The Gilgo Beach Murders: The Case Against Rex Heuermann

Rex Heuermann confessed to eight murders in front of his ex-wife and daughter, in sessions run by a counselor who had no legal right to be there. Legal analyst Eric Faddis returns to dig deeper into what that could mean for Heuermann's case going forward, starting with the theory that could actually carry weight on appeal: did he plead guilty specifically to keep his family off the witness stand,...

For nearly three years, Allison Winter sat across from Rex Heuermann inside the Suffolk County Jail, week after week, counseling him and his family through some of the most consequential moments of his case. She was there around the time he privately confessed to his son and wife. What she wasn't, according to prosecutors, was a licensed clinical social worker. Winter now faces eighteen felony cha...

A man who spent decades organizing murder into checklists and phases may have organized his exit from the justice system the same way. This look back sits with the uncomfortable possibility at the center of Rex Heuermann's guilty plea: that it wasn't a confession — it was one last piece of planning. One thousand days of maintaining his innocence. Every motion denied. Every legal door closed. And t...

She sat in the last row. Her ex-husband stood at the front of a packed courtroom and admitted to killing eight women over seventeen years — while she shared a bed with him, raised their daughter with him, built what she thought was a life. Rex Heuermann's guilty plea is now the legal record. And Asa Ellerup, the woman who once called him her hero, walked out of that courtroom into a wrongful death...

Maureen Brainard-Barnes was a songwriter. Her sister said she never got to show the world how talented she was. She was twenty-five, a mother of two, facing eviction and fighting for custody when she rode the train from Connecticut to Manhattan in July 2007 because she had run out of options. Her daughter Nicolette was seven. Nicolette would later stand at the indictment hearing and speak publicly...

Asa Ellerup called Rex Heuermann her savior. Their daughter Victoria publicly said she believes he most likely committed the killings. And on April 8, 2026, he stood in a courtroom and confirmed it — pleading guilty to seven murders and admitting to an eighth while his ex-wife and daughter sat in the gallery. This look back sits with what that moment did to a family already fractured by opposite c...

Valerie Mack was born into loss. Placed in foster care as a child, adopted by the Mack family, estranged from her own son by her early twenties. She was working in Philadelphia when she vanished — and after she was found, it took twenty years for anyone to learn her name. Jessica Taylor was twenty years old, working near Port Authority in the same Midtown neighborhood where Rex Heuermann ran his a...

Sandra Costilla was twenty-eight years old when her remains were found in the woods of Southampton, Long Island, in 1993. For thirty years, her case sat cold. Investigators pursued the wrong suspect. Nobody connected her death to the Gilgo Beach killings. And then DNA technology that didn't exist during her lifetime linked her to Rex Heuermann — and pushed the entire timeline of his alleged crimes...

One word. When prosecutors asked Rex Heuermann in a Riverhead courtroom how he killed eight women over seventeen years, he answered with a single word: strangulation. No emotion. No elaboration. Victims' families packed the gallery, weeping, while the man who had maintained his innocence for nearly three years matter-of-factly confirmed what investigators had spent decades trying to prove. This lo...

Melissa Barthelemy’s sister answered a phone call from the man who had just killed Melissa. He described what he did. That detail emerged during the sentencing of Rex Heuermann — three consecutive life terms, a hundred years, families chanting ogre as officers removed him from the courtroom. The sentence is supposed to be the end. But inside the plea deal is a question the families can’t let go of...

Rex Heuermann is sentenced. Life without parole. Eight murders. It’s over. So why would he agree to sit in a room with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and walk them through what he did? Former FBI behavioral analyst Robin Dreeke says the answer is simple: information is the only currency Heuermann has left. He’ll use it to stay relevant, to feel important, to maintain some sense of control from...

Rex Heuermann is serving life without parole for the Gilgo Beach murders. He confessed to eight killings. Seven happened in the Massapequa Park basement. He admitted it privately to Asa and Victoria before his courtroom plea. He told Victoria the victims were not real people to him. And Asa Ellerup is still talking to him. Still visiting. Still managing the relationship on his terms. The Peacock d...

