A man who bought alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann’s vintage Jeep has said he only purchased the car to troll Heuermann’s family – and will never pay them a dime.
The suspected Long Island serial killer’s ex-wife Asa Ellerup sought to sell Heuermann’s 1972 Jeep and trailer to the highest bidder through an anonymous family representative.
Jonathan Randall then placed two reserve bids on eBay, but was initially outbid and had to make three more offers before he received a message that he won the military-style vehicle, according to the New York Post.
But when Heuermann’s relative asked how he would be picking up the truck and how he planned to pay the $25,000 he bid, Randall simply responded: ‘LOL.’
‘You aren’t going to profit off your husband’s murders, you disgusting ghoul,’ he wrote on X and BlueSky, sharing the message he received confirming he placed the winning bid.
‘Guess who’s not paying?’ he added.
The 61-year-old Heuermann is accused of murdering seven women – many of them sex workers – in a crime spree that gripped the nation for almost two decades between 1993 and 2010. He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Speaking to the Post of his decision to bid on the Jeep, Randall explained that it was the second time the vehicle was listed for sale on eBay.
It had previously been removed early last month for violating the site’s Violence and Violent Criminal Policy, which prohibits ‘listings that glorify violence or violent acts.’
The original description for the Jeep said its ‘owner was none other than The Long Island Serial Killer, Rex Heuermann,’ but the second listing only noted that it was once owned by the ‘Infamous RH.’
When Randall then tried to get site administrators to remove the second listing, he received a message defending the auction.
‘It’s not “murderabilia” until Rex is convicted,’ a site representative told him, according to the Post.
At that point, Randall said he made it his mission to place the winning bid.
‘To see someone try and blatantly profit off one of the most reprehensible crimes in recent history disgusted me to my core,’ he explained, though it is unclear how Heuermann’s family planned to use the proceeds from the auction.
A lawyer representing Ellerup only confirmed that the sale did not go through.
Heuermann owned the car when he allegedly committed six murders, but Suffolk County police ultimately determined it was never used in any of the alleged crimes – and the Jeep was returned to the family.
Heuermann began his alleged killing spree in 1993 and continued through at least 2010 – when Long Islanders first began to suspect there may be a serial killer on the loose.
That May, Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker, disappeared under bizarre circumstances.
She had gone to see a client in the Oak Beach Association community, but was left telling 911 operators that someone was trying to kill her.
As the search efforts for Gilbert continued into December, officers stumbled upon the body of Melissa Barthelemy in the mashes near Gilgo Beach.
Within days, three more women’s bodies – Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes and Megan Waterman – were recovered.
Some of the victims had been bound, while others had been dismembered and their remains discarded across multiple locations.
Gilbert’s body was found last. Investigators maintain that she was not a victim, but died by accidental drowning after she fled into the dense thicket that night.
The Gilgo Beach serial killer case went unsolved for more than a decade – hampered by a corrupt police chief, James Burke, who was ultimately jailed for beating a man who stole porn from his police cruiser.
In July 2023 – following the launch of a new taskforce – Heuermann was dramatically arrested as he left his office in midtown Manhattan.
He was initially charged with the murders of three women: Amber Costello, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman.
But since then he has been charged with the murders of four more victims: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack.
Prosecutors have unveiled a trove of evidence against Heuermann, including hairs belonging to him and his family members found on some of the victims, cellphone data placing him in contact with some victims, and a chilling ‘planning document’ where he allegedly intricately detailed his kills.
It is alleged that Heuermann lured his victims to his house in Massapequa Park while his wife and children were away, noting Ellerup was on a trip to Iceland in July 2009 when Barthelemy went missing.
The 24-year-old had told a friend she was going to meet a client and was never seen alive again.
In the days following her disappearance, Barthelemy’s teenage sister received taunting calls from her sibling’s phone.
The male caller branded Barthelemy a ‘whore’ and gloated he had ‘killed her’.
The calls then stopped when Heuermann flew out to join his family in Iceland.
The news of Heuermann’s arrest two years ago shocked many of the architects former colleagues, who remembered him as acting like the life of the party and earning the nickname ‘Sexy Rexy.’
‘I didn’t even know about the Gilgo Beach Killer until two years ago,’ Katherine Shepherd previously told the Daily Mail. ‘It feels like someone is playing a trick on me. It feels like you are talking about someone else.’
‘I am a little bit in denial, still. The practical side of me understands what happened but I just don’t get it. It is really hard to comprehend.
‘I didn’t know he was capable of that. How is anyone capable of that? He has kids. How do you have kids and a wife and go off and do something like that,’ she added.
Ellerup is now standing by her ex in his criminal case, despite filing for divorce from him just days after his arrest.
The proceedings were finalized in March, but the family says it was purely to protect their assets.
Since then, Ellerup has continued to attend Heuermann’s court hearings where the defense is trying to toss critical DNA evidence in the case while Heuermann’s legal team is trying to break up his trial into five separate ones.