A Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect ‘staged’ a car crash near an elderly woman’s home in an attempt to swindle her out of $5 million, her boyfriend has claimed.
Steve VonDuring, the boyfriend of the target of one of the alleged killer’s many lawsuits, claims Rex Heuerman, 59, feigned injury after throwing himself in front of her car in 2017.
‘It was a staged accident. He wasn’t even hurt,’ he told the New York Post, adding that the alleged killer wanted $5 million in the fake lawsuit.
The alleged fraud was one of four lawsuits launched by Heuerman between 2014 and 2022, each seeking $5 million under a questionable car accident claim.
Heuerman is currently in custody in New York on suspicion of being the infamous Gilgo Beach killer, and investigators are working to link him to more unsolved murders.
Long Island architect Rex Heuerman, 59, was arrested today in a major police breakthrough for his involvement in the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
Despite building a career as a successful architect in Manhattan, Heuerman allegedly tried to burn his bank account with fraudulent lawsuits.
His alleged scam against O’Sullivan took place on a rainy night in January 2017, when Heuerman claimed she was hit by his car while walking home.
In a court deposition, O’Sullivan claimed he was driving just five miles an hour when Heuermann ‘walked in front of me’ with his head down.
Court records show he sued the pensioner for $5 million, but VonDeuring said the legal action was nothing more than a sham.
‘She just tapped him. He didn’t go down, and he sued,’ he said, as O’Sullivan described the incident in detail when he called him from the scene.
He said that when the accused killer took the case to court, he ‘made up lies’, including claims that he ‘couldn’t use his hands.’
‘He said his arm was bad, his back was bad, he couldn’t get up the stairs… Then we saw him put on his Christmas lights,’ he added.
VonDuring said he was even able to capture a photo of Heuermann hanging his Christmas lights, which he and O’Sullivan submitted as their evidence against the architect’s claims.
However, the eagle-eyed move didn’t stop the suspect from cashing in, as he says an insurance company paid him $55,000.
‘I don’t know why they paid him,’ he added.
Despite being a successful architect in Manhattan, Heuermann allegedly tried to burn his bank account through bogus injury lawsuits.
A map showing where the remains of the victims are located along a barren stretch of Ocean Beach Parkway in Gilgo Beach on the south coast of Long Island
O’Sullivan declined to comment on Heuerman’s case because he is ‘under counsel’, but added that ‘I can tell you he is strange’.
In her deposition detailing the alleged scam, she claimed that she quickly got out of her car when she hit Heuerman and asked him if he was okay.
She says he replied: ‘I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see.’
Heuermann told the court that his injuries were so severe that he had to miss work, where he usually went to his architectural office on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
The claims come days after Heuerman was arrested in a dramatic moment from his white-clothed office on a Manhattan street Thursday night.
Chilling footage revealed a group of officers confronting the architect just steps from his office, where police say he made phone calls to arrange sex with his victims and later taunted their families with gruesome accounts of their deaths.
Meanwhile, neighbors in the middle-class community where Heuerman lived all his life in Massapequa Park, near where the victim’s remains were found, described him as a frightening figure whose house was shunned by children on Halloween, who was once kicked out. Oranges are a whole food for stealing and those who owe thousands in back taxes.
‘We used to cross the road. He was someone you didn’t want to go near,’ neighbor Nicholas Ferchau, 24, told the New York Times.
Rex Heuerman is featured in his Tinder profile picture. Police tracked down the fictitious email account used in his profile and his burner phone number in the case
The suspect’s home sits directly north of Gilgo Beach across South Oyster Bay
Forensic teams were seen Friday combing Human’s Long Island home. A freezer was also among the items seized
Heuerman’s truck was removed from the home during a forensic search of his property
Heuerman is being held on charges of first and second degree murder in connection with the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Authorities say he is the ‘prime suspect’ in another murder.
Police have released a laundry list of ‘red flags’ they say led them to Heuerman as a suspect, with the first piece of evidence linking a Chevrolet Avalanche he owned and Costello’s killing to a witness.
According to documents filed in Suffolk County Court, investigators were able to link that vehicle to Heumann’s cellphone records, which linked him to locations related to the murder, which ultimately led to a DNA sample.
Police say Heuerman used Melissa Barthelemy’s phone to make harassing calls to her family from the victim’s phone, with the calls being made from his Manhattan office.
After Heuerman was identified as the owner of the Chevrolet, police issued more than 300 subpoenas, search warrants and other legal processes to obtain more evidence.
After the decades-long hunt for the killer seemingly ended this week, dramatic aerial footage revealed a forensic search of his property as authorities continue to try to link him to more unsolved murders.
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