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Police scouring the home of suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann abandoned his family’s beloved cats in a kill shelter after ripping apart their Long Island home during an exhaustive 12-day search of the property, according to a report.
Asa Ellerup, 59, has said she returned to the Massapequa Park home she shared with the accused killer for over two decades to find it had been left a disheveled nightmare, with boxes strewn about and floorboards ripped up.
Melissa Moore — the daughter of the “Happy Face” serial killer who has been helping Ellerup in the aftermath of Heuermann’s July 13 arrest — told the US Sun that the family also found out authorities had dumped their two cats at a kill shelter.
“When Rex was arrested […] they went into the house, the police and the feds. And then they said, ‘Listen, we have the warrants. We’re going to search this house. We’re going to be here for a while.’” Moore told the outlet.
The family was then told to pack an overnight bag and evacuate the premises — and were not given enough time to find their two beloved cats amid the chaos, Moore said, adding that Ellerup’s son, Christopher, who suffers from learning disabilities, was able to locate his service dog Stewie.
“They left assuming the police would care for the animals as they left the home without any notice,” Moore told the Sun.
“Immediately, the authorities trapped the cats and sent them to a kill shelter,” she claimed.
Luckily, the family was later able to locate their cats at the shelter and bring them home, Moore said.
“Lawyers representing Asa learned that her animals were in a shelter and arranged for them to be removed before they could be euthanized,” she told the Sun.
Moore has launched a fundraiser to help the family, saying she related to them because of her own experience with her dad, Keith Hunter Jesperson, who was convicted of raping and murdering eight women in the early 1990s.
“In my time working with families such as these, I have known law enforcement to place a family in a hotel when they seize the home for evidence. This was not the case for Asa, Christopher, and Victoria,” Moore told the Sun about Ellerup and her kids.
The suspected serial killer’s wife has since filed for divorce.
Heuermann, 59, faces three counts of murder in the deaths of three women, Amber Lynn Costello, 27, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, and Megan Waterman, 22, whose bodies were found on Gilgo Beach in 2010.
He is the prime suspect in a fourth killing, that of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25 — with the victims known collectively as the “Gilgo Four.”
The accused killer pleaded not guilty on July 14.