Hidden True Crime - GILGO BEACH SERIAL KILLER: Rex & Asa: Collusive or Elusive Marriage? Psychologist Dr John Matthias

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

A presser held by attorney John Ray laid out new info about the wife of 59-year-old Rex Heuermann - Asa Ellerup. Dr John Matthias, criminal psychologist, delves in. This episode was originally recorded in October 2023. Heuermann was arrested in July, 2023. He was a married family man and architect working in New York City and at the time of this episode he was charged with the murders of 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy, 22-year-old Megan Waterman and 27 year-old Amber Costello. Heuermann was later charged with the murders of 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 20-year-old Jessica Taylor and 28-year-old Sandra Costilla. He remains a suspect in continuing investigations. Lauren Matthias - a television reporter - and her husband, Dr. John Matthias - a criminal psychologist - started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lately, I've been trying to be more intentional about what I wear, intentional about everything, just choosing pieces that feel effortless, still put together, timeless, but also not overthinking it every morning. It's why I keep going back to quince. Their pieces just make getting dressed easier and I feel so classy. I feel elevated. The fits are flattering. The fabric is really high quality. Everything is wearable day to day. I actually got this really, really, beautiful yellow V-neck midi dress from them, and I paired it with some Italian leather sandals. It's one of those outfits that just works. It feels polished but still comfortable. It's exactly what I've been looking for. What surprises me, though, is the quality for the price.

Quince uses premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, but they cut out the middleman. So everything is priced way lower than you'd expect. Refresh. your every day with luxury you can actually use. Head to quince.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, quince, q-u-in-c-com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day of returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. Does anyone else find themselves saying I feel way older than I actually am or I feel way younger? Did you know there might be some truth behind that feeling. That's where true diagnostic comes in. With their true age test, you can discover your true biological age, plus get insights into health risks for heart disease

or Alzheimer's, even your mortality. I just ordered my true diagnostic test, and while nervous, I'm looking forward to what it may tell me about my own health so I can take control of things now. When taking tests pertaining to my health, I want to make sure it's scientifically backed and true Diagnostic is. Their true age test is based on peer-reviewed research from scientists working at Harvard, Duke, and Yale. And by tracking your biological age, you can actually see how the changes you make, whether that's exercise, diet, or sleep will affect your health over time. Ready to find out your biological age? Right now, our listeners can get 20% off their entire order at true diagnostic.com by using code hidden true crime at checkout. That's true diagnostic, T-R-U-D-A-G-N-O-S-T-I-C-I-C,

dot com just use code hidden true crime to save 20% off plus if you subscribe you'll get an additional 20% off discover your true age today this episode was originally recorded october 23rd 2023 hello hidden gems thank you so much for being here for our saturday night live hidden hour with dr john matthias a licensed psychologist and me his wife and co-host, once TV reporter turned podcaster. We are your host tonight, and thank you to our many new subscribers since our Mormon Stories episode aired in Salt Lake City. I just got back into town last night.

I missed you, babe. It's good to see you again. Yeah, you were gone a while. It felt like a while. It was a while. Our family is now reunited, and for those that haven't seen that Mormon Stories episode, which revolves around the mini,

LDS crimes we've been covering more possible soon-to-be crimes from Jody Hildebrand, Tim Ballard, and the Davell case. We connected a few dots there, and you can watch that over on Mormon stories or on Hidden True Crimes YouTube channel. It's two separate episodes.

So, we are going to shift directions now. A big presser just came down when it comes to the Long Island case as well as also known as LISC or Rex Huberman. John and I are going to work very hard again, as we always share, to not use certain words that YouTube doesn't want us to use and we are not trying to minimize the weight of Rex Hureman's crimes.

We are just trying to follow the standards that this worldwide platform YouTube has requested us to follow by not using certain words. We also want to thank our many new Patreon members, patreon.com slash hit into crime. Thank you so much for your support and for supporting us. We will be prioritizing the questions you have today.

Let's set the stage. And for those that are new to this case, too, please check out our playlist. We have been covering this case. We jumped off it for a time. We are back. We even have a powerful interview with Nikki Brass. She is someone who went on,

a date with Rex Hureman. So we are back and please check out our playlist, the LISC Rex Horman playlist. Let's start tonight with a very big breaking presser that was done with John Ray, the attorney for Shannon Gilbert, as well as he was accompanied by the Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison,

who stood by John Ray as he shared information from two very, very powerful new witnesses in the investigation. So I'm going to read from a CBSNews.com article about the presser. I will put a link to this article in the description of our video as well. New details about the Gilgo Beach murders were revealed Wednesday afternoon. John Ray, attorney for the victims held a press conference at 3.15 p.m. in Miller Place. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Ronnie Harris also attended. Harrison says they are interviewing four new people

who could connect more cases to suspect Rex Hewerman. Heurman has been charged with murder in three of the Gilgo Beach murder cases and he is the prime suspect in the fourth. But when it comes to Miss Karen Bergata, and when it comes to Miss Shannon Gilbert, they are the ones we are going to take a closer look at and see if they are connected to our defendant, Harrison said. So Harrison, again, is the police commissioner.

