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New York City architect Rex Heuermann stands accused of a series of killings of mostly young women that roiled Long Island for more than a decade.
Authorities have accused Heuermann of killing three people between 1996 and 2011 and disposing of their bodies on a strip of beach in suburban Nassau County. The 59-year-old married father of two was arrested last week in Midtown Manhattan by a special task force. Heuermann has denied responsibility for the killings through his attorney.
In his personal life, Heuermann was the founder of the architecture firm RH Consultants & Associates Inc., which had been active in New York City since 1994. According to the firm’s website, their clients includes Catholic Charities, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, American Airlines and other major corporate clients such as Nike and Burlington Coat Factory.
The firm has “over thirty years of experience dealing with the New York City building code, the New York State code, the NYC Department of Buildings and all major city agencies,” according to the website.
Heuermann made his mark through hundreds of projects throughout New York City — such as a recently opened Target location on Broadway in SoHo.
According to the firm’s website, RH Architecture worked with Target’s design team to integrate the big box store seamlessly into the historic aesthetics of the neighborhood. The firm designed new escalators to be installed in the circa-1884 historic building on the corner of Houston Street, restructured multiple floors of the building, and made new entrances for the store that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The SoHo target. Image: RHC Consultants & Associates
SoHo is a landmarked neighborhood meaning that major architectural projects there must be approved by the city. The firm’s website states that Heuermann has presented his clients to the New York City Landmark Commission numerous times.
In The Bronx, Heuermann’s firm helped to design a Foot Locker near Yankee Stadium at 30 E. 170th Street, which stretches across three floors. The firm worked with Foot Locker’s design team and the building’s owner to implement Foot Locker’s design into the building’s unique layout. It also helped them obtain a certificate of occupancy for the space, according to the website.
On the Upper East Side, RH Architecture provided architectural and design services for a showroom for the luxury mattress company Savoir. That renovation included installing herringbone wood floors throughout the showroom along with recessed lighting details and built-in display niches.
For the only residential project advertised on their website, the firm worked with the owner of a unit on Central Park West to renovate an apartment that had been in its original 1920s condition. New wood flooring, a new kitchen, new cabinetry, and two new bathrooms were installed, along with a new ADA-compliant bathroom.
The Central Park West Apartment. Image: RHC Consultants & Associates
In an interview posted to YouTube last year with the New York City real estate agent Antoine Amira, Heuermann described himself as a “troubleshooter.”
“When a job that should have been routine suddenly becomes not routine,” he said. “I get the phone call.”
In the interview, Heuermann comes across as a typical New Yorker, wearing a light blue dress shirt with a pen poking out of his breast pocket and speaking with authority on his field.
If convicted, he would join the ranks of serial killers who led otherwise normal double lives, such as John Wayne Gacy, who worked as a construction contractor in Illinois, and Richard Cottingham, otherwise known as the Torso Killer, who worked as a computer operator for an insurance company.
Heuermann officially faces first-degree murder in the deaths of three women — Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello — and remains a prime suspect in the killing of a fourth — Maureen Brainard-Barnes. Authorities say Heuermann strangled his victims.
Investigators say they linked Heuermann to the killings using DNA evidence taken from a pizza box in his trash that matched a hair found on a burlap sack one of the victims was found in. They also connected him to the victims through technology that pinpointed the locations of disposable cell phones he used to contact the victims — all of whom worked as escorts — in the hours before their deaths.
When asked in the 2022 interview what tool he would use to describe himself with, Heuermann chose a cabinetmaker’s hammer.
“It is persuasive enough when I need to persuade something,” he said, “and it always yields excellent results.”
