From NY Magazine, Intelligencer:
My Boss, the Monster
"When I first met
Rex Heuermann in his midtown office, his face turned red like that of a shy teenage boy who had been surprised by a hot girl in the cafeteria. (Even sitting behind his desk, he looked to me like a giant.) His office was mostly staffed by women like myself, young and petite, the girl-next-door type. We knew he was married with a family in Massapequa, but he never spoke of them. Just a few months earlier, authorities say he murdered his first known victim, 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Heuermann and his firm specialized in building-code and zoning analysis. A former colleague of mine described how he worked closely with the Department of Buildings following the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act to understand how to bring building design into compliance. During this time, he cemented his expertise and his relationships within the DOB, which could make or break any project. Whether or not he had any real political clout, he believed he did and tried to convince others that he did, too. If you needed a permit reconsidered, he said he could ask the examiner on their hunting trip that weekend on Long Island or upstate to hunt deer and elk with a rifle.
He famously loved guns, and we all knew that he was a collector. He would frequently invite colleagues to go hunting or shooting at the range, including one of my attractive co-workers that he seemed to mention the idea to every time they spoke. She never accepted the offer, confiding in me it sounded dangerous and creepy. My former colleagues described how he gushed about his bear-hunting trips in particular: baiting an area and lying in wait. More than once, he gleefully described the process of dressing the game, seeming to delight in grossing his employees out. Once, at a job site, he spotted a client approaching and, speaking to my boss over the phone, said, “Target in sight.” Around this time, authorities say, he made another call — the first of several — to taunt the family of his latest alleged victim, Melissa Barthelemy."
www.independent.co.uk
