Police conduct another search on Gilgo suspect Rex Heuermann’s home
Cops on Monday launched a massive new search at the Long Island home of suspected Gilgo Beach serial murderer Rex Heuermann — as they try to determine if he killed inside his family’s house.
Workers with the local medical-examiner’s office were seen at the married Manhattan architect’s middle-class home in Massapequa Park in the afternoon.
The development came hours after police choppers began circling the property around 8 a.m., with the entire block soon jammed with state troopers and Suffolk County cops.
A mobile command center and Crime Scene investigation trucks lined the street, while white tents were erected in the front and back yards with large white boxes hauled inside for inspection.
Despite a trove of circumstantial evidence, investigators have yet to pin down where Heuermann’s alleged victims were killed before their bodies were dumped on desolate local beaches — prompting Monday’s second search of the home, law-enforcement sources said.
“Two hours ago I came back from a job, and there are five helicopters circling over my daughter’s school, and you can guess the first thing that came into my mind. Oh my God!” said Ricky Tavella, 54, a longtime neighbor and electrician, to The Post.
“I saw all the cop cars. I just ran into the school and asked the lady at the counter what was going on, and she explained. She said, ‘No, everything’s OK. They’re just doing another search of Rex Heuermann’s house. I almost fell down,” Tavella said.
Heurmann’s lawyer, Michael J. Brown, and a lawyer for his estranged wife, Asa Ellerup, confirmed to Newsday that authorities were searching the home of the dad of two, who is currently in jail for allegedly killing four women more than a decade ago.
Brown said a search warrant had been served to allow cops back into the property.
Ellerup’s lawyer, Robert Macedonio, said, “There have been no [new] arrests made nor are we anticipating any for the family.”
Brown said the search was launched while the home was unoccupied. Ellerup and her son are in South Carolina, while her daughter is elsewhere.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
Authorities had already searched the home and grounds extensively last year after Heuermann’s stunning arrest.
Despite DNA evidence, cell-phone records and years-old eyewitness identification from the area at the time, investigators have never determined where the victims — known collectively as the “Gilgo Four” — were actually killed.
The slain women — Amber Lynn Costello, 27, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Nicole Brainard-Smith, 24, and Megan Waterman, 22 — were sex escorts who solicited clients on Craig’s List and other online sites.
Their bodies were discovered on isolated sandy stretches along Ocean Parkway between 2010 and 2011, but their slayings remained unsolved for more than a decade.
Cops reopened the case in early 2022 and identified Heuermann as a suspect in the grisly murders in about two months.
Heuermann has been held at the Riverhead Correctional Facility in Suffolk County since his arrest.
Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon told People magazine last week that the hulking accused killer is confined to a 60-square-foot cell and is kept largely separated from other inmates.
Toulon said Ellerup, who avoided her troubled ex for months, now visits him at the jail about once a week.
He said Heuermann has slowly adapted to life behind bars.
“In the beginning, he was a little bit more starry-eyed as to his surroundings,” the sheriff told the outlet. “Life has transformed over the last several months.
“He receives visits, he makes phone calls, and he doesn’t congregate with the rest of the population because of the crimes he’s accused of.”
Toulon said Heuermann, who is allowed one hour of exercise in the jailhouse yard, spends most of his time reading, watching TV or reading over documents from his murder case.
Residents told The Post on Monday that they are upset by all the renewed local upheaval.
“None of us were expecting this this morning! It’s very upsetting,” said a woman who lives nearby.
“They’ve already done this. What prompted them to do it again?” she said of authorities.
Tavella added, “It’s getting ridiculous.
“Get it, and get out of here,” he said of probers seeking evidence. “It was just starting to get back to normal. I thought this was over! They were here so long. You’d think they found everything that they could find.”
Heuermann has denied the charges against him.
-Additional reporting by Ronny Reyes
