Reflections After Watching Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer
I just finished the Netflix series on Rex Heuermann (Gone Girls), and I’m still sitting with a pit in my stomach. It was haunting in a way that true crime usually isn’t—because this one hit terrifyingly close to home.
I live on Long Island now, and growing up, my family used to take me to the same beaches where these poor women were found. As a kid, those beaches were just sandcastles and sea gulls—pure summer joy. To now learn that those same shores were a burial ground is beyond chilling. It’s like a childhood memory has been retroactively darkened.
What stuck with me most was the way the documentary touched on Heuermann’s upbringing. Apparently, he had a rough childhood—an abusive father, relentless bullying—and while I don’t believe that justifies anything, I do think it’s important to talk about what people choose to do with their pain.
I was bullied too. I didn’t have the happiest childhood either. And I’ve known others who’ve walked through way darker things. Some became artists, caregivers, leaders, trailblazers. Some turned to drugs or alcohol to cope. Others just quietly lived their lives, determined not to pass the pain forward. What they didn’t do was become monsters.
Consider figures like Tyler Perry, who endured severe abuse during his youth but transformed his experiences into a prolific career in entertainment . Similarly, Oprah Winfrey overcame a traumatic childhood to become an influential media mogul and philanthropist . These stories exemplify resilience and the capacity to break cycles of abuse.
That’s what hit me so hard watching this: the idea that pain can be inherited—but it doesn’t have to be weaponized. It doesn’t have to be our legacy.
Heuermann chose cruelty. He chose to hide behind a “normal” life and channel his past into something vicious. But many people have come from similarly broken places and chosen compassion instead. It’s not about excusing him; it’s about reminding ourselves that pain doesn’t have to end in destruction. For some, it becomes the very reason they try harder to be kind, to be better.
That’s the real tragedy of this story—not just the loss of those women, but the realization that this didn’t have to happen. That somewhere along the line, he could’ve chosen differently.
This case will always be close to me. Not just because of where I live, but because it’s a reminder that all of us carry something—but what we do with it… that’s the real story.
