Rex Heuermann’s House: Searches, Kill Room, and Forfeiture

The Rex Heuermann house at 105 First Avenue in Massapequa Park, Long Island, is the modest single-story home where the accused Gilgo Beach serial killer lived for nearly three decades and where, prosecutors say, he committed most of his murders in a basement outfitted as a kill room. After his July 2023 arrest, investigators pulled 279 firearms from a walk-in basement vault, mapped adhesive stains that outlined where plastic sheeting had been hung, and recovered a digital planning document he called “HK.” Heuermann pleaded guilty to seven murders on April 8, 2026, and later confessed privately that he killed seven of the eight victims inside the house. His ex-wife and two adult children still live there, blocked from selling by IRS liens exceeding $200,000.

A Run-Down House on a Tidy Block

Heuermann bought the 1,323-square-foot home, built in 1956, in 1994, the same year he founded his Manhattan architectural consulting firm, RHC Consultants & Associates. The property had a full basement and one fireplace. Despite his professional reputation for meticulous work on roughly 300 projects across New York City, neighbors described his own house as out of place on a block of tidy middle-class homes. One longtime neighbor said the property was “in need of repairs.” Residents recalled crossing the street to avoid it and described Heuermann as a “quiet guy” whose family kept to brief hellos.¹

Etienne Devilliers, a neighbor of nearly 30 years, told the New York Post that Heuermann once leered at Devilliers’ wife over a fence while she sunbathed. Devilliers also remembered watching a heavy object he took to be a door being moved into the basement years earlier. Detectives later identified it as part of the vault Heuermann built to store his firearms.²

What Investigators Found in July 2023

Heuermann was arrested on July 14, 2023, and law enforcement moved on the house the same day. A coalition led by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office searched the property for 12 days, ending July 25.³ Aerial cameras caught agents in hazmat gear moving items out of the basement and excavation equipment digging through the yard.

The centerpiece of the search was a walk-in basement vault with a large iron door. Inside, investigators counted 279 weapons, including a run of long guns from World War I through the Korean War era. Authorities recovered 92 handgun permits tied to the collection and said some of the firearms were held illegally without permits.⁴ Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told CBS News the vault was “not a soundproof room,” though a later Peacock documentary described it as a “massive soundproof vault-like room.”⁵

Investigators also hauled out numerous boxes of material from the cluttered rooms above, tested for hair, DNA, and blood, and removed unusual items including a large doll encased in glass and a portrait of a woman with a bruised face.³ Ground-scanning technology checked the property for buried disturbances, a wooden deck was torn up, and the yard was excavated. Officials said nothing of note was recovered from the backyard.⁶

The Basement “Kill Room” and the HK Document

Prosecutors alleged that Heuermann tortured and killed victims in the basement and used it as a staging area for dismembering remains. Forensic examiners used infrared and ultraviolet lighting to reveal adhesive stains on the walls arranged in a distinct square pattern, which authorities interpreted as the outline of plastic sheeting hung from the ceiling and walls to contain evidence. Prosecutors called it a “Dexter”-style kill room and said they were able to recreate its exact footprint.⁷

A hard drive taken from the house held a deleted document labeled “HK,” short for “hunt-kill.” According to prosecutors, it contained checklists on traffic camera locations along dump routes, supplies needed for the killings, reminders to be well-rested and mindful of screams, and a preference for tape over push pins to hang drop cloths because push pins “ruin the ceiling.”⁷ Written between 2000 and 2002, the document also listed instructions for disposing of victims and forensic problems to avoid, including DNA, tire marks, and fingerprints.⁸

Defense attorney Michael Brown pushed back in February 2025, telling the New York Post that the basement had been “scrubbed” and contained “not one shred of biological or forensic evidence,” including no DNA from victims or from Heuermann himself.⁹ Prosecutors did not publicly confirm or deny whether biological evidence tying victims to the basement was recovered from the searches themselves.

The May 2024 Return Search

Investigators came back to the house in May 2024, while Ellerup and the children were in South Carolina. The return was driven by the HK document and by an effort to connect Heuermann to more victims than the four in the original indictment. Prosecutors were seeking physical support for the theory that women had been killed inside the house while the family was away.¹⁰ Officers removed dozens of boxes. Fox 5 NY reported that investigators photographed the front porch, collected paint chips and other materials, and loaded a large rectangular object covered in blue cloth onto a truck.⁶

Digital evidence pulled from the home fed a superseding indictment in June 2024 adding charges for the murders of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla, and a further indictment in December 2024 charging the murder of Valerie Mack.⁸ When Heuermann pleaded guilty in April 2026, he admitted in a private conversation with Ellerup and their daughter Victoria that he had committed seven of the eight murders at the Massapequa Park home, mostly in the basement while the family was traveling.¹¹

Why the House Can’t Be Sold

Asa Ellerup filed for divorce days after Heuermann’s arrest. The divorce was finalized in March 2025, and the settlement gave her the Massapequa Park home.¹²¹³¹⁴

The forensic work also left the house physically damaged. People magazine reported that investigators cut up floors, removed plumbing, and dug up the yard, unearthing furniture and small bags of household items in the process.¹⁵ The family’s attorney, Robert Macedonio, told the New York Post in April 2026 that Ellerup and her two children, Victoria Heuermann and Christopher Sheridan, are “honestly stuck in that house right now” with “nowhere to go.” A plan to move to South Carolina and build on 18 wooded acres Heuermann had bought in Chester County in July 2021 fell apart when the Long Island house wouldn’t sell.¹⁶

Life Inside the House Now

In a Peacock documentary series released in late August 2025, Ellerup said she had gutted and remodeled the basement, installing new floors, walls, moldings, and doors in the room where Heuermann confessed to dismembering victims. She slept there for about a month before his April 2026 guilty plea and described it as a spiritual act of sorrow for the women. “I’m here because I do feel spiritual,” she said. “I am trying to say spiritually, in my own way, that I am really sorry for what these victims went through.”¹⁷ She decorated the room with a green Hello Kitty bedspread, shelves of plush animals, floral paintings, and a cross.¹⁸

Weeks before the plea, Heuermann met with Ellerup and Victoria and admitted the crimes. He told Victoria that “he didn’t even see them as human” and that he kept his family life and his criminal activities in “separate worlds.” Ellerup, who had maintained her belief in his innocence until then, said afterward that she wanted “to get to know this other side of Rex” and understand “why Rex killed these women, what his triggers were.”¹⁸

What Happened to the Block

The quiet street changed quickly after the arrest. Reporters and camera crews filled it in July 2023, and in the months that followed curious visitors began treating the property as a macabre landmark. Neighbors held a town hall meeting with Nassau County officials to demand more police presence, and Commissioner Patrick Ryder promised the home would not become a “side show.” Authorities installed cameras on the block and adopted a zero-tolerance policy on loitering, issuing $150 summonses to anyone violating no-stopping signs.¹⁹ One resident drew the comparison locals had feared: “We’ve all grew up in this area, so we know how it was like with ‘Amityville Horror’ house… we didn’t want it to turn into that.” Macedonio said visitors still routinely photograph the house “like a tourist attraction.”

1
PIX 11. Neighbors React to Arrest of Long Island Man in Gilgo Beach Murders
2
New York Post. Neighbor Says Gilgo Beach Murder Suspect Creeped Out Wife While She Was Sunbathing
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Courthouse News Service. Investigators Pore Over Evidence From the Home of Alleged Gilgo Beach Serial Killer as Search Ends
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New York Post. Rex Heuermann’s Pal Describes His Infamous Basement Gun Room
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CBS News. Gilgo Beach Murder Suspect’s Home: Police End Search
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Fox 5 NY. Gilgo Beach Murders Rex Heuermann House Update Search
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Fox News. Gilgo Beach Serial Killer Rex Heuermann Kept Dexter-Style Kill Room
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NBC New York. Long Island Serial Killer Gilgo Beach Rex Heuermann New Murders
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New York Post. Accused Gilgo Beach Killer Rex Heuermann’s Lawyer Drops Bombshell That There’s No DNA in Alleged Basement Kill Room
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New York Post. Chilling New Details in Case of Accused Gilgo Beach Serial Killer Rex Heuermann
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NBC News. Gilgo Beach Serial Killer’s Ex-Wife Relives Slayings Every Night
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Biography. Rex Heuermann Family Now Gilgo Beach Murders
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ABC 7 News. Rex Heuermann RH Consultants and Associates Gilgo Beach
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Fox Business. Gilgo Beach Murder Suspect Faced Financial Mess
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People. What Happened to the Gilgo Beach Murderer House
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New York Post. Rex Heuermann’s Family Stuck in House of Horrors and Completely Unemployable
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NBC News. Gilgo Beach Serial Killer’s Ex-Wife Relives Slayings Every Night
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E! Online. Gilgo Beach Murder Rex Heuermann’s Ex-Wife Asa Ellerup Sleeps in Kill Room
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Fox 5 NY. Gilgo Beach Murders Rex Heuermann Neighbors Security