Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann’s former colleagues claim he was so “aggressive” they didn’t want to be in the same room.
“He was very assertive, maybe even leaning to the point of being aggressive,” luxury real estate salesman Jeffrey St. Arromand said of the hulking architect.
He described his first impressions of Heuermann, 59, to Dateline’s Andrea Canning in a clip of Friday’s episode exclusively shared with The Post.
Heuermann – who was arrested in July outside the Fifth Avenue offices of his eponymous architectural firm – worked with St. Arromond on preparing a house for sale.
Another person involved in the project was so troubled by Heuermann “she just didn’t feel comfortable with him at all,” St. Arromand explained.
“She was like, ‘I do not wanna be in the office when he comes and pick up the check,’” he recalled.
Working with Heuermann, he added, “wasn’t easy at all.”
Long Island based Heuermann had worked as an architect for decades in New York City and was known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s building codes. However, in stark contrast to his professional life, he and his family lived in a dilapidated home in Massapequa Park just a few miles from where the bodies of the women police say he murdered were found.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the murders of Melissa Barthlemey, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello.
His arrest over the alleged murders of the four young women — whose bodies were found buried on Gilgo Beach — is still shocking to those who worked with him regularly.
“You feel afraid…of the world,” former coworker Mary Shell told Canning.
“And also, there’s an element of anger. The idea that, as a woman, you have to be suspicious and be afraid all the time just to stay alive is enraging.”
The Dateline special “The Hunt for the Gilgo Beach Killer” airs Friday night, just one week after Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison announced his shocking resignation only a few months into the renewed investigation.
Heuermann is also considered the prime suspect in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes and police are still investigating his potential ties to other crimes.