Latest news with #GilgoBeachKiller
Daily Mail
10-06-2025
- Daily Mail
Creepy moment Gilgo Beach suspect's wife goes into 'secret' room hidden in the basement for the first time
The wife of accused Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect' is seen for the first time stepping inside a secret room in the basement of her Massapequa Park home- also known as the alleged 'kill room.' The new Peacock docuseries 'The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets,' takes viewers inside the hidden room located inside the gun vault where Heuermann stored nearly 280 firearms. Video shows Asa Ellerup entering the wood-paneled room where Heuermann's clothes hang and a safe is bolted to the wall with a 'warning' sticker. 'Explosives Inside. Do Not Attempt to Drill or Torch this Site.' 'He didn't want anyone to have access to (the secret room) so nobody would know not because he was hiding anything it was because he wanted to secure a safe in there,' she said. Asa's daughter Victoria Heuermann, 29, says 'that is the secret room everyone talks about. It is kind of a walk-in closet in the gun room that is actually underneath the stairs.' 'I actually didn't see what the inside actually looked like until after this happened. I wouldn't go in there myself,' she added. The 61-year-old married architect was arrested in July 2023 for the murder of three young woman. He was linked to four other murders bringing that number to seven. 'Alot of media are calling the vault the kill room that is where he stored all his guns,' Victoria reveals in the docuseries. 'As a kid he showed them to me and did teach me to use a gun when I was old enough but the vault was always locked,' she recalled. 'The only time I was in there was when he was in there.' In the clip, Ellerup shows where her ex-husband kept his guns along the wall which was now bare. 'The steel door has a combination lock. The lever here is an easy way out so no one can get locked in here,' she explained. David Jiminez, a longtime friend of Heuermann, who went to the gun range with him spoke about the time he went inside the basement and saw the 'the famous gun room.' 'I recalled vividly he (Rex) said in 30 years you are the fourth person to ever be in this room. I was like wow. That is when he showed me his collection,' he said. 'He started collecting rifles and all sorts of gun at 18. It was an amazing collection.' His vast collection of firearms were seized during one of the search warrants. And, the steel door that housed the gun vault that showed his initials 'RAH' - 'Rex Andrew Heuermann' was removed from the property in May. It is unclear what investigators found in the secret room that will not be disclosed until the trial begins. 'He didn't want anyone to have access to (the secret room) so nobody would know -not because he was hiding anything it was because he wanted to secure a safe in there,' she said Rex pictured with friends at the gun range Victoria talked about how much she admired her father growing up, and showed a wooden dollhouse he had built for her when she was a child. Several photos of a young Victoria are seen with her father during the episode. At one point, she speaks about her parents divorce that was finalized in April. 'They did this divorce to protect the assets. It is now legally her house. If we lost the house we would be homeless. It's our house but it doesn't mean we are not a family anymore,' she said. In the docuseries, Ellerup also talks about her first marriage and her son Christopher, she had before her marriage ended and before she met Heuermann. At the time, she was working at 7-Eleven, she said, and Heuermann was in college. 'I love tall, dark and handsome,' she confessed. 'I was madly in love with him.' Heuermann has lived in the home in Massapequa Park his whole life, with Ellerup moving in when the couple wed in 1995. Looking through old photo albums, she shows a much thinner and younger Heurmann. A smiling wedding photo. Pictures from their early years and when he was a young father. However, the recurring theme that comes up during the three- part docuseries is how his wife of 27 years could not have known. 'Rex was not seeing prostitutes. He was a family man,' Ellerup insists. 'He didn't do it.' 'I would need to hear if from Rex, face to face, that he killed these girls for me to believe it,' she said Ellerup along with her attorney Robert Macedonio have attended all of Heuermann's court hearings with Victoria attending, at times. In one clip, Asa is applying some makeup before she leaves her home and heads out to the courthouse. 'My husband never kept me out of anything that is why I am going to the courthouse that is why. I want to see it for myself. It is important for me to know what he is going through and I want to be a part of it.' One of the clips shows a smiling Asa in her attorney's office telling him that she 'really liked seeing him (Rex). It was comforting,' she said. 'I just don't see him that way. No. That is not the Rex I know,' she said in part. Rex Heuermann appears in Suffolk County criminal court Melissa Barthelemy (top left), Amber Costello (top right), Megan Waterman (bottom left), and Maureen Brainard-Barnes (bottom right) became known as the 'Gilgo Four' Valerie Mack (left) disappeared in 2000 and parts of her body were discovered in Long Island that November. Jessica Taylor (right) vanished in 2003 with some of her remains being found in Manorville that year Sandra Costilla (left) was murdered in 1993, making her the earliest known victim. Karen Vergata's (right) remains were identified in 2023. Heuermann has not been charged in connection to her death He is now 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. Since Heuermann's 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, cellphone data placing him in contact with some victims, and a chilling 'planning document' where he allegedly intricately detailed his kills. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Fears that a serial killer or killers were at large on Long Island began back in May 2010, when sex worker Shannan Gilbert, 24, vanished in bizarre circumstances one night. During a search for Gilbert in December 2010, officers came across the body of Melissa Barthelemy in the marshes by Gilgo Beach. Within days, three more women's bodies - Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes and Megan 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.
