Rex Heuermann, a 60-year-old architect, was arrested in the infamous case more than a decade after police searching for a missing woman found 10 sets of human remains off Ocean Parkway
By Greg Cergol and Jennifer Millman
An architect charged in a string of slayings known as the Gilgo Beach serial killings was accused Tuesday in the death of a fourth woman, a Connecticut mother of two who vanished in 2007 and whose remains were found more than three years later along a coastal highway in New York. NBC New York’s Greg Cergol reports.
What to Know
- Rex Heuermann has been charged with killing four women, all of whom were sex workers and whose bodies were found along a coastal highway on Long Island more than a decade ago
- The architect has maintained his innocence from “day one” and looks forward to defending himself in court, attorney Mike Brown has said
- Asa Ellerup, his estranged wife, who filed for divorce days after his arrest in July 2023, released a new statement through her attorneys this week saying she gives her husband the benefit of the doubt
The wife of an architect charged in a string of slayings known as the Gilgo Beach serial killings released a statement late Wednesday in her husband’s defense, saying she didn’t believe him capable of the brutality of which he is accused.
The statement, released on Asa Ellerup’s behalf by her lawyers, is her first statement in months since her husband’s arrest in the now-infamous case last July. She has not been charged with any crimes, and investigators say she and her daughter were away on each of the four occasions when Rex Heuermann allegedly killed a woman.
Ellerup filed for divorce from Heuermann days after his arrest, but still visits him weekly, according to her attorneys.
“Nobody deserves to die in that manner,” the statement on Ellerup’s behalf said, with her lawyers sharing her “heartfelt sympathies” for the victims and their families. “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.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the statement from Ellerup Wednesday.
Heuermann was most recently charged in mid-January with a fourth slaying, that of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, a Connecticut mother of two who vanished in 2007 and whose remains were found more than three years later along a coastal highway on Long Island.
The charges came months after he was labeled the prime suspect in her death when he was arrested in July in the deaths of three other women. He pleaded not guilty in Brainard-Barnes’ death, as he had done in the other cases.
Heuermann is being held without bail. He faces several life sentences without parole if convicted.
