Asa Ellerup, the ex-wife of convicted Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann, has disclosed that he confessed to killing multiple women in the basement of their family home while she was away. The revelation comes in a new Peacock documentary series, The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets, a teaser clip of which was released on Tuesday.
Ellerup, who finalised her divorce from Heuermann in March 2025 after 27 years of marriage, said in the clip that during a jail cell meeting she asked him how many women he had killed. He replied, “Eight?” although he was formally charged with and pleaded guilty to seven murders. Heuermann later acknowledged the eighth victim in court but did not elaborate.
“He said yes – they were killed in his room downstairs,” Ellerup recalled, adding that the killings occurred while she was not at the Massapequa home. Investigators later discovered a soundproof vault-like room, hundreds of guns, and detailed plans for the murders at the property. The bodies of the victims, killed between 1993 and 2010, were mostly found in marshes along a stretch of Long Island’s coastline.
Heuermann’s guilty plea on 8 April covered the murders of Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes (the “Gilgo Four”), as well as Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Sandra Costilla. He also confessed to the uncharged murder of Karen Vergata. In court, he said he used strangulation for each killing, occasionally dismembering victims and wrapping them in burlap sacking. Hairs found on the burlap helped link him to the crimes.
After the hearing, Ellerup expressed sympathy for the victims’ families and requested privacy for her own family during a “very difficult time”. Her lawyer, Bob Macedonio, stated that the process had been “extremely emotional and painful” for the family, and that Ellerup wished for the focus to remain on the victims. Heuermann is due to be sentenced to multiple life terms on 17 June.
