Hidden True Crime - GILGO BEACH SERIAL KILLER: What created Rex Heuermann? A Psychological Deep Dive PART 2

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

What created the man currently charged in a series of murders haunting Long Island for decades? Dr John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, takes questions from our listeners to continue the psychological deep dive into Heuermann's upbringing and family life, assessing the man charged with the unthinkable. 59-year-old Rex 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. This episode was originally recorded on July 23, 2023 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

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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, ui and c e.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. This Rex Hurerman episode that we're about to listen to was originally recorded on August 13, 2023. Welcome to Hidden Hour. And we are so grateful for you all to be here tonight.

We are going to take questions from John about the Gilgo Beach serial killer and the man charged with those killings, Rex Hewerman. We had a great discussion about him a few weeks ago. Then we went to Rexburg, Idaho, where I was there for the sentencing of Lori Vallow, DeBow. God bless Judge Boyce. And we also are working on our Patreon as well as a book club. For those of you that don't know, Dr. John, Dr. Babe, as I call him, and as many of you call him, has a book club. And that is on patreon.com slash hidden true crime.

For those that are interested, once a month, John has a Zoom meeting with everyone, and they read a book and they discuss the book. And so for those that are interested in that book club, head to patreon.com slash hidden true crime. Yes, once a month, once a month a book, and once a month a documentary. So something for everyone. Or a movie.

Or a movie. So something for everyone. So if you don't read books, you can still enjoy the conversation. And if you like movies and documentaries, this is a book club for you. There's one thing I've loved about being married to you, babe, and dating you. It's how fun it is to listen to and learn from you when it comes to movies, books, documentaries. Reality television. reality television is never the same

when you're sitting next to Dr. John, especially The Bachelor. We'll do our Bachelor channel another time, but for now we're going to stick to true crime, although The Bachelor can be quite the crime. All right. So, anyway, we wanted to do a question and answer. For those of you that want to participate in our Q&A,

we of course ask on Facebook for your comments and on YouTube. I have a bunch of printed questions. My Dr. babe, Dr. John still prints, isn't that sweet? We haven't printed here. And we're going to go over some of the wonderful comments and questions you left. And for those of you that have continuous questions and comments, please leave them in the comments of this video.

We do go over them. And we're also celebrating tonight. Can I tell them why? I mean, we're sad. It's bittersweet, but we're celebrating for our gems and our true crime community and hidden true crime. Our son goes back to school tomorrow. So we will have a lot more time.

We will be able to sit and do brunch and breakfast and look at all of your comments. And yeah. So, all right. With that being said, Dr. Babe, where do you want to start? And then I have the first comment I want to read as well. Okay. Yeah, let's start with the first comment. Okay.

I picked this one because I have to say I concur. So this person, Leo, wrote right after our Hidden Hour Live two weeks ago when we first discussed Rex Heurman and the Gilgo Beach serial killer. They wrote, yep, I bet Rex and brother will have stories of being in childhood trauma. But that won't happen because it would feed a story of guilt. Psychopath monsters like Rex will always be pleading innocent no matter what bodies are dug up at his home. Every expert seems to be unpicking Rex down to the finest details, yet no one has worked out what pizza he likes to eat. We all know that he doesn't eat pizza crust, and to me, that's creepy. Yeah, well, this comment really stood out to me because we actually took our son to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the movie, and a major theme in that movie's pizza.

So I think this comment is fresh on our minds right now in terms of our family adventure from the other day. Well, I would say that pizza is also a theme of our family, too. Yeah, well, that too. Yeah, like it or not, I think that we way too much pizza in our home. So that's something I need to work on. But as far as this comic goes about experts on picking Rex down to the finest details, yet no one knows what pizza he likes to eat. It looks to me like pepperoni, which, by the way, is also a favorite of the Ninja Turtles.

So, but the pizza that he had thrown out, it seemed, I think there was pepperoni on there, but I could be wrong. But I do have to agree here that there is something a little dysfunctional about not eating pizza crust too. So having grown up in Chicago, the crust was always a delicacy of sorts, right? Because sometimes they'll put a little bit of corn flour in the pizza. So it was really unthinkable. Well, in New York City.

New York City, my favorite pizza crust is a New York City pizza crust, I dare say. That too. So I went to college on the East Coast and, you know, I fell in love with New York pizza even though I was from Chicago. And so I have to agree with this comment that there is something creepy about not eating the crust. So I guess if we give Rex the benefit of the doubt, it's conceivable that perhaps he's trying a diet of some sort, right? That maybe he's not eating the crust because he's trying to go low carb. I don't know. I was going to say he could be on the keto. Maybe he's on the keto. I don't know. I don't think he's not. I don't think he's would be eating pizza if he was on the keto, unless it's some kind of keto crust pizza like cauliflower.

But anyway, we got a kick out of this comment. Thank you, Leo, for reminding us that no expert has figured out the finest details about what pizza he likes to eat. So I thought I'd weigh in. I'm going with New York-style pizza, Brooklyn-style pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni. That's what it looks like to me, which is also coincidentally the same pizza that the Ninja Turtles love. So I don't I don't know. I don't know if that means anything, but... But the difference is, let's give the teenage mutant ninja turtle some credit. They would eat the crust. And let's all be glad that Rex did not eat the crust because that is where they were

able to pull his DNA from and they made their arrest. Right, right, right. So pizza becomes a big part of this story. Yes. And this last week, they actually argued that he would not need to do any more buckle swabs, but the judge ruled that he does need to do more swabs. And so we will also be getting swabs from Rex Hewerman that aren't just from the crust, the leftover crust of his pizza. So that was an interesting also addition to this week's news. All right. Do you want me to go to the next one?