standing with John Ray, the attorney of Shannon Harris, police commissioner Harrison confirmed his office is interviewing four new potential witnesses who first came forward to John Ray and who has represented the family of sex worker Shannon Gilbert who was discovered dead in 2010 near Gilgo. A cab driver signed an affidavit that she picked up Gilbert who had been hiding in a motel bathroom, she now recognized Heerman, allegedly fled the scene. Suddenly, a giant man who fit the description of Rex Heerman comes out, and he's covering his face with his arm so he can't be seen, and he runs to a van or an SUV right nearby that's parked right there. She continues to

flash her lights and beep her horn and out comes a girl crying, shaking, visibly upset, and gets in her car reset. Another witness is, in another sworn testimony, said she and her boyfriend were swingers. And they went to Hureman's home with sex worker Karen Vigata. I'm going to correct that, by the way, because in the presser, he actually stated that Karen Brigada was not a sex worker, but a swinger. Isn't that right, John? I've heard conflicting reports there, so I'm not quite sure. I saw some reporting that she was a sex worker, so I'm not completely sure.

Okay. I believe she was, because what I've read is that the couple that went over to Hulerman's house picked her up first. That's right. That's right. And the woman was a swinger, but the woman they paid. picked up. Okay, you're right. So, but either way, so Karen Vergata, and I'll just, I'll just read the EBS News' article. They do their fact-checking. So another witness in a storm testimony says she and her

boyfriend were swingers, and they went to Heurman's home with a sex worker named Karen Vergata, with Heumann's wife taking part at times. So, Aasa Elra. She said, this woman who went to the Heurman's home, she said that she would service Rex Heurman over 20 times and that he was a serial user of sex workers. He would sometimes have them come two at a time to his house and his wife was home upstairs, Ray said.

This woman claims that they left as a naked Karen Vergata, allegedly playing swinging games with Heerman stayed behind. The four who have come forward in the serial killing case have no agenda, they said. We have a job here as law enforcement

as Suffolk County Police Department to make sure we investigate every single complaint or interest in this case, and we make sure to look under every single stone to see if there is any connection to Rex Hurman, if there is a connection to somebody else that may be involved with the bodies that were discovered on Ocean Parkway, Harrison said. Heurman is jailed, charged with three murders and the prime suspect in the fourth of potentially others. The couple who identified themselves as swingers said that Heurman's home was a known destination among swingers. The Suffolk County District Attorney responded to Wednesday's

update saying in part any attorneys representing victims or their families by definition have a conflict of interest and should not be part of the investigation. Heerman's attorney had no comment Wednesday. And again, that was CBS News. The headline, new witness in Long Island serial killer trial says victim left motel crying as Rex Sherman allegedly fled some attorney. That's some heavy new development and some promising development I want to say for potential victims, that perhaps they will see justice as well. And I personally was most grateful to see

that it wasn't just John Ray there. The attorney of Shannon Gilbert and Shannon Gilbert has always been a potential victim, although that's a frustrating story for many who have watched what police have said about that. So to have the Suffolk County Police Commissioner, Raymond Harrison, standing there with John Ray, that was really powerful to see. But what John Ray stated was really shocking, John. Yeah, for sure. So I think it raises a lot of questions that we didn't really talk about in our first show on Rex Heerman. People have asked whether Asa has had much involvement.

And now I think it kind of opens that door a little bit to, what was her knowledge, what was her involvement. It seems as if she, number one, participated in some of the swinging activities that Rex was involved in. And number two, that some of those activities involved sex workers. So it's not inconceivable that some of those activities could have involved sex workers that ended up deceased later on. We don't know for sure. And again, I mean, I'm speculating here, obviously. but, you know, it's, we could go down a line of reasoning here that presents some potential

problems for Asa in terms of whether she was actually involved in the murders. From what I understand, she wasn't around. She wasn't home when most of these killings occurred. But that's relevant to three victims. And there could be many victims, right, that they haven't completely, they haven't found sufficient evidence to charge Curemen with additional victims. So I think there's certainly a lot of possibilities here that are still open. And I think at the very least, the question remains here.

She knows about his dungeon or I guess people have been calling it different things, but his dungeon, his torture chamber, his sex room, whatever you want to call it. She knew about that room. And now we know that she knows about the sex workers. And now we know that she may have participated. and some of those activities. So I'm not suggesting that she participated in the murders or killings at all, but I think the bigger question is what did she know and when did she know it?

And could she have done anything? Could she have made a call to police at some point expressing concerns, right? At the very least, you have this peculiar relationship where her husband is bringing home sex workers, as you said, two at a time occasionally. and she leaves town and then all of a sudden sex workers disappear, right? Like, I mean, does she not find that strange that these sex workers are disappearing several miles from their house when she's out of town? I mean, you know, maybe she's no true crime aficionado like our gems,

but it seems like, it seems like I think there must be some level of denial here because, and maybe that's what it takes. maybe anybody married to a serial killer has to exercise a certain amount of denial and rationalization. But we'll talk about more of that later. And so Ozzy Todd asked, do we know she was home when he brought home sex workers? What John Ray is stating is that there were swingers that came over, but that Ossah was there during this time when Karen arrived. So yes. Well, to get a little more specific, my report, you know, I have an article here from People