Rex Heuermann sat across from Asa Ellerup and told her he killed eight women. Seven in their basement. He described the dismemberments. She filed for divorce to keep the house. Then she gutted the basement, put down new floors, hung a cross on the wall, arranged stuffed animals on the shelves, and moved in. She sleeps there. She has visited Rex in jail approximately twelve times since the confessi...

Amanda Funderburg stood in a Suffolk County courtroom and addressed the man who killed her sister, Melissa Barthelemy. She told the court about a phone call. A call Heuermann made to her after the murder. What he said on that call is not something you forget. Heuermann was sentenced to consecutive life terms. Judge Mazzei was visibly emotional. He asked Heuermann if he was sorry. Called him a disg...

He answered for eight murders. He did not answer for Karen Vergata’s — even though he confessed to it in the same courtroom. He did not answer for the civil conspiracy his ex-wife now faces. And he did not answer for the women who disappeared near his properties in states that can execute him. Rex Heuermann’s sentencing gave the Gilgo Beach families a moment they earned. Three consecutive life sen...

According to reporting, Rex Heuermann sat in his cell at the Riverhead Correctional Facility six weeks after his arrest and wrote a letter. Not to a friend. Not to family. To Keith Hunter Jesperson — the Happy Face Killer — a man convicted of killing at least eight women during the 1990s. And one of the things the Gilgo Beach killer reportedly wanted to know? Whether Jesperson had butter for his b...

Missing women. In more than one state. Near property Rex Heuermann purchased during the same years he was killing on Long Island. That is the piece of the Gilgo Beach case that did not end with the sentencing. Heuermann pleaded guilty to eight murders in Suffolk County. He received three consecutive life terms plus a hundred years. He waived his appeal. The New York case is legally finished. But t...

She did a documentary. She reportedly collected over a million dollars for it. And while she was talking to cameras about nightmares in the basement, the families of Rex Heuermann’s victims were preparing a lawsuit that calls her a co-conspirator. Asa Ellerup is named in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Valerie Mack’s son. So is her daughter Victoria. So is Rex Heuermann. The allegation is civil...

Melissa Barthelemy’s sister answered a call from Melissa’s phone. The voice on the other end was Rex Heuermann’s. He described what he had done to Melissa’s body. That testimony was delivered during Heuermann’s Gilgo Beach sentencing — and it may be the single most consequential moment from a proceeding that was supposed to close the case. The sentencing gave the families what they came for. The j...

Rex Heuermann told Asa Ellerup he killed eight women. Seven of them in the basement. She called him Mr. Heuermann during the conversation. Then she gutted that basement, rebuilt it from the studs, and moved into it. She sleeps there. She says the dreams follow her every night. She says they always will. She chose not to attend sentencing. Her daughter says she believes Rex most likely did it. A vi...

Asa Ellerup and her daughter Victoria reportedly received over a million dollars for their participation in the Peacock documentary The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets. They gave the cameras access to the Massapequa Park house. They walked through the basement. They talked about their memories and their doubts and their grief on a platform watched by millions of people — while Valerie Mack's...

He faced the DA and answered every question in one or two words. Strangulation. Yes. Eight. He did not turn around to look at the families of the women he killed. He did not look at his own daughter. He stood with his hands shackled behind his back in a dark suit and gave the courtroom nothing. Rex Heuermann maintained a double life for seventeen years — suburban architect and father on one side,...

Victoria Heuermann said it on camera: while we were having fun on vacation, he was home murdering and dismembering women here. She has told documentary producers she now believes her father most likely committed the Gilgo Beach murders. She got to that conclusion after years of publicly standing beside her mother, walking into the house, going down into the basement, and trying to square the fathe...

For three years after his arrest, Asa Ellerup defended Rex Heuermann on camera. She called him a family man. She said they had the wrong man. Then on April 8, 2026, he pleaded guilty to eight murders — seven inside their home. He told Asa directly. Twenty-seven years inside that house. The same meals. The same routines. The same man — who was living an entirely different life. He told her seven of...

Asa Ellerup sat across from the man she was married to for decades and heard him say he killed eight women — most of them inside their home. She asked about dismemberment. He told her yes. She walked out of that jailhouse, told a camera crew she still believes he loved her, and moved back into the house where it happened. Into the room where it happened. This week's review brings together the most...