Rex Heuermann; Asa Ellerup.Photo:James Carbone/Newsday RM via Getty
James Carbone/Newsday RM via Getty
Asa Ellerup, the wife ofLong Island Serial Killer suspect Rex Heuermannwill be participating in a multi-part documentary series.
According to theNew York Times, the series will follow Ellerup over Heuermann’s future trial.
The deal between the alleged serial killer’s wife and Peacock has upset some families linked to the infamousLong Island Serial Killercase.
“Disappointed, disgusted, flabbergasted, frustrated are a few words that come to mind right now,” Shannan Gilbert’s sister Sherre said on X, formerly Twitter. “The way that the media will buy stories to further re-victimize, re-traumatize, and exploit the families & victims of serial killers is evil!”
Gilbert, who was working as a sex worker at the time,vanished without a traceon May 1, 2010, after visiting a client she met on Craigslist in the gated community of Oak Beach on Long Island, N.Y. It was the search for Gilbert’s body that led to the discovery of the remains of Heuermann’s suspected victims: Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Barthelemy and Megan Waterman. (After police found Gilbert’s remains, her death was deemed an accident, per police. Heuermann has not been charged in connection with her death.)
A Peacock spokesperson said Ellerup was not paid for her involvement, but she was given a licensing fee so the company could use her archival materials.
The spokesperson said that Ellerup will have no creative control over the project and the money she received cannot go to Heuermann or be used for his defense.
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Attorney John Ray, who represents the family ofShannan Gilbert, says Ellerup’s participation is “reckless beyond words.”
Maureen Brainard-Barnes; Melissa Barthelemy; Megan Waterman; Amber Lynn Costello.Suffolk County Police Department; Barthelemy family; Suffolk County Police Department (2)
Suffolk County Police Department; Barthelemy family; Suffolk County Police Department (2)
Ellerup’s attorney Bob Macedonio, who declined to discuss the project, says Ellerup is trying to adjust to her “new normal” since Heuermann’s arrest in July.
“She’s been vilified and then also victimized,” he tells PEOPLE. “She’s going to be known as the wife or the ex-wife of an alleged serial killer. She’s gathering herself, she’s dealing with herself. She’s getting her and her children back to a safe place. They got through the first holiday without a wreck, and that’s where they’re at.”
Macedonio says Ellerup would “like to believe that he had nothing to do with it.”
“Because then it would be like, how could she be living with this person for that long, not knowing that this is a whole double life,” he says.
Shannan Gilbert.Jersey City Police
Jersey City Police
Heuermann, an architect and married father of two, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in the deaths ofBarthelemy, Waterman and Costello.
He is also considered a prime suspect in the death ofMaureen Brainard-Barnes.
All four women had worked as online escorts and had been missing between 2007 and 2010. Their bodies were found along a half-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway in Long Island, N.Y., in December 2010.
He was also traced to a Chevrolet Avalanche that was registered to him that was allegedly seen at the time of Costello’s disappearance.
source: people.com