Magazine who is a credible source. The article is October 19th, 2023. That was the day of the presser. Christine Pellischek is the author of this article. She claims in this article that Karen Vergata was a sex worker that she was picked up on the way to the house. And the witness here, the female witness, claims that and this is going to turn out to be important, but the female witness,

or she was with her boyfriend at the time, I don't know if they remained together, but her boyfriend was a police detective. She claims that Rex Heerman participated in sexual activities with the sex worker, Karen Vergata, with the woman who went over, I don't, we don't know her name, and with the police detective. So with the sex worker, the female girlfriend, the male boyfriend, and that also participated in some of those activities. So we do know that there was, at least assuming the witness is credible,

I don't think the witness would gain anything by disclosing something like this without some credibility, right? I mean, I guess the argument against the credibility here is that she says this occurred around Valentine's Day, 1996. And as a forensic psychologist, I can say with a lot of certainty that memory is very fallible, that memory, we know that memory is reconstructive. There's been a lot of experts in my field that have provided testimony debunking or at least challenging witness testimony, especially with memory that's, you know, well over 20 years old,

25 plus years old. So I guess you could argue that that her memory is faulty and that perhaps she doesn't recollect what actually happened. But on the other hand, I think if this was a fairly memorable or salient event to her for whatever reasons. She's more likely to remember it, and she's more likely to remember details. The fact that she seems to remember details would speak to the fact that her memory seems reasonably sound. So I think that's sort of the argument. The argument that would be made against this witness being valid or accurate is the memory argument. I'm sure that if Ossa turns out to be a witness here or even show some involvement, And again, I don't know.

I wouldn't, her attorney, by the way, strongly denies that. But I'm sure that somebody would raise questions about the memory issue in this particular instance. But to answer Tad's question in short, that as far as we know, that Assa knew there were sex workers in the home. And she not only knew them, but apparently participated with them. I think this brings us to the question. There have been so many great comments. And I think this brings us to the headline. It was your headline.

Do you want to share the headline of tonight? It's Ossa, Ellerup, essentially a coercive or elusive marriage. You mean collusive? Yes. And one of our first Patreon commenters said, are you sure you mean elusive? Yes, we do. Yeah, well, let me clarify that. So collusive obviously would imply that she may have had some involvement.

I don't know at what level, but I guess at the extreme, maybe at the most extreme, side, you would see her as being like some version of who is the Jeffrey Epstein person. Maxwell. Maxwell. Yeah. Something like that. I don't know. Maybe she helped him find victims.

I don't think that's the likely scenario, but maybe at one extreme, if she is collusive, maybe she has some involvement at some level. I don't know what that is at the moment. I mean, again, she was out of town when she seemed to be out of town when a lot of these murders occurred. You know, I should mention, though, that they did find some of her DNA and her hair at some of the crime scenes. There was, her hair was on duct tape and her DNA was found, I believe, on her around one of the victim's bodies. So I'm not going to read too much into that.

Yeah, you still don't know. He could have done that. She lived in the home. She lived in the house, so it's hard to ever know. She lived in the home. So clearly it's not improbable that a strand of hair can end up on some duct tape. that he's using. But again, I mean, if we're going to go with this argument, after this crime first occurred and Rex Heron was charged, she found an attorney who had a press conference

fairly quickly, like within a week where he said she had no involvement, she was shocked, she knew nothing. So that stance, so that would be the other extreme. So somehow collusion would be one extreme and the other extreme would be the attorney and also denying everything and saying that she didn't know anything. I mean, clearly she knew about her husband's lifestyle. She participated in that lifestyle, right? She knew that not just about the swinging, presumably, but about the fact that he was hiring people to participate in these activities. She presumably knew about his dungeon, whatever exactly that is or means. We don't know for sure. But, right, so collusive would be on one extreme. When I say elusive, I'm referring to the fact that more of the

other extreme, that Rex Hewerman himself would be elusive in the sense that he's the kind of a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde type scenario where he's hiding everything from her. And he's elusive in the marriage in the sense that he's not presenting who he truly is. He's not presenting his sexual deviance, for lack of a better term, that he's not right. He's hiding himself. He's elusive in their marriage. He's not showing her who he is, that she knows not. So that's the argument that the lawyer made, that at the presser, when after Rex was arrested and charged, the attorney said she didn't know anything, right? So that would be the elusive argument that her husband was at a double life. She didn't know anything about it. So given this latest revelation, that seems to me

a bit of a stretch now. Yeah. Many people are bringing up, but I'll just clarify that also is a foreigner. She is not. Her ancestry is Icelandic, but she was born in New York and is from New York and met Rex Heerman in New York. While she is Icelandic, she is not a foreigner. As far as we know, she's a U.S. citizen. She was born in the United States. Yeah. They were married in 1993. There was other questions about Karen happening before they were married. It was after their marriage in 1993. Right. The incident this witness is talking about or recalling is from 1996. So it's three years after they were married. Yes. You know, let's start. Can I ask some questions? Or do you want to share something or should I ask some of our Patreon questions? I think I want to, for those who haven't watched our first show about Rex Hummerman, I'd recommend people go back. And we don't have time to rehash all of that. But I want to talk about just the main theme of that, which is that this is a guy who's primarily concerned with.

