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Wife of Gilgo Beach murders suspect says she’s giving husband “benefit of the doubt”
The wife of Rex Heuermann, the man suspected of killing four women around Gilgo Beach on Long Island in New York, issued a statement Wednesday saying she is giving her husband “the benefit of the doubt.”
Asa Ellerup said in a statement through her attorneys that she sympathized with the victims and their families and that “nobody deserves to die in that manner.”
“I will listen to all of the evidence and withhold judgment until the end of trial,” she said. “I have given Rex the benefit of the doubt, as we all deserve.”
Ellerup filed for divorce after her husband’s arrest, but her attorneys noted that she visits Heuermann every week and believes he is “not capable of the crimes he is accused of.”
Emma Seiwell/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Heuermann was charged in July of last year with the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Then in January of this year, he was indicted in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
The four women, dubbed the “Gilgo Four,” were found in 2010 buried in close proximity to each other along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. All four were sex workers who had gone missing between 2007 and 2010.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Bob Macedonio, one of Ellerup’s attorneys, told “48 Hours” in September 2023 that Ellerup “had no idea any of this was going on. Nobody wants to think that they’ve been living with, sleeping next to a serial killer for the past 25 years.”
Investigators say they have evidence Ellerup was out of town when the murders occurred, and she has not been charged or named as a suspect, “48 Hours” reported.
Ellerup appeared at one of Heuermann’s court hearings back in November 2023.
Christopher Ciccone, an artist and former dancer who was also singer Madonna’s younger brother, has died, his rep Brad Taylor confirmed to CBS News. He was 63.
He died from cancer on Oct. 4, surrounded by his husband, Ray Thacker, Taylor said in a statement.
Born on Nov. 22, 1960, in Pontiac, Michigan, Ciccone was an artist, interior decorator and designer, who began his career as a dancer. He joined the Le Group de La Palace Royale in Ottawa in 1980 before moving to New York two years later to support his older sister’s music career as a backup dancer.
Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
As Madonna’s career grew, Ciccone became more involved — serving as the art director on his sister’s Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990 and as the tour director for her The Girlie Show in 1993. He also directed music videos for megastars Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett in the 1990s.
His role expanded away from music when Ciccone took on the role of interior designer within the homes his sister owned and occupied in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.
In 2012, Ciccone released his own shoe line, The Ciccone Collection, at London Fashion Week.
He told CBS News at the time that his goal is to make the brand “accessible to everybody” and not too pricey.
“The great thing about doing shoes is that potentially everyone could have a pair. When you’re doing art, there’s only one,” Ciccone said
Ciccone, who was openly gay, claimed that his sister outed him during her 1991 interview with The Advocate.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images for OUT Magazine
Ciccone released a tell-all autobiography called “Life With My Sister Madonna,” leading to reports that the two had been estranged, but Ciccone told CBS News in 2012 that he was glad he wrote the book.
“I don’t regret any of that,” he said. “I think because of that it sort of led me to this. It gave people an opportunity to think of me as a creative person, as an artist and not just as Madonna’s brother, which is a tag I’m going to wear forever,” Ciccone said in 2012. “But I’m hopeful that at some point it will be Christopher Ciccone first. It’s cool…I’m perfectly happy being what I am.”
The two eventually made up.
“Our relationship is fine as far as I’m concerned,” he told CBS News.
Ciccone and Thacker — a British-born actor — married in 2016.
Ciccone’s death comes fewer than two weeks after the death of his and Madonna’s stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, from cancer. His eldest brother Anthony died in 2023.
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