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Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- 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.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Gilgo Beach suspect's wife's very intimate reason she went back to live in spine-chilling 'murder house'
The wife of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann has revealed her romantic reason for wanting to return to the home where he allegedly murdered seven women. In a clip from the new Peacock docuseries 'The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets,' exclusively obtained by Heuermann's family members are seen coming back to the Massapequa Park property in the aftermath of the police raid. The 61-year-old suspect was arrested in July 2023 on suspicion of being the depraved serial killer who had terrorized Long Island and evaded capture for more than a decade. Following his arrest, the family's home was transformed into a crime scene, with law enforcement descending on the property for evidence linked to the murders. In the exclusive clip, the accused killer's wife Asa Ellerup and their adult children Victoria and Christopher are seen surveying the chaos and damage left behind. Victoria, who worked with her father at his Midtown Manhattan architecture firm, complains that the mess feels like cops are 'trying to leave us for dead.' 'When we got back home after they raided it, it was not recognizable,' she says. 'No beds, no clothes, our bathroom sink was broken. They should have actually deemed our house uninhabitable.' She adds: 'It was as if they were trying to leave us for dead.' But, despite the mess - and the haunting secrets the house may hold - Ellerup reveals why she wanted to move back in. 'We needed to come home. We have a lot of sentimental stuff in the house,' she says. 'And I still feel Rex is here,' she adds. Ellerup's sentimental view of her husband of two decades comes as she refuses to believe he could be the infamous Gilgo Beach serial killer. Elsewhere in the new docuseries, she gushes over her husband, calling him 'my hero' and 'wonderful' and describing the first time she visited him in prison as like going 'on a first date.' She insists authorities have 'the wrong man' for the heinous crimes. 'I know what bad men are capable of doing,' she says. 'I've seen it, and I've heard it from other men. Not my husband. You have the wrong man.' The series marks the first on-camera interviews the family has done - and the first footage from inside the home where the killings are alleged to have taken place. In the exclusive clip obtained by the footage shows the family members among piles of their belongings as they discuss some items being broken and another being 'pulled out of the wall.' At one point, the camera hones in on an old doll in a display case, a Satanic poster and a mug emblazoned with 'Rex.' Photos also show mountains of boxes and household items strewn around the home and a panel cut out of the bathtub. 'The kids they were crying themselves to sleep before we actually got into the house,' Ellerup says. 'We were all doing it. Fear anxiety, guilt, all of those emotions are going like a rollercoaster, rolling, rolling and rolling and rolling.' Heuermann has lived in the home in Massapequa Park his whole life, with Ellerup moving in when the couple wed in 1995. 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. Some of the victims had been bound, while others had been dismembered and their remains discarded across multiple locations. 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 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 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. 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 sex toys 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 three women: Costello, Barthelemy and Waterman. Since then, he has been charged with the murders of four more victims: Maureen 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. Melissa Barthelemy (top left), Amber Costello (top right), Megan Waterman (bottom left), and Maureen Brainard-Barnes (bottom right) became known as the 'Gilgo Four' 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 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 Heuermann had been 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. Hairs belonging to Heuermann, Ellerup and Victoria were found on some of the victims, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors said investigators have 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.'