The Independent
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Daughter of accused Gilgo Beach killer believes her father ‘most likely' did it, new film says
The daughter of accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann believes he 'most likely' committed the infamous killings in New York even as her mother steadfastly defends her ex-husband's innocence in a new documentary released Tuesday. The admission from Victoria Heuermann isn't made on camera but through a statement from producers near the end of 'The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets,' a three-part documentary on NBC's streaming service Peacock. 'A week before the series release, Victoria Heuermann told the producers that based on publicly available facts that have been presented and explained to her, she now believes her father is most likely the Gilgo Beach killer,' reads a statement at the close of the final episode of the documentary, which was produced by musician 50 Cent's production company, G-Unit Film and Television. Bob Macedonio, an attorney for Heuermann's now ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, said in a statement after the documentary's release that 'time will only tell' whether his client will ever accept that her husband may have been a serial killer. Heuermann's lawyer didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The Manhattan architect has been charged with killing seven women, most of them sex workers, and dumping their bodies on a desolate parkway not far from Gilgo Beach on Long Island, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Manhattan. He has pleaded not guilty and is due back in Riverhead court June 17 as a judge continues to weigh whether to allow key DNA evidence into the trial. In the documentary, Victoria Heuermann struggles to reconcile her childhood memories with the portrait of the killer described by authorities. She says her father was around the family '90% of the time' and was never violent toward any of them. At the same time, Victoria Heuermann acknowledged there were times when he stayed home while the family went on vacation and that she was around 10 to 13 years old when the killings happened. Prosecutors say Heuerman committed some of the killings in the basement while his family was out of town. 'Whether or not I believe my dad did it or not, I'm on the fence about that,' said the now 28-year-old. 'Part of me thinks he didn't do it, but at the same time, I don't know, he could have just totally had a double life.' Ellerup, for her part, maintained she saw no 'abnormal behavior' in their nearly three decades of marriage. She dismissed a computer file prosecutors claim is a 'blueprint' of his crimes as 'absurd.' The document features a series of checklists for before, during and after a killing, such as a 'body prep' checklist that includes among other items a note to 'remove head and hands.' Ellerup also shrugged off other evidence prosecutors have enumerated in court documents, including a vast collection of bondage and torture pornography found on electronic devices seized from their home, and hairs linked to Heuermann that were recovered on most of the victims' bodies. At the same time, she revealed that in July 2009, around the time one of his alleged victims went missing, Heuermann suddenly renovated a bathroom while she and their two children were on vacation for weeks to visit her family in Iceland. But she noted her former husband eventually joined the family for their final week of their trip. 'My husband, he's a family man. He's my hero,' Ellerup said. 'What I want to say to him is, 'I love you, no matter what.'' Ellerup divorced Heuermann after his arrest in 2023. But in the documentary, Victoria Heuermann says the separation was for financial reasons to protect the family's assets. Indeed, the mother and daughter have been regularly attending court hearings with their attorney. The filmmakers even captured them speaking to Heuermann by phone from jail. A Peacock spokesperson said Ellerup was paid a location fee and a licensing fee for use of family archive materials, although the payments cannot go toward the defendant or his defense funds. The family, which also includes Ellerup's adult son from a prior marriage, is planning to put up its notoriously ramshackle house in well-to-do Massapequa Park for sale as they look to move to a property they own in South Carolina. ___ Follow Philip Marcelo on X: @philmarcelo.
