Gilgo Beach killings: Suspect Rex Heuermann's vault disassembled, door removed from Massapequa Park basement as family prepares to move

A basement vault belonging to accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann was disassembled Thursday as his family prepares to sell the Massapequa Park home where he lived during what prosecutors have alleged was a decades-long killing spree.

The large Pentagon door to the walk-in vault featured Heuermann’s initials "RAH" on it. It was pulled through Bilco doors by a team of five movers and hauled away on a trailer hitched to a Ford Super Duty 350 shortly before noon Thursday.

The heavy lift came as Heuermann’s former wife, Asa Ellerup, has been clearing the First Avenue house to prepare the property for sale, her attorney said. Heuermann’s stepson, Christopher Sheridan, observed the door being removed from the yard by a team of movers.

"They are cleaning up the house," attorney Robert Macedonio said. "They’re disposing whatever items they’re not going to keep and putting other items in storage, prepping the house for eventual sale."

There is no timetable for the house to be placed on the market, Macedonio said. The attorney declined to say where the vault door was being stored or if it had been sold.

The vault was located in an unfinished portion of the Heuermann basement and contained nearly 280 guns, prosecutors have said. Many of the weapons lacked proper permits and have been turned over to authorities in Nassau County, where Heuermann could eventually face additional charges, court records show.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has said investigators do not believe the guns were used in the crimes.

David Adamovich, of Freeport, who is known as the world’s largest collector of serial killer memorabilia, said Heuermann’s personal belongings would have value as collectibles if someone was willing to sell them, though he noted it’s difficult to say just how much they would be worth.

"Someone has to be able to pay whatever [a seller] is asking for," Adamovich said. "There is no blue book for serial killer collectibles."

Adamovich said the value of an item increases following a "conviction or confession."

Ellerup, whose divorce from the accused killer of seven women was finalized last month, was not home at the time of the move, but she has been spotted helping to clear the home in recent weeks.

Boxes marked as evidence from past law enforcement searches of the home in July 2023, when Heuermann was arrested, and May 2024 by Suffolk County police investigators were broken down and taken to the curb last Thursday.

Personal belongings, like a chest bearing a gold nameplate that read Rex Heuermann, were placed next to a storage container in the driveway of the home. The chest featured an address label that suggested Heuermann, who worked as an architect in Manhattan, once shipped it to himself from a design firm office in Saint-Maixent-l'École, France. A bookcase and printer were among other items being stored away this week.

The house, which has not yet been listed for sale, has an estimated value of between $677,000 and $733,000, according to the real estate websites Realtor.com and Zillow. It was built in 1956 by Heuermann’s parents and sold to him by his mother, Dolores, for $170,000 in May 1994, Nassau County property records show.

The deed was transferred from Heuermann to Ellerup three months after his arrest.

Macedonio previously said Ellerup and her two children intend to move to South Carolina, where the family owns property. Two undeveloped parcels totaling more than 12 acres were transferred from Heuermann to Ellerup in July, Chester County property records show. Two adjacent parcels totaling more than 10 acres were transferred a month later from Ellerup to Heuermann’s brother, Craig, who resides on neighboring land in Chester, records show.

Heuermann, 61, has been incarcerated at the Suffolk County jail in Riverhead since his initial arraignment on July 14, 2023. He is charged with murder in the deaths of Maureen Brainard Barnes, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Melissa Barthelemy, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack, whose remains were all found at Gilgo Beach, as well as Sandra Costilla, whose body was discovered more than 65 miles away in the Southampton hamlet of North Sea. Partial remains of Taylor and Mack were also found in wooded areas north of the Long Island Expressway in Manorville. The killings occurred between November 1993 and September 2010.

Heuermann is due back in court June 17 for a continuation of a suppression hearing regarding DNA evidence in the case. The defense will call its first witness on that date, a courts spokesperson said following his most recent court date in April.