Two masked people banged on the door of notorious Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann’s home on Tuesday, July 28.
A short clip of the incident, captured by a doorbell camera and obtained by Newsday, shows one person knocking on the door of the Massapequa Park home, then both people sprinting away. Heuermann’s ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and their two children were home at the time, according to Newsday.
They were not harmed.
Nassau County police told Patch that the incident took place at around 7:50 p.m. but said they thought it was more of a prank, more of a “ding-dong-ditch” episode than a crime — no break-in took place and nothing was taken, police said.
But Ellerup’s attorney disputed that characterization.
Speaking with Patch, Macedonio said the incident, however, is reflective of a wider issue: “These two men tried to gain entry and ran away when they heard the dog barking. But the important part of this is that it happens on a regular basis, and has, for three years. It’s harassment. People throwing things in the yard, things left on the front porch — it never ends.”
Ellerup’s lawyer, Robert Macedonio, told Newsday the incident was an example of the “constant harassment that she faces on a daily basis.”
Though Ellerup reported the incident as an attempted break-in, cops didn’t see it that way because the masked subjects never tried to enter the home, Newsday reported.
Police say the incident occurred at approximately 7:52 p.m. at the house, which has drawn significant public attention since Heuermann’s arrest in the Gilgo Beach killings case.
No damage to the property was reported and no arrests have been made, according to police. Additional patrols have been assigned to the neighborhood as a precaution while the incident remains under investigation.
When asked if Asa Ellerup and her two children planned to move, as was previously reported, Macedonio said that had been the plan, until they learned that they had “zero equity in the house.”
In the viral moment that dominated coverage of Heuermann’s case for months,
he confessed to murdering eight women: Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Karen Vergata, and Sandra Costilla. Heuermann had strangled the women—all of whom were sex workers at the time of their disappearance—and then left their bodies in Suffolk County along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo State Park; Costilla’s body was discovered in North Sea, Long Island.
The crimes occurred in the early 1990s through about 2010. For much of this time Heuermann was married to Asa Ellerup. The couple had a daughter, and Ellerup had a son from a previous relationship.
Ellerup and their children were not home for any of the murders and remained in the dark until Heuermann’s 2023 arrest, according to investigators.
Rex Heuermann was sentenced on Wednesday, June 17 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the seven murders of woman he had been charged with.