I want to actually, I want to mention an article that was published in the York Times since we last talked about Rex Hewerman. I think this is an important article. It fills in some gaps in understanding him. So I'd like to read some of this article because I think it has a lot of relevance to any psychological interpretation of Rex Heerman. The article is from July 28th, 2023, New York Times. The title is, in high school, Gilgo Beach suspect was an angry loner, schoolmaid say.

It was written by Corey Gilcanon and Nate Schweber. So I'm going to read parts of this article because I think there's some really compelling analyses we can get, we can generate from this article. Yeah, and could you read some of it? I think people are always just really interested for a reading too, not the entire thing, but it's okay to read a good amount of this article if you find it interesting. Yeah, so I'm going to start with one of his former classmates, John Perisi, who was quoted in here. He says, quote, Rex, he was everybody's punching bag, and he was never, he never really fell into any clicks like jocks, nerds, or burnouts.

quote, he got picked on a lot, Precii said. He would take it and take it and walk away. I've seen him push to his limit. So, you know, we talked about how he was bullied. This article really flushes that out. This article really shows the magnitude of the bullying. And it also shows that he has a bit of a mean streak, which I'll get to in a minute. So here's another student that knew Rex here and I mean.

He says, quote, I was really scared of him. He was the type of guy if he snapped, he could really hurt you. Oh, this is Perisi again. He was the type of guy if he snapped, he could really hurt you. He was disillusioned and he was misguided. You had to be very careful. So this particular classmate is pointing out not only that Rex was severely bullied, but he also was unpredictable. There was this rage, this anger that they also saw in him. Correct. Yes. Another classmate, Dan Musto, he said, he referred to Rex Humerman as quote, an outcast and he said that that Heerman was basically unathletic and uncool. So whatever that

means. So obviously, this isn't somebody who was particularly popular. He pointed out that he was a stage hand in the drama club. So it's interesting that Rex Heurman really didn't participate in much, that he was really very much a loner and socially isolated. And I think there's a lot of reasons that's important, but maybe one of the most pertinent reasons that's important is because I think during this period of our lives, during high school and early adolescence, we're really trying to formulate a solid identity. And one of the ways we do that, perhaps the major way we do that, is not only through interactions with peers, but by involvement in clubs, sports, drama clubs, right, by participation in events or activities that kind of guide us towards things

we're interested in. You know, and it's interesting to me that Rex Hewerman didn't participate in anything. I guess he was involved in drama club, but even then he was seen as a bit of an outcast in the drama club. So, you know, it raises this question about Huberman's identity and whether he ever really formulated a solid identity. I think I would argue that this is someone because he was such a loner and such an outsider that he really didn't fit in anywhere and he really didn't try anything. And so, you know, arguably, I could say that this is someone who really struggled to figure out who he was. And he has probably his whole life. Obviously, he gravitated towards architecture and that's where he went to college. He studied architecture. But I think it took a while to get

there. And I think by the time he got there, it was almost a default decision. His father will learn later. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But his father was an aerospace engineer and who had an interest in cabinet building. And I think that's where this interest in architecture developed because I think his father was rendering drawings of cabinets and different things he was building elements of his garage. And Rex saw that. And I think Rex really... Using the hammer. The hammer. Yeah. I think Rex really wanted to try to impress his father. And then, you know, like a lot of young boys. I think he really wanted to get his father's attention and to stand out with his father. And so I think the architectural avenue that he pursued was one way, perhaps the easiest way for

him to try to do that. And we'll get into that a lot more because I think his relationship with his dad, it's going to turn out, is going to be really critical to understanding Rex Heerman. So, and his mother too. But anyway, some other things this article talked about that here's another classmate, Don Ophels, who attended kindergarten through 12th grade with Rex Humoran. He said, quote, of Rex Huram, and he said, he was a recluse, very quiet. You just saw him as a guy who kept to himself. He barely spoke, quote, he was seen as weird, someone you didn't see eye to eye with. So again, there's this perception by multiple students that knew him, and some of them who knew him for a quite lengthy period of time, that this is someone who is very much socially awkward

and isolated, and he really doesn't fit in. So that seems to be a theme. So in addition to the punching bag, to the bullying that he is and was in middle school and high school, you see him really retreat from the world and from the world of high school, from the social world of high school peer groups. So I think that's going to be an important part of this story. I have a comment here about bullying, but keep going with the article. And then when you're ready, I'll read this. Okay. So this is another classmate in this article referenced in this article. It's John D. McColley. De MacCole grew up near Heurman's house on First Avenue. And he said that Rex Hurerman preferred to remain at home and essentially opted out of social life. He did notice that Rex Hurman enjoyed an

architectural drawing class. He said, however, quote, but when classmates would try to talk to him, he didn't have the social skills to hold a conversation. He was just a very weird character. Think about that for a second. So other peers would approach him. And John D. McColley is essentially saying that he can't even hold a conversation. He doesn't even have the social skills to engage with someone at a really fundamental level, like a very basic level, that you would expect someone to be able to be capable of in grade school. And he's not doing this in high school. D. McColley also said, however, quote, he had a mean streak in him. So you have this combination here of someone who's really lacked social skills and is very much a loner. And yet there seems to be this

