

BROWN: They want to, in essence, have a jury

rely on this, which is not trustworthy,

it's not reliable, it's not scientific,

and it shouldn't be utilized in a court.

TIERNEY: It's not new technology.

It's used in all of our everyday lives.

It's used in medical,

forensic, paleontology,

identifying war dead, all of these things.

So we're just applying this very effective

and tried and true technology to the courtrooms.

REPORTER: Another thing.

Seven murders Heuermann is tied to

whether those cases should be tried together.

BROWN: Each case has to be proved with the elements

beyond a reasonable doubt.

That's the law. That's the requirement.

And that's what the judge will tell the jury.

The danger of having count after count, victim after victim

in the same trial is that smoke-there's-fire mentality.

They shouldn't be tried together.

REPORTER: Now, if Heuermann's attorney has it his way,

he would want five separate trials.

No ruling has been made on that.

[***]

Now that this life in this house is coming to an end...

it makes me feel like there's a new beginning.

What that life is gonna be like?

I do not know.

I will find out eventually.

And I will deal with it the best to my, the best that I can.

Boxes and boxes of stuff.

I did what I had to do to protect myself and my children.

[***]

[***]

Translated By The_Proffs

Translated By The_Proffs