Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann’s wife sparked a three-ring media circus when she showed to one of his court appearances for the first time Wednesday — and she was spotted smiling and laughing during the hearing related to the killings of at least three young women.
Asa Ellerup, 59, arrived at the Arthur M. Cromarty Courthouse in Riverhead, Long Island in a silver Mercedes equipped with a lavalier microphone and with a Peacock documentary crew in tow.
A swarm of shutterbugs jockeyed for the best glimpse of the strange entourage, with two photographers even getting into fisticuffs before the doors of Ellerup’s swanky ride had opened.
Dressed in a teal top, blue cardigan and slacks, Ellerup held her head high as she entered the courtroom escorted by state court officers who held the media at bay.
The Iceland native looked noticeably calmer and more put-together than in her “disoriented” first weeks after her hulking husband’s July 13 capture — and was even seen smiling and laughing while seated between her lawyer, Robert Macedonio, and an interviewer from the documentary crew.
She also smiled and nodded at Heuermann — whom she filed for divorce from on July 19 — when he turned and smiled at her before leaving the courtroom.
Heuermann, 60, appeared far sharper than usual in a new black suit — though, as with previous court hearings, he still sported the bizarre comb-over haircut which he seemed to have received in jail.
The couple was believed to have been estranged over the past few months, but Heuermann’s defense attorney Michael Brown hinted to The Post that Ellerup actually visited her soon-to-be-ex husband behind bars.
“She doesn’t believe he committed these acts or is capable of committing these acts,” Brown insisted.
“So [did she visit him in jail]? Answer…the fact that his wife, his family member, was able to see him, and they talked, that was important to him,” he continued.
“He indicated that he was very happy to see her. I can tell you that.”
Although Wednesday was Ellerup’s first court outing, it was Heuermann’s fourth time before a judge — including his arraignment, where the architect was brought up on three counts of murder related to the strangulation deaths of Amber Lynn Costello, 27, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, and Megan Waterman, 22.
He is also the prime suspect in the death of 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who was the first of the so-called “Gilgo Four” to disappear.
Ellerup is believed to have been traveling at the time all four women were killed – though DNA from her hair was an early lynchpin in the case against Heuermann, investigators revealed over the summer.
“When we told the wife, she was shocked, she was embarrassed,” then-Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison previously said of Ellerup’s intial reaction to news of her husband’s possible link to the infamous Gilgo crimes.
While she has mostly been tight-lipped about the case, Ellerup told The Post exclusively over the summer that her adult children — 33-year-old Christopher Sheridan, who has special needs, and 26-year-old Victoria Heuermann — “cry themselves to sleep” since Heuermann’s arrest.
She also claimed that the investigators who combed through the family’s ramshackle Massapequa Park home in search of more evidence in the Gilgo case left the property unlivable.
“[The police] treated [the family] like animals,” Macedonio opined at the time.
Ellerup’s court debut came just one day after news broke that Heuermann filed paperwork to make her the sole owner of their Massapequa Park home.
Brown declined to answer The Post’s questions about whether this move was part of a plan to secure the family’s financial wellbeing before Heuermann heads to trial.
Heuermann is due back in court on Feb. 6.