She called him her savior. He pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and admitted to killing an eighth. Rex Heuermann stood in a Suffolk County courtroom and admitted to strangling women along Long Island's Gilgo Beach corridor across seventeen years. Life without parole. No trial. No testimony. Just an admission — and a lifetime of unanswered questions for the people who shared a home with him. Benjamin Torres was six years old when his mother Valerie Mack disappeared in 2000. Her dismembered remains were found in Manorville that same year and went unidentified for two decades. Heuermann has now pleaded guilty to her murder. But for Torres, the guilty plea opened a new front — a wrongful death lawsuit naming not just Heuermann but his ex-wife Asa Ellerup and their daughter Victoria as defendants. The complaint alleges the two women knew about or concealed the crimes, lived with access to a secured vault-like room in the basement of the Massapequa Park home, and collected over a million dollars from a Peacock documentary built on the notoriety of the murders. The plaintiff's attorney has argued publicly that the family could not have been unaware in a house of roughly 1,300 square feet. The defense has fired back hard. Ellerup's attorney called the lawsuit reckless and completely unsupported. He pointed out that Victoria was approximately three years old when Mack was killed. Prosecutors have never wavered from the position that Heuermann acted alone and timed the killings for when his family was away. Neither woman has ever been charged. Asa maintained she would have known if something was wrong. Victoria — seated in the courtroom during the plea — has publicly said she believes her father most likely committed the killings. A mother and daughter inside the same nightmare, reaching opposite conclusions. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott breaks down the psychology of "not knowing" — how the mind builds invisible walls and why someone whose identity is anchored to one person may be incapable of seeing who that person actually is. Criminal defense attorney Bob Motta examines what Heuermann actually gained from pleading — every pre-trial motion had failed, whole genome sequencing was admitted for the first time in a New York courtroom, and the sentence was reportedly the same whether he went to trial or pled. So what did the plea buy him? And what did it cost the families who will never hear their loved ones' names spoken in testimony? Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeach #AsaEllerup #ValerieMack #VictoriaHeuermann #LISK #GuiltyPlea #WrongfulDeath #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers