Asa Ellerup and son Christopher Sheridan.Photo:FOX
FOX
The family was reportedly seen walking around the front yard, sitting somberly on the front porch, and then looking around the house that investigators and forensic teams pored over for much of the last two weeks.
“Don’t talk to me,” Ellerup told reporters stationed outside the home who attempted to ask her questions, according to localFox 5.
Her 33-year-old son Christopher, who is Heuermann’s stepson, added: “Don’t even say a word.”
Rex Heuermann.
Investigatorssearched the family’s residence extensivelyover the last 12 days, digging up a large hole in the backyard and then discovering a vault with a “big iron door” in the basement.
“We’re looking for potential trophies, souvenirs, jewelry, anything that could be attached to the four women or other women that he might have been involved with,” an investigatortoldCBS News last week.
Heuermann was arrested earlier this month and charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in the deaths ofAmber Costello, 27,Melissa Barthelemy, 24, andMegan Waterman, 22. He has pleaded not guilty. Police say DNA evidence connects him to the murders.
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Heuermann also remains the primary suspect in the murder of 25-year-oldMaureen Brainard-Barnes. All four women were sex workers who went missing and whose remains were later discovered on Gilgo Beach more than a decade ago.
“There have been items that we have taken into our possession. That makes it fruitful,” Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told reporters outside the home earlier this week, according toWABC. The outlet reports investigators have also dismantled a wood deck in Heuermann’s backyard, as they continue searching for clues in the Gilgo Beach murder case.
Heuermann family home.Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty
Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty
The case, which remained unsolved for more than a decade, became one of New York’s most notorious mysteries and gained notoriety after the investigation became the focus of author Robert Kolker’s 2013 bestselling nonfiction bookLost Girls. (It later also became a true crimeNetflixmovie of the same name.)
Heuermann’s family was “shocked, embarrassed, and disgusted” when police arrived to arrest the suspect, Harrison told CBS last week. “I don’t believe they knew about this double life Heuermann was living,” the commissioner said.
source: people.com
