Islip Terrace, N.Y. (PIX11) — An effort to get health insurance funding for the wife of accused serial killer Rex Heuermann, the attorney representing his wife, Asa Ellerup, revealed Friday she had been fighting breast cancer for several years, along with skin cancer.
“The source of her health insurance was her husband’s business,” attorney Bob Macedonio told a crowd of reporters outside his office in Islip Terrace.
Macedonio said 100 percent of the proceeds of a GoFundMe page started for Ellerup by the daughter of serial killer BTK will go to help the family.
Vess Mitev, the lawyer for Heuermann’s two adult children, announced the family will be filing a Notice of Claim, which essentially sets the stage for a potential lawsuit against police—who spent 12-days searching the Heuermann home for evidence, even cracking open the bathtub.
“They have rights and liberties that need to be respected,” Mitev said of the family.
Shortly after the press conference, veteran attorney John Ray held his own media availability down the road near federal court, making sensational claims that Asa Ellerup, the wife of the accused, is not a victim and that sex workers allegedly came to the home, using the basement.
“Mrs. Ellerup was present in that tiny little home when this occurred,” John Ray said. “I have a witness.”
But the witness is not willing to go public and the Suffolk County District Attorney has said there is no evidence suggesting Heuermann’s wife or children knew about his alleged “double life.”
“They didn’t know,” attorney Bob Macedonio said earlier.
Macedonio also noted that a large doll in a glass case that came out of the Heuermann home was a “collectible” belonging to Asa Ellerup.
The sister of Shannan Gilbert, whose 2010 disappearance spawned the search that led to the discovery of the Gilgo Beach victims, phoned into John Ray’s press conference to say she was outraged by the Go Fund Me for Heuermann’s family.
“Me and the victims’ families feel it’s disgusting,” Sherre Gilbert said. “When our loved ones went missing, most of us were not given that support.”