with dominance. So the main theme that I kind of wanted to talk about in our first show was that this is someone who is very much invested in being in control of situations and exerting his dominance over other people. And the other side of that, by the way, is that there seems to be some sadistic quality here that he want, he probably has some interest in humiliating his victims to some degree. But this theme of dominance, I think, is really important to understand. with Rex Heerman because that theme is not just related to his murders, the serial killing. It's probably also related to his marriage and his workplace and many other parts of his life. In the first show, we talked about people that knew him that said he was super controlling,

that he hung up work projects just because he could, that he wanted to let you know that he was in charge. So we see this theme over and over. And that's going to be relevant to our discussion in a little bit. So I think right now, I just want to say before you ask some questions that we need to understand that he has this real need and desire for dominance. He wanted to be, he's a big guy that when he was in a room, he would try to physically dominate the room. He would try to take over the room through his presence. And he would try to dominate psychologically. He would try to control people or he would hang projects up, as I mentioned, that he was, and he would also try to dominate emotional.

in some ways by instilling fear in people. So I think that's an important motif to begin with and to remember from the previous show. Thank you. Stephanie Budge just shared the link to our first live. Again, thank you to our amazing mods. Thank you for being here. Stephanie and Tad and others that I've seen.

There, again, is also a full playlist to watch on our Rex Hureman information. Thank you. This comment here about Asa's attorney made a statement during the latest delegations. I should mention, I should briefly mention that what that statement was, at least. He also made a statement to, in the article I just referenced with People magazine, he made a statement saying essentially that the comments that the witness statements are outrageous, are quote, outrageous and reckless.

And then he said, as a podcaster, this is my favorite. So this is the, us's attorney is Bob Macedonio. He said that the witness's statement is outrageous and reckless, but then he also said, and I'll quote him here, every time you open a paper, turn on the news or listen to the radio, there's some outlandish allegation that's been thrown around by somebody on a podcast. So here we are. We're on a podcast. We're not going to try to make this too outrageous.

We're disgusting. The problem with Bob's statement is that. these witnesses all, and this doesn't mean they're accurate, but the witnesses all made sworn, signed statements in affidavits. And that's better than just calling up the local news channel and saying, hey, you know, I might have remembered something, right? That an affidavit gives it more credibility, and they're willing to kind of risk their reputations to some degree by doing that. So I think the attorney just happened to overlook that little part. which is a big part, obviously. And if we thought the witness statements were outlandish

or outrageous or reckless, we obviously wouldn't be talking about them. I think there's, I think there's some credibility here. And also the other part that Bob misses her attorney is that there's multiple witnesses. There's multiple, there's only three witnesses saying that the Hillermins were not only swingers, but they engaged, purchased, sex workers and that this was a part of their lifestyle. So, you know, maybe if it's one witness that has poor memory or mental health problems, that might be questionable, but here you have multiple. You have three.

And they're all making sworn statements saying that this is true. So while Bob can say that podcasters are all outlandish, I don't totally disagree with them, by the way. Like there's, you know. I do. Not us. Not us. There's probably a few podcasters that are.

outlandish. Hopefully we don't fall in that category. But in fairness that, yes, Bob Macedonio made statements claiming that us is being wrongly targeted here. So that's important to know. Correct. So let's move forward with some questions. Let's delve in. So Isabel asks on Patreon, anything on coercive control. I have no doubt that she was terrified of him and maybe suffering with some mental health problems herself and she has a son with learning disabilities. I think that if she had left him, they would have not been safe anywhere. And I have seen a lot of comments here with people asking the same thing. What about coercive control?

What about fear? What about her being forced to do these things? Yeah. So that's right. That's a really interesting question. To answer that question, so I already talked about his need for dominance. That's important in knowing and answering that question. question. But the other area I want to just mention quickly here, or maybe not so quickly,

but I want to talk about some research by Teresa Gannon. Teresa Gannon has done a lot of research on female sex offenders. And you might say, well, Asa's not a female sex offender. And yeah, that's true. But I think this is important for understanding the dynamic potentially between Rex Heerman and Asa in terms of, well, first of all, let me back up for a second. second, that if Rex Humerman and Asa brought a sex worker into their home who was 16 years old and engaged in any sexual act with that person, that would be a crime, right? That if they engage in any type of sexual relationship together or with other people that wasn't consensual, that would be a crime.

So do I think that Rex Hewerman would be capable of bringing a minor into the home to engage in sexual acts? Absolutely. The guy had no sexual boundaries whatsoever. And we'll get to that in a minute. But I think there's a very high risk here that, also, again, I'm not saying this is true. I'm just saying that there's some probability here that Asa may have engaged in activities that would be considered illegal and might be typical of a female sex offender, although I don't have any evidence for that. But I'm going to talk about Theresa Gannon's work because it's completely relevant to this scenario. And Teresa Gannon, this is an article she wrote from 2014 where she summarizes some of her research. The title of the article is women who sexually offend display three main offense styles,

a reexamination of the descriptive model of female sexual offending. This is from 2014. It's in a really respected journal called Sexual Abuse. the model that Teresa Gannon developed, and she has a number of other authors, by the way, so it's not just Teresa, but she's the lead author in many of this work. She's the one who developed the descriptive model of female sexual offending. Teresa says essentially that there's, she's looked at records of female sex offenders. She's interviewed them. She's gone deep on this issue. So I think her research is probably the most prominent in this area. But Teresa essentially

divides female sex offenders into, three different categories. There's the, what she calls the explicit dash approach female offender. There's the directed slash avoidant offender and there's the implicit slash disorganized female sex offender. The explicit dash. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers.

