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When Rex Heuermann was arrested and charged in July because the Gilgo Seashore serial killer, prosecutors outlined a story towards him that his protection lawyer, Michael Brown, attacked as cherry-picked and DNA proof that Mr. Brown derided as shaky.
Mr. Heuermann, 60, had been charged with murdering three of the so-called Gilgo 4, a quartet of ladies who in 2010 have been discovered certain with burlap, belts and tape on the Lengthy Island oceanfront.
Prosecutors stated they have been awaiting the DNA testing they wanted to cost him within the killing of the fourth lady, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Conn.
However when these expenses lastly got here on Tuesday, simply over six months later, prosecutors used the event to ship their model of a knockout punch within the case.
Along with charging Mr. Heuermann with second-degree homicide in courtroom, they filed an intensive define of an up to date, ratcheted-up case that appeared to stun the usually agile Mr. Brown.
After the listening to, he deflected questions relating to the brand new proof, saying that it had solely simply been divulged to him. He stated that his shopper had “maintained his innocence from Day One” and that he was “wanting ahead to combating these expenses.”
That struggle could have simply gotten tougher. Beforehand, Mr. Brown had cited weaknesses within the mitochondrial DNA testing methodology utilized by investigators to attach stray hairs discovered on the victims with Mr. Heuermann and his household.
However in courtroom papers filed on Tuesday, prosecutors included particulars of extra DNA testing that had been carried out, and that establishes the matches with way more certainty than mitochondrial DNA testing.
Mr. Heuermann, who pleaded not responsible to killing Ms. Brainard-Barnes, as he has to all earlier expenses, was marched right into a Suffolk County courtroom Tuesday morning together with his arms shackled behind his again. He remained silent and maintained a relaxed demeanor because the district lawyer, Ray Tierney, requested the decide to maintain him remanded with out bail.
When Mr. Heuermann was arrested, prosecutors stated that the DNA proof connecting him to the murders included a number of hairs belonging to his spouse, Asa Ellerup, that have been discovered with the ladies’s stays.
Additionally they cited a male hair that corresponded to a genetic pattern taken from pizza crusts Mr. Heuermann discarded exterior his workplace in Midtown Manhattan.
However after the listening to on Tuesday, Mr. Tierney advised reporters that nuclear DNA testing had additionally been performed on the hairs, and that it had obtained much more conclusive outcomes than the mitochondrial DNA testing.
Mr. Brown had stated that the mitochondrial DNA testing was inadequate as a result of it couldn’t positively determine Mr. Heuermann as a match. Somewhat, it excluded as attainable matches everybody however a sliver of the inhabitants that he fell into.
At earlier hearings, Mr. Brown had argued that this left Mr. Heuermann in a gaggle of “hundreds and hundreds” of attainable suspects, even when contemplating solely the native inhabitants.
Requested after the Tuesday listening to in regards to the newly launched and extra damning genetic outcomes, Mr. Brown reacted incredulously. “This morning was the primary time — and that is 13-plus years — that, miraculously, nuclear DNA testing and outcomes have come ahead,” he stated.
On the information convention, Mr. Tierney briefly defined how the withered strands of hair discovered greater than a decade in the past had change into essential proof within the case, describing the nuclear DNA testing as “innovative” forensic know-how.
“Nuclear DNA existed within the hairs since they have been found, and now the science has caught up,” he stated. “I might say that’s an excellent break for justice.”
Mr. Heuermann was first recognized as a suspect within the killings in early 2022, when investigators adopted up on a decade-old tip relating to his distinctive pickup truck.
Prosecutors say he made calls and despatched texts to Ms. Brainard-Barnes simply earlier than she disappeared in 2007, changing into the primary of the so-called Gilgo 4 to fade.
The lengthy awaited DNA exams of a stray hair discovered together with her stays confirmed that it had belonged to Ms. Ellerup, prosecutors say, and was almost certainly tracked to the crime scene by Mr. Heuermann.
The hair was discovered with one of many three belts used to bind Ms. Brainard-Barnes’s stays. One other belt had a particular buckle bearing the initials W.H., which the authorities stated in 2020 may have belonged to Mr. Heuermann’s father.
Prosecutors say that Ms. Ellerup, who has not been charged within the killings, was out of city through the disappearances of the ladies, whom they are saying Mr. Heuermann employed as escorts after which killed.
Ms. Ellerup attended her husband’s listening to on Tuesday together with their daughter, Victoria Heuermann. Neither spoke to reporters, however afterward they stood alongside Ms. Ellerup’s lawyer, Bob Macedonio, as he advised reporters that the brand new particulars within the case solely bolstered that Ms. Ellerup had nothing to do with any of it.
The submitting on Tuesday additionally outlined new proof recovered from Mr. Heuermann’s dwelling in Massapequa Park throughout a two-week search after his arrest.
Quite a few digital units have been recovered that Mr. Heuermann had used to look on-line for his victims and their family members, in addition to to observe the standing of the homicide investigations, the courtroom papers stated.
The units additionally held his assortment of bondage, torture and different violent pornography, and confirmed indicators that Mr. Heuermann had used software program to assist erase a few of his on-line exercise, together with information of his making appointments with escorts, the submitting stated.
Moreover, a pair of cellphones that investigators recovered upon his arrest have been discovered to have made “a whole lot of contacts with intercourse employees between 2020 and 2023,” in accordance with the submitting.
On Tuesday, Mr. Tierney stated that, with the investigation into the Gilgo 4 full, his process power and the grand jury would flip their focus to the six different units of stays that have been present in the identical space after the ladies have been found.
In a shock look on Tuesday, the distinguished lawyer Gloria Allred spoke after Mr. Tierney on the post-hearing information convention.
Ms. Allred, who is thought for taking high-profile instances referring to girls’s rights, advised reporters she was now representing the members of the family of quite a few victims within the case, and she or he launched Melissa Cann, Ms. Brainard-Barnes’s sister.
Ms. Cann and Nicolette Brainard-Barnes, the sufferer’s daughter, spoke to reporters after the listening to and described her as a loving mom and gifted author whose reminiscence had been tarnished by her being recognized primarily as a intercourse employee.
Ms. Cann stated the names of every of the Gilgo 4 and emphasised what she hoped individuals would take away from the case.
“Bear in mind the victims,” she stated.
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