Suspected Gilgo Beach Serial Killer's Wife Grilled About Violent Porn and More Bombshell Evidence

Rex Heuermann was initially arrested in 2023 and charged with the murders of Amber Lynn Costello, Melissa Barthelemy, and Megan Waterman. Then, in January 2024, he was also charged with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, before additional murder charges for Jessica Taylor, Sandra Costilla and Valerie Mack came later in the year. He has pleaded not guilty across the board and awaits trial.

The suspected serial killer's wife, Asa Ellerup, is one of the main interview subjects in Peacock's The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets docuseries -- out today -- and gives her POV on the horrific crimes her husband is accused of committing.

Ellerup first appears in the second episode of the 3-part series, as she first recalls their family home being raided when her husband was first arrested.

"The night of the raid, they drove us over to the hotel and they got us a room. They got a cop 24 hours outside, keeping an eye on me," she recalled. "I watched the news, they were taking bags and bags of stuff out of the house. My head, it's spinning."

Eventually, they returned to the home -- where prosecutors suspect Heuermann may have actually killed some of his victims -- to find it a wreck from the search and seizure. "We needed to come home," said Ellerup, saying the were cycling through feelings of "fear, anxiety, guilt ... all going like a roller coaster" at the time.

"They have a lot of sentimental stuff in the house and I still feel Rex is here," she added of why she wanted to return to the house/potential crime scene.

At one point in the episode, Ellerup gets a phone call from her husband, as he awaits for his trial behind bars. During the conversation, he asks how she's doing, as she tells him, "I'm doing great, now that I've got you on the phone." After he explains he's just calling to "make sure you're doing okay" and fill them in on prison food -- he had a burger and mashed potatoes for dinner -- they cement their plans to have her visit later that week. It's a very quick call.

While Ellerup says in the doc that they still talk all the time, she explains that he can only call during certain hours. She also said she "can't get too comfortable talking about things that would hurt him," adding that telling him that she loves him "will hurt him."

She then went on to cast doubt on the charges against him, something she apparently continues to do to this day. "We were 100% part of each other's lives. Does everybody really believe everything they hear?" she asked of viewers. "Do you really believe everything that's being said. We didn't buy it."

As the doc continues, the family is seen going through what has been dubbed as a possible "kill room" -- a locked room in the basement where authorities found a cache of guns.

As Ellerup showed it off to cameras, she explained that the door had a combination lock on the outside, but a lever on the inside, insisting "no one can get locked in here." She said the room was where he "displayed his firearms collection."

She also admitted that Heuermann "didn't want anybody to have access to it," calling it a "Secret room." Though she added that "nobody would know" it was there, she insisted he wasn't "hiding anything," but only "wanted to secure a safe in there."

"They are picking assumptions for their narrative. I know that," she added of investigators' findings. "I know what this room was originally used for and they're just allegations."

After attending her first court appearance for her husband, she explained it was "comforting" seeing him in person -- not recognizing the person he was being labeled in the media.

I don't see him that way, that's not the Rex I know," she said of the charges against him, as prosecutors have claimed all the murders lined up with times Heuermann was alone at the family's home ... while they were away on vacation.

"If you're going to sit there and tell me that he only did this during these particular time periods, I was away on vacation, I have to question that," she told his lawyer. "If this man is that much of a genius that he's capable of doing that, I don't believe it."

She also insisted her husband was "not seeing prostitutes," calling him a "family man" who "didn't do this."

Specifically referring to the July 2009 disappearance of Melissa Barthelemy, Ellerup said she and the kids were on a trip to Iceland. She claimed that, at the time, her husband was at home remodeling the bathroom.

"I remember July 10, 2009, I planned a trip to go to Iceland for 5 weeks to visit my family. I asked Rex, 'Are you okay with me taking the kids to spend time with my family?' And he said, yes. Rex was always working. Working, working, working to bring home a paycheck," she recalled.

"The reason he didn't come with us on vacation, is construction building in highest in New York City in the summer. He would also try to take advantage of time we were out of the house to do some reconstructing in the house," she added, saying the whole bathroom was "completely gutted" and renovated while they were gone, before calling him a "problem solver."