It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. ORA actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance.

all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a VPN. ORA gives you all of it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove. Approach offender is basically a female sex offender. So I'll read, I'll just read her brief descriptions here. She can do this better than me.

So I'm going to give her summary. Okay, so this is a quote. This is page 211 from her article, quote, explicit approach women who actively plan their offending, experienced significant positive affect about their offending, and required literal or no coercion to offend. Directed avoidant women did not plan their offenses. They experienced significant negative affect associated with their offending, and they required extreme and or prolonged coercion to offend.

Finally, implicit disorganized women showed very low levels, if any, of planning their offenses. They experienced either positive or negative affect associated with their offending, and they were highly impulsive. So in other words, the explicit approach women, female offenders, were more predatory. They planned their offenses. They enjoyed committing their sexual offenses. They were quite deliberate about their offenses, and there was no coercion. There could have been coercion with victims, but there was no coercion in terms of someone getting them to do something.

What's one financial lesson you learned the hard way? I'll go first. It's not too late to start saving. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich.

Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you have right now. And one of the best things about acorns is they allow you to see projected growth on their website. Simply go online, type in how much money you'd put in and see the potential future balance of your account. Sign up now and join the over 13 million all-time customers who've already saved and invested over $22 billion with acorns. Head to acorns.com slash hidden true crime or download the acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote acorns. Tier 1 compensation provided. Investing involves risk, Acorns Advisors, LLC, and SEC registered investment advisor. A few important disclosures at acorns.com slash hidden true crime. Has losing weight and getting

healthier been on your mind lately? Have you heard about groundbreaking GLP1 treatments like OZMPIC and WeGO? With Effecti, getting access to these powerful medications has never been easier or more affordable. Starting a new medication is always a bit scary when you aren't sure what to expect. And using Effecti makes it so much easier with their hands on support, which gives unlimited access to licensed doctors so you never have to jump through hoops for help with any dosing questions or just other support when you need it. Effecti uses rigorous testing and their products are backed by research so you can rest assured. Ready to level up your weight loss game right now, my listeners can get $50 off of GLP1 weight loss treatments at Effecti.com with code hidden true

crime at checkout. That's effecti.com, eFFF-F-E-C-T-Y dot com, and use code hidden true crime to get $50 off your first month of GLP-1 weight loss treatment, no hassles, no memberships, and no hidden fees. Get started today. Hormonal changes are so hard to see the least. Hot flashes, anyone else. Add in the thousands of hormone disruptors that are in our environment, and it is even worse. From our water food, the air we breathe, and the clothes we wear, they are everywhere. But the good news is that when hormone harmony enters the picture, it can help reduce hormonal symptoms in women of all ages.

Hormone harmony is a supplement that contains science-backed herbal extracts called adaptogens. The best thing about adaptogens, they help the body adapt to any stressors, like chaotic hormonal changes that happen naturally throughout a woman's life. Hormone harmony is actually part of my personal 2024 playbook. Hormone harmony makes no compromises when it comes to quality. And it shows. For a limited time, you can get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com. That's happy, H-A-P-P-P-Y mammoth, M-A-M-M-O-T-H.com.

Just use the code hidden true crime at checkout. That's code hidden true crime. Use that with happy mammoth.com for 15% off today. So the next category, the directed slash avoidant offenders, the offenses were not planned. They didn't enjoy the experience. and oftentimes they were abusive relationships, and it took a lot of coercion to get them to offend sexually.

So why is this relevant? Because I think if you look at Asa, she would definitely, and again, I'm not saying she's a female sex offender, but the question is, to me, partly is, does she want to? Does she choose to engage in this type of lifestyle? Does she choose to engage in sexual acts with, you know, other swingers and or sex workers? Does she enjoy that?

Or is it incongruous to her, meaning that she doesn't, from an emotional standpoint, she doesn't really get anything out of it. And it seems to be pretty clear that that also would fit this category of the direct slash avoided female offender in the sense that she's in an abusive relationship probably. I don't know. It could be physically abusive, could be emotional, whatever it is, that Rex Heerman clearly is a guy that wants domination in all his relationships. Yeah, I can't imagine a marriage with Rex Hewerman that is not abusive.

