Rex Heuermann’s Ex-Wife Asa Ellerup Sleeps in Kill Room

Content warning: This story contains details of murder.

Asa Ellerup is still processing the revelation that she was married to a serial killer for nearly three decades. 

Weeks before her ex-husband Rex Heuermann confessed to brutally murdering eight women during an April 8 court appearance, the man known as the Gilgo Beach killer privately met with Ellerup and admitted to his crimes. 

Ellerup shared that she’s still trying to understand the two sides of the “family man” she knew, explaining on Peacock’s documentary The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets that she’s since been sleeping in what producers called the vaulted “kill room” of their Long Island home—where Heuermann brought seven of his victims, three of whom he dismembered.

“The brutal truth is that Rex Heuermann said he dismembered the bodies in this room,” she shared on the April 23 episode. “I’m here because I do feel spiritual. I am trying to say spiritually, in my own way, that I am really sorry for what these victims went through.”

She remodeled the space—which originally served as Heuermann’s childhood bedroom—into a functional basement, decorating the space with a green Hello Kitty bedspread and shelves of plushies and Panda bear stuffed animals. As depicted in the docuseries, the walls are adorned with floral paintings and a cross.