Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuerman will face a single trial that consolidates the seven murders he’s accused of, a Suffolk judge has ruled.
Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei delivered two significant defeats to Heuermann’s defense team in court on Tuesday. In a pair of written decisions dated Sept. 18 and Sept. 22, the judge denied the defense’s motion to exclude crucial DNA evidence and rejected their request to split the case into multiple separate trials.
Severance motion rejected
Mazzei ruled that all 10 murder counts (related to seven killings) against Heuermann, 62, of Massapequa Park will be tried together, rejecting defense arguments that the cases should be split into as many as five separate trials.
The defense had argued that substantial disparities existed between the evidence in the original three murders (Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello) and the four additional murders (Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and Sandra Costilla).
Defense attorneys contended that the murders spanned nearly 17 years, used varying methodologies, and involved different dump sites, reasoning that some bodies were found intact while others were dismembered, some wrapped in burlap and others not, some deposited at Gilgo Beach and others at Manorville and North Sea.
The defense argued that “a trial of all ten counts would make it difficult for the jury to segregate the evidence by its separate and distinct relevance to each incident, thereby creating a risk that the defendant is improperly convicted based on the cumulative effect of the evidence.”
Prosecution’s modus operandi argument prevails
Mazzei sided with prosecutors who argued that despite minor differences, the murders showed a distinctive pattern establishing a specific modus operandi that makes evidence of each murder admissible in the others.
The court found several compelling commonalities:
- All victims were “petite women in their twenties who worked as prostitutes.”
- Gilgo Beach was used as the main site for discarding six victims’ remains.
- Overlapping forensic evidence, including hairs found on six victims attributed to someone related to or residing with Heuermann.
- A “planning document” found on Heuermann’s computer containing notes referencing a book about serial killers and containing passages like “More Sleep & Noise Control = More Play Time” and “Remove Marks From Torture.”
“The common overlapping evidence including the defendant’s pattern and modus operandi among each offense not only establishes the defendant’s identity as the perpetrator of the murders, but his intent and motive to commit each murder,” Mazzei wrote.
The judge also noted that newspaper and magazine articles about all seven victims were found in Heuermann’s home, together with evidence of internet searches for violent content.
Legal precedent supports consolidation
The judge cited established legal precedent supporting the consolidation, noting that multiple offenses are properly joined when “proof of the first offense would be material and admissible as evidence in chief upon a trial of the second.”
The court found that evidence from each case would be admissible in the others to prove “identity, pattern, motive and modus operandi” and to complete “the narrative of all of the events charged in the indictment.”
DNA evidence challenge fails
Mazzei again ruled that nuclear DNA evidence linking Heuermann to the crime scenes will be admissible at trial, despite defense arguments that the testing laboratory violated New York State Public Health Law.
Defense attorney Sabato Caponi had argued that Astrea Forensics, the California laboratory that conducted DNA testing, lacked the required New York State Department of Health permit and was “expressly prohibited by statute from accepting specimens from New York.”
The defense contended that Public Health Law § 574 requires all clinical laboratories accepting specimens from New York to hold valid permits, and that any DNA evidence from non-compliant labs should be excluded as “unreliable and unlawfully procured.”
However, Mazzei found that the Public Health Law does not apply to forensic laboratories used for criminal investigations. The judge noted that the law’s stated purpose is “to protect residents of New York state from improper performance of laboratory procedures which may induce erroneous diagnosis or contribute to inappropriate medical treatment.”
Mazzei additionally cited the 1993 Legislative Bill Jacket, which stated that amendments to the Public Health Law “do not authorize the Department of Health to regulate activities of the State Police laboratory, research laboratories, or other laboratories used for criminal investigations.”
Heuermann was arrested in July 2023
Heuermann was arrested in July 2023 and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The case represents a breakthrough in a cold case that began with the discovery of human remains near Gilgo Beach in December 2010.
The charges include first- and second-degree murder counts spanning from 1993 to 2010, covering the deaths of seven women whose remains were found at various Long Island locations.
Top photo: Alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann in court (GLI file photo).
