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Imagine living a fairly average life and one day discovering your husband or father just might be a serial killer. That’s the nightmare Victoria Heuermann, Asa Ellerup, and Christopher Sheridan are currently living.
As early as 1993 women’s remains were discovered in Long Island, New York. The majority of these women were sex workers in their 20s. In 2010 after ten bodies were found authorities feared a serial killer was working in the area and a task force was formed. By 2022 Rex Heuermann, a New York architect and father of two, became the prime suspect and was arrested in Jul. 2023 for the murders of Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, and Melissa Barthelemy.
On Jan. 16, 2024 Heuermann was also charged with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes. Charges for the killings of Amber Lynn Costello and Jessica Taylor were added in June while an indictment charging Heuermann with Valerie Mack’s murder was unsealed in December.
Despite Asa Ellerup, Heuermann’s wife of 27 years, filing for divorce a couple of days after his arrest, she remains supportive, even visiting him in jail. She has vowed to “withhold judgment until the end of trial,” according to Fox 5. “I have given Rex the benefit of the doubt, as we all deserve,” she explained. While she expressed sympathy for the victims, she doubts her husband was capable of such horrific acts. Actor Billy Baldwin also expressed his disbelief about the situation on X. He went to high school with Heuermann.
Ellerup worked at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center and was Heuermann’s second wife. They were married in 1996 and share two children. His first wife was Elizabeth R. Ryan of North Brunswick.
Heuermann’s adult children Victoria Heuermann and Christopher Sheridan have done their best to stay out of the limelight during the investigation. They were living with their parents at the time of the arrest and continue to do so despite the property undergoing multiple searches. Authorities do not believe the family had anything to do with the murders.
“If you ask me, I don’t believe that they knew about this double life that Mr. Heuermann was living,” Rodney Harrison, the Suffolk County police commissioner stated to CNN.
Hairs believed to belong to Ellerup were found on several of the victims but investigators believe this was a natural transfer because the items used in the murders were kept in the house where she lived. Ellerup and her children were out of town for all of the murders. One year after their father and husband’s arrest, Robert Macedonio, Ellerup’s attorney held a press conference on behalf of his client. He explained the family was “collateral damage” and “their lives are forever turned upside down.”
A few months later, the kids spoke up through their lawyer. “They’re two young adults that are caught in the cross hairs of this deeply unfortunate case that they have nothing to do with other than they are related to Mr. Heuermann” Vess Mitev stated to Newsweek. “Very, very dark time in their lives.”
True crime cases like this make us take a second look at the people in our lives. How well do we really know your friends and family? Something to keep you up at night.