In Gilgo Beach arrest, parents find a teaching moment

Maria Scheuring said the arrest in the Gilgo Beach killings prompted her to have a serious talk with her teenage son about something very dear to her — keeping him safe in the world.

The Smithtown mother, a former Bronx prosecutor, said she framed the arrest of architect Rex A. Heuermann of Massapequa Park as a cautionary tale about falsehearted people who appear trustworthy but might want to do harm.

"You have to be cautious about who you associate with and not get close to people if you're not comfortable with them," Scheuring said she told her 15-year-old, Maddox Elbert.

Mother and son talked about stranger danger, treacherous situations and two-faced people, she said.

Elbert said he got the message: "You don't do dangerous things. Don't simply trust strangers."

Beyond the chatter in press conferences and news shows about the Gilgo Beach serial killer case, Long Island parents say they are having urgent conversations with their children about dangerous people who act like they want to help, but who don't.

It's practically inevitable that children will learn bits and pieces about the case, which has received national attention and widespread media coverage. Child counselors, for their part, say parents should share age-appropriate information rather than let a child's imagination fill in the blanks.

Police have portrayed Heuermann, 59, as someone who may have seemed like another Long Island father, husband and commuter but who was actually a twisted person with a terrible agenda. 

Heuermann, who has lived his whole life among the neat rows of homes on First Avenue in Massapequa Park, has been charged with killing three women — Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Lynn Costello — whose remains were found in 2010 near Gilgo Beach. Prosecutors also have called Heuermann, who was arrested July 13, the “prime suspect” in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose remains were found near the other three victims. All four of the women were sex workers, officials said.

Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Heuermann’s attorney Michael J. Brown has said that his client, a seemingly successful architect and married father of two who has no prior criminal record, has denied committing the crimes.

"He's a man who's never been arrested before. He's maintained his innocence from the inception of this case," Brown said. "So he's doing the best he can at this point in time. And looking forward to having his day in court."

Scheuring, who practices family and divorce law, said she wanted to impress on her son that double-dealing people can pop up in life. She said she sees them regularly in divorce cases.

"In so many divorce cases, you don't know who that person is," she said. "They can have a double family elsewhere, or affairs, or lead these completely different lives."

Different approaches

As soon as news broke of Heuermann's arrest, Christina Haubeil of Wantagh said she was talking to her three children about it. Her family was familiar with the site; they had visited Gilgo Beach. She recalled them passing a sign marking where a body had been found and experiencing, she said, an "eerie feeling."

With her 17-year-old son, John Paul, she talked bluntly about the arrest, and the fact that an alleged killer had transformed a wooded stretch of beach six miles from their home into an impromptu graveyard for his victims. Mother and son discussed the arrest — the burner phones that police say helped locate the suspect, the DNA on a discarded pizza crust that they say helped identify him — and the years hoping for justice.

She asked her son if he had any questions. When John Paul didn't, she added some simple-yet-huge life lessons: "You have to be careful of strangers and be aware of your surroundings and not just talk to random people and trust them. You have to be aware that not everybody is nice."

John Paul listened, she said, and agreed.

For her 12-year-old daughter, Corinne, who likes to go out on bicycle jaunts, she avoided the sordid details but offered the same advice. 

"She changes the subject," Haubeil said. "She's in her own world, interested in TikTok and videos. She says, 'Yeah, mom.' "

When the Wantagh mother pressed the point, "She couldn't understand why someone would want to kill women, that someone could be that evil. I told her there are very bad people in the world."

For Corinne's twin brother, Jacob, a gregarious, developmentally disabled kid who likes to ask people their name, she tempered her message a bit more. There are good and bad people, she told him, and you can't just talk to everyone willy-nilly.

Experts weigh in

Experts say Haubeil handled the conversations appropriately.

"There can be some anxiety," said Wilfred Farquharson, Stony Brook University's director of children's ambulatory behavioral health. "You can stress that law enforcement is here to protect us. … Children model their behavior on their parents and how they handle anxiety."

He offered some advice: Don't make kids so frightened they don't want to step outside the front door. Don't scold kids if they find out details, but enforce the ways they can safely interact with strangers. Talk about the safe places they can turn to when there's trouble — a neighborhood deli, safe homes they know — or just to head straight home, he said.

For especially young children, around elementary school age, a parent might not want to be the first to broach the topic of Gilgo, but let a child come to them about it. Parents can quickly pivot the conversation to safety measures, Farquharson said.

Some children might not articulate their fears but express them in behaviors, he added. Look for changes in their mood or activity level, or trouble sleeping or finishing meals, or the child becoming especially clingy to a parent, he said.

Be a little more direct with children in middle school, and a bit more with high schoolers, depending on their maturity. Ask them what they would do if someone questionable approached them, he said. 

"Get the kids ideas on what to do. Who are dangerous people? Have honest discussions," Farquharson said.

Counselors say these parent-child talks are among the ways in which Long Islanders are processing some of the most bone-chilling crimes here. The arrest is a big step in closing the emotional loop, helping to bring Long Islanders some sense of safety and justice delivered, they say. 

"This was happening in their backyard and making national news," said Alicia Bosley, a Hofstra University assistant professor of family and couples therapy. "There are people who've been invested in the process, debating over the kitchen table. … [The arrest] brings people together."

Brown, the attorney for Heuermann, has expressed concern over how the case has been reported in the press and said he might ask for a change of venue.

"The press is reporting things to the public. Sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's skewed," the attorney said. "So now you have the people in Suffolk County who are going to be sitting on a jury. We only hope that they will be fair and impartial and that they won't be influenced by the members of the press."

Bosley, who has her own counseling practice, said a young woman recently came in to air out her sadness and empathy for the victims. The woman, she recalled, said: "If my life had been a little different, this might have been me." 

Bosley said she discussed with the woman the ways in which she can take control of her own safety; that, for instance, she should not go to someone's home on the first date, but maybe just limit the date to coffee in a public place.

Caitlin Lynch, a mother of four in Wantagh — ages 8, 6, 4 and 2 — said her two oldest are aware that something serious occurred near them. They saw the helicopters flying overhead and heard adults talking about it. She's made sure to temper discussions around the kids.

Lynch said she told her 8-year-old girl that a person who police said did bad things had been arrested and that the children were safe.

"She thought they stole something, and I let her believe that," she said.

Her 6-year-old girl, she said, took her cues from her older sister. The girls saw their mother didn't feel upset, she said, and they moved on.

By Craig Schneider

craig.schneider@newsday.comScraigo

Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.