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

Back in 2010, very few people knew the name Gilgo Beach.

The small beach in Long Island didn’t have the same draw for New York day-trippers or staycationers as the shores along other oceanfront towns like Montauk or East Hampton.

And for anyone outside of New York state, they’d likely never even heard of it.

That all changed one night in May when a terrified woman called 911 begging for help to save her from someone she believed was trying to kill her.

A search of the area for the missing woman followed – and what it uncovered was something that placed Gilgo Beach on the map forever.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp reports:

Rex Heuermann’s wife Asa Ellerup spoke out on Wednesday to reveal how her neighbours want to raze her home in the wake of her husband’s arrest in the Gilgo Beach murders.

“The people in this neighborhood, they want this house gone,” she told the Daily News. “They want it bulldozed, you understand? They want it gone.”

She said her family continues to come across things “destroyed” by investigators who spent days scouring the home for evidence linking Mr Heuermann to the serial killings.

As for how she’s coping with her husband’s traumatic unmasking, she said: “I can’t think. You ask me what do I want? ... I want to be able to sleep for a couple of hours. I’m not sleeping.”

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:

Long Island officials are expected to announce the identity of a currently unnamed Gilgo Beach murders victim in a press conference 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 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 Jane Doe 7 or Fire Island Jane Doe.

The breakthrough comes almost three decades after some of her remains were first discovered.

It was 20 April 1996 when the woman’s legs were found wrapped in plastic at Davis Park on Fire Island’s Blue Point Beach.

Almost exactly 15 years later on 11 April 2011, the woman’s skull was then found off Ocean Parkway during the search for Gilgo Beach victims. The skull was located close to the remains of another also unidentified victim – Jane Doe 3, also known as Peaches.

To this day, investigators have been unable to identify Jane Doe 7, saying only that she was a white woman aged 18 to 50 years old who had several scars including evidence of surgery on her left ankle.

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?

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney and other New York officials are holding a press conference to provide an update in the Gilgo Beach murders case.