Asa Ellerup Defended Rex Heuermann for 27 Years — Then He Told Her Where He Killed Them

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 underneath extends far beyond serial killers.

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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.

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