CNN — The architect accused in a string of Long Island killings has repeatedly filed lawsuits accusing drivers of injuring him in car accidents — and documents from those cases are among public records that reveal details of his life.
Rex Heuermann, who police say murdered at least three women, filed four lawsuits in New York courts between 2014 and 2022 against drivers who he said had hit him with their cars, causing him “serious and permanent personal injuries,” court records show. Three of the cases were settled or discontinued, while the most recent one is ongoing.
In his April 2018 deposition in one of the cases, Heuermann discussed his life and work, saying that he lived at his childhood home in the Long Island suburb of Massapequa Park with his wife of then 22 years, daughter and stepson. The home is across the bay from the beach where the women’s bodies were unearthed. At one point in the deposition, when asked if he played sports, he said, “Really only thing I competed in was competition rifle.”
Heuermann appears to have had issues paying his taxes going back more than a decade. Nassau County records show Heuermann was subject to six tax liens filed by the IRS in Nassau County between 2010 and 2021. According to the liens, Heuermann owed a total of more than $425,000 for taxes he had failed to pay going back to 2005. The IRS later filed tax lien releases showing that Heuermann repaid or no longer owed about $215,078 of that debt, with the most recent documents being filed in October 2022. According to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Heuermann and his wife, Asa Ellerup, also currently owe a total of more than $81,500 in personal income tax to the state, with the tax bills having accrued since November 2020.
Other court records shed light on the technical and at times mundane work Heuermann has done as an architect. Heuermann examined water damage on a building in Manhattan last year and offered an analysis of proposed waterproofing, according to a letter he wrote to an attorney. Records filed in another case show emails he sent coordinating a renovation project in the Bronx in 2017. In a civil court hearing in 2018, Heuermann described his work as “general architecture” and said he works for clients to resolve issues with the state Department of Buildings. An associate described the work as “not a pleasant process. I don’t want to be Mr. Heuermann in that respect for a minute.”
In September 2007, a Harlem apartment building that Heuermann had been hired to renovate was declared unsafe by fire officials, who ordered two dozen families to evacuate, the New York Daily News reported at the time. The New York City Buildings Department commissioner said the agency was investigating whether Heuermann falsely identified the building as vacant, according to the Daily News. Heuermann is listed on city documents related to the building that say it would remain vacant during construction. A spokesperson for the buildings department told CNN that in 2007, the department conducted audits of multiple jobs where Heuermann was the architect of record, but did not find “any pattern of false filings nor significant disregard for DOB regulations,” and no disciplinary actions were taken. The website of Heuermann’s firm, RH Architecture, listed his daughter as an employee there. The page listing employees has since been taken offline.
Heuermann was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in each of the three killings – Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010 – according to the indictment. A grand jury made the six charges, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney. He is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a bail application from prosecutors. Heuermann has not been charged with that homicide but the investigation “is expected to be resolved soon,” the document says. This is the first arrest in the long-dormant case, which terrorized residents and sparked conflicting theories about whether a serial killer was responsible. Tierney said authorities, fearing the suspect might be tipped off they were closing in, moved to arrest him Thursday night.
Authorities said once Heuermann was identified in early 2022 as a suspect, they watched him and his family and got DNA samples from items that were thrown away — including leftover crust in a pizza box he threw in the trash, the district attorney said. Hair believed to be from Rex Heuermann’s wife was found on or near three of the murder victims, prosecutors allege in the bail application, citing DNA testing. Evidence shows Heuermann’s wife and children were outside of the state at the times when the three women were killed, Tierney said. Heuermann was remanded without bail. He entered a not guilty plea through his attorney. His next court date is scheduled for August 1. Police were still searching his home Friday night, according to a CNN team outside the house.
The case against Heuermann came together in the two years since the restart of the investigation by Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison, authorities said. Harrison put together a task force including county police detectives, investigators from the sheriff’s office, state police and the FBI. Tierney said the task force held its first meeting in February 2022. “Six weeks later, on March 14, 2022, the name Rex Heuermann was first mentioned as a suspect in the Gilgo case,” Tierney said. “A New York state investigator was able to identify him in a database.” Investigators had gone backward through phone records collected from both midtown Manhattan and the Massapequa Park area – two areas where a “burner phone” used by the alleged killer were detected, according to court documents. Authorities then narrowed records collected by cell towers to thousands, then down to hundreds, and finally down to a handful of people who could match a suspect. From there, authorities worked to focus on people who lived in the area of the cell tower who also matched a physical description given by a witness who had seen the suspected killer. In the narrowed pool, they searched for a connection to a green pickup truck a witness had seen the suspect driving, the sources said. Investigators found Heuermann, who matched a witness’s physical description, lived close to the Long Island cell site and worked near the New York City cell sites where other calls were captured. They also learned he had often driven a green pickup, registered to his brother. But they needed more than circumstantial evidence. When investigators searched Heuermann’s computer, they found a disturbing internet search history, including 200 searches aimed at learning about the status of the investigation, Tierney said Friday. His searches also included queries for torture porn and “depictions of women being abused, being raped and being killed,” Tierney said. The DA said the suspect was still compulsively searching for photos of the victims and their relatives.