Rex Heuermann Pleads Guilty: Three First-Degree Counts and FBI Cooperation
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
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Summary
Rex Heuermann, 62, has pleaded guilty in Suffolk County Court to three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of intentional murder in the Gilgo Beach serial killing case. He also admitted under the terms of the plea agreement to intentionally causing the death of Karen Vergata, whose case will not result in a separate charge. In exchange for the guilty plea and full cooperation with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit, Heuermann will be sentenced to life without parole — three consecutive life sentences followed by four sentences of twenty-five years to life. Sentencing is scheduled for June.
The plea resolves charges connected to the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Sandra Costilla, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Megan Waterman — all killed between 1993 and 2011. The investigation that identified Heuermann began in 2022 when detectives connected him to a Chevrolet Avalanche pickup truck witnessed during one victim’s disappearance. A grand jury subsequently authorized over three hundred subpoenas and search warrants.
The procedural implications of this plea are significant. No trial means no cross-examination of witnesses, no public presentation of the full evidentiary record, and no jury weighing the evidence. The cooperation agreement with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit suggests federal investigators believe Heuermann may have information relevant beyond the scope of the current charges. A wrongful death lawsuit has also been filed by the son of victim Valerie Mack, naming Heuermann, his ex-wife Asa Ellerup, and their daughter Victoria.
On Hidden Killers Live With Tony Brueski & Robin Dreeke, defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis provides legal analysis of the plea structure, the cooperation terms, and the civil litigation implications. Robin Dreeke examines the behavioral dimensions — what the FBI’s pursuit of cooperation signals about the broader investigative picture.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske and Robin Dree. |
| 0:09.2 | Well, one of the biggest ogre-like nutterers of the group, Rex Hereman, and stood in a Seffa County courtroom, hands shackled behind us back and admitted to taking the lives of eight women across a killing spree |
| 0:23.8 | that lasted from 1993 all the way to 2010. |
| 0:27.8 | After nearly three years of maintaining his innocence after he was caught. |
| 0:32.3 | But if we're looking at the full-time line of living alive, we're talking three, almost four |
| 0:36.6 | decades of maintaining that innocence. |
| 0:39.7 | The man, prosecutors, called the Gilgo Beach serial killer, has changed his plea. Guilty on all |
| 0:46.3 | counts. In a hearing that lasted roughly 30 minutes. It was quick. It was in. It was out |
| 0:51.6 | families of the women. He killed wept as he spoke very |
| 0:55.9 | bluntly, very plainly. Yes, he pled guilty. His own estranged wife and daughter sat in the back row, |
| 1:03.3 | but a guilty plea isn't the same as answers. And the questions this case leads behind may be more |
| 1:09.1 | unsettling than the ones that it actually resolved. |
| 1:12.0 | We're going to go through this in two parts today. |
| 1:14.4 | We're first going to talk about Heurman's guilty plea and exactly what happens next. |
| 1:20.1 | Then in our next part of the conversation, we will dive deeper into the area of Asa Elrop. |
| 1:26.6 | His wife, she made a statement at the end, a lawsuit that |
| 1:30.0 | has now come up against her and her daughter. And the questions that people have there, not to |
| 1:35.8 | accuse or anything of that nature, but just to discuss everything that's going on around this case. |
| 1:40.5 | So joining us this morning to have this conversation, Eric Fattis, defense attorney, former |
| 1:45.3 | prosecutor, and of course my co-host, Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agent Chief of the Counterintelligence |
| 1:49.7 | Behavioral Analysis Program. Eric, let's start here. Heerman had, he pled guilty to he had seven |
| 1:55.3 | murders and admitted to killing an eighth woman as well, Karen Vergata, this was one that had been kind of sitting there |
... |
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