Gilgo beach cops put up tent in suspect Rex Heuermann’s front yard on Long Island as medical examiner arrives and carries out huge suspicious evidence bags

Detectives are searching accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann’s home for a second day as they hunt for clues to lock him up.

White tents were erected outside the house on First Avenue in Massapequa Park, on Long Island, with NYS Troopers blocking off the street on Tuesday

About 8.30am, some 15 detectives from the Suffolk County PD entered the property, moving out boxes and bags that they loaded into a white box truck. 

Heuermann, 60, is awaiting a murder trial trial accused of killing four women whose bodies were found in saran wrap on a stretch of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. 

On Monday, a new search warrant was executed at the home and dozens of items were being taken from inside the house and the backyard.

A medical examiner also arrived at the house on Monday afternoon, which could indicate Heueremann was also being investigated for even more murders.

The new search of Heueremann’s home was after police scoured a shock new location in the case in woods near Manorville, about 40 miles away, last month.

Days later, Gilgo Beach murders investigators used K-9 units to search an area in North Sea, Long Island, where a woman’s body was found in 1993.

Their search was in the area were Sandra Costilla’s body was found three decades ago in a murder case that remains unsolved.

What connection either search has to this week’s search of Heueremann’s house was unclear and police would not comment.

Retired NYPD Sergeant Joseph Giacalone told NewsNation that the size of the search, and the presence of the medical examiner could mean Heuermann was being investigated for deaths beyond the Gilgo Beach murders.

‘Since they already did this 10 months ago, they had to be able to prove to a judge that they had probable cause to go in there,’ he said.

‘The ME showing up is really interesting. If we see the forensic anthropologist show up, that would be even more interesting and a bit of an eye-opener because they are the doctors that go out and determine what is a human bone or what is an animal bone.’

Heueremann’s estranged wife, Asa Ellerup, and their children, Victoria Heuermann, 26, and Christoper Sheridan 33, were not home at the time. 

Heuermann was arrested in July and initially charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Lynn Costello 27 in 2010 and 2011.

In February, he was also charged with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25. 

Heuermann pleaded not guilty to all counts and remains in jail awaiting trial. 

The women were among 11 found on the desolate stretch of coastline close to Heuermann’s Long Island Home between 2010 and 2011.

All of the victims worked as escorts who advertised themselves on Craigslist.

According to Fox News, Heurmann’s family held onto an album of crime scene photos taken by California detective Jack Huddleston and was allegedly spotted on a kitchen table in the home, according to a source with knowledge of the incident.

The book, Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook, is a collection of grim photos. 

Detectives cataloged the album book during the initial search of Heuermann’s home and returned it to his family, the source told Fox. 

Investigators said Heuermann frequently searched the internet for gruesome images.

Ellerup’s lawyer, Robert Macedonio, told the news outlet he had no knowledge of the book.

Sources said Asa and her two children are out of town. It was unclear if she was alerted by investigators beforehand that a new search warrant would be executed.

On Tuesday, several trucks lined the quiet residential street including, Suffolk County Police Department set up a command post, a crime lab truck, among other.

There was less of a frenzy compared to last summer’s search of the home when the  architect was arrested. 

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said the search wouldn’t be as long as the 12-day search that took place last summer. 

It was not clear at this time what prompted the search of the Long Island property or what officials were looking for, but multiple law enforcement agencies were present, including a command center.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office declined to comment other than to say ‘the work of the Gilgo Beach Homicide Task force is continuing their investigation’.

Last month, Heuermann’s attorney Michael Brown attempted to shift the blame for the Gilgo Beach murders on to corrupt former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke, who was previously in charge of the case.

Brown alleged that Burke, now 59,  is ‘involved’ in the sordid affair.

‘We received approximately almost 3,000 leads on this case,’  he told reporters outside Suffolk County Supreme Court in Riverhead.

‘There were numerous leads that came into the Suffolk County Police Department, suggesting that Chief Burke was involved in this.’

Burke allegedly led a double life involving crack, cross-dressing and relationships with prostitutes

He served jail time after being convicted of several crimes including assault, public lewdness, and unlawful solicitation after flashing in a park.

Speaking about the former cop’s involvement with the Gilgo Beach murders case, Brown said: ‘Chief Burke would not let the FBI into the investigation back then, with their expertise.

‘It’s problematic for us that the chief of police who was running the investigation had this very checkered past and was involved in criminal activity. He recently served a four or four-and-a-half year prison sentence in the federal system. 

