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

Attorneys for accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann have received a massive amount of evidence to review from the prosecution.

Mr Heuermann, the Manhattan architect accused of murdering at least three women and dumping their bodies along a remote stretch of shore in the Long Island community of Gilgo Beach, appeared in court on Tuesday for the first time since his arraignment.

Mr Heuermann is charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, who disappeared in 2009 and 2010. Prosecutors say he’s also the main suspect in the death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who vanished in 2007.

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Court records show that Mr Heuermann was linked to the “Gilgo Four” murders through a tip about his pickup truck, a stash of burner phones, “sadistic” online searches, phone calls taunting victims’ families, his wife’s hair found on the victims’ bodies – and a pizza crust.

The first piece of the puzzle came when a witness in the Amber Costello case revealed details about a vehicle that a client was driving when she was last seen alive.

Costello, who worked as a sex worker, was seen alive on the evening of 2 September 2010 when she left her home in West Babylon. A witness said she had gone to meet a client who was driving a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.

Last year, a registration search showed that local man Mr Heuermann owned a first-generation model of the truck at the time of Costello’s disappearance. He also matched the witness’ description of the man believed to be the killer: a large, white “ogre”-like male in his mid-40s, around 6’4’ to 6’6” tall, with “dark bushy hair,” and “big oval style 1970’s type eyeglasses”.

The discovery of the car led investigators to hone in on Mr Heuermann including executing 300 subpoenas, search warrants and other legal processes to obtain evidence to determine his potential involvement in the killings.

Among this was Mr Heuermann’s alleged use of burner phones, with prosecutors saying that he used burner phones to contact the three women and arrange to meet them at the time when they went missing.

He also allegedly took two of the victims’ cellphones – and used one to make taunting phone calls to one of their families where he boasted about her murder, court documents state.

Mr Heuermann’s DNA was found on one of the victims, while his wife’s hair was found on three of the four women he is connected to.

In a statement released through her lawyers Macedonio & Duncan, Rex Heuermann’s wife has pleaded to be left alone.

“On behalf of my family and especially my elderly neighbors, who have also had their lives turned upside down by the enormous police presence, in addition to the spectators, and news crews,” Ms Ellerup’s statement read.

“They deserve to live peacefully; they should be able to walk their dogs and go to the grocery stores without cameras shoved in their faces.

“I am pleading with you all to give us space so that we may regain some normalcy in our neighborhood.”

The wife of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann has stayed in contact with him since his bombshell arrest for the murders of at least three women, it has been revealed.

Asa Ellerup – who has been married to the accused serial killer for more than 20 years and shares two adult children with him – has spoken to her husband in “personal” jailhouse phone calls while he remains behind bars in Suffolk County jail, her attorney Robert Macedonio told CNN on Tuesday.

“I believe there has [been contact] but you have to realise any phone calls are recorded out of the facility,” he said, declining to detail the contents of those conversations.

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Police in Long Island have announced an “update” in the investigation into the Gilgo Beach serial killings.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney and other New York officials have scheduled a press conference for 10.30am ET on Friday morning to announce new details over the murders.

A senior law enforcement source told NBC New York that investigators have been able to identity another victim – previously referred to as the seventh Jane Doe.

This week, 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.”

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.

Long Island police are believed to have identified another victim in the Gilgo Beach murders case in a major breakthrough that they are expected to announce later today.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney and other New York officials have scheduled a press conference for 10.30am ET on Friday morning to announce what they described as an “update in the ongoing investigation by the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force”.

A senior law enforcement source told NBC New York that investigators have been able to identity another victim – previously referred to as the seventh Jane Doe.

In total, the remains of 11 victims were found dumped along the shores of Gilgo Beach back in 2010 and 2011 but, more than a decade later, some are yet to be identified.

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