Netflix’s Gone Girls unpacked the case against suspected Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann. Find out what happened to his wife Asa Ellerup and their kids after his arrest.
The arrest of Rex Heuermann in 2023 may have been a step forward for the families of a number of murdered women whose cases had grown increasingly cold over the course of two decades.
Prosecutors allege Heuermann, a New York architect who lived with his family in Massapequa Park, is a serial killer whose crimes date back to at least 1993, when the body of 28-year-old Sandra Costilla was discovered in a wooded area on the east side of Long Island.
Since his arrest, he has been charged with murdering seven women, and he has pleaded not guilty on all counts. The 61-year-old remains in custody at Riverhead Correctional Facility in Suffolk County awaiting trial.
Also caught up in the fallout of the investigation, detailed in Netflix’s Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer, was Heuermann’s own family, particularly his wife Asa Ellerup and their two children, Christopher Sheridan (Ellerup’s son from a previous relationship) and Virginia Heuermann.
Though some people described Heuermann as unfriendly and at times creepy—”We would cross the street,” neighbor Nicholas Ferchaw told the New York Times following his arrest. “He was somebody you don’t want to approach”—he still appeared to be living a normal life.
“The family is very to themselves, quiet,” neighbor Frankie Musto told the Long Island Press. “My daughter went to school with their daughter, but we never saw anything suspicious.”
Here is what to know about Heuermann’s wife Ellerup and their kids since he was charged with multiple murders:
Who is suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup?
Heuermann was arrested July 13, 2023—more than a year after the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office formed a special task force to solve the unsolved killings often referred to as the Gilgo Beach Murders, a reference to where the remains of at least 10 people were found in 2010 and 2011. (Three sets of remains have not yet been identified, according to Suffolk County authorities.)
Six days after Heuermann was taken into custody, Ellerup filed for divorce after 27 years of marriage.
“If you ask me, I don’t believe, that they knew about this double life that Mr. Heuermann was living,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told CNN in July 2023, referring to the suspect’s wife and kids. But, he added, authorities were still investigating “to see if the family might have known exactly what Mr. Heuermann was up to.”
How did Rex Heuermann’s wife Asa Ellerup and kids react to his arrest?
Harrison said Ellerup and her daughter “were shocked, they were disgusted, they were embarrassed” when they found out the charges against Heuermann.
Ellerup and her kids “are going through a devastating time in their lives,” her attorney Robert Macedonio told NBC News in a statement at the time. “The sensitive nature of her husband’s arrest is taking an emotional toll on the immediate and extended family, especially their elderly family members.”
Before Heuermann’s arrest, investigators conducted a 12-day search of the Massapequa Park home he shared with Ellerup and their two grown kids.
“I woke up in the middle of the night, shivering,” Ellerup told the New York Post several weeks later. “Anxiety.”
Ellerup said their son Christopher has “developmental disabilities” and he “cried himself to sleep” after his father was arrested.
Daughter Virginia told the NY Post she felt “not human” amid the investigation, with their attorney Macdeonio explaining to the publication she meant that what authorities had “done to them and the family is not even human. They were just complete animals [to investigators]. They treated them like animals.”
But what was important was that she and the kids were together, Ellerup noted.
“That’s really what matters right now,” she said. “That you and me are sitting here together and we will get through this.
Days later, her attorney shared that Ellerup had been battling breast cancer and skin cancer for several years.
“Emotionally, she’s recovering each day not only dealing with the cancer,” Macedonio said during an Aug. 11, 2023, news conference, “but this newfound life that she has to come to terms with protecting herself and children.”
At the time, Macedonio said Ellerup was undergoing a course of treatment that would last 12 to 18 months, and that her health insurance was attached to her husband’s and was set to expire in 60 days.
What has Rex Heuermann’s wife said about the murder charges against him?
Though she quickly filed for divorce, Ellerup later said that she was waiting to see how her husband’s case unfolded before casting judgment, while also extending her “heartfelt sympathies” to the victims’ families.
“Nobody deserves to die in that manner,” she said in a March 2024 statement, per NBC New York. “I will listen to all of the evidence and withhold judgment until the end of trial. I have given Rex the benefit of the doubt, as we all deserve.”
How did Rex Heuermann’s wife play a role in his arrest for murder?
While authorities have said time and again that they don’t believe Ellerup knew about Heuermann’s alleged crimes—and that she was out of town when the murders he’s been charged with were committed—she unwittingly played a key role in his arrest.
DNA testing showed that female human hair found on or near four victims’ remains belonged to the defendant’s wife, according to prosecutors’ 2023 bail application (which did not refer to Ellerup by name at the time).
Prosecutors said in the filing that travel records put his wife in Iceland when alleged Heuermann victim Melissa Barthelemy was killed in 2009, and cell phone data indicated she was out of the state when Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello were killed in 2010, leading them to determine that the hairs came from his family’s residence or were transferred from his clothing.
Heuermann was first charged with the murders of Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello in July 2023 and named a suspect in the 2010 killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes. He was charged in that case in January 2024, then charged with the murders of Costilla (in 1993) and Jessica Taylor (2003) in June 2024 and of Valerie Mack (2000) in December 2024. He has pleaded not guilty to all seven.
Where is Rex Heuermann’s family now?
Though their house had been torn upside down by investigators, Ellerup told the NY Post in July 2023, “It’s the only thing I got.”
But her attorney Macedonio said in November 2024 that she would be relocating to South Carolina and eventually her kids would join her.
Ellerup “lost her attachment to her house of 30 years,” the lawyer said in a statement, per NBC New York. “To start the healing process, she wants to move on.”
The Massapequa Park house, which authorities conducted at least two subsequent searches on after Heuermann’s arrest, wasn’t yet for sale, Macedonio said at the time, but the plan was to list the property once Ellerup’s divorce was finalized.
It’s unclear if Ellerup has since made the move. E! News reached out to her attorney for comment but has yet to hear back.
“People constantly stop in front of the house, to gawk and point and take pictures,” Macedonio told the New York Times in November. “She’s lost any emotional attachment she had to the premises because of everything that’s gone on, and the only way she can start recovering is to move.”
As for his kids, Victoria worked for her dad at his NYC firm, which has since shut down. Today, she has struggled to find a job while she and her brother try to keep a low profile.
“Chris can’t even walk his dog down the block,” their lawyer Vess Mitev told the NY Times. “ He gets photographed, people stop and take pictures, he’s catcalled, the whole thing. They can’t even check the mail. That kind of scrutiny is not for my clients. They never asked for it.”
