- Asa Ellerup provided a cheek swab sample the night of her husband’s arrest
- She was cleared as a suspect and was out of town when they happened
- Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the murders of three sex workers
Cheek swabs taken in the Gilgo Beach murders suspect Rex Heuermann’s estranged wife matches DNA found on victims, police have revealed.
Asa Ellerup, 59, provided a cheek swab to investigators the night they arrested Heuermann, 60, for the murders of three women whose bodies were found along a remote beach road on Long Island.
The samples matched hairs found on burlap used to wrap the remains, as reported by ABC News.
Investigators cleared Ellerup as a suspect in the murders because she was out of town when they occurred.
Officials had previously said Heuermann left his wife’s hair on three of the prostitutes he is accused of and his own DNA on someone else’s body.
Asa Ellerup, 59, provided a cheek swab sample to investigators the night they arrested her husband for the murder of three sex workers on Long Island
Investigators cleared Ellerup as a suspect in the murders because she was out of town when they occurred. Her estranged husband Rex Heuermann, pictured, has pleaded not guilty
The news comes as Ellerup agrees to take part in a Peacock documentary showing her family as they navigate her husband’s trial, which is set to begin next year.
Ellerup was reportedly paid at least $1 million for the deal with NBC’s streaming service.
Authorities have said Ellerup was unaware of her husband’s alleged murders. The money she made from the show won’t go to his defense either, as New York law prohibits suspects from selling their story to the media.
A Peacock spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com that Peacock is developing a multi-part documentary series.
“Asa Ellerup was not paid for her participation in the series and has no creative control over the outcome of the series,” the spokesperson said.
‘As usual with documentaries, she received a licensing fee for the use of her archive material; the payment cannot go to the defendant or his defense funds.”
The spokesperson added that they had also “contacted the families of all victims to appear in the documentary, all of whom did not respond or declined.”
The mother of two adult children filed for divorce from Heuermann six days after he was accused of killing three sex workers whose bodies were found on the deserted stretch of coast near their Long Island home between 2010 and 2011.
Heuermann was arrested in July and has pleaded not guilty to the murders of Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, who disappeared in 2009 and 2010.
Ellerup reportedly paid at least $1 million in a deal with NBC’s streaming service Peacock
The first victim, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, was discovered by Suffolk County police on December 11, 2010. The body of Megan Waterman, 22, was found two days later.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes was 25 years old when she went missing (left). Amber Lynn Costello was 27 years old. Their bodies were found the same day near Barthelemy
Authorities said he is also the “prime suspect” in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
At the time of his arrest, prosecutors said they had analyzed DNA from a pizza crust that Heuermann had discarded in a Manhattan trash can and compared it to DNA from hairs found on Waterman’s body. Prosecutors subsequently received permission from the court to collect DNA from a cheek swab taken from Heuermann as further evidence of his connection to Waterman’s murder.
The arrest of Heuermann, an architect, came 13 years after police searching for a missing woman found 10 sets of human remains buried in brush near remote Gilgo Beach on Long Island.
Authorities suspected a serial killer had committed some of the killings, but have long said they did not believe all the victims were killed by the same person. The majority of murders remain unsolved.