underlying anger, this underlying rage, this mean streak, that people have kind of this fear of this guy. And I think that's a really, that's going to be an important part of this story. I think some of that has to do with his father, by the way. We'll talk about that in a little bit. And so I want to reference the part of this article, which I think is the most relevant to our discussion, and that has to do with his father. This is going back to his classmate that I mentioned earlier, Dan Musto. Musto said that it was well known that Hewerman had clashed with his father, who was tough on the boyfriend, not being a go-getter. He believed, musto believed, that in response to his father's conflicts with him, that, quote, Rex Hurerman acted out. In fact, he got caught after engaging in the shoplifting spree

according to Musto. So that's interesting that apparently a lot of his classmates knew about the conflicts with his father, and they knew that his father was hard on him for not being, quote, a go-getter, right? And again, this is an interesting dynamic in the sense that you have someone who's essentially a loner, and then you have a father who's denigrating him and, you know, being critical of him for not being more active in school and not being more successful. And yet his son is rebelling through shoplifting. His son is, so what his father is essentially forcing him more into the loner role, I think, and he's forcing him to become more rebellious. Because Rex, I think by nature or temperament, I don't think this is someone who is extroverted

and someone who wants to join a lot of clubs. And so you have this conflict between the father, really pushing the son to be more social and more engaged in school. And then the son is just absolutely refusing and rebelling and probably acting out by shoplifting, but also probably becoming even more isolated. But in some ways, he's trying to upset his father and get his father's attention to a greater extent by withdrawing even more.

So you have this, I think you really have kind of, of this vicious cycle of a father pushing hard and a son kind of pushing back in his own way. So musto says, quote, why is he getting in trouble? He's fighting with his dad, musto said. It was common knowledge. So apparently people at school, students at school knew that there was a lot of conflict with his father, which I think is really interesting because when I was in school, if we knew something was going on at home, it had to be really bad. Do you get to the point where people's private lives, since private lives were becoming public,

it had to be really bad. Either this is a very small school or the conflict with his dad was so severe that other kids in the neighborhood knew about it. And I think, or maybe both, but I think that the conflict was probably pretty severe. We have a Rebecca Sanford that is in chat that states that she and Rex were fairly good friends in high school.

Okay. And you can see, so she says Rex and I were fairly good friends. good friends in high school. She states that we spoke every once in a while since we graduated, but not near as much as we did back then. And then she confirms, yes, we were both outcasts, and it did affect us both in the way people treated us, but I can say I am shocked, and I would have never seen this in a million years. Rebecca, thank you for your input. And if you also would like to email us at hidden true crime info

at gmail.com. We would love to talk further on our off record. Thank you for sharing this. And she is in chat. Thank you, Rebecca. I can't imagine discovering, by the way, that someone you went to high school with is capable of something like this.

You know, usually we learn that someone we went to high school with becomes famous, right? It's so cool. It happens, but very few experience learning a friend did this. Yeah, not famous in this way. Yeah, but thank you, Rebecca, for sharing just a little bit about his past and hearing that, yes, you were both outcast, but still you would have never thought. Right. Yeah. I agree. It's one thing to be an outcast and socially isolated and a bit of a loner and not actively involved in high school clubs or sports, but it's another thing altogether to resort to brutal murders or to, you know, to end up a serial killer.

So I agree. I don't think anyone could have seen that coming. And now someone is asking, isn't there a famous person who went to school with Rex? Rex and Rebecca? That would be Billy Baldwin, I guess, you could say, right? Billy Baldwin is actually mentioned in this article. Yeah, that's what I say. So the Times talked to Billy Baldwin, and Billy Baldwin actually saw Rex Herman as being a bit more normal, you know.

Yeah, I read this article and Billy Baldwin is almost the kindest one. when it came to what he thought about Rex. Is that right? I'll read what Baldwin says in this article. He says Baldwin also said, Heerman never fit into clearly established clicks. Quote, however, quote, but I also didn't think he was so weird, so creepy, or so unusual that it would lead to something like this. So Baldwin, Billy Baldwin, didn't see this coming either, obviously. Maybe some of it was the nature of the relationship. Maybe they weren't particularly close. But I think that this article is used. useful in the sense that it really, since the last time we talked about Rex Hewerman, I think it's really kind of flushing out, you know, a more detailed picture of Rex

Heurman. I mean, not fully. There's a lot more to this story, I'm sure, that meets the eye, and we don't know a lot about his family. But this is consistent, you know, this type of presentation is very consistent with somebody who ends up potentially committing heinous crimes and mass shootings or, you know, this type of social isolation is never a particularly good sign when it's combined with a lot of other elements. And we have somebody else that possibly, it sounds like, possibly might know Rex or his father and is stating that 11 Rex did not know the men in his life. So thank you as well. Please email us at hidden true crime info at gmail.com. The more people that we know,

knows him and can help us understand his family the better. And again, we're always willing to talk. We always like to talk on record, but we absolutely talk to many people off record too. So thank you. This comment about his father at 11 did not prepare Rex to be a man, that's interesting, it's an interesting

comment because I do feel like his father being potentially hypercritical and demeaning, you know, I think for young boys, that can have a very emasculating effect. I think that Rex Huraman is certainly someone who probably felt somewhat impotent. And, you know, in addition to not

fitting in, I think that having a father that's overly critical can really damage a young person's sense of identity. And I think you probably had that here. So I think a big part of the story is that relationship with his father. And his father died at 11. 11 or 12. I think it might have been 12-ish. Yeah, 11 or 12. So this might lead us a little bit into the next issue we wanted to talk about, which was potential hoarding. Can I read this comment? Can I read this comment from Becky. Becky Frye, thank you for

your comment on our video two weeks ago. And again, for those, we have some great questions here. I am collecting them here in chat. And for those that we don't get to today, please leave your questions in the comments of this video. She says, she writes, that these are just her thoughts. Everyone else's

speculations, of course, are valued as well. And we could not agree more, Becky, well said. She said that she can guarantee that he was bullied about his size and looks from a young age. His rage towards females is obvious to be because I'm certain no girl gave him the time of day. Certainly, as soon as he was around any co-ed gathering, he was denied any attention, and from that moment on, he would be filled with extreme rage, and over time would have started fantasizing about making them pay, you quotes.

His fantasies would only increase and expand his deviancy. him finally being able to have access to sex workers and the opportunity to exact his revenge would have been an outlet that he had waited for so long. The hoarding, which you just brought up, would come from the loss of his father from such an early age. I believe that the mother was very strict and that also contributed to his rage. I think she was also a hoarder and made him by the house because where else would all of her things go that she hoarded for decades? his hoard on top of hers is going to be quite a list of inventory from that house. So she brought up bullying and then hoarding.

Yeah, right. No, I think this is a really insightful comment. So thank you, Becky, for providing this comment. I think her comment points out just this, the Times article I referenced where he couldn't even engage in a normal conversation with a male or female, right? It shows, I think, that his lack of social skills would have made it really, difficult to develop any type of relationship, but in particular relationships with females.

So I think one thing I would point out is the timing of this in terms of, you know, you have a young boy who's being bullied and then his father passes away right when he's on the cusp of adolescence, right? So think about that for a minute. You have, you have someone who's already experienced a tremendous amount of shame and probably a sense of inadequacy from his father. And then his father passes away. And he's got this deep unresolved wound from his father's loss. And it's more than that. There's almost this emotional tug of war about wanting his father to love him. And yet, in some ways, feeling demean by his father, right? You have this conflict, this love-hate conflict with his dad, that he never resolved. So his father passes away when he's 11 or 12. He loves his father, but he also

probably has a lot of humiliation and rage from the way his father treated him. And this tug of war goes on because now his father's gone and he still has this conflict. He still has this wound that he's trying to deal with, right? And I think that, by the way, I think that's part of the story of hoarding. If there is hoarding here, we don't know for sure. It certainly looks like there's a lot of stuff in that house. But I think if there is hoarding, I think this is where it begins. It probably begins around the time of that trauma of losing his father and trying to stay connected to his dad through belongings, through stuff his dad owned. The stuff that his dad has or owned is symbolic of some connection to it. Most people don't realize how much

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and trying in some ways, maybe in healthy ways, to resolve that wound that his father has left, which the wound is the love and the hate, demeaning, and yet they need to stay connected to his dad. So all children, no matter how dysfunctional parental relationships are, all children, they fear abandonment probably as much as anything. And so in that sense, even in the most abusive relationships, children try to still maintain some connection to their abuser because they don't want to be abandoned, right? That's a question of survival. Interesting.

Abandonment. And so I think for Rex Heerman, you have this wound. You have this lack of social skills so he can't connect to women. I want to actually read. So the plot thickens a little bit too in the sense that you have a 11, 12-year-old who has this conflict with his dad. His dad passes away. He probably still wants to stay connected with his dad.

add, that might be the time when he starts collecting stuff or at least clinging to belongings his father has or had. But now you have a child that's entering adolescence. He's entering puberty. And he's having, he's starting to have sexual thoughts, sexual fantasies, right? And so the last time we talked about this situation, I talked about the importance of deviant fantasies, what I call devian fantasies, which are fantasies that involve violence potentially, or I talked about the idea, I talked about parapherias. But at this point in the story, I'm going to read a little bit from a book called The Sexual Murderer. How do you like that title for a book? The Sexual Murderer. The books John buys off of Amazon, I tell you, if anything happens to me, your book list

won't be good. The Sexual Murderer, it's called The Sexual Murderer, Offender Behavior, and implications for practice. It's by Eric Beauregard and Melissa Martineau. I believe it was published in 2018. And so they talk about the development of deviant sexual fantasies, which I think is completely relevant for the story we're developing about Rex Hewerman, which is he's bullied. He has a lot of shame around that. He has a conflicted relationship with his dad. He wants his dad approval and attention. His dad passes away, and he's on the cusp of adolescence. So here's what they say. Again, the sexual murderer. This, by the way, is probably one of the best introductory textbooks on this topic. There aren't a huge number of textbooks about sexual murder, but this is one.

It presents a lot of interesting facts. This is page 39. Quote, many researchers have attributed the development of a deviant sexual fantasy life to a level of social fantasy life to a level of social and sexual inadequacy in the individual. For these individuals who experience trauma or inadequate socialization in childhood, who fail to develop secure attachments, who suffer from low self-esteem, and who lack the pro-social skills to develop meaningful interpersonal relationships, the development of a rich fantasy life can become a means of escaping a harsh reality. I'm going to go on because they talk about how it's not enough just to develop deviant sexual fantasies. They talk about how one might develop sadistic sexual fantasies, which applies to Rex

Heerman. Same page. I'm continuing. Page 39, quote, many researchers and practitioners believe that sadistic fantasies develop in response to social difficulties. As with all fantasy, the sadistic sexual fantasy becomes a form of escape and a substitute for real sexual gratification with preferred partners. So let me repeat that. The sadistic sexual fantasy becomes a form of escape and a substitute for real sexual gratification with preferred partners. I think that's critical in understanding the Rex Humerman's story. The preferred partners. So sadistic replaces.

Well, he's developing, he's in this really critical period of his life. And he's being bullied. As Becky just pointed out, he's probably struggling with females that are rejecting him, making fun of him, mocking him. So he's developing some rage there. That, by the way, is part of the Brian Colberger story.

