Who is the Happy Face Killer? Serial murderer’s daughter vows to help Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann’s wife ‘start a new life’
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann's wife filed for divorce from him after he was charged with the murder of at least three of Gilgo Four who were killed in 2010. Melissa Moore, the daughter of the Happy Face Serial Killer, has promised to help her "start a new life." Asa Ellerup was left shaken after her architect husband was arrested last month, and Moore said she felt compelled to support her after observing the unsettling parallels between the two cases.
When Moore, now 44, learned that her father, Keith Hunter Jesperson, had killed eight women while driving a long-haul truck across America's highways and stopping at remote truck stops in the 1990s, she was just 15 years old. He was dubbed the Happy Face Killer because he frequently sent letters to the media and law enforcement that were illustrated with happy faces.
Heuermann was detained on July 13 near his Manhattan office
When Heuermann was detained on July 13 near his Manhattan office and charged with the 2010 murders of at least three sex workers discovered dead on a Long Island beach, Ellerup, 59, filed for divorce. Her world had been turned upside down. After her disturbing experiences, Moore is determined to help and started a GoFundMe page to provide financial support for Ellerup and her two adult children, Victoria, 26, and Christopher, 33. People had contributed $25,000 to it by Tuesday.
'I am speaking out to raise awareness and to support her..'
Moore told Daily Mail in an exclusive interview, "I am speaking out to raise awareness and to support her, This would go towards helping the kids and her restore the house and make it back whole." Moore claimed that when her family learned that her father, Keith Hunter Jesperson, a monster from British Columbia, Canada, sent gloating confessions to the police signed with a smiley face, she, her mother, and her two younger siblings were taken by surprise the same way Ellerup was.
'I didn't know he was living a double life at the time'
"I didn't know he was living a double life at the time," she said about her father, whose atrocities were exposed in her 2015 Lifetime series, 'Monster in my Family.' She added, "He was picking up some of his victims while he was traveling with us right after a vacation with us." When Ellerup first broke her silence last Friday and spoke to Daily Mail outside of her Massapequa Park home, she mentioned the "simply depression" she saw inside and the trauma it brought her. Moore said she understood exactly what Ellerup felt.
Moore said, "It meant the pain become so severe you no longer feel. So any annoyance she may otherwise normally feel towards people taking pictures pales in comparison." She added, "I wanted to come forward as an adult when I got older to show the double life that serial killers live and how the family is the facade that helps them stay underground for so long."
Heuermann is the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who vanished in 2007, and is also accused of killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello, who went missing in 2009 and 2010. On Tuesday, the serial killer suspect appeared disheveled in court in Riverhead, Long Island, as prosecutors revealed they have a mountain of evidence against him, including DNA he unintentionally left on his alleged victims. He was dressed in a black blazer, blue shirt, and cream khakis.
Moore's own 'idyllic' childhood also came tumbling down
Michael Brown, Heuermann's lawyer, argued with the media outside of court insisting on his client's innocence and lamented the size of the evidence file and how long it would take to review. Moore claimed that after her own "idyllic" childhood also came tumbling down, she could relate to the trauma Ellerup and her children were going through. She said, "My mom was a stay at home mom and my dad was a long haul truck driver. My dad would come home on the weekends. He'd play games with us. He was very hands on."
She recounts a few instances in which she witnessed her father torturing and killing animals, as well as the joy he took in doing so. When she was six years old, Jesperson killed some kittens in front of her after torturing and strangling their mother cat.
Moore claimed that 6'6" Jesperson was compared to an ogre and a 'true narcissist'
She also witnessed her father burning a stray dog that had lived on their property in a barrel. Moore claimed that the 6'6" tall Jesperson was compared to an ogre and was dubbed a "true narcissist," just like Heuermann. She mentioned her charismatic, attractive, and party-loving father, who was also a frequent cheater.
After 13 years of marriage, her father requested a divorce in 1990. He also began his five-year killing spree that would last until his arrest in March 1995 that year. Most of his victims were sex workers, but a few, including a girlfriend, weren't. She noted that he preyed on prostitutes and homeless women. She claimed that he disapproved of women and thought they were worthless and disposable, and this is the way she heard women being talked about as she grew up, which was detrimental to her worldviews as a child.