Associated Press
10-06-2025
- Associated Press
Daughter of accused Gilgo Beach killer believes her father ‘most likely' did it, new film says
NEW YORK (AP) — The daughter of accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann believes he 'most likely' committed the infamous killings in New York even as her mother steadfastly defends her ex-husband's innocence in a new documentary released Tuesday. The admission from Victoria Heuermann isn't made on camera but through a statement from producers near the end of 'The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets,' a three-part documentary on NBC's streaming service Peacock. 'A week before the series release, Victoria Heuermann told the producers that based on publicly available facts that have been presented and explained to her, she now believes her father is most likely the Gilgo Beach killer,' reads a statement at the close of the final episode of the documentary, which was produced by musician 50 Cent's production company, G-Unit Film and Television. Bob Macedonio, an attorney for Heuermann's now ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, said in a statement after the documentary's release that 'time will only tell' whether his client will ever accept that her husband may have been a serial killer. Heuermann's lawyer didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The Manhattan architect has been charged with killing seven women, most of them sex workers, and dumping their bodies on a desolate parkway not far from Gilgo Beach on Long Island, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Manhattan. He has pleaded not guilty and is due back in Riverhead court June 17 as a judge continues to weigh whether to allow key DNA evidence into the trial. In the documentary, Victoria Heuermann struggles to reconcile her childhood memories with the portrait of the killer described by authorities. She says her father was around the family '90% of the time' and was never violent toward any of them. At the same time, Victoria Heuermann acknowledged there were times when he stayed home while the family went on vacation and that she was around 10 to 13 years old when the killings happened. Prosecutors say Heuerman committed some of the killings in the basement while his family was out of town. 'Whether or not I believe my dad did it or not, I'm on the fence about that,' said the now 28-year-old. 'Part of me thinks he didn't do it, but at the same time, I don't know, he could have just totally had a double life.' Ellerup, for her part, maintained she saw no 'abnormal behavior' in their nearly three decades of marriage. She dismissed a computer file prosecutors claim is a 'blueprint' of his crimes as 'absurd.' The document features a series of checklists for before, during and after a killing, such as a 'body prep' checklist that includes among other items a note to 'remove head and hands.' Ellerup also shrugged off other evidence prosecutors have enumerated in court documents, including a vast collection of bondage and torture pornography found on electronic devices seized from their home, and hairs linked to Heuermann that were recovered on most of the victims' bodies. At the same time, she revealed that in July 2009, around the time one of his alleged victims went missing, Heuermann suddenly renovated a bathroom while she and their two children were on vacation for weeks to visit her family in Iceland. But she noted her former husband eventually joined the family for their final week of their trip. 'My husband, he's a family man. He's my hero,' Ellerup said. 'What I want to say to him is, 'I love you, no matter what.'' Ellerup divorced Heuermann after his arrest in 2023. But in the documentary, Victoria Heuermann says the separation was for financial reasons to protect the family's assets. Indeed, the mother and daughter have been regularly attending court hearings with their attorney. The filmmakers even captured them speaking to Heuermann by phone from jail. A Peacock spokesperson said Ellerup was paid a location fee and a licensing fee for use of family archive materials, although the payments cannot go toward the defendant or his defense funds. The family, which also includes Ellerup's adult son from a prior marriage, is planning to put up its notoriously ramshackle house in well-to-do Massapequa Park for sale as they look to move to a property they own in South Carolina. ___ Follow Philip Marcelo on X: @philmarcelo.
Daily Mail
10-06-2025
- Daily Mail
Bombshell admission of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect's daughter
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.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Yahoo
Rex Heuermann's Ex-Wife Speaks Out in New Docuseries on Gilgo Beach Killings: Hear Clip of Their Phone Call
Asa Ellerup, the ex-wife of suspected Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann, is speaking out in a new docuseries The three-part series includes interviews with the couple's daughter, Victoria Heuermann is accused of killing seven women between 1993 and 2010Asa Ellerup, the ex-wife of suspected Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann, is speaking out in a new docuseries. 'The investigator says to me, 'Have you heard about the murders on Gilgo Beach?' Ellerup says in the trailer for the three-part series, The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets, premiering on Peacock on Tuesday, June 10. 'I've heard of them." The docuseries 'goes inside the suspect's home for the first time, where exclusive commentary from his own family unravels a chilling portrait of a man accused of living a double life and hiding dark secrets under their own roof,' according to a press release. In the trailer, Heuermann, who is in jail pending trial, can be heard talking to Ellerup on the phone while she is at home. 'How're you doing?,' Ellerup asks. "Alright, how are you today?" Heuermann replies. 'I'm doing great now that I've got you on the phone,' she says. Heuermann is accused of killing seven women between 1993 and 2010 and disposing of their bodies around the Long Island area. Authorities said the former architect is linked to the murders through cell tower data, a witness's description of his Chevrolet Avalanche, and DNA from hairs found on some of the victims. He was first arrested in July 2023 after DNA allegedly linked him to the alleged murders of Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Costello. Evidence later allegedly tied him to the homicides of four more women: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack. All seven of the women were working as escorts when they vanished without a trace. The remains of Waterman, Barthelemy, Costello and Brainard-Barnes were discovered along Gilgo Beach, an oceanside neighborhood on Long Island, N.Y., in 2010, while police were investigating the disappearance of another escort named Shannan Gilbert. PEOPLE' Ellerup filed for divorce from Heuermann in 2023 days after he was arrested for the murders of Waterman, Barthelemy and Costello. A divorce settlement was reached in March — even though Ellerup thinks her ex-husband is "not capable" of committing the crimes he's accused of, Ellerup's attorney Bob Macedonio previously told PEOPLE. (The divorce was finalized in April, Ellerup's attorney tells PEOPLE.) "This has been in the works for the last couple years," Macedonio said. "She needs to move on with her life for her and her children. She realizes that." Ellerup, he said, is "withholding any judgment on the guilt or innocence of Rex until the conclusion of the trial. She still maintains the position that the man that she was married to for 29 years was not capable of committing these horrific crimes." Also interviewed for the docuseries is the couple's daughter Victoria. The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets premieres Tuesday, June 10 on Peacock with all episodes available to stream. Read the original article on People
