Rex Heuermann, 62, admitted to killing eight women
Credit: James Carbone-Pool/Getty; James Carbone/Newsday RM via Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Gilgo Beach Serial Killer Rex Heuermann told his wife he killed seven women in their Massapequa Park, N.Y., home
- “He said he killed eight women — eight,” Asa Ellerup said in a preview of the final episode of The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets, on Peacock. “He said I wasn’t home through all of them. He said they were killed in his room downstairs all except one”
- Heuermann pleaded guilty to multiple murders in early April
Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann told his former wife that he killed eight women — seven of them in their Massapequa Park, N.Y. home, she revealed in a recent interview.
“He looked nervous, very nervous,” Asa Ellerup said in a preview of the final episode of The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets on Peacock. “And I said to him, ‘So Mr. Heuermann, I understand that you are confessing to me on these murders.”
Ellerup said she asked the 62-year-old former architect and father of two from Massapequa Park, N.Y., how many women he killed.
“He said he killed eight women — eight,” she said. “He said I wasn't home through all of them. He said they were killed in his room downstairs, all except one.”
During the interview, Ellerup said she put a “wall up” when she spoke to Heuermann.
Credit: James Carbone/Newsday via AP, Pool
When asked if she felt like she was sitting across from a stranger, she responded, “No, when he started talking it started feeling like the Rex I know. I didn't want to see that one. I wanted to see the one I needed to see.”
On April 8, Heuermann admitted to killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Sandra Costilla and Karen Vergata.
The remains of the young women were discovered between 1993 and 2011.
His murder spree went unsolved for more than a decade until he was arrested in July 2023.
Authorities discovered the remains of Barthelemy, Waterman, Brainard-Barnes and Amber Costello along a stretch of Ocean Parkway in Long Island, N.Y., in 2010.
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The women, who went missing between 2007 and 2010, were known as the Gilgo Four. Heuermann was linked to those murders by burner phones, as well as DNA from hairs found on some of the victims.
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Heuermann was charged with their murders along with the killings of Taylor, Mack and Costilla.
Mack's partial remains were found inside a black plastic bag on Nov. 19, 2000, while Taylor's partial remains were found in 2003. More of their body parts were discovered near Gilgo Beach in 2011.
At his plea hearing, Heuermann admitted to killing Vergata, whose partial remains were discovered on Long Island's Fire Island on April 20, 1996. Additional body parts were found on Long Island's Tobay Beach on April 11, 2011.
Authorities found evidence that Heuermann searched for articles about a task force that was formed to investigate the murders in 2022 and used an online account to repeatedly view images of his victims and their families.
The final episode of The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets on Peacock airs on April 23.
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