The estranged wife of the Manhattan architect charged in the Gilgo Beach serial killings says her two adult children “cry themselves to sleep” and she has “no answers” for them when they ask about her husband’s arrest.
Asa Ellerup, 59, who has filed for divorce from the suspect, Rex Heuermann, spoke out in an interview with the New York Post on Monday about the turbulent past few weeks she and her children have endured.
Heuermann was arrested July 13, charged with three counts of murder in the deaths of three women, and said to be the prime suspect in the disappearance of a fourth woman. The group of women were known as the “Gilgo Four,” whose discoveries raised fears about a serial killer in the area.
“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,” Ellerup told the Post on the trauma from the ordeal. Her son is 33, according to the outlet.
Ellerup said she too has been experiencing "anxiety."
“I woke up in the middle of the night, shivering,” she said.
Investigators spent 12 days searching the family’s Massapequa Park home in Long Island for evidence. Ellerup told the Post that when the family was allowed to return, the one-story residence in the quiet South Shore suburb was practically unlivable. They came home to litter boxes strewn about, the couch shredded and her greenhouse disturbed, she said.
Police previously said that Heuermann had a cache of more than 200 guns in a vault inside his home.
Ellerup's daughter, Victoria Heuermann, 26, said she felt “not human” in the aftermath of her father's arrest.
Ellerup’s lawyer, Bob Macedonio, added: “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.”
“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 told the outlet.
“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,’” she added.
Ellerup’s attorney said they will making an itemized list of the damage and what’s missing and will contact the district attorney’s office.
Macedonio told NBC News’ “TODAY” show this week: “It’s been a very tumultuous time for them. Life has been thrown upside down in the past few weeks.”
He added Ellerup was totally “blindsided” by her husband's arrest and she's now focused on protecting her family.
Heuermann, 59, who worked in Manhattan, will appear in court in Riverhead, New York, on Tuesday afternoon for his first hearing since his arraignment.
He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
His arrest sent shockwaves through Long Island and the New York area, and the investigation into the slew of bodies found in the Gilgo Beach area is ongoing.