"I was in Iceland for 5 weeks. She went missing July 10 and they're assuming she was held hostage here in this house, he killed her and dumped her body the night before he left for Iceland," she added, saying he later joined the rest of the family oversees. Investigators, meanwhile, have claimed  "taunting calls" made to Barthelemy's family about her being murder from an anonymous person at the time stopped around the same time he was in Iceland.

Megan Waterman was last seen on June 6, 2010 -- while Heuerman's wife and children were on a trip to Six Flags in Maryland.

As for why he was MIA on that getaway, Ellerup said, "Rex doesn't do roller coasters and he doesn't do water slides, because he suffers from severe motion sickness. I had bought season tickets to go to Six Flags for my children."

She added, "I'm convinced the person they're looking for is not a family man."

Maureen Brainard-Barnes was last seen on July 9, 2007 in New York City, the same time Ellerup and the kids were in Atlantic City on another vacation.

"They're alleging my husband managed to go to work, solicit sex from a sex worker, sit on a train, and then come home, make plans, pick 'em up, kill 'em, dump 'em, turn around and go to Atlantic City to come see us?" she asked, bewildered at the accusations.

"I'm sorry, it's bulls--t. Sorry for my language," she exclaimed.

Jessica Taylor was last seen on July 21, 2003, before her torso was found days later. At that time, Ellerup and the kids were on a vacation to Vermont.

"The only thing I was thinking about while I was on vacation was trying to do something fun with my kids," she claimed.

Their daughter, Victoria, also appeared on the docuseries and recalled her father having to stay home to work. She said that while they were on vacation, "he was always calling, multiple times a day" -- adding that it was not like her father to "just drop off the map and not contact us."

"It's never occurred to me he's checking to see, make sure that we're not coming home early," she then thought -- before adding, "it's hard to imagine these allegations, while we were having fun on vacation and he was home murdering, dismembering women here."

According to Ellerup, she never saw any "abnormal behavior" from her other half -- insisting, "and if there was any knowledge at all of some unusual behavior in that man, I would have walked out the door."

She added that he never hid his computer from the family and never withheld the password, adding, "There was nothing off limits from Rex Heuermann."

Ellerup, at one point in the doc, also spoke with Kerri Rawson, the daughter of the BTK killer, about her shock over the allegations against her husband.

"The FBI lady, she tells me that my husband was with soliciting sex with a sex worker 2 days before thanksgiving. I says 'No, he was not doing that on that day,'" she insisted to Rawson. "Then she tells me he was dumping a body on Gilgo Beach the night before he called me and I'm sitting here saying, 'No!' I'm sitting here thinking, 'What was my husband doing during that time period? He was fixing up the bathroom.'"

At the very end of the series, an off-camera producer brings up all the evidence stacked up against Heuermann to Ellerup, who remains steadfast in her belief her husband is innocent.

When asked if she's still asking herself, "How could you not know?", Ellerup replied, "No, I'm not asking myself that question, because I believe I would know. Until I see definitive proof, there's no way I'm going to know for sure whether or not I saw the signs."

When asked about how, as prosecutors noted, "an analysis of these devices has revealed Heuermann's significant collection of violent, bondage, and torture pornography, currently dating back to 1994," Ellerup again hedged.

"I have no idea that they're his. I really honestly don't," she replied, before a producer asked if she believes the material belonged to someone else, but was on Heuermann's hard drive. She didn't respond.

The producer then brought up how seven hairs across six different bodies linked to their family, with Ellerup simply calling that evidence "circumstantial." When asked about a pattern showing he allegedly solicited sex whenever they were out of town and escorts wound up murdered, she said, "I'm not going to believe any of that information until I see it ... We all have to wait for the court case to play out, period."

"My husband, he's a family man. He's my hero. What I want to say to him is, I love you, no matter what," she added.

The doc ended with the family talking about selling their home.

"Now that this life in this house is coming to an end, it makes me feel like there's a new beginning," said Ellerup. "What that life is going to be life, I do not know. I will find out eventually. And I will deal with it the best that I can. I did what I had to do to protect myself and my children."

Peacock's The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets is streaming now.