Like we talked about Colberger, Kohlberger goes to something very similar in terms of being bullied. and I think rejected specifically by women and feeling a great deal of wanting to exact revenge. I think you see a similar dynamic here. But what's going on? Because Rex Heerman lacks any capacity to develop relationships with females, he's substituting that inability, that failure to develop relationships. He's substituting that with fantasies that become increasingly more violent over time.

Okay. He's getting sexual gratification through this substitute of fantasy. And I think that these fantasies become more deviant and more sexual over time as he starts getting in touch with the rage that he's experiencing because of the bullying. The rage that he's feeling from his father, there's probably some rage with his mother. His mother steps in and we learn that his mother is also really controlling. I mean, again, we need to, we need more information on those relationships. But there are accounts out there describing the mother as being very critical, very controlling, and very smothering. And so in that sense, there's one quote in the article where a student says that he couldn't wait to get home to his.

His mother would force him to come home immediately after school. That's all he would think about. He would leave school, go home to his mom and do who knows what. So it's not just his dad. So his dad is a big part of the story. but his mother also is not helping. Right. His mother is not helping him develop, you know, the social skills to interact with women.

Right. And so I think it's the underlying rage and it's the underlying humiliation that really start creating these devian fantasies. That he's thinking about harming people and he's pairing that or associating that with violence. So he's having these sexual fantasies, but he's also having these aggressive fantasies. And those two, what's happening is those two are. are getting combined. Those two are becoming associated. And that's how you get to sadism. That's how you get to this type of behavior. Okay. Okay. Someone was asking if they applied the same theory to females or if it's just males. Yeah, that's another topic for another video. Yeah, that's a really

interesting question. And the answer would be yes, potentially. I think with females, it's a little bit of a different presentation. And the number of, so in this book, they referred to them as SHOs, which is sexual homicide offenders, SHOs. The number of female sexual homicide offenders is very limited. There aren't a lot of them. And so it's hard to really, most of their research is clearly going to apply to man. Okay.

Thank you. What you're sharing kind of goes this comment by Barbara Brewer. Are you continuing with this book? Because this is really interesting. Go ahead. Okay. She writes. And Barbara, thank you for this comment on our video.

Having been bullied in school and his father dying when he was young, could have put him into a situation of not being able to enjoy his young life, including not being able to look forward to school or family life. This is what you're saying. Mundaneness, average grades, isolation, but he has a good enough relationship with his daughter. And he took her into his firm. He is such a conundrum.

And then I want to point out that people are saying in the comments right now, or the chat, what I mean to live chat, but he got married. He's been married twice. He had a wife. And then, well, let's even go further. I agree. He had a good enough relationship with his daughter that he took her into his firm. Such a conundrum. Yeah. I like this comment because it's such an important point. I think that some people talk about the idea of compartmentalization that we're able to split off different parts of ourselves. And we're able to kind of, that's how offenders are able to lead the so-called double life, that, you know, they're able to mask certain parts of their personalities. And those parts of their personalities, they don't really see and understand very well. And that's why they get repeated. So there's a book we read earlier in our book club called The Examined Life by Stephen Groot's. And one of the things that Grotes said early on in the book, which I completely agree with,

and I say myself oftentimes, is that if we can't tell our story, that our story will tell us, meaning essentially that if we have so many delusions and defense mechanisms and ways of repressing information that might be painful or traumatic, we can't know that part of ourselves, in a way we're going to act that stuff out. That stuff is going to come back to haunt us. This is like Freud one-on-one. This is the stuff that's kind of swirling around in our unconscious that in order to make sense of our experience, we have to symbolize it. We have to represent it some way. And oftentimes we do that through language. But if we can't do that, then we're at greater risk of having symptoms for certain things or acting out that which we can't

represent or understand. And so I think with Rex Hewerman, the conundrum is that when we're not acting on that stuff, when we're not aware of or acting on the stuff that we can't acknowledge or express, then oftentimes we can appear quite normal. So the mask is, it's the trauma and the pain and the stuff that we're trying to avoid that always haunts us. And it's the defense mechanisms we use to keep that stuff away, to keep people from seeing it. It's all of that that allows us to present kind of a normal perspective to other people. So that's how you can get someone like Rex Heerman to kind of fool people or certain people, I think. But there's always this intuition with someone like Rex Heerman, however, that something doesn't feel right, right? That there's this

baggage, let's call it baggage or wounds, whatever, that there's the sense that these wounds are there. And you can kind of feel them, you can kind of sense them, but you can kind of maybe intuit that somebody like Rex Hurerman is really defending from showing that part of himself. But the problem is he doesn't even know that stuff exists. You know, like with his father, for example, there's probably a huge wound there. There's this deep sense of inadequacy, but he doesn't, he doesn't understand it. He can't express it. He can't tell that part of his story. So, therefore, that part of his story that he can't give language to or express comes back to to haunt him in different ways. I can argue strongly, for example, that his relationships with the

victims, his victims are in some ways an expression of all that past trauma, that he's acting out all of these elements of his life that he can't explain, that he can't put into words, that he can't represent consciously. And that, by the way, gets to the issue of what is therapy. One of the main jobs of psychotherapy is to try to bring those elements to light, is trying to make those elements visible, right? And so somebody like Rex Hewerman, who I'm sure has never been in therapy or had any interest in it, he's not going to uncover those elements of his life. He's simply going to, he's going to continue to repeat. Freud called that the repetition compulsion, and that is that when we have these wounds, that we try to master them over and over again,

but we do the same things. And so we repeat the past over and over again. We don't learn from it because we're not really willing to go where we need to go to understand those woots. Thank you. Debbie, thank you so much for your kindness. Thank you, everyone, for your great questions. What you're saying is resonating with a lot of people. Thank you. And somebody asked, you know, nature versus nurture,

and what you're referring to is, yes, people are born. People are born with a set of things that make them then. but the trauma and the experience and the nurture is what is added on, correct? That's what you've taught me. Well, yeah, it's so complex. You know, I sometimes think of a book by Richard Rhodes, who was a Pulitzer Prize winning author. He wrote a book called Why They Kill. It's an assessment of a guy named Lonnie Athens.

