A civil lawsuit filed April 6 in Suffolk County Supreme Court is putting a price tag on tragedy, and asking whether Rex Heuermann’s family profited from the crimes he is expected to admit to committing.
Benjamin Torres, son of murder victim Valerie Mack, filed suit against Heuermann, his ex-wife Asa Ellerup, and his daughter Victoria Heuermann, two days before the accused Gilgo Beach serial killer was expected to enter a guilty plea in criminal court. The lawsuit seeks damages for what it describes as “the terror, restraint, pain, mutilation, and dismemberment inflicted upon [Mack] before and after death, for the concealment and mutilation of her remains, and for the profound and prolonged harm thereby inflicted.”
The complaint also raises a claim of unjust enrichment. According to the filing, Ellerup and Victoria Heuermann were jointly paid $1 million to participate in the Peacock documentary “The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets,” which aired in June 2025. The lawsuit argues that payment, tied directly to the crimes allegedly committed by Heuermann, constitutes unjust enrichment under New York State case law.
That $1 million figure is where this story intersects with accountability. A victim’s family sees money flowing to people connected to the accused killer, and they want answers about who benefits from this kind of tragedy.
Attorney Bob Macedonio, representing Ellerup and Victoria Heuermann, pushed back hard at an April 7 press conference held in front of the Heuermann family home in Massapequa Park. “My clients have fully cooperated with law enforcement from the very beginning,” he said. “There is no evidence that implicates them in any way, none.” He called the lawsuit “reckless, irresponsible and completely, completely unsupported by the facts of this case.”
Macedonio added that it is “deeply troubling in the wake of such tragedy that anyone would choose to advance claims that have no factual basis only to serve to further harm individuals who themselves are dealing with profound personal, human trauma.”
Attorney John Ray, representing Torres, was direct about the lawsuit’s strategic timing. With a guilty plea expected, the burden on his client shifts significantly. If Heuermann admits guilt in criminal court, Ray and Torres would need only to prove damages in the civil case, potentially accelerating its resolution. Ray described his client’s motivation plainly: “Benjamin is seeking the satisfaction of knowing the truth. Maybe that will bring him some mercy for his very sad, twisted anguish in life that he’s had from losing his mama when he was only six.”
Torres was six years old when his mother disappeared. Valerie Mack’s dismembered remains were found in Manorville in 2000, but her identity went publicly unconfirmed until 2020. That is twenty years a family spent without answers, without closure, without even a name attached to what was found.
Rex Heuermann was charged with Mack’s murder in December 2024, while already being held without bail for the murders of six other women: Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Jessica Taylor, and Sandra Costilla. Prosecutors allege the killings span from 1993 to 2010. Representatives for Heuermann did not respond to requests for comment.
Asa Ellerup finalized her divorce from Heuermann in 2025.
The unjust enrichment argument deserves scrutiny regardless of how the civil case ultimately resolves. New York courts have applied that doctrine to situations where one party benefits financially at another’s expense, without legal justification. Whether a documentary payment qualifies under that standard will be a question for the court. But the underlying question, whether family members of an alleged serial killer should profit from media deals built around those crimes, is one the public has every right to ask.
Torres and his attorneys appear to have timed this filing carefully, with legal efficiency in mind. A criminal guilty plea does not automatically translate into civil liability for third parties, but it removes one major obstacle from the plaintiff’s path. The case now moves into discovery, where the financial arrangements surrounding that documentary deal will face examination.
For Benjamin Torres, the numbers may matter less than the reckoning.