Sick of serial killers?
I can’t blame you since we live in a world and at a time when such creatures are as common as wildfires. They make their way first into the headlines and onto the airwaves, often given nicknames — “BTK,” “The Night Stalker, “Son of Sam,” or, closer to home, “Killer Clown” — before and after capture. That’s when the circus really begins, as the “entertainment” industry starts spewing forth news programs, dramatizations, documentaries, movies and books to feed our … our what?
Some psychologists will tell us that we consume such offerings in an attempt to understand the psychological damage or trauma that led to the crimes. Others tell us we are seeking to satisfy our curiosity or derive some thrills by exploring, from the safety of our couches, the dark side of humanity.
In a 2025 film “Chaos,” we get yet another take on Charles Manson, and his bloody pals and their 1969 rampage, currently on Netflix. In it, one of Manson’s prosecuting attorneys, Stephen Kay, puts it in the simplest way, saying, “People in the United States like to be scared sometimes.”
Whatever the dark subtext, the most recent member of this crowd is 62-year-old Rex Heuermann. A born and raised native of Long Island, an architect with offices in Manhattan, ex-husband of Asa Ellerup, and the father of daughter Victoria and stepson Christopher, and killer of many young women. Heuermann was a giant of sorts — 6 feet, 4 inches and 280-some pounds — and a monster of a particularly gruesome sort.
He began to kill in 1993 and stopped in 2010, burying bodies and body parts on Gilgo Beach, not far from his home. But since his arrest in 2023, he has been the subject of many “diversions.” Now, in the wake of his courtroom admission to murdering seven women and also killing an eighth that he has not yet been charged with, we have two new television programs about Heuermann.
One is the fourth, and one can only hope final, episode of “The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets,” a production of the company headed by Curtis “Fifty Cent” Jackson. It is on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, as well as Amazon Prime. This final episode debuted last week and follows those first three that were all released last June.
This series has been distinguished by its intimacy, which comes with having access to the house in which Heuermann lived (and killed), and on-camera interviews with his ex-wife (who divorced Heuermann following his arrest) and his daughter. This is the result of the family reportedly being paid more than $1 million for this access, prompting at least one of the victim’s relatives to file a lawsuit.
Oh, yes, the victims. It is they who are the focus of the other TV show, “Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders,” a four-part documentary series that premiered a few days ago on Amazon Prime. They were Amber Lynn Costello, 27 years old; Megan Waterman, 22; Melissa Barthelemy, 24; and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25. They were known as the “Gilgo Four.” There was also Valerie Mack, 24; Jessica Taylor, 20; and Sandra Costilla, 28, his first victim in 1993. Also, Karen Vergata, 34, whose 1996 murder had not previously been linked to him.
“Killing Grounds” does an admirable job of avoiding the bloodiest, most indelicate aspects of the story. It takes a higher, more humanely sensitive road that focuses on the victims, these young women, most of whom worked in the sex industry, with sometimes tearful interviews with relatives and friends.
The show argues that the women’s professions were a main reason for “the problems and troubles” with the case and the lengthy time it took to solve their murders. The series explores what it deems are “the systemic failures” of the Suffolk County Police and argues persuasively that the stigmatization of the victims is what initially hindered the investigation and caused “15 years of negligence.”
It took the work of journalists, FBI folks and others to keep the story alive until the election of a new Suffolk County district attorney, Raymond A. Tierney. He took over the investigation in 2021 and formed a specialized task force that resulted in Heuermann’s arrest. He is the self-effacing hero of this series, which also introduces such things as “digital forensics,” which uncovered a “murder document” on Heuermann’s computer that served as a chilling blueprint for his crimes.
“We really did try to avoid, as best as possible, the salacious aspects of the crimes,” says Phil Donlon, a native Chicagoan, Bridgeport born and raised, an actor and one of the executive producers of this series.
A couple of days ago, he also told me, “We were clear from the start that we did not want to focus on Rex but on the victims and their families and friends and maybe give them closure, as tall an order as that might be.”
In the Peacock series, Heuermann’s daughter says that during a jailhouse conversation with her father, she asked him about his motive for the crimes.
He said, she said, that “his demons got to him.”
He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 17. He will likely be sentenced to life in prison, no possibility of parole.
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