He's a maverick. He's considered kind of a maverick criminologist. but Rhodes begins the book with one of my favorite statements, which is essentially that there are so many variables in terms of figuring out why human beings kill that it's almost impossible. It's the question that's haunted human beings for thousands of years, and yet it's not answerable because it's so complex and because there's so many variables that are kind of candidates for explaining why people kill. There's no one reason that people kill. There's no one reason that people kill. many reasons. And yes, some of them are genetic, some are temperamental, some can be related to

brain dysfunction, some are related to upbringing and nurture. So again, I don't, you know, I'm a psychologist. So naturally, I'm going to focus on the mind and kind of nurture and upbringing and childhood. But does that mean that do we know definitively that that's the main reason that somebody like Rex Human commits multiple homicides? No, I don't, you know, it could be, could be as simple as the fact that he was born a psychopath, he has no conscience, he has no empathy, and killed because he had access to these victims and he knew they were vulnerable, right? That's one explanation. It's not an explanation I necessarily agree with, but, but it is an explanation. And I think that, you know, I'm always a little leery of the most reductive explanation.

So the most reductive explanation is that Rex Heerman is evil. Right. That doesn't really help us, right? No, nor does it help us understand why these things happen again and again and help us understand the human mind, right? Right, exactly. So do we know at this point in time why the exact reasons why somebody like Rex Heberman kills and all we know? But I should say, by the way, that, you know, at the moment, he's still innocent until proven guilty. So I don't want to totally jump the gun here. I think the evidence is pretty damning, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't be acquitted by a jury. So I'm going to give a little bit of the benefit of the doubt here, too. Yeah.

Some people are coming in late and they're back at the pizza going. They agree with you, by the way. It all goes back to the pizza. Yeah, you know. You can never have enough pizza. One thing, Rhodes, I think that Rhodes really missed the boat when he didn't bring in the pizza theory of homicide. I think that if you could go back and look at the history of serial killers, I bet most of them didn't eat the crust.

What we say in our house, every pizza is a personal, pan pizza if you believe in yourself. That's what we say in our home. Yeah. All right. There's no such thing as a bad pizza. Right. Well, yes, right. I disagree with that, but you know. John won't eat pineapples. Or anchovies.

Can we talk about the house? We have a great comment from M.U 77. So they state the thing that struck me most was the condition of the house that he lived in. It was run down in a neighborhood of well-cared-for homes. I would have thought an architect would have lived in a larger home or at least a well-cared-for home. Right, some people like small homes, but at least well-cared-for.

The house is representative of Hewerman's internal self. Self-loathing, dark, hidden, and I wouldn't be surprised if the murders took place there. Yeah. Great comment. Thank you, MU 77, for that comment. Yeah, let me reiterate one of the sentences here. The house is representative of Heerman's internal self.

Yeah, that's great. I agree. I agree. This house is totally a reflection of his psyche. And it seems to me, like, if there is hoarding, and again, this is speculation on the hoarding because some of the pictures we've seen looks like, it certainly looks like hoarding, but it could be, according to Asa's lawyer, it could just be that the law enforcement upended the house or right, some of it. So it's not entirely clear. I mean, of course, my response to that

is that all that stuff was, they may have moved it around and shuffled the stuff and the belongings, but it was still there, right? So it may be disheveled because of what law enforcement did, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a ton of stuff in the house. And that's only stuff they left behind. They took out a ton of stuff. So, I mean, it certainly looks like a hoarding situation. But it's not entirely clear if it was his wife or Rex that was the hoarder either or maybe both, I don't know, but I think the disrepair of the house, you know, these types of houses often, I mentioned this last time, but these types of houses often remind me of depression. You know, they just...

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They can't function at a high enough level to take care of the house. can't organize. It just has that feel to me. But again, hoarding, hoarding would be more of, it's, hoarding is considered an obsessive compulsive disorder. So hoarding would involve potentially a great deal of anxiety. I think you might have that with Rex Hellerman, a significant amount of anxiety, which by the way, we saw some of these OCD components with like Brian Kohlberger. I mentioned last time about the movie, The House the Jack Bill, by, which of course is fiction, but by Lars von Trier, and a big part of that movie had to do with OCD. The character, Jack, who's the serial killer, he holds up these signs that say OCD on them.

And again, let me reiterate for people that struggle with OCD, I'm not saying that OCD leads to murder. I'm saying that OCD can be an element or a component that can lead to violence if violent fantasies and or sexually deviant fantasies are become a obsessive. And actually, in the book, I just referenced the sexual murderer, well regard, and Martineau, they make the same argument, that there's research showing that deviant sexual fantasies and deviant sexual fantasies that involve violence, they become, they often become obsessive. And sexual homicide offenders or SHOs, as they call them, they will act out and commit murders to relieve that anxiety. And that's actually

something, again, getting back to Koeberger, we talked about how after Kohlberger committed his murders, that his students noticed that he was calmer, that he was more composed, right? And it's the same type of thing that oftentimes sexual murderers will become obsessed with these deviant thoughts and they'll become obsessed with ideas of lust killing and they won't feel calm until they carry out the act. A lot of people are bringing up things like, hey, don't look in my garage. I'm nervous now. Don't look in our garage. I have to say, don't look in our house a lot of times. Back today, you know, we've had a pantry that none of us have gone through in quite a while. I won't say how long. And all of a sudden today, I just started going through it.