Let's just lay that out. Right. So the point is that I think in these types of potentially abusive relationships and in these relationships where there's a lot of coercion, presumably, with someone like Rex Hewerman, what happens is that the direct slash avoidant offender is through fear. It's mainly through fear. Fear of being harmed. Fear of losing the relationship. Fear of losing financial security. It's the same thing you see in domestic violence relationship. So it's a fear-based relationship. Fear and coercion is what drives the behaviors. And typically,

Teresa Gannon talks about this a bit. There's a lot of cognitive distortions. So in order for women to stay in these relationships, there needs to be a certain level of denial. There needs to be a certain level of rationalization. We talked about this a lot in our book club meeting this past week when we talked about abducted in plain sight, that you had a family where the parents essentially allowed their daughter to be kidnapped twice, kidnapped and sexually abused twice. And how did they do that would allow them to have a known sex offender walking their home and take their daughter, not once but twice. And the answer is obviously that there has to be a certain amount of delusion or denial or rationalization that at some level, I think when you're in these types of

relationships like Asa, you know, in order to function, you need to sort of go along with the program and really have a distorted view of the world. And so I think that's the only way someone like this can really see Rex Hillerman as someone that she wants to stay married to or live with. And so I think there's a lot of denial going on here. But I think the main point I want to make is that it's the coercion. It's the fact that I think that Rex is planning these activity, these sexual activities, these engagements with sex workers. and she's essentially, I don't know if he's threatening her, but he's bringing her into these activities probably,

I wouldn't say against her will, but she's not fully on board, as my guest. She's going along with the program so that she can stay married, and she's probably at some level very afraid of him. Next question. We have quite a few to get through. So a Patreon member asked, could also have been in a collusive relationship?

but without knowing about the murders. I think so. Again, it depends how deep the collusion was, right? Like, do I think that she helped him plan these murders or that she knew about them? I don't know. That's not totally clear. But did she know about his lifestyle? That seems pretty clear.

So it seems to me that she clearly knew that he was involved with some of the women that were going missing three miles, you know, five miles from their house, which poses a problem. Yeah. But how much did she want to know that? Was she totally in denial about that? So when the press reports that there's a victim's body found, you know, several miles from their home and then it's a sex worker or maybe even a sex worker that she remembers from meeting or something, I don't know.

Like, doesn't that, seems like that might raise questions. Yeah. Another thing I want to point out too. And yeah, people could say that this is a PR stunt or she's saying, look, I have nothing to do with this. Oh, I want to just put out that she did. file for divorce right after his arrest. Could that have been a PR stunt? Yeah. Could have also been her ability to finally divorce someone that she's been wanting to divorce but did not have the

freedom to do so because she was afraid. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. With the guy locked up, what better time to get a divorce and reduce the risk of some type of retaliation or anger, right? Yeah, that's a great time to get a divorce. I think she's probably just hoping against hope that he stays there. But yeah. Another Patreon member. And again, these are questions that we asked at patreon.com slash hidden true crime.

Thank you to our Patreon family for these great questions. Do you have any thoughts about the swinging and how it relates to this case in any way? But I'm specifically thinking this person states his pathology. Is this likely a sexual thing or power? I am unfamiliar with this culture. But let's also throw in that this swinging was also, I'll add to this question, is also opposite sex swinging, or same sex swinging too. Rex Heerman is married to a woman.

There is a male victim that's been found or a female, depending on if the woman is transgender, she's a female. But that was a unique part of this too, not just the swinging, but same sex swinging as well. Well, they haven't, right, they haven't tied that particular victim to Rex Hewerman. Well, they've implied it. Yeah, they've implied it. They've implied it with the Google searches and who this person is. He's certainly, he's certainly on everyone's radar, including police. He hasn't approached him yet. So the swinging piece that we just learned a few days ago makes this a little more interesting in the sense that I think I see the swinging as part of a

larger constellation of potential pathology in the sense that if you now look at what's call it as sexual deviance, and what I mean by that is sexual activities that are not consensual or they're illegal in some sense. So if you look at his sexual interest, for example, so one of the things we learned a couple months ago when he was arrested is that some of his internet searches were released. And we learned that he had three. thousands of searches for, I'm going to try to use the right term here, let's call it, minor exploitative material, that he was looking at material that would normally land someone in jail or prison for quite a bit of time. And I don't know, so I don't know if he possessed

this material. I'm talking about a type of pornography here, obviously. I don't know if he had this on his computer. But it certainly, if you look at his history of hundreds and by some people have claimed that there were thousands of searches for inappropriate minor material on the internet. And some of those, some of those searches were just, but the search terms were mind-boggling. So I don't think you look for this type of material thousands of times without having some purient interest in it, right? So it seems to me that there's, for whatever reasons, there might be some attraction to children. And it could be just looking at the material, or it could be something more nefarious, like actually engaging in activities that he shouldn't

be engaged in with children. I don't know. But like, if you look at those searches, it's pretty disturbing. And so I think the combination of his interest in that material involving minors. And now we're learning that he had, for example, the detective that went to his house that night, he had apparently had a sexual interest in him. He had a sexual interest in the sex worker that was there. He had a sexual interest in the detective's girlfriend. He appears to have a sexual interest in children. I think what's going on here is that his sexual deviance really doesn't know a lot of boundaries. The further out, you expand this net, I think the more troubling this becomes in the sense that it seems to me like, so in the world I work in, and I've done a lot of groups with sex offenders,

we call these types of offenders crossover offenders, a crossover sexual offenders in the sense that I know this is going to sound strange to a lot of people, but in my groups, you know, oftentimes because of limited resources and time, you know, I would have to put different types of offenders together. So I might put together someone who would offend against minors with someone who engaged in sexual assault. And, you know, one of the interesting dynamics about groups like that is that the offenders would all kind of, they would, they would all kind of dispute whether they belonged in a group with someone who would say engaged in activities with minors. And they would fight that and say, well, I can't believe I'm in a room with someone who did

something to a minor. I mean, never mind that this guy committed sexual assault. But the point is that many sex offenders have kind of a preference or an MO and that people who commit sexual assault don't necessarily have an interest in minors, for example. So if you look at Hewerman, that's not true, that he crosses all boundaries, right? He's a crossover offender in the sense that he transgresses all normal boundaries, that he has an interest in children, he has an interest in men, women, maybe animals. I don't know.

