Gilgo Beach Killer's Calm Confession to Ex-Wife Reveals Horrific Basement Murders
In a chilling face-to-face encounter, Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann sat across from his ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and calmly confessed to a string of murders that he revealed took place in the basement of their family home. Newly disclosed footage captures Ellerup describing how she entered the room and immediately sensed something was profoundly different.
'He looked very nervous - very, very nervous,' she recalled of Heuermann's demeanor. However, the initial tension quickly gave way to something more unsettling: a strange, almost familiar version of the man she once knew. 'When he started talking, it started feeling like that's the Rex I know,' she explained. 'But I didn't want to see that one. I wanted to see the one I needed to see.'
Formal Address and Immediate Admission
Determined to maintain emotional distance, Ellerup addressed him not as her husband but more formally. 'So Mr Heuermann,' she remembered saying, 'I understand that you are confessing to me on these murders - can you please tell me how many of these women did you kill?' His reply was both immediate and chilling in its stark simplicity: 'He said eight.'
Asked if Heuermann hesitated when answering, Ellerup stated: 'No - he just told me the answer.' Then came a detail that transformed the conversation from unsettling to horrifying. 'He said I wasn't home during all of them,' she continued. When pressed on where the killings had occurred, she said he admitted: 'They were killed in his room downstairs. All except one.'
Calculated Crimes and Mental Walls
Heuermann's admission was as calculated as the crimes themselves, as he calmly described how he waited until his wife was absent before turning their family home into a killing ground. At one point, Ellerup said she had to mentally shut down to endure what she was hearing from the suburban husband she shared a marital home with for nearly three decades. 'Well, I put a wall up,' she explained.
Her attorney added that even the tone of the exchange reflected how far removed the moment was from their former life together. 'She called him Mr. Heuermann,' the lawyer noted. 'So his response was, "Oh, are we formal now? Mrs. Ellerup?"' Ellerup had to somehow reconcile that the quiet husband she lived with was also a wanted serial killer - something he now freely admitted.
Courtroom Guilty Plea and Victim Details
This quiet, clinical exchange is set to air in the final part of a Peacock documentary detailing the life and crimes of the Gilgo Beach killer, whom prosecutors say terrorized Long Island for decades. Only weeks ago, Heuermann brought a decades-long investigation to a dramatic close. Inside a packed Suffolk County courtroom, the 62-year-old architect pleaded guilty to multiple murder charges tied to the notorious Gilgo Beach killings - a case that haunted the region for over 30 years.
He admitted to murdering seven women between 1993 and 2010 and acknowledged an eighth victim for which he had not been formally charged. Speaking in a flat, almost detached tone, Heuermann confirmed he strangled his victims, many of whom were young women working as escorts. Some were dismembered before their remains were scattered along remote stretches of coastline near Gilgo Beach.
- The victims, including Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, became known as the 'Gilgo Four.' Their discovery in 2010 sparked a sprawling investigation that dragged on for more than a decade.
- Additional victims, including Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Sandra Costilla and Karen Vergata, were later linked to the same killer through DNA and forensic evidence.
Investigation Breakthrough and Double Life
For years, the case seemed unsolvable, bogged down by missteps, jurisdictional tensions and a lack of clear suspects. However, everything changed in 2023 when investigators quietly zeroed in on Heuermann using a combination of cellphone data, witness accounts and crucial DNA evidence retrieved from a discarded pizza crust. The genetic material matched hairs found on victims, tying him definitively to the killings.
Prosecutors said they deliberately kept the investigation secret to avoid tipping him off. 'We wanted the one person who mattered, the murderer, to think it's business as usual,' Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney stated after the plea. For decades, prosecutors assert, Heuermann lived a double life - a suburban husband and father on the surface who was also a Manhattan-based architect returning each night to a quiet home in Massapequa Park.
Yet he was simultaneously a predator who used his family's absence as cover to lure women into the house and kill them out of sight. That home, investigators believe, may have been the site of some of the most horrifying moments in the case. Ellerup's account appears to confirm what prosecutors long suspected: that at least some victims were brought inside the house, into a basement room, where they were murdered while his family was away.
Family Impact and Lingering Questions
Prosecutors have emphasized that Ellerup and the couple's children were out of town during the murders and had no knowledge of the crimes. In court, Ellerup sat quietly as her former husband detailed his actions, at times gripping her seat, at others holding hands with her daughter. After the hearing, she issued a brief statement expressing sympathy for the victims' families and requesting privacy.
For those families, the guilty plea brought a measure of long-awaited closure. 'This has been a long journey of hope - hope that one day we would stand here and say her name with justice beside it,' Melissa Cann, sister of victim Maureen Brainard-Barnes, said after the hearing. Elizabeth Baczkiel, mother of Jessica Taylor, added that the plea lifted a burden carried for years: 'I am glad that this is over as far as him pleading guilty. It took a big chunk of stress off of me and my family.'
Nevertheless, even with the confession, questions persist. Investigators believe there may be additional victims. Others point to disturbing evidence recovered from Heuermann's home, including what prosecutors described as a 'planning document' outlining how to select, kill and dispose of victims. The full extent of his crimes may yet unfold as investigations continue.
