Did Gilgo Beach Killer Rex Heuermann Really Ask About Butter?

According to reporting, Rex Heuermann sat in his cell at the Riverhead Correctional Facility six weeks after his arrest and wrote a letter. Not to a friend. Not to family. To Keith Hunter Jesperson — the Happy Face Killer — a man convicted of killing at least eight women during the 1990s.

And one of the things the Gilgo Beach killer reportedly wanted to know? Whether Jesperson had butter for his bread in prison.

The LISK — the man who admitted to strangling eight women and scattering their remains across Long Island — settling into jail life by asking another serial killer about food. According to those who’ve seen the letter, Heuermann’s tone was calm. Settled. He wrote that he’d been doing “a lot” of thinking. He reportedly called Jesperson’s letters “a help and a comfort.”

Jesperson had reportedly urged Heuermann to confess and take a plea. Heuermann ignored the advice for nearly three years — and then did exactly that when he pleaded guilty in April 2026 to seven murders and admitted killing an eighth.

I break down the full content of that letter, the psychology of why Jesperson reached out, why he then forwarded Heuermann’s response to a podcaster, and what forensic research tells us about why killers seek each other out. I also cover Heuermann’s jail reading list — crime novel after crime novel about serial killers — and what Sheriff Toulon said after watching him for over a thousand days without seeing a single change in the man’s expression.

The families’ attorney called them both what they are: losers and cowards who chose the most vulnerable people they could find.

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Disclaimer:

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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