The estranged wife of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann revealed the toll the allegations have had upon her family Monday.
“My children cry themselves to sleep. I mean, they’re not children. They’re grown adults but they’re my children, and my son has developmental disabilities and he cried himself to sleep,” 59-year-old Asa Ellerup told the New York Post.
For herself, Ellerup revealed the allegations surrounding her estranged husband have left her weighed down with anxiety, telling the outlet the damage from 12-days of investigators poring over her home in search of evidence has left her without a bed to sleep in. “I woke up in the middle of the night, shivering,” she stated.
For the first time, the wife of a serial killer suspect charged in the killing of three young women more than a decade ago, Asa Ellerup, is now breaking her silence, begging for privacy and normalcy. @stephgosk reports on the latest details. pic.twitter.com/NkqEDmHwsO
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 31, 2023
Police arrested Heurmann, 59, July 13 after they allegedly connected him to the 2010 murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello using DNA found on a piece of discarded pizza crust. A fourth victim, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, is also allegedly connected to the suspect.
A renewed investigation into the murders began in January 2022, when the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office assigned an experienced team of investigators, analysts, and prosecutors to work in tandem with law enforcement officials. That investigative team discovered a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche, that a witness had reported seeing in Costello’s driveway before her disappearance, was allegedly registered to Heuermann at the time of the murders. (RELATED: Police Say Gilgo Beach Serial Killer Suspect Kept ‘Arsenal’ Of Guns Inside Home)
Investigators have spent weeks combing through the family’s home, even digging up the backyard in search of bodies, the New York Post reported. Despite everything, Ellerup remains at the home, telling the New York Post, it’s all she has.
The true struggle, she revealed, was helping her special-needs son, 33-year-old Christopher Sheridan, cope with the upending of their lives. “We did get another chair out from the basement and upstairs so me and my son can sit and talk. He’s so distraught and doesn’t understand, and as a mother, I have no answers for him,” Ellerup stated.