Gilgo Beach murders - update: Police identify victim Karen Vergata but won’t comment on Rex Heuermann link

This week, Rex Heuermann’s wife Asa Ellerup broke her silence in her first interview since her husband’s arrest where she revealed that she has been left filled with “anxiety” and their two children “cry themselves to sleep” over the horror.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, shivering... anxiety,” she told The New York Post.

“My children cry themselves to sleep. I mean, they’re not children. They’re grown adults but they’re my children, and my son has developmental disabilities and he cried himself to sleep.”

Rex A Heuermann, the architect accused of murdering at least three women near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach, appears in Suffolk County Court on Tuesday

Their daughter Victoria has been left feeling “not human”, with Ms Ellerup’s lawyer Bob Macedonio explaining that the family had been treated “like animals”.

Ms Ellerup spoke out as she said that the family’s home in Massapequa Park had been left in tatters by investigators who spent almost two weeks combing through the property for evidence connected to the murders or for trophies the accused killer took from his victims.

Images show the bathtub with holes cut out and possessions strewn everywhere.

Mr Macedonio told the Post that he is making an itemised list of the damage to send to the DA’s office.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said last week that a “massive amount of evidence” had been recovered from the home which Mr Heuermann grew up in as a child – and which he went on to share with his family up until his sudden arrest.

No human remains were discovered, but a trove of around 270 guns were seized from the home.

The DA previously revealed that they believe at least some of the murders may have taken place inside the home.

Prosecutors in the Gilgo Beach murders case have asked the court to obtain a swab of suspect Rex Heuermann’s DNA.

CNN reported on the request on Thursday, two days after Mr Heuermann appeared in court for an evidentiary hearing.

Previous court filings revealed that investigators used discarded pizza crust to link Mr Heuermann to the killings.

Read more about prior evidence:

The daughter of the notorious Happy Face Killer has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help the wife of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann “start her new life”.

Melissa Moore announced her decision to try to help Asa Ellerup as she compared their experiences discovering that a close family member had spent years leading a “double life” as an alleged serial killer.

“Today, I have an opportunity to use my voice to help Asa, who isn’t in a place to speak about the terror and horror she and her family are experiencing at this moment,” she said.

Read the full story:

The trove of evidence against Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann includes hundreds of hours of footage from his home in Massapequa Park and his office in Midtown Manhattan, according to prosecutors.

The accused killer appeared in court in Suffolk County on Tuesday for a brief preliminary hearing.

In the hearing, prosecutors outlined the wealth of evidence against him including 2,500 pages of documents, crime scene photographs, autopsy reports.

The evidence was turned over to Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei and Mr Heuermann’s attorney Michael Brown. It has been sealed under a protective order, limiting its release to the public.

His Manhattan business describes him as a registered architect with over 30 years’ experience.

His neighbours describe him as a “family man” living with his wife and two children in a tight-knit community in Suffolk County.

But now authorities are describing him as the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer who unleashed terror along the shores of Long Island more than a decade ago.

So who is Rex Heuermann?

For around two decades, the sands and marshes of Long Island’s Gilgo Beach kept a dark secret.

A killer or killers roamed the locality, luring in escorts and sex workers and brutally murdering them.

Body after body was dumped along the shoreline, hidden for months and even years without being discovered.

Then, in 2010, a chilling 911 call made by a woman in fear for her life led police to search the area.

What they discovered was far more horrifying than anyone could have imagined.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp reports:

The Gilgo Beach murders had long stumped law enforcement officials in Suffolk County who believed it could be the work of one or more serial killers who targeted sex workers and dumped their bodies along the remote beaches on Ocean Parkway.

The case began in May 2010 when Shannan Gilbert vanished after leaving a client’s house on foot near Gilgo Beach.

She called 911 for help saying she feared for her life and was never seen alive again.

During a search for Gilbert in dense thicket close to the beach, police discovered the remains of another woman.

Within a matter of days, the remains of three more victims were found close by.

By spring 2011, the remains of a total of 10 victims had been found including eight women, a man, and a toddler. Police have long thought that it could be the work of one or more serial killers.

Gilbert’s body was then found in December 2011. Her cause of death is widely contested with authorities long claiming that it is not connected to the serial killer or killers but that she died from accidental drowning as she fled from the client’s home.

However, an independent autopsy commissioned by her family ruled that she died by strangulation and her mother believes she was murdered.

Like Gilbert, most of the victims targeted were sex workers, while some are yet to be identified.

Investigators in Long Island have dodged questions about a crucial piece of evidence believed to have been found inside the family home of Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney was grilled in a press conference last Tuesday about the chilling alleged discovery of a mattress inside a huge vault in the basement of his home in Massapequa Park.

The DA repeatedly refused to confirm or deny the existence of the potentially harrowing piece of evidence but did confirm the existence of the walk-in underground vault beneath the property that he shared with his family.

“The vault is big enough to walk into and it’s in the basement,” he said, adding that “like the rest of the house, [the vault] was cluttered”.

Read more: