Investigators have been digging in the yard at the Long Island home of Rex Heuermann, who was charged earlier this month with killing at least three women and burying their remains on a remote stretch of beach highway.
The 14 July arrest of Heuermann, a 59-year-old architect, marked a stunning breakthrough in the long-stalled cold case that first drew headlines in 2010, when police began searching for a missing woman, Shannon Gilbert, near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach.
Instead, they discovered 10 sets of human remains scattered along a long barrier island. The dead included eight women, one man and a young child.
On Sunday, a yellow excavator was seen scooping dirt in the alleged killer’s back yard, according to aerial footage shared by News 12. Investigators could be seen scraping through the freshly upturned earth with shovels. The digging equipment was still on the scene as of Monday morning.
A neighbor told the Associated Press that he witnessed men who appeared to be police lifting the front porch of the house on Sunday afternoon.
“They yelled ‘lift’ and brought it up in one big piece, as if it was a cover,” Barry Auslander said.
The porch has been replaced by a white tent, with a state medical examiner’s truck parked nearby.
Investigators are trying to determine whether any of the killings happened inside the Massapequa Park home that Heuermann shared with his wife and two children.
Authorities have pulled more than 100 firearms from the house, along with a large doll encased in glass and a portrait of a woman with a bruise on her face. Police also obtained a warrant to conduct searches of Heuermann’s property in South Carolina.
Heuermann, who has pleaded not guilty, was charged with killing three of the women – Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello and Megan Waterman. He is also the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
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