The Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann confessed to his ex-wife during a jailhouse visit that he murdered eight women, and that all but one died inside the family's Massapequa Park home, in a basement room beneath the roof where his wife and children slept. The account, relayed by ex-wife Asa Ellerup, will be featured in the fourth installment of the Peacock documentary series "The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets," the New York Post reported.
The nearly 90-minute episode, titled "The Confession," centers on Heuermann's face-to-face admission to Ellerup and the couple's daughter, Victoria. It arrives weeks after Heuermann pleaded guilty on April 8 to killing seven women and admitted to an eighth murder, the culmination of a case that haunted Long Island for three decades.
Heuermann faces sentencing on June 17. The documentary series was produced in partnership with the New York Post.
In the episode's teaser, Ellerup describes addressing Heuermann formally during the jailhouse visit. She recounted asking him directly how many women he killed.
"Mr. Heuermann, I understand that you are confessing to me on these murders, can you please tell me how many of these women did you kill?"
Ellerup said Heuermann told her he killed eight women. Her lawyer, Bob Macedonio, pressed on that number. Macedonio asked, "Eight? Who was the eighth? Because he's charged with seven." Ellerup did not say she asked Heuermann to identify the eighth victim. "I didn't ask," she said.
Macedonio then asked whether Heuermann admitted to killing the women inside their Massapequa Park home while she was away. Ellerup said Heuermann confirmed it.
"He said 'yes.' They were killed in his room downstairs. All except one."
That detail, "his room downstairs", places the alleged killings inside the home where Ellerup, Victoria, and the rest of the family lived. The identity of the one victim allegedly not killed inside the home remains unclear from the documentary material.
The New York Post's reporting traces Heuermann's admitted crimes back to 1993, when he picked up Sandra Costilla, 28, before strangling her and dumping her body near Fish Cove Road in Southampton. Hunters found her remains days later. It was the earliest known killing in the spree that would stretch to 2010.
In April 1996, Heuermann strangled and dismembered Karen Vergata after arranging to meet her. Her skull was eventually found on Ocean Parkway, but her name was not publicly released until 2023, twelve years after the discovery. Heuermann confessed to Vergata's killing but has not been formally charged in her death, AP News reported.
Valerie Mack, 24, vanished between September and December 2000. Prosecutors said Heuermann dismembered her and dumped her remains in woods in Manorville. Jessica Taylor, 20, was strangled, dismembered, and her body dumped in July 2003.
The case that first drew national attention, the discovery of remains along Gilgo Beach, included Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, whose body was found in December 2010, more than three years after Heuermann arranged a meeting with her. Heuermann also pleaded guilty to killing Amber Lynn Costello, 27; Megan Waterman, 22; and Melissa Barthelemy, 24. All four were among the so-called "Gilgo Four" whose remains were found in close proximity along Ocean Parkway.
As we previously reported when Heuermann entered his guilty plea, the case had lingered unsolved for years, with victims' families left in agonizing uncertainty.
Heuermann evaded detection for decades while working as an architect and living what Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney described as a double life.
Tierney said at the time of the plea:
"This defendant walked among us playacting as a normal suburban dad when all along he was targeting these women for death."
Investigators ultimately tied Heuermann to the killings through a combination of vehicle records, cellphone data, internet search history, and DNA recovered after he discarded pizza crusts, AP News reported. Newsmax reported that investigators found what they described as a "blueprint" for the killings on Heuermann's computer, checklists with reminders to limit noise, clean the bodies, and destroy evidence. He used burner phones to contact victims and wrapped some bodies in burlap before dumping them.
The methodical nature of the crimes underscores Tierney's assessment of Heuermann's motive.
"He thought that by killing them, he could silence them forever and get away with murder. But he was wrong."
For nearly thirty years, he was not wrong. The gap between the first killing in 1993 and the arrest speaks to the difficulty of linking serial crimes across jurisdictions, a pattern seen in other long-cold serial homicide cases like the Texas Killing Fields.
In court on April 8, Heuermann pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of intentional murder. When asked how each victim died, he answered "strangulation" eight times, Breitbart reported.
His defense attorney, Michael Brown, said at the plea hearing: "There came a point in this defense where Rex said, 'I want to plead guilty.'"
For the families who waited years, in some cases more than two decades, the plea brought a measure of relief that no documentary episode can fully capture. Elizabeth Baczkiel, the mother of Jessica Taylor, told reporters: "I am glad that this is over. As far as his pleading guilty, it took a big chunk of stress off my family, and I accept the plea wholeheartedly."
Melissa Cann, sister of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, addressed her late sister directly: "Justice finally found its way to you. Your voice was never silenced. Your story never forgotten."
Those families endured years of silence from a system that failed to connect the dots. Long Island has seen other grim cases involving unidentified remains and missing persons, and the Gilgo Beach investigation became a symbol of how cold cases can languish when agencies lack coordination or urgency.
The upcoming episode also includes first-ever interviews with Alison Minter, a therapist who counseled both Heuermann and his family. Ellerup finalized her divorce from Heuermann last year.
Several questions hang over the case even as sentencing approaches. Ellerup's account raises the obvious: who is the eighth victim? Heuermann was charged with seven murders. He admitted in court to killing Karen Vergata, but has not been formally charged in her death. Whether the "eighth" referenced by Ellerup corresponds to Vergata, or to someone else entirely, remains unresolved.
The identity of the one victim allegedly not killed inside the Massapequa Park home is also unclear. And the documentary material does not specify when the jailhouse confession to Ellerup and Victoria occurred, or which facility hosted the visit.
Serious criminal cases, whether predatory crimes in Virginia schools or a three-decade serial murder spree on Long Island, demand that the justice system move with purpose and hold nothing back from the public. The families of eight dead women deserved answers long before 2026.
Heuermann faces sentencing on June 17. The system finally caught up to him. The women he killed never had that chance.