There doesn't seem to be any limits to what he's, to his sexual interests and deviance. And so I think that that starts telling us a lot about him in the sense that there's something, I don't know, there's something deeply antisocial. about just having this kind of sexual impulsivity and this inability to curtail any of his sexual impulses and to be attracted to everything and anything. And I think that at the very least, that means his risk, his risk for future sex crimes is extremely high. When you put that together with his propensity towards violence, you're talking about someone that, you know, you're talking about the end result of that

is what we see. You're talking about a sexual serial killer. a sexually sadistic serial killer. And so part of that is this, the swinging fits into that picture in the sense that there's absolutely no boundaries around any sexual activity with this guy. So the dominance, the lack of sexual boundaries, kind of the antisocial tendencies, the violence that he's showing us, all of that, all of that starts helping us get a better picture of this guy and what he's capable of and what he's done. If somebody says, how do you get to sadistic sexual serial killing?

Well, this is a good way to do that. You know, interestingly enough, a lot of serial killers, sexual serial killers, they have much better boundaries around their sexual impulses than Rex Eulerman. So in many ways, this guy's risk and its pathology are extremely troublesome. Right. Next question. why does society seem to want to blame women for everything? I was married to an alcoholic.

Friends and family pressured me to make him stop. From the get-go, in this case, it seems like a lot of folks expected Asa to not only know what was going on, but to stop it. It's maddening to me. Well, I think the short answer is that we didn't want to bring Asa into this until we had to. So two days ago when people started implicating her and some of the activities going on, sexual activities going on at the human home, I think we had no choice but to revisit the case. I agree that I think there is this tendency maybe to blame the partner and to some degree. And I guess the reason is that when you have somebody as outrageous as Rex Humerman

and somebody that's doing such heinous things and it becomes so hard to digest and understand, And it's easier to blame the people associated with them and around him, especially a spouse, I think, right? That we want to kind of expand the net to feel like perhaps we have a better explanation or we want to bring in more people into the tent to make us feel like perhaps culpability should extend beyond the actual serial killer. So I think in this case, because Rex Heurman is so extreme and he's so violent in many ways, he creates such fear. But I think that one way to really kind of appease that fear or to allay that fear is to is to point the finger at other people. So also would be a natural target of the finger pointing. You know, unfortunately for her, though, if these witnesses are credible, the finger

pointing might have some validity. So it's not that we want to talk about her. I think that we were kind of, you know, again, if this is accurate. We need to talk about her. We need to talk about her because she's being talked about and we want to be a part of the conversation and an important. part of the conversation. Rachel Meadows asked, given the new information on Rex's sexual relations with the man,

oh, well, maybe we already covered this. Okay. I jumped a gun. How likely is A, the male body found likely one of the victims and B, is it unusual to break away from his type MO of his victim profile or are there perhaps even more male victims, thanks? So we answered some of that, but I think in broad terms, the, the, the, press conference a couple of days ago really opened the door for me to ask the question,

are there more victims here? And I don't mean just the bodies that were found at Gilgo Beach or in Long Island, but I mean like, are there more victims here in terms of sex crimes, sexual assaults, right? Are there more victims broadly defined that are still alive? And the answer is absolutely. I think that this is someone who's probably victimized way more people than we're aware of at the moment. And those could be children. They could be anyone, right? At the very least, I would expect, based on his internet searches, I would expect them to find exploitative, minor material on his computer. And depending on how much they find, that alone could put them away for years, for sure. So I think one of the most interesting elements of the press conference and

the new information we've learned is not just awesome what she knew and whether she was collusive. but the fact that this really, I think, shows us more about who Rex Heerman is. And it really, to me, it indicates that there's probably way more victims that we don't know about who may come forward. They may not. I don't know. They're probably very afraid. But I think clearly the three victims that have been identified and linked to him are just the beginning. Amen to that.

I agree. I so agree. The three victims ahead. have been linked to him that he has been charged with is just the beginning. You're scratching the surface. Correct. Scratching the surface. I mean, and I don't know, it could be anything from sexual harassment at work to, who knows,

possession of minor material. There's so much here that he could be charged with. It'll be interesting to see where, what the DA picks up and what evidence they have and where they go with this case. I think at the very least, if, of course, they're going to triumph for murder, and it seems like they have a pretty good case. But if they need more, they certainly probably can find it. The last Patreon question comes from Debbie Biggs.