Brown added: ‘Just recently he was arrested on some allegation of being very deviant sexually. We want to see those records.’

In August 2023, Burke was busted in an area known for gay cruising dubbed ‘pickle park’, when he was caught in a coordinated sting by undercover cops.

He was arrested by Suffolk County Parks Rangers at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Park in Farmingville after he was allegedly offering oral sex to an undercover male park ranger.

He was charged with offering a sex act, indecent exposure, public lewdness and criminal solicitation in the fifth degree. 

Once Suffolk County’s highest-ranking cop, Burke was less than 10 miles from his Smithtown home and in a rental car with Rhode Island plates when he was picked up by the authorities in the area of Bald Hill and North Ocean Avenue. 

He was also accused of stymying the Gilgo Beach case in its early stages by blocking the FBI’s role in the investigation.

He forged a ‘tough cop’ reputation throughout his career that included dubious policing tactics and a penchant for cigars dipped in cherry brandy.

Burke, who enjoyed a close relationship with several disgraced local officials, rose through the ranks of the department despite scandals that included sleeping with a prostitute in his patrol car.

His alleged secret taste for drugs and prostitutes came to light in 2015 after he was investigated for attacking Christopher Loeb, a young heroin addict who stole a bag from the police chief’s car.

Inside the bag, Loeb found sex toys and a porn DVD with sickening footage that showed a bound and gagged women being tortured.

Burke was determined to catch the thief and protect his career – knowing the contents of the duffel bag could land him in hot water.

He then orchestrated a failed cover-up when Loeb complained about the beating and the FBI investigated Burke and his cronies in Suffolk County.

Loeb broke into Burke’s department-issued SUV in December 2012 and was later identified and arrested.

He was taken to a police station and handcuffed to the floor of an interrogation room before Burke violently battered Loeb. 

The police chief, who ran a force of 2,200 officers, also threatened to kill Loeb before a junior cop urged his boss to stop.

The episode ultimately exposed a culture of corruption at the highest levels of Suffolk County government. 

Ex-District Attorney Thomas Spota and Christopher McPartland, the former chief of an anti-corruption bureau, were also jailed for five years for their roles in the scandal.

The FBI had spent two years probing the cover-up before Burke was arrested after at least ten police office agreed to cooperate in the case.

The judge who jailed Burke, who was charged with conspiring to obstruct justice and violating Loeb’s civil rights, said he ‘corrupted a system’. 

In late April, Suffolk County Police, the NYPD and NYS Troopers were searching an area in Manorville in connection to the Gilgo Beach murder investigation.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the specifics of the search.

The new searches came after the father-of-two’s home in Massapequa was raided following discovery of the bodies.

The women were found wrapped in burlap and buried along the remote stretch of Ocean Parkway on Long Island’s South Shore over a decade ago.

The women’s remains were discovered during the search for 23-year-old Shannan Gilbert, an escort from New Jersey who had vanished in May 2010 after making a frantic 911 call.

Her remains were found along the same stretch of coast in December 2011 – and it was her body that led police to the discovery of the ‘Gilgo Four’.

No one has ever been charged in Gilbert’s death and police said it may have been accidental – but her family believe she was murdered.

The women were among 11 found on the desolate stretch of coastline close to Heuermann’s Long Island Home between 2010 and 2011.

All of the victims worked as escorts who advertised themselves on Craigslist.

Heuermann was linked to the killings by DNA on the burlap used to transport the bodied which was compared to samples taken from a pizza crust and napkin that were discarded outside his Manhattan architectural firm, police said.

The samples boasted a 99.96 percent match, according to law enforcement.

Prior to testing the DNA, cops said they were alerted to Heuermann as a potential suspect after a witness linked Heuermann’s Chevrolet Avalanche to Costello’s murder.

The car was then tied to Heuermann’s cellphone records, which allegedly linked him to locations related to the murders.

The indictment stated that Heuermann had used different burner phones to contact each of his victims.

Cops also accused Heuermann of using Barthelemy’s phone to make taunting phone calls to her family from the comfort of his office.

Her sister Melissa told how she was bombarded with threatening phone calls from the killer who boasted of the killing and was keeping tabs on her movements.

In October, it was revealed that Heuermann is being probed over the slaying of two additional sex workers.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison confirmed he had assigned additional investigators to the case of two other women, Valerie Mack and Karen Vergata.

At the suspected time of the murders, Heuermann’s now ex-wife Asa Ellerup was away from home. She filed for divorce less than a week after her husband’s arrest.