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.
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