Rex Heuermann, who recently confessed to murdering eight women, admitted to his ex-wife that he killed seven of his victims in the basement of their Long Island home, according to a new documentary.
In a teaser clip from the Peacock series The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets, Asa Ellerup, who was married to Heuermann at the time of the murders, recounts a tense conversation with her “nervous” ex-husband shortly before his shocking guilty plea on April 8.
“I said to him, ‘So Mr. Heuermann, I understand that you are confessing to me on those murders,” she says in the clip. “Can you tell me how many of these women did you kill?,’” Ellerup pushes.
“He said, ‘eight.’”
Ellerup’s attorney, Bob Macedonio, questions her about the number, asking “Who was the eighth? Because he’s charged with seven.”
“I didn’t ask,” she replied.
The clip does not state when the conversation took place, but Ellerup, who filed for divorce from Huermann after his 2023 arrest, described him as being “very nervous – very, very nervous” as he prepared to speak with her. She says he insisted the eight women he confessed to killing were his only victims.
Ellerup says that in order to have the conversation she “put a wall up” — by using formalities and calling him “Mr. Huermann,” as if he wasn’t her husband of 27 years.
“When he started talking, it started feeling like ‘that’s the Rex I know,’” Ellerup says. “But I didn’t want to see that one, I wanted to see the one I needed to see.”
Heuermann, 62, an architectural consultant, was arrested in July 2023. Investigators linked him to the killings through DNA evidence recovered from a discarded pizza crust outside his Manhattan office.
Earlier this month, he pleaded guilty to murdering seven women – Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Sandra Costilla and Valerie Mack – ending a case that had baffled investigators for more than a decade.
Heuermann also admitted in court that he “caused the death” of Karen Vergata, a Manhattan mother of two, who disappeared in 1996. Her skull was found on Ocean Parkway in 2011 but her name was not released until 2023. Heuermann was never charged in Vergata’s death. He admitted to her murder as part of his plea deal. Heuermann admitted to strangling all of the women and dismembering some of them.
According to Ellerup, Heuermann told her that most of the killings happened inside their Massapequa Park home while she and their children were away.
“He said yes, they were killed in his room downstairs, all except one,” she says. “He said I wasn’t home during all of them.”
Most of the victims’ remains were later discovered along the desolate area of Gilgo Beach.
The documentary’s final episode, set to be released Thursday, includes interviews with family members, a psychotherapist who treated Heuermann, and a former FBI profiler.
The project has drawn criticism after reports that the family was paid more than $1 million for their participation.
In a statement, Ellerup’s attorney said: “This has been an extremely emotional and painful process for the family to endure and come to terms with the allegations that Rex Heuermann was the Gilgo Beach serial killer. Ms. Ellerup would like the focus to remain where it belongs – on the victims and their families, who have suffered immeasurable and lasting losses.”
Prosecutors said the killings spanned from 1993 to 2010, with bodies discovered along Ocean Parkway during a search for a missing woman, Shannan Gilbert.
Heuermann admitted to strangling the victims and disposing of their remains across Suffolk County. He is expected to receive multiple life sentences at his upcoming sentencing on June 17.
🚨 BREAKING: Watch the full clip here ➤
