In Asa Ellerup’s case it was a question of ‘how well do you really know the man you had been sharing a bed with for 25 years?’
The arrest of Rex Heuermann as the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer came as a complete shock to the US.
Heuermann is suspected of being behind the deaths of three sex workers in 2010. With Long Island as his playground, the Daily Mail reported he had even killed one of his victims in his own home.
And while on his killing spree, his wife Ellerup had no idea about what was happening under her nose.
According to Fox News, the 59-year-old mom of two had been at her Massapequa Park home when cops burst in and showed her pictures.
“When we told the wife, she was shocked, she was embarrassed,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told the news outlet.
“Okay, it is what it is,” Ellerup reportedly replied when shown the evidence stacked up against her husband.
DNA from Ellerup’s own hair has been pivotal in the Gilgo Beach case, the “New York Post” reported, before adding she had been ruled out a suspect.
And according to officials, she had been travelling each time the women her husband has been accused of killing disappeared.
In a previous interview with CNN, Harrison said Ellerup and her two grown children’s reaction suggested they had no idea “about this double life” Heuermann was leading.
Earlier this week, Ellerup filed for divorce, six days after her architect husband’s arrest.
Her lawyer Bob Macedonio told Fox News Digital: "This is all still a whirlwind. Her and her children's lives have been completely turned upside-down."
Heuermann allegedly met sex workers on the internet and via dating apps. He then lured and killed them, dumping their bodies on a remote stretch of Ocean Parkway.