Before Dumping Victims at Gilgo Beach, Rex Heuermann Tortured Them in His Long Island Home

For years, the Heuermann house on First Avenue in Massapequa Park, N.Y., some 40 miles outside of New York City, looked like the sort of place people might notice only because it seemed a little out of step with the neighborhood around it.

The modest, weathered home sat in a middle-class Long Island village where tidy lawns and commuter routines made up the suburban vibe of Massapequa Park, a small and relatively wealthy Nassau County community on Long Island’s South Shore.

But behind that ordinary exterior, authorities say “Long Island Serial Killer” Rex Heuermann was hiding a decades-long double life. In April 2026, Heuermann, a Manhattan architect and longtime Massapequa Park resident, pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and admitted to killing an eighth in the case long known as the Gilgo Beach serial killings. In court, he admitted that he strangled all eight victims and dismembered some before disposing of their bodies.

The plea brought a long-awaited answer to a case that had haunted Long Island since 2010, when the remains of several women were found near Ocean Parkway by Gilgo Beach. But it also recast Heuermann’s home as something more disturbing than a typical suspect’s address. Prosecutors, investigators and Heuermann’s ex-wife have all since pointed to the Massapequa Park house as a central component to how the killings were carried out and concealed.

According to a December 2024 bail application, Heuermann was initially charged in the deaths of Amber Costello, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman, then Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Sandra Costilla and Valerie Mack. The filing described the charges as spanning from Costilla’s killing in 1993 to the Gilgo Four murders more than a decade later.

For investigators, the house became a key focus almost immediately after Heuermann’s arrest in July 2023. Police spent 12 days searching the Massapequa Park home before crime scene tape was removed and his wife, Asa Ellerup, got back with their adult children. When investigators returned to the home in May 2024, the Associated Press reported that forensic and crime lab units were again seen at the property, with white tents and barriers set up outside.

What they found inside helped deepen the picture of the home as a private venue for obsession and planning. In the December 2024 bail filing, prosecutors said investigators recovered publications about the Gilgo Beach case and related killings from Heuermann’s home and office, including a 2011 New York magazine issue found in a basement vault and newspapers seized from his bedroom and basement. Prosecutors argued Heuermann kept the materials as “souvenirs” or “mementos” of his crimes.

The same filing also described what investigators called an “HK Planning Document,” a Microsoft Word file recovered from Heuermann’s laptop. Prosecutors alleged the document functioned as a blueprint for killings, with references to supplies, dump sites, body preparation and efforts to avoid leaving evidence. It included notations such as “REMOVE HEAD AND HANDS,” “BAGS / TAPE,” “SAW / CUTTING TOOLS” and “SMALL IS GOOD,” details prosecutors connected to the conditions in which Mack and Taylor were found.

The home itself was not simply a storage site for evidence, according to later accounts. In a 2026 episode of The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets, Ellerup said Heuermann confessed to her during a jailhouse meeting that he killed eight women and that the killings happened while she was away from the house. 

“He said, ‘Yes, they were killed in his room downstairs,’” Ellerup said. “All except one.”

That detail sharpened one of the most unsettling elements of the case: Prosecutors had long maintained that Ellerup and the children were out of town during key windows when some victims disappeared. In a June 2024 bail application, prosecutors said investigators had established that Heuermann’s wife and children were out of state around the time Taylor disappeared in July 2003.

Ellerup’s public posture changed as the case evolved. In March 2024, before Heuermann’s guilty plea, she said through her attorney that she would “listen to all of the evidence and withhold judgment until the end of trial,” adding that she had given him “the benefit of the doubt.” 

She also expressed sympathy for the victims and their families, according to the AP.

After Heuermann’s plea and reported confession to her, Ellerup asked for privacy and said through her attorney that the focus should remain on the victims’ families, who had suffered “immeasurable and lasting losses.”

The apparent contrast between the home and the violence prosecutors described would go on to capture the public’s attention. Heuermann was not living in isolation—rather, he was a husband, father and architect who commuted to Manhattan and lived in the familiar Long Island suburb. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney later said Heuermann “walked among us playacting as a normal suburban dad” all while targeting women, according to ABC7 New York.

The six-room house with garage parking is not hidden in the woods or tucked away at the end of an empty road. The house now has an estimated Zillow value of $736,000, only slightly below the town’s average home price of $804,000.

Because it sat in a dense residential neighborhood close enough to neighbors, Nassau police warned the public against loitering or trespassing near the property after they finished their initial search. The house has since become, and will likely remain, somewhat of a macabre landmark.

Heuermann is currently being held at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverhead, N.Y., where he has been in custody since his July 2023 arrest. His sentencing is scheduled for June 17, 2026, when he is expected to receive life in prison without parole. After sentencing, he will likely be transferred from county jail to state custody.