The wife of the Gilgo Beach murder suspect, Rex Heuermann, has filed for divorce a week after he was arrested on murder charges at his Manhattan office.
Heuermann is currently being held at Suffolk County Jail in Yaphank after being arrested last Thursday and charged with the murders ofAmber Costello, 27,Melissa Barthelemy, 24, andMegan Waterman, 22. On Friday,he pleaded not guiltyto charges of first- and second-degree murder.
He is also considered a prime suspect in the death of 25-year-oldMaureen Brainard-Barnes. All four women had worked as online escorts and had been missing between 2007 and 2010.
Rex Heuermann poses for his booking photo on July 14, 2023.
Macedonio told Fox News that authorities arrived at Heuermann’shome in Massapequa Parkover an hour after his arrest to seize his electronic devices, which could contain evidence, and informed his wife and children of the charges.
“They were home and the cops came in, and they were completely blindsided, and they told them what was going on,” the attorney said.
He went on to say the whole incident “is all still a whirlwind” for the family. “Her and her children’s lives have been completely turned upside-down,” Macedonio continued, per Fox News.
Police began investigating the case of the"Long Island Serial Killer"13 years ago, when investigators first came upon the bodies of sex workers Costello, Barthelemy, Waterman and Brainard-Barnes in the marsh at Gilgo Beach in December 2010, but were only more recently able to identify 59-year-old Heuermann as a suspect.
Crime scene investigators on scene as a suspect is arrested in Gilgo Beach serial killings In Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York on July 14, 2023.Shutterstock
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At that point, a task force detective used motor vehicle records to track down Heuermann and the Chevy Avalanche.
“They found his car, and they found his address, and then they found out his physical description, and then they found out where he worked,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney Tierney told PEOPLE. “And every time they dug further, you were getting more associations, which obviously got people excited.”
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Police claim that Heuermann is linked to the crimes after comparing DNA from a male hair recovered from the bottom of the burlap used to wrap Waterman’s nude body, with DNA they obtained from a pizza crust that Heuermann allegedly discarded in a Manhattan trash can and 11 bottles taken from the trash can outside his home.
On June 12, a lab determined that the mitochondrial DNA profiles from the male hair found on Waterman and a DNA swab from the pizza crust were “the same,” according to the court papers.
They also matched other hairs found at the scene to Heuermann’s wife, Ellerup, who had been out of the area when each of the women disappeared, which led detectives to surmise they got there because of her close proximity to her husband and not because she was involved in the killings.
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Suffolk County police commissioner Rodney Harrison previously said in a press conference that the family had appeared “shocked,” “disgusted” and “embarrassed” after they initially learned the news about Heuermann, perABC Eyewitness News.
“I don’t believe that they knew about this double life that Mr. Heuermann was living,” he said, though he also toldCNNthat they are still collecting information “to see if the family might have known exactly what Mr. Heuermann was up to.”
Investigators also allegedly found hundreds of internet searches about raping and torturing women, child porn and rape porn, as well as searches for his victims and their families. He also allegedly used fictitious accounts and burner phones to contact sex workers, according to investigators.
“I think he lived this double life, and he used the anonymity of phones and computers to shield himself from the rest of society," said Tierney. “Unfortunately for him — and fortunately for the rest of us — he wasn’t successful.”
source: people.com
