Wife of alleged serial killer Heuermann takes cash for documentary. We don't have to watch

The signature cry of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks is “I’m going to Disney World.” Now, people with passing connections to crime are celebrating as well.

Ten years ago, Juror B37 in the George Zimmerman trial went stampeding out of the courthouse and straight to a book publisher before being gently discouraged from proceeding by a firestorm on Twitter.

That didn’t stop a multitude of other Zimmerman-related books, including a $64 special edition of “The George Zimmerman trial" printed on acid-free paper, luxuriously bound in leather, and embellished with gold stamping of an original design. The raised bands across the spine are distinctive of the classic bookmaker's art.”

Because nothing eases human suffering and tragedy like hand-tooled leather.

This came after the truly bizarre 2007 publication of “If I Did It,” a “hypothetical” look at the Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, written by Pablo Fenjves, a witness at the O.J. Simpson trial — but ostensibly written by Simpson himself after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. paid him $600,000 to play along.

Simpson was quoted as saying, "Hey, they directly offered me $600,000 not to dispute that I wrote the book. That's cash."

So the stage was certainly set for Asa Ellerup, the wife of accused serial killer Rex Heuermann, to accept a deal from the streaming service of NBCUniversal for a documentary that will follow her through her husband's trial, expected to commence next year.

“(W)here some saw evil, depravity and tragedy, media companies saw pay dirt, swooping in with lucrative bids to turn the whole thing into content,” The New York Times wrote.

Heuermann is suspected of killing an as-yet undetermined number of young women and dumping them on Long Island’s Gilgo Beach. His wife is said to have had no clue about her husband’s alleged double life, with the killings occurring on occasions that she was out of town.

So now, a film crew is following her around, including into the courtroom where she is monitoring the trial of the man from whom she is now (understandably, all things considered) seeking a divorce.

This has (understandably, all things considered) appalled the families of the victims.

“The intense bidding for Ms. Ellerup’s story and the payment caused an outcry from relatives of women whose remains were found in the Gilgo Beach area,” the Times wrote.

It’s the James McMurtry song, “Tired of Walking":

It's pretty tragic, pretty gory

I knew ’em all, personal like

I got the inside story

I'm gonna sell the rights

'Cause I'm tired of walking, I wanna ride.

Much as I want to, much as I might feel it’s the right thing to do, I can’t cast the first stone at poor Asa. She’s just been gobsmacked with the allegation that she’s been living with a serial killer all these years, then the police come in and tear her house upside down to the point she has to sleep outdoors on a mat and cook on a grill in front of a battery of television cameras and shouting reporters.

After all that, after you’re broke and humiliated and have nothing left to lose, what are you supposed to do, tell NBC, “Oh no thanks to your zillions of dollars, it would be disrespectful.”

Because it is disrespectful, no question.

“Disappointed, disgusted, flabbergasted, frustrated are a few words that come to mind right now,” a relative of a victim wrote in a social media post. “The way that the media will buy stories to further re-victimize, re-traumatize, and exploit the families & victims of serial killers is evil!”

Yes. Yes it is. And unfortunately, millions of us will be forced to underwrite this evil by tuning in and watching. We don’t mean anything by it, obviously. Neither does Asa. Neither does NBC. But we all have to play along, because as O.J. would say, “that’s cash.”

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Rex Heuermann's wife is latest in long line of people selling rights