And Debbie, thank you so much for your support tonight. We appreciate that and saw that. She asks, why would someone have such a break between killings? Do you think there is likely more victims and that they just haven't been tied to wrecks? but her main question I think is a really interesting one. Why would someone have such a break between killings? Yeah, I don't know if we know the timeline here. It seems like a lot of these bodies were found around the same time,

but we don't know when they were deceased. I think the timeline of victims here is really uncertain. It could go all the way back to the 90s or late 90s. And, you know, again, it seems like there's probably way more victims than we're aware of. But a lot of times I think serial killers will take breaks because they're afraid of being caught or they want to reevaluate the situation. I can't imagine that Rex Humerman would have a lot of fear of being caught because he's so arrogant. But there could be a lot of reasons why a serial killer may stop for a bit and then come back to it or maybe not come back to it for a while. Yeah, as Blonde Granny states, I think he's responsible for all of the bodies at Gilgo Beach.

it's a matter of time to find all of the evidence. Other people saying with all the commonalities among his victims, many women would not want to admit to being associated with Rex. Someone else mentioned that the interview I did, that was with Nikki Brass, someone who went on a date with Rex Heerman. and you can also find her in our playlist. Megan Brain says he told the lady Lauren interviewed there were like 10 or 11 victims, but that was, I don't even think, the last of them.

So, and they've only found one location, four victims, so far. I think that police know. And they're slowly, he's behind bars. He has three charges. Police are being slow. They're being methodical. They have the time because he is behind bars at this moment, charged with three. I think it's just a matter of time.

And you only need one, you only need one conviction to put him away the rest of his life. So I think they're from a risk. risk management standpoint, I think they feel like the community's safe. But in terms of, if we think about a lot of his crimes in terms of justice, or getting justice, then that's a different issue. My guess is there's so many victims out there. But I think the justice piece is important, too. If you think of somebody like Israel Keys, Israel Keys was only really linked to a few victims. I mean, he took his life before justice could be served, unfortunately, but Israel Keys for sure had so many victims that have not been identified.

And so I think it's important to make a distinction between, I think law enforcement recognizes that to protect the community, they don't need to find a lot more victims. But in terms of serving justice, they probably need to find more victims. So, or at least in terms of helping us, helping the community feel better. or feel some greater sense of justice, presumably they'll keep going and hopefully connect more of these crimes to Rex Heerman. Yes. I want to give a big shout out to Ivana Tinkle because, funny story, I was in Salt Lake City

this last week, and I met the real Ivana Tinkle. And here I thought she was always trying to get me to say, Ivana Tinkle, but she told me the story about why that's her name. It does have to do with The Simpsons. And it was so fun to meet her. I was actually, I walked into a beautiful gift store. I won't share this name. I'll keep you private. If you want to share it, Ivana, you can in comments, but I'll keep your private information private. But we looked around this beautiful store in Salt Lake City. And as we were leaving, I heard, Are you Lauren? And she introduced, she said, I'm Ivana Tinkle. I gave her a big hug. So thank you for being here. Ivonne. I was able to meet her husband.

It was wonderful. Elisa, thank you too so much for your support tonight. And now I will say Ivana Tinkle anytime. Now I know she is. I know we need to run tonight. And I just want to say this. We are getting so many incredible questions. We do have to run.

So we will soon, either Saturday or maybe we'll even do a midweek live if we have time. we will give, and here it is, that's the booze teak. They had beautiful glassware and mixers and just, it was really neat. It's in Salt Lake City, downtown Salt Lake. I was in there with our son. So anyway, with all the questions coming down, I think we should do this because this episode is not over. It's far from over.

I can already tell. Leave your questions in comments. Thank you. thank you so much true cowgirl. And then we will do another live with Q&As, all of your Q&As. So leave your questions and comments. It's clear this episode is not over.

The incredible questions coming down. I love our community. I love our gems because I want to know. I have so many of the same questions for Dr. John. So put those in comments. And we will either midweek or next Saturday continue this episode. Thank you. Thank you.

To those again that have been followed, our Daveau footage, our Tim Ballard footage, our Jody Hildebrandt footage. We connected the dots this last week. I traveled to Salt Lake City to be with Megan Connor, Lori Ballo Daybell's cousin, and Mindy Caldwell. She's also a friend of the program. And John DeLynn, the host of Mormon stories. And I feel a weight lifted, honestly. It's been something I've been looking into for two years. And we shared it all there. You can find the stream here or over on Mormon stories, two-part episode.

Check it out. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for our new patrons. Thank you for the wonderful questions we had tonight. And again, this is not over. So please, again, leave your questions and comments. We'll try to scroll the live stream as well, but it does help John and I

if we can just sit down and just go through the comments, whatever you would like to ask about this. So thank you so much, everyone. Thank you. anything else, Dr. John? I think we're done for tonight. Yeah, again, please check out our Lisk, Rex Heerman, playlist. This is one of many.

So a lot of the questions you've been asking tonight, too, we've discussed some interesting things, including Rex's past and his childhood and upbringing, for those asking if this is nature versus nurture. Always a great question for Hidden True Crime, and we have answered a bit of that. Please, please like and subscribe. subscribing to our YouTube channel is an incredible support.

It allows us to grow. It allows us to be seen. It allows us to get the interviews you guys want to see. When people see, we have many subscribers, they're willing to talk to us as I get out there, boots on the ground journalism, talking to many people. And thank you, everyone.

Thank you to our months. Good night. Good night. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers.

It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. ORA actively removes your data from broker's sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring, or just a VPN.

ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove.