About this episode

The episode explores the psychological complexities of Asa Ellerup's defense of Rex Heuermann and her eventual acceptance of his guilt.

For three years after his arrest, Asa Ellerup defended Rex Heuermann on camera. She called him a family man. She said they had the wrong man. Then on April 8, 2026, he pleaded guilty to eight murders — seven inside their home. He told Asa directly. Twenty-seven years inside that house. The same meals. The same routines. The same man — who was living an entirely different life. He told her seven of the eight murders happened inside the home they shared for 27 years. Their daughter broke down in tears in the courtroom. How does a person go from “you have the wrong man” to accepting that the person she called her hero confessed to being a serial killer? Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott says the answer is more complicated than yes or no — and that the mechanism behind it has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with how agency erodes so slowly that confronting reality becomes psychologically impossible. Scott recently wrote about this on her Substack, Spotlight on Psychology. In this conversation with Tony Brueski, she pairs the Ellerup case with Eric Richins — a man who saw the danger completely and still could not leave — to examine both sides of the same coin. The psychology…

People in this episode

Host: Tony Brueski

Guest: Shavaun Scott

Topics covered

• psychology
• serial killers
• defense
• family dynamics
• guilt
• agency erosion

Keywords

• Rex Heuermann
• Asa Ellerup
• psychology
• serial killer
• guilt
• defense
• Shavaun Scott

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Spotlight on Psychology

More episodes of The Gilgo Beach Murders: The Case Against Rex Heuermann

• Rex Heuermann's Family Heard Every Detail and Still Went Home · May 9, 2026 · 1h 20m

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