Police end search of Gilgo Beach murder suspect's home after seizing "massive amount of material"

Police have completed their search of Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann's Long Island home, said Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney in a news conference Tuesday afternoon. 

Tierney said police found "approximately 279 weapons" in the "cluttered" residence, including "quite a few long guns" and 92 handgun permits. In addition to the weapons, a "massive amount of material" was removed from the home, but Tierney declined to offer more details. 

Many of the guns were found inside a walk-in vault in Heuermann's basement, police said Tuesday. Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told CBS New York that the vault had a large iron door, but said it was "not a soundproof room." 

Heuermann, an architect who worked in New York City, has been charged with the murders of three women and is the prime suspect in a fourth case. The bodies were found on Gilgo Beach within a quarter mile of each other in 2010, each wrapped in burlap. Heuermann has pled not guilty and will appear in court again on Aug. 1, 2023. He is being held without bail. 

Investigators have also searched the Massapequa Park home's backyard, as well as a storage unit nearby. An excavator, sonar devices and cadaver dogs have been used in the search at Heuermann's home, and investigators searched around the home's foundation with shovels. Police have been investigating if any murders were committed at the home, which Heuermann shared with his wife, Asa Ellerup, and their two daughters. Ellerup has filed for divorce. 

There were seven other sets of remains found on the same beach between 2010 and 2011, and CBS New York reported that Heuermann has not been ruled out as a suspect in those cases. 

In:
• Gilgo Beach Suspect
• Rex Heuermann
• Gilgo Beach Serial Killer
• Gilgo Beach Murders
• Gilgo Beach
• Long Island
• New York

Kerry Breen

Kerry Breen is a news editor and reporter for CBS News. Her reporting focuses on current events, breaking news and substance use.