In explosive Peacock docuseries, best friend describes chilling prison visit with accused serial murderer: “I expected him to say he was innocent. He didn’t.”
NEW YORK — For years, David Jimenez considered Rex Heuermann his closest friend—a fellow architect who shared his love of guns, Scotch, and cigars. But after a single, gut-wrenching visit to Heuermann’s jail cell in 2023, Jimenez walked away with a horrifying certainty: “I’m the best friend of a serial killer.”
In his first public interview for Peacock’s explosive new docuseries, The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets, Jimenez, 63, recounts the moment he realized the man he once bonded with over blueprints and shooting ranges was the alleged monster behind one of America’s most notorious murder sprees.
“I Expected Denial. I Got Tears Instead.”
Jimenez, a city architect, met Heuermann in 2006 when the hulking, bespectacled designer walked into a New York City Building Department office. The two hit it off immediately, bonding over their profession, conservative politics, and “all the macho stuff.” They frequented gun ranges together, toured each other’s collections, and even traveled to Las Vegas for firearms shows.
But everything changed on July 14, 2023, when Heuermann was arrested outside his Midtown office and charged with the murders of three sex workers whose bodies were found along Long Island’s Ocean Parkway. By the time Jimenez visited him in jail, the charges had expanded to seven killings spanning nearly three decades.
“I expected to hear, ‘David, I’m innocent, can you help me out?’” Jimenez told the docuseries. “And that’s when I got the feeling. I think he did it.”
During the emotional encounter, Jimenez pressed his friend for answers. “I said, ‘Rex, this is really bad. It looks like you did it.’” Instead of a firm denial, Heuermann reportedly teared up—a reaction that sent chills down Jimenez’s spine.
When Jimenez mentioned rumors linking Heuermann to unsolved murders in Las Vegas, the accused killer’s response was telling: “All I did was gamble and drink there.”
“That was a visceral reaction,” Jimenez recalled. “Not ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’ Just ‘I gambled and drank.’”
The Chilling Double Life of Rex Heuermann
For years, Heuermann presented himself as a devoted family man—a husband to his wife, Asa Ellerup, and a father to two adult children. Jimenez described him as the “man of the house,” commanding respect from his family. Ellerup, in her own interview for the series, called Heuermann her “hero” and said she fell in love with him all over again when she saw him behind bars.
But prosecutors paint a far darker picture. They allege Heuermann meticulously stalked and murdered vulnerable women, dumping their remains along Gilgo Beach. DNA evidence, cellphone records, and a trove of macabre news clippings found in his Massapequa Park basement tied him to the crimes.
Jimenez admitted he once admired Heuermann’s gun vault, which housed an arsenal of 300 firearms—the same weapons prosecutors say may have been used in the killings. “He was easy to be friends with,” Jimenez said, still grappling with the betrayal. “Now I’m in a story I never wanted to be in.”
The Day Everything Changed
Jimenez remembers exactly where he was when he learned his best friend was accused of being a serial killer. He was driving to a Brooklyn work site when his son called, asking how to spell “Heuermann.”
“I freaked out,” Jimenez said. “I pulled over because I couldn’t drive anymore. How could it be? It’s like, it can’t be.”
Now, as Heuermann awaits trial, Jimenez is left to reconcile the man he knew with the monster he’s accused of being. “He was my buddy,” he said, voice breaking. “It’s a loss. But the truth is worse than anything I imagined.”
