Daughter of accused Gilgo Beach killer believes her father ‘most likely’
did it, new film says
[June 11, 2025]
By PHILIP MARCELO
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.
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 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.”
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Authorities work at the home of suspect Rex Heuermann, bottom
right, in Massapequa Park, N.Y., July 24, 2023. Heuermann has been
charged with killing at least three women in the long-unsolved
slayings known as the Gilgo Beach killings. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig,
File)
Prosecutors say 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 visited her
family in Iceland. But she noted her former husband eventually
joined the family for their final week of the 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 filmmakers captured the family speaking to Heuermann by
phone from jail, and the mother and daughter have been regularly
attending court hearings with their attorney.
The family, which also includes Ellerup’s adult son from a prior
marriage, is also 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.
Ryan McCormick, an NBCUniversal spokesperson, declined to say how
much family was compensated, though he said the payments could not
go toward Heuermann or his defense funds.
The documentary was produced by rapper 50 Cent’s G-Unit Film and
Television production company alongside Texas Crew Productions and
New York Post Entertainment.
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