It was a usual Friday morning, on July 14, for real-estate agent Jeffrey St. Arromand — until he received an alarming phone call from one of his clients in hysterics over what she had just heard on the news.
The suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer, who was allegedly responsible for a series of haunting murders on Long Island more than a decade ago, had been caught.
The suspect: architect Rex Heuermann — the man they had worked with closely for the past year on a Brooklyn brownstone project.
St. Arromand, of Serhant, remembers his encounters with Heuermann vividly. But it was his client, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, that recalled her bizarre encounter with Heuermann, which left her in shock.
She had worked with Heuermann several times in the past. In the span of a year, he was the expeditor and architect on her longtime Crown Heights home she purchased in 2002. She sold the home two decades later, in 2022.
Heuermann, 59, had worked on renovating the deck and adding several additions to the property, which was built in 1800. He was also in charge of providing a Certificate of Occupancy, which allows new occupancy in the home after inspection.
“I met with him and her at her place,” St. Arromand told The Post. “And he was in the backyard… there was an extension that he had to look at. And they left.”
“She drove him home one time because she actually relocated to Long Island,” St. Arromand recalled, adding that the route was pretty “dark and desolate.”
His client briefly recounted that evening to The Post.
“I was only with him in my home to review the scope of work,” she said. “I even gave him a ride to his home in Long Island from Brooklyn. At one point on the drive we talked about the Gilgo Beach murders — we even discussed the burlap and why someone would use that. In retrospect, thinking about that conversation, it’s just bone-chilling.”
Visibly shaken, St Arromand explained that his client had called him to discuss the eerie comment a month before they would find a buyer to her house and close the sale.
“In that drive, they actually had a conversation about the murders,” St Arromand recalled. “And the first thing he said — and she told me this specifically — the first thing he said was, ‘I don’t know why he would use burlap net.’ And she was like, ‘I don’t know, either.’”
The client recalled other moments during the time she was trying to sell her home, that — now looking back — she found quite odd.
“Throughout the transaction he was becoming very difficult to work with, even becoming belligerent at times. He was constantly arguing with the plumber on the job and questioning his work. Just very odd behavior,” she said. “For some reason in this transaction he would constantly say, ‘I’m not doing anything to get a fine or open an investigation of my license.’”
The client said that ultimately that was her final experience with Heuermann.
“When we ultimately were able to close on the property, I had such a bad experience with Rex that I told him not to attend the closing,” she said. He still needed to pick up the balance of payment, and “He went to the attorney’s office separately to pick up the check.”
“Apparently he had some disagreement with one of the woman associates at the firm. This associate was so uncomfortable with her exchange with Rex that she refused to be in the office when he picked up the check. Ultimately the partner at the firm gave the check to Rex when he arrived with his daughter.”
St. Arromand said the home eventually closed to a celebrity buyer. But due to a secret trust, he’s unable to identify the individual.
“She’s someone that really supported this guy,” St. Arromand said of his client. “She always spoke highly of him in his work.”
St. Arromand told The Post he mostly served as a mediator because the plumber on the job was getting frustrated with Heuermann.
“In real estate, we always say we have so many hats, so many roles. One of them is being a therapist,” St. Arromand said. “We’re a therapist throughout a transaction, when people are getting nervous and uncertain, and we’re a therapist post.”
“And Friday was a classic example of that, because she was completely just, you know, melting about this whole process. She is very angry. She really supported him.”
“She needed the weekend just to decompress,” he added.