Gilgo Beach serial killer: Accused Rex Heuermann’s wife says he’s her ‘hero’
The wife of the man police allege is the Gilgo Beach serial killer has revealed that she considers him her “hero”, denying he is responsible for the killing and mutilation of seven young sex workers.
Asa Ellerup has opened up in an explosive interview for an upcoming documentary, describing visiting him behind bars as like a “first date”.
The Manhattan architect was arrested at his offices in July, 2023. He has since been charged with the murder and mutilation of seven young sex workers.
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Police allege Mr Heuermann killed the women over the course of nearly two decades, beginning in the 1990s. Many of the women’s remains were found on Gilgo Beach in 2010 and 2011.
In 2023, he was charged in connection to the deaths of Megan Waterman, 22, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, and Amber Costello, 27. More charges were laid in 2024 over the murders of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, Jessica Taylor, 20, and Sandra Costilla, 28. And, in December, he was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Valerie Mack, 24.
Mr Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Police say they have substantial evidence pointing to Mr Heuermann, including DNA matches to all the victims, among them hairs from Ms Ellerup and the couple’s daughter, Victoria.
Appearing on the Peacock docu-series The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets, Ms Ellerup, a victim of a sexual assault at the hands of a classmate when she was 16, says the man she married in 1995 is not a monster, rather he was her “hero”.
“I know what bad men are capable of doing,” she said. “I’ve seen it, and I’ve heard it from other men. Not my husband. You have the wrong man,” the New York Post reports.
“I want him to come back home to me.
“They’re trying to sit there and tell me that, but I have no knowledge of what they keep talking about. ‘Oh, you must have known.’ Know what? My husband was home here. He’s a family man, period.”
She said, Mr Heuermann had stuck by her through a recent double mastectomy.
“He’s my hero,” she said. “There were times where he was working, but I’d call him, and he would come by and pick me up.”
Ms Ellerup described going to see her husband behind bars and the excitement she felt, likening it to going on a first date.
“I haven’t seen him in all this time, and when I went down there, I was excited, and like I was, I don’t know, I guess on a first date. You’re nervous, you’re scared. You don’t know how the date is gonna go,” she said.
Ms Ellerup has filed for divorce but her daughter told the documentary makers that was to “protect the assets”.
