New witnesses, two of whom provided sworn affidavits, are linking Long Island serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann to the murders of Karen Vergata and Shannan Gilbert.
Attorney John Ray represents to estate of Gilbert, whose disappearance in 2010 ultimately led to the discovery of the Gilgo 4 and other remains on Long Island, He held a news conference on Wednesday with Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison to announce the findings, which also included an allegation that Heuermann and his wife, Asa Ellerup, were involved in a “swinging” incident that included Vergata, Newsday reported.
But Harrison’s participation in the news conference appeared to have caught Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney by surprise.
“Without providing any advance notice to the prosecutors pursuing this case in court or the Gilgo Beach Homicide Task Force members investigating these murders day in and day out, we watched today’s press conference not knowing what was going to be reported,” Tierney said in a statement. “We will continue to investigate this case through the grand jury process and not through press conferences.”
The district attorney said that anyone with information about the investigation should bring it directly to his office, police or the FBI.
“Any attorneys representing victims or their families, by definition have a conflict of interest and should not be part of the investigation,” Tierney said.
Ray announced his press conference on Tuesday and said Harrison would be attending at Ray’s office, CrimeOnline reported.
“We have the information,” said Harrison, who said he sat in on the interview with one of the witnesses, on Wednesday. “We’re working on it and we’ll see where it leads us down the road.”
Ray represents the family of Jessica Ray, who was the first victim found on Gilgo Beach to be identified, and Gilbert, who police believe died accidentally.
Karen Vergata
Vergata’s remains were found on Fire Island in 1996 but not identified until August.
One of the witnesses, who identified herself in a sworn statement as a 54-year-old woman and said that she and her now former boyfriend were swingers, said she believes she and the boyfriend answered an ad for swingers at Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home in 1996 and picked up Vergata, a 34-year-old sex worker, and brought her with them.
“I saw Rex on T.V. recently and a picture of Karen Vergata,” the woman’s August 31 affidavit read. ”I recognized her as the woman who [my former boyfriend] and I brought to Heuermann’s home. I was shocked, and deeply sorrowful for having left her behind at Heuermann’s house. I told John Ray of these things because I needed to speak with him so that Karen would not be left behind again.”
The woman said that she and the boyfriend, a New York narcotics detective, went to a now-closed down swingers club in Manhattan and saw an ad on a bulletin board for swingers to come to a home on Long Island, The New York Post said. The couple decided to drive there, and picked up a sex worker she believes was Vergata on the way.
“She was hungry and homeless” and nervous at first, until she learned the boyfriend was a cop, the woman said.
The witness said they were greeted by a husband and wife she believes were Heuermann and Ellerup. She and the boyfriend had sex with Heuermann, but Ellerup declined, she said. As they were leaving, the woman said, she saw Vergata run out of the house naked.
“I felt uneasy that we left the woman,” she said.
The woman said she believes the date was around February 14, 1996, which is also around the time Vergata disappeared.
Ellerup has not been charged with anything in the case, and her attorney, Bob Macedonio, vehemently denied any allegations, Newsday said.
“This is a desperate attempt by Johnny Ray to stay relevant in a case that he’s been chasing his tail on for 12 years,” Macedonio said. “ … On behalf of Asa Ellerup, we unequivocally deny the outlandish and ludicrous claims being made.”
Shannan Gilbert
A second witness, who said she was a taxi driver in 2009, said in a sworn statement that she believes she encountered Gilbert and Heuermann when she was dispatched to the Sayville Motor Lodge, whose owners were indicted on sex and drug trafficking charges last year, according to the Post.
She said she saw a man she now believes was Heuermann leaving the motel as she pulled up, which a woman she believes was Gilbert, then 23, got into her cab. She told the cabbie Heuermann met her on Craigslist and promised her financial assistance for her family. He gave her an envelope he said contained $1,000 but found was filled with paper and not cash.
She said she went into the bathroom and called a cab.
Gilbert’s body was found in a marsh in December 2011 after disappearing in May 2010.
“I am certain that the girl was Shannan Gilbert,” the cabbie said in her affidavit. “I recognized her unusual eye droop and unusual voice…Rex Heuermann appeared to me to be the very big man coming from the hotel room I mentioned in my affidavit.”
Heuermann was arrested this summer and charged with the murders of Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Amber Lynn Costello, whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach in 2010, all close by one another and wrapped in burlap. He is the “prime suspect” in the murder of the fourth member of the Gilgo 4 — Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Harrison as repeated said that investigators are close to charging Heuermann with the fourth death, but so far that hasn’t happened.
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[Featured image: Karen Vergata, Rex Heuermann/Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and Shannan Gilbert/AP Photo]
