New York State Police returned Monday to the Massapequa Park home of the suspect in the Gilgo Beach serial killings to execute a search warrant, according to the attorney for Rex Heuermann's ex-wife.
Heuermann, an architect, was arrested in July 2023 in connection to a string of murders and bodies found along Gilgo Beach on Long Island. He has been charged in the deaths of four women, including a Connecticut mother of two who vanished in 2007 and whose remains were found more than three years later along a coastal highway in New York.
"As District Attorney Tierney has previously stated, the work of the Gilgo Beach Homicide Task force is continuing," a spokesperson for the Suffolk County District Attorney's office said in a statement Monday. "We do not comment on investigative steps while ongoing."
Crime lab technicians could be seen in the front yard of the home on First Ave setting up a tent after descending on the rundown, single-family home before 7 a.m. A heavy police presence was spotted in the area by Chopper 4 for much of the day and the street in front of the home was closed off.
Officers removed boxes and bags of evidence from the house that is about 40 miles east of Manhattan. It was not immediately clear how long the search would last.
"Investigations evolve, new information comes in. As that new info comes in, it’s necessary to take additional steps and that’s what we are doing," said Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney. "As prosecutors, we speak through indictments. So up until and if that happens, we’ll talk, but as for right now we won’t say anything other than it’s part of an ongoing investigation."
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A lawyer for Heuermann's ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, said police came to execute a search warrant.
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“I can confirm there is police presence at the residence this morning. My understanding they are still there. It’s also my understanding they are executing another search warrant," Ellerup's lawyer, Robert Macedonio, said in a statement to NBC New York. "Asa and her son Christopher are in South Carolina. Victoria was home at the time the police arrived this morning. She is no longer there at the residence.”
Spokespersons for the New York State Police and Suffolk County Police Department deferred questions to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.
Heuermann has maintained his innocence and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
"They had little bits of evidence and focused on Rex Heuermann and then they accumulated more evidence and tried to fit that evidence to complete their narrative," Heuermann's attorney Mike Brown said in January after his client was charged in the fourth killing, that of Maureen Brainard Barnes, who vanished in 2007. Her remains were found more than three years later along a coastal highway on Long Island.
Heuermann, 60, is expected to be back in court June 18 for a status hearing in Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverhead. No trial date has been set.
In April, police searched a heavily wooded area in Manorville on Long Island for several days in connection with the Gilgo Beach case. It's unclear if Monday's search at Heuermann's house is in anyway connected with that other recent search.
Police have not officially explained why teams had been combing through woods in Manorville for days, though a source previously said the search was in connection with the Gilgo Beach murder investigation. That search expanded on Friday to the Southampton community of North Sea, about 30 miles away, according to a law enforcement source.
An unsolved murder there from 1993 has been linked to Manorville carpenter John Bittrolff, who was convicted in 2016 of killing sex workers Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee. Bittrolff's name has at times been mentioned in connection to the Gilgo case.
Prosecutors wouldn’t say if the North Sea search was connected to the one going on in Manorville.