Unexpectedly, I had no plans, but I was going through it. And John walks in, he's like, babe, we've got a show tonight. I'm like, I know. And I'm not stopping because I'm finally cleaning out this covered. I mean, maybe I was uncovering trauma. I don't know. But you did step in and help for a minute, mostly to throw away all you were. You were acting out. You were acting out your need for a clean house. I was acting out my need for a clean house, yes. For an organized pantry. Because I can't have a clean garage because that's not my, because that's on John, not me. Much too high of a hurdle to clear. Right. So at least I can work on our pantry. But yeah, yeah, so started hyper focusing on that today. Which actually goes to whatever I was doing.

I was cleaning our pantry today when I had absolutely no time, but I was doing it. How does one resolve past trauma and grief? Thank you, Dr. John and Lauren. Carol Bell 8808. Thank you for your comment, Carol Bell. How does one resolve past trauma and grief? And I'll add, is it as easy as cleaning out the pantry? The short answer to how you resolve past trauma and grief is you don't.

So in the sense that, you know, personally, I think that I know that's a little flippant. So let me expand on that. I don't know that there's such a thing as resolving press trauma and grief, like as in putting into the past fronts and for all. So the answer is, I don't know that you resolve trauma and grief. I think you accept it. I think it's more about acceptance and coming to terms with it and understanding it, maybe even befriending it to some degree, but the way you do that is you give voice to it.

So if we fail to understand or articulate or tell our stories, our stories tell us, that idea, that we want to give voice to those parts of ourselves or those traumas or the pains that we experience or the grief so that we can express it. The short answer is, I think that I don't know that we resolve it, but the goal is to give voice to our trauma and our grief. And when I say give voice, I mean, not just intellectually, I mean emotionally, psychologically, to give voice to our trauma in the best way we can so that we can make sense of it so that we can make it a part of our story so that our story doesn't tell us. We tell our story. That would be my answer. So, and the only way that we can

accept our trauma is by not repressing it is by giving voice to it. I think somebody like Hewerman would be a great example of someone who is acting out those parts of himself that he simply can't symbolize or represent or give voice to. And so the more we can do that and the fewer defenses we have, the fewer defense mechanisms, the more likely we're going to be able to cope with our traumas in a healthy way. Thank you. Monica just said, I was hoping it was the easiest cleaning my home because I'd be able to do that. I agree, Monica. I wish it were. Isn't that interesting that giving voice to our traumas is that much harder than spending a few hours cleaning a pantry? But it's true.

Well, there are some similarities. You were pulling out things I hadn't seen in years from the pantry. So wouldn't that be like pulling something out of the unconscious? Now you're giving me new trauma. You're letting people know what was in our pantry. I won't say what those things were. We don't need to give too much detail. That'll be traumatic.

In vague terms. Or maybe I need to give voice to my train. trauma. We found some things, a couple of things expired in 2019. There you go. I am giving voice to my trauma. There you go. I also wiped up a few things underneath. All right. So this is a comment that actually caught your eye, John, which I thought was interesting because it's a very short comment. And it's by user handle. I like that user handle 7384. That was a great name. they write, beware the failed architect, or in other words, and they put in parentheses, artists, beware the failed architect or artist.

Right, yeah. You know, so when you read that to me, my first, the thing that really struck me about it was that Adolf Hitler was a failed artist. And he also, he also tried his handed architecture. But, you know, he had this vision for a new Germany and he was somewhat responsible for drawing up all the plans for the New Germany. But there's a book, there's a book by Ron Rosenbaum called Explaining Hitler, which is a massive book. I think it's like six, four, you know, five, six hundred pages. And when you finally get to the epilogue, it's a fascinating book, by the way,

but when you finally get to the epilogue, basically Rosenbaum says, Hitler can be explained because he was a failed artist and he had a lot of shame. And he essentially acted out that shame. And I'm like, come on, Ron, you could have told us that in the first 10 pages. Like, you know, you, so anyway, the failed artist thing is interesting and it's real. And I think that there is a little bit of that. There was also, by the way, a 2002 movie with John Cusack called Max, which looks at the same thing. It's a story somewhat biographical of Hitler as a failed artist. So there, I think there really, there is something to this idea that Rex Hewerman didn't

live up to his expectations or perhaps more relevant to his father, to his deceased father's expectations for him, that he saw himself or sees himself as a failure because his father had such high expectations for him. And from the age of 12, he's never been able to deliver on those expectations. And so, you know, again, this idea of acting out, you act out those things that you can't talk about, that you can't represent. And some psychologists, by the way, refer to that as dissociation. There's a really outstanding book by a forensic psychologist named Abby Stein who argues that very similar to what we're talking about tonight. She argues that dissociation is responsible for almost every significant act of violence. I don't know if I agree

with that, but her book is brilliant. And she makes a similar argument that we've been making tonight. Let me read this question. Loz Stevens writes, it's interesting, I got an MFA in writing and find that men practicing art can be so ego involved. You do have to be able to handle rejection or you won't make it. In other words, as an artist, you do have to experience failure. You could say rejection, failure, you know, or you won't make it. It's not necessarily the failing that's the issue. It's the lack of being able to handle it. Do you see what I'm saying? Right. It's the lack of resiliency. It's the ego. It's that sense of inadequacy. If your sense of identity is damaged and you're rejected or you perceive yourself as having failed, it's going to be very hard to accept it.

You're going to be more likely to act it out. So there has to be a certain amount of resiliency and hopefully a sound or at least a somewhat solid sense of self or sense of identity that we talked about earlier that develops in adolescence. So during that formative period, we're Rex Herman lost his father and he's not participating in any clubs or sports or doing anything. There's no involvement. He's really, you know, he's really completely lost. He's really not developing any sense of who he is. In addition to experiencing all the bully, right, and his mother smothering him and probably having a very ammashed relationship with her. So I think these are some of the components that are going to play a role in his later crimes.

Lili here writes, I'm an artist. I don't meet my expectations every day. It's called learning, not failing. Lemisa, we love Lemisa. She says, with men, typically ego becomes so deeply attached to anything they create or put on offer to the world at large. Many men kill women who they perceive reject them, dump them, divorce them, you know, the failed artist or anything that they create or show.

That was interesting to the world. Yeah, I agree. Those are the questions I have. I'd love for you to say some final last words. Before you do that, I just want to remind everyone that the two greatest ways that you could support us are to subscribe to our channel. I know that a lot of people just don't subscribe. I'm not even a big subscriber myself. I try to do it more because I understand that it helps those we care about.

Thank you for subscribing to our channel. It is free. People get confused. We do have memberships available. for extra perks and emojis and some member-only videos, but we also, anyone can subscribe, it's free and mean so much. And our Patreon, patreon.com slash hidden true crime. That is where people can support us monthly,

but we do give back and we give back to those who do support us with our book club, Dr. Babes Book Club, not our book club, your book club. It is Johns. It is all John or movie club. So thank you to those who join Patreon. John, and for those who join and become a gem on our YouTube channel, we appreciate that so much. And your documentary book club, the documentary is what? It's coming up this week. John, what is it called? It's called The Work. The Work. All right. Actually, I might, now that we're talking about it, now that we've had the discussion, I might end with some thoughts on that documentary. And these issues

we've been talking about tonight, about trauma and masculinity and fathers and relationships with fathers, all of those are really salient in this documentary of the work. You have a group of inmates that take in some members of the community and they form these groups. They do some group therapy with these people from the community and amongst themselves as well. And one of the common themes in the work is you can see how these inmates really, struggle to tell their stories and to really express their emotions and to express any coherent sense of identity. And so that's the challenge for them in this movie, in this documentary, is to really try to dig deep and to find some emotions that they don't want to find and to discover some elements of their

identity that they don't know existed. And the challenge in this documentary is for them to give voice to those parts of themselves. And it's really fascinating how they do it. I don't want to give away all of this because we're going to talk about it Wednesday, but it turns out that a lot of these inmates, their version of therapy is really physical. It's a very, very kinesthetic, visceral, physical experience for them. And that's the only way they can relate to the world. You know, and I think there's some similarities with Brex Hellerman in the sense that when you kill someone, his victims, like his victims, example, He's acting out something very violent and very physical and very tangible.

And that's how he's relating to the world. He can't relate to the world in a normal way. He can't interact with people in it, you know, or he can't find, let's say, love or connection in a normal way. And so the way he finds that is through this very violent physical expression, which leads to his crimes. And so I think there's some similarities there. with this documentary in the sense that you really see. These are all violent offenders. Most of them have committed murder. And they do it because they have these blind spots. They can't give voice to their shame, to their trauma, to their absent fathers, to their sense of inadequacy, right?

They're looking for all of that and they just can't do it. And so you see them go on this journey to try to figure it out. And of course, they're already convicted and in prison when they're in this documentary, but there's a glimmer of hope in the sense that you get a sense of what might need to be done with someone like Rex Heerman. I mean, for Rex Heurman, I'm sure he's got a trial, but if he's convicted, it's going to be too late, obviously. But the hope is that if you do the work, that's what it's, you know, so psychologists and psychoanalysts in particular, I've used that term for many years, for centuries. The work is digging into the unconscious, is digging into those parts of ourselves that we'd rather avoid

and trying to figure out what our story is and to give voice to that story so that we don't act it out and harm other people. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. John. For those that are interested in this discussion on Zoom with Dr. John, you can head to patreon.com slash hidden true crime. Somebody asked if I have an injury on my neck.

I was able to get something removed that does look like it might be skin cancer. So it's a recommendation for everyone to please get your skin checked for those wondering about my neck wound. So it did not happen at the pantry. We're good. Thank you for those that are asking about my brother as well. I know that we give little life updates here.

My brother, it's going to be a long, long journey with my brother. I think that's a good way to say it right now. He is, his coma score is good in that it's down and he is responding, but he is nonverbal right now. And it's going to be a long, long journey with my dear brother. So thank you for asking. Thank you, everyone. We will be seeing you next week. Thank you for checking in with us.

We appreciate so much your support. And we want to give a special thank you to our moderators. They are incredible. A lot of you comment on how amazing our moderators are. we agree. We don't know how we got so lucky to find such an incredible community. And one of our moderators, Troublemaker Baker, has now ventured out on her own to start her own YouTube channel where she is cooking a different egg recipe every day. She is a Pillsbury Award winner and it's been fun to watch, Julie. We're there. I cleaned out my pantry possibly because I'm motivated

by you and I want to start cooking again. So John's like, yeah, right. But we all You might want to send over some recipes, really, please. So, all right. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for so much for being here. And until next week, we'll see you. All right. Thanks, guys.

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 stuff. 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.

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