The day after his estranged wife discussed the effects of his arrest and the ongoing investigation on the family, accused Gilgo Beach serial murderer Rex Heuermann is scheduled to appear in court again on Long Island on Tuesday.
Heuermann, 59, was detained on July 13 and charged with murder in relation to the deaths of three women discovered on Gilgo Beach in 2010: Amber Lynn Costello, 27, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, and Megan Waterman, 22. He is also the main suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, a 25-year-old woman.
In an exclusive interview with the New York Post on Monday, his estranged wife Asa Ellerup, 59, claimed that her two adult children “cry themselves to sleep” as a result of his imprisonment.
“My children cry themselves to sleep,” she told the Post, referencing her 33-year-old special-needs son, Christopher Sheridan, and her 26-year-old daughter, Victoria Heuermann, who live together in their Massapequa Park home. “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.”
She added that while looking for evidence in relation to the killings, detectives destroyed her Long Island house, leaving her without a bed to sleep in. She said that she experiences anxiousness as well.
Following the destruction of her home, Victoria Heuermann claimed she felt “not human,” according to the Post.
Ellerup’s lawyer, Bob Macedonio, clarified: “She meant what they’ve done to them and the family is not even human. They were just complete animals. They treated them like animals.”
Macedonio claimed that Ellerup was “blindsided” by her husband’s arrest and that she only filed for divorce after Rex Heuermann was brought into custody.
“She was in complete shock. Completely caught by surprise,” Macedonio said, per the Post.
In their quest for body parts, Suffolk County Police and New York State Police tore up the Heuermann residence, even excavating up the backyard.
Ellerup said the house was uninhabitable but added, “It’s all I have.”
“I woke up in the middle of the night, shivering,” she added.
“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,” she told the Post. “But I said, ‘We’re together, That’s really what matters right now. That you and me are sitting here together, and we will get through this.'”
Ellerup and her kids were finally able to go home after the police called off their hunt last week.
“[Cops] walked up, they went into the vehicles and out the door they went,” Ellerup said. “Out. They left. And when I got into the house I might have had a few steps of walking space between my front door and the kitchen.”
“I had three cats. Litter boxes were a strew, thrown on top of everything,” she continued. “My pictures were thrown all over the place. My couch was completely shredded. I don’t even know if there are any parts to the couch.”
“I had a greenhouse and I like planting seeds and my greenhouse, they it, they lifted it up,” she added. “They stuck it, it’s high. You know, they threw it on top of a whole bunch of stuff. It’s a $3,000 greenhouse.”
Macedonio claims that the family had to get new keys since the police changed the locks on the residence.
Ellerup claimed that some of the family’s personal items, including some expensive ones, were damaged by investigators.
According to Macedonio, the family is currently assessing the extent of the house’s damage.
“We just got back from the residence,” he said. “We’re making an itemized list of all things. Since she just returned home we don’t know the extent of the damage or what’s missing. We’ll be in touch with the DA’s office.”
Since his arrest, Rex Heuermann’s family has not visited him; he entered a not-guilty plea on July 14.
