Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann’s estranged wife wore her engagement ring for the alleged six-time murderer’s latest court appearance.
Dressed casually in a white blouse, light blue trousers and pink-colored sneakers, Asa Ellerup, 59, appeared calm as she entered the Suffolk County Criminal Courthouse in Riverhead.
She was accompanied by her attorney Robert Macedonio, another member of her legal team, and her emotional support dog, Stewie ‘Stuart’ by her side. Her daughter Victoria was not present.
The court hearing was a procedural one and outlined new data and information set to be submitted as evidence against Heuermann, who was also present for Tuesday’s hearing.
Heuermann, 60, did not speak during the hearing as his defense attorney Michael Brown stood at his side. He appeared older and grayer than at the time of his arrest.
At one point, the former architect was seen nodding his head as he appeared to look in the direction of where his ex-wife was seated in the back of the courtroom.
The mother-of-two had her trademark dark sunglasses over her eyes, and after Judge Timothy Mazzei ended the day’s proceeding, Ellerup rushed out of the courtroom with Stewie as a swarm of photographers and reporters tried to speak with her.
She smiled at one point, but did not respond to anyone’s questions.
Ellerup had been married to Heuermann for 27 years. The couple had a daughter together Victoria, 27.
Heuermann was also the stepfather to Christopher Sheridan, 33, who was Ellerup’s son from a previous marriage.
Ellerup filed for divorce days after his July 2023 arrest.
In March, she sent a statement through her attorney that stated that she ‘still maintains that Rex is not capable of the crime he is accused of,’ as per ABC 7 New York.
‘I will listen to all of the evidence and withhold judgment until the end of the trial,’ the statement continued. ‘I have given him the benefit of the doubt, as we all deserve.’
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney held a press conference after the hearing reviewing what was provided to the defense followed by a Q&A.
He explained some of the discovery in detail. ‘We have six murders which are alleged to have been made by this defendant so we look forward to doing that so all of the underlying case work for each of those murders,’ he said.
He explained how comprehensive the task is going back to the first murder in 1993, 2003, 2007, 2009 and two in 2010. Then providing missing persons files, phone work, lab work, underlying data, forensic and electronic evidence.
‘All the work of investigation teams – all of those notes all of those notebooks, the detectives worked on it. Maine, Connecticut where missing persons first originated. The NYPD. Under our NYS Discovery Law we have to provide every single piece of paper. We have to do that and we have to prove we have every single piece of paper.
A trial date has not yet been set.
Heuermann’s attorney Michael Brown also spoke outside the courthouse.
He said his client ‘wants his day in court.’
‘I stood in front of you folks a year ago and I said he wants his day in court. He still wants his day in court and he wants his trial,’ Brown said.
‘He is dealing with it as best as he can. He understands he can’t change the circumstances of his environment for now but wants his day in court.
When Brown was asked what Heuermann does all day, he responded that he fills his days by reviewing the discovery that he has been allowed to view on a computer.
He also spends time in the law library and has an hour a day outside in the yard.
He said his client and his ex-wife communicate often and that his daughter Victoria has visited him in prison.
Though Ellerup shook her head and did not want to talk about her ex-husband or the case she did tell DailyMail.com that Stewie had been a rescue from a shelter out in the Hamptons.
Her attorney chimed in that Stewie is her son Christopher’s dog.
Over the last year, Christopher has been pictured several times walking the Labrador Chihuahua mix by DailyMail.com outside his Massapequa Park home.
During the chaos of today’s court proceeding, Stewie did not seem to mind the fuss that everyone was making over him – in and outside the court building – and was well-behaved, well-adjusted and smiley.
Ellerup’s team even joked that he is going to be Instagram famous.
‘We are training him to be a service dog,’ Ellerup said, who shared that they got a ‘trainer for the house.’
Macedonio intervened ‘they have to have a specific task.’
He added: ‘Now he can go to hotels and we don’t have to board him anymore. The Marriott wouldn’t take him in the last time they went to Florida and it cost them 800 to 1,200 to board him for the weekend.’
Though Ellerup remarked that Stewie ‘does have a lot of fun at the boarding place,’ and seemed amused when a member of her legal team asked if he had a ‘girlfriend.’
Heuermann was arrested in July and initially charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Lynn Costello 27. In February, he was also charged with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25.
The women were found wrapped in burlap and buried along the remote stretch of Ocean Parkway on Long Island’s South Shore over a decade ago.
Heuermann, an architect, has pleaded not guilty to all counts and currently remains in jail awaiting trial.
In April, officials searched a Manorville area where the partial remains of Gilgo Beach victims Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack were found more than 20 years ago.
State and county police officials descended on Heuermann’s family home in Massapequa Park, Long Island and executed a second search warrant in May.
A month later, he was indicted by a grand jury for the murders of 20-year-old Jessica Taylor in 2003 and 28-year-old Sandra Costilla in 1993.
Investigators linked him to the two victims by DNA evidence after the second search warrant.