Bombshell admission of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect's daughter

Daily Mail​

10-06-2025

Rex Heuermann's daughter has made the bombshell admission that she is 'on the fence' about whether or not she believes the man who raised her really is the depraved Gilgo Beach serial killer.
In the new Peacock docuseries 'The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets,' airing Tuesday, Victoria Heuermann finally breaks her silence about her dad's arrest for the string of murders that have long plagued Long Island.
While her mom Asa Ellerup doesn't waver in her denial that her husband could have committed the horrific crimes, Victoria reveals she has doubts about his innocence.
'Whether or not I believe my dad did it or not I'm on the fence about that,' she says.
'There's part of me that thinks he didn't do it… but at the same time, I don't know. He could have totally had a double life.'
Victoria reveals her turmoil over what she thought she knew about her dad and what is now being alleged about him as she is confronted with the timeline of when many of the victims went missing.
According to prosecutors, Heuermann would lure and murder sex workers while his wife and two children were out of town on vacation.
Megan Waterman, a 22-year-old mom, was last seen alive in the early hours of June 6 2010, leaving a Holiday Inn hotel in Hauppauge.
Her body was found wrapped in burlap along Ocean Parkway close to Gilgo Beach in December 2010.
The remains of three other victims - Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes and Melissa Barthelemy - were found close by, together becoming known as the 'Gilgo Four'.
Two days before Waterman disappeared, Victoria had gone on a trip with her mom and brother Christopher to the Six Flags amusement park in Maryland.
Her dad stayed behind in Long Island.
Victoria remembers the vacation as 'a lot of fun' and 'great memories.'
Now, asked if she thinks it is a coincidence that the victims disappeared when the family was away, she admits: 'I'm not sure.'
'I don't know whether it did or it didn't happen,' she says, adding that she was between 10 and 13 years old when the Gilgo Four were murdered.
'Now that I do look back on my childhood I do find it very hard to believe my dad actually did all this,' she says.
'I saw him at regular times every day, morning, night and the vacations that he did join us on.'
However, she says she is 'on the fence.'
'But then at the same time there was a lot of hours out the day that I also was not home, the vacations that he did not join us on... He was definitely very much around 90 percent of the time but then there's the other 10 percent of the time that he was not.'
She adds: 'I feel like I can't know whether or not he did or didn't because I was not around, I was too young to understand.'
Victoria also recalls moments growing up where her dad would snap.
The 61-year-old ran RH Consultants, the Midtown Manhattan architecture firm that he founded in 1994.
Up until his arrest, Victoria worked with her dad at the firm.
'I was honestly really inspired by my dad,' she says of his work.
'I looked up to him. I felt 'damn, I have some really big shoes to fill.''
However, she remembers times when he would come home from work 'frustrated' and lash out, throwing plates.
'His job was very demanding and it started to be visible that the stress was weighing on his mental health,' she says.
'Sometimes he would come home frustrated. He needed to wind down.'
She insists he was never violent towards any of the family.
'But he never hit any of us. The worst he would do was he would throw a plate in the sink. That's the worst,' she says.
Victoria's shocking admission of her doubts about her father comes as the family has put on a united front, with mom and daughter attending Heuermann's court hearings.
It also marks a rift in the family with Ellerup refusing to accept he could be responsible for murdering seven young women.
Heuermann gave an interview in February 2022 about being an architect in New York (seen). Victoria says she 'looked up to' her dad in his career
In the show, Heuermann's wife of more than two decades dismisses the evidence against him and insists she will only ever believe he is a serial killer if he confesses to her himself.
'I would need to hear it from Rex, face-to-face, for me to believe he killed these girls,' she says.
Heuermann's wife also describes him as 'my hero' and says the first time she visited him in prison was like going 'on a first date.'
'I haven't seen him in all this time, and when I went down there, I was excited, and like I was, I don't know, I guess on a first date,' she says.
Despite her unwavering loyalty and refusal to accept his alleged crimes, Ellerup did file for divorce from her husband just days on from his arrest.
The divorce - which the family admits was done to protect their assets - was finalized this March. The details of the settlement have not been released.
Since then, Ellerup has continued to attend Heuermann's court hearings where the defense is trying to toss critical DNA evidence in the case.
Heuermann's legal team is also trying to break up his upcoming trial into five separate trials.
Heuermann is currently charged with the murders of seven women over a two-decade reign of horror running from 1993 to 2011.
All the victims were working as sex workers when they vanished.
Their bodies were then found dumped along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach as well as other remote spots on Long Island.
Some of the victims had been bound, while others had been dismembered and their remains discarded across multiple locations.
Fears that a serial killer or killers were at large on Long Island began back in May 2010, when Shannan Gilbert vanished in bizarre circumstances one night.
The 24-year-old, who was working as a sex worker, had gone to see a client in the Oak Beach Association community when she made a terrifying 911 call, saying that someone was trying to kill her.
During a search for Gilbert in December 2010, officers came across the body of Barthelemy in the marshes by Gilgo Beach.
Within days, three more women's bodies - Costello, Brainard-Barnes and Waterman - had been found.
The four victims, who became known as the Gilgo Four, had been dumped within a quarter mile of each other, some of them bound and wrapped in burlap.
Over the following months, the remains of seven other victims were found.
Gilbert's body was found last. Investigators maintain that she was not a victim, but died by accidental drowning after she fled into the dense thicket that night.
The Gilgo Beach serial killer case went unsolved for more than a decade - hampered by a corrupt police chief, James Burke, who was ultimately jailed for beating a man who stole porn from his police cruiser.
In July 2023 - following the launch of a new taskforce - Heuermann was dramatically arrested as he left his office in midtown Manhattan.
He was initially charged with the murders of Costello, Barthelemy and Waterman.
Since then, he has been charged with the murders of four more victims: Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack.
Costilla had never been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killer case until Heuermann was hit with charges for her murder in 2024.
Her murder expands the timeline that the accused serial killer is alleged to have been actively preying on victims to more than 30 years ago.
Heuermann was linked to the murders following a tip about a pickup truck.
According to a witness, Costello had disappeared after going to see a client who drove a green Chevy Avalanche in September 2010.
He also matched the description of the client seen by the witness.
Since his arrest, prosecutors have unveiled a trove of evidence against him, including hairs belonging to him and his family members found on some of the victims and cellphone data placing him in contact with some victims.
Investigators also found a chilling 'planning document' on a hard drive in the basement of Heuermann's family home including a section detailed 'PREP' and noting that 'small' women were preferred.
Heuermann has not been charged in connection to the deaths of the other four victims found along Ocean Parkway: Karen Vergata, Tanya Jackson and her two-year-old daughter Tatiana Dykes, and an unidentified victim, known only as 'Asian Doe.'
Jackson - a US Army veteran - and her infant daughter were finally identified this April, having for years been known only as 'Peaches' and 'Baby Doe.'
The 61-year-old architect has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.