Two ski-masked individuals rang the doorbell at the Long Island home where convicted serial killer Rex Heuermann's ex-wife and children still live, then bolted, an incident the family calls part of a pattern of ongoing harassment.
Doorbell camera footage obtained by the New York Post shows two figures, who appear to be teenagers wearing ski masks, approaching the front door of the home on Long Island, ringing the bell, and immediately running off. Asa Ellerup, Heuermann's ex-wife, was inside the house with her two children at the time. The family filed a police report afterward.
Nassau County police reviewed the incident and determined it did not rise to the level of an attempted break-in charge. Officers sent a patrol car through the neighborhood to search for the pair but came up empty.
Ellerup characterized the episode as an attempted break-in. But the footage itself, and the police response, suggests something closer to a ding-dong-ditch stunt, the kind of juvenile prank that lands somewhere between mischief and menace when the target is a home tied to one of the most notorious serial murder cases in recent American history.
Rex Heuermann, 62, admitted last month to strangling eight women between 1993 and 2010. A judge sentenced him to multiple consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole. The case drew national attention for years as the "Gilgo Beach" murders, named for the stretch of Long Island coastline where victims' remains were discovered.
Ellerup continues to live in the home with the couple's two children. Crime scene investigators collected evidence and removed items from the residence on July 22, 2023, during the original investigation. Since then, the family has remained in the house, and, according to their attorney, has endured relentless attention from the public.
Robert Macedonio, the family's attorney, told Newsday that the doorbell incident fits a broader pattern. He described constant, unwanted contact directed at Ellerup and her children.
"This is the constant harassment that [Ellerup] faces on a daily basis, with people driving by, saying stuff as they walk by."
Macedonio went further, describing physical acts of harassment beyond gawking and drive-bys.
"They leave stuff on the door or throw stuff. They make comments when they drive by, pointing, and taking pictures on a regular basis."
The family's dog, a Lab mix named Stewie, began barking during the incident, though the footage appears to show the barking started after the masked pair had already fled. The family credited Stewie with scaring off the intruders, but the timeline on the video complicates that account.
Members of a Massapequa-area Facebook group called Massapequa Matters have claimed that two young pranksters have been spotted kicking the front doors of other homes in the area and then running off. If accurate, the incident at the Heuermann home may not have been targeted at all, just one stop on a juvenile spree through the neighborhood.
Nassau County police have not publicly confirmed whether the doorbell incident is connected to any broader pattern of pranks. No arrests have been reported, and the identities of the two masked individuals remain unknown. Whether they are definitively teenagers or simply appear young on camera is unclear from the footage alone.
None of that changes the reality Ellerup and her children face. Whatever Heuermann did, and he admitted to all of it, his ex-wife and kids did not commit those crimes. They still live in a house that draws strangers, cameras, and now masked figures to the front door. Police found no basis for a break-in charge. But a family that has already had its life upended does not need a criminal statute to feel unsafe.
Accountability for the guilty is the foundation of justice. Punishing the people who happen to share a roof with them is something else entirely.
