Rex Heuermann, the man charged in connection with several killings known as the Gilgo Beach murders, is set to appear in court on Friday March 28 to determine whether DNA evidence linking his hairs found at six of the crime scenes should be deemed admissible during his trial.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Gilgo Beach murders and trial:
Women had been vanishing on Long island for years. After investigators began finding sets of human remains not far from the shore of the remote Gilgo Beach in 2010, they began utilizing DNA analysis and other clues to identify the victims, many of whom were sex workers.
In some cases, investigators were able to connect them to remains found elsewhere on Long Island years earlier. Police also began reevaluating other unsolved killings of women found dead on Long Island.
In January 2022, the Suffolk County district attorney convened a new task force to investigate the Gilgo Beach killings.
Heuermann was first arrested in connection with the killings in July 2023. He now stands charged with the murders of seven people in total: Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Jessica Taylor, Sandra Costilla, and Valerie Mack. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
When he was first arrested, Heuermann was charged with the murders of Barthelemy, Waterman, and Lynn Costello. In January 2024, Heuermann was charged with Brainard-Barnes’s murder, and in December of the same year he was charged with Mack’s murder in 2000.
In April 2024 investigators conducted a multiagency search of the Manorville woods, apparently in connection with the Gilgo investigation, and in May conducted a second search of Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home.
In June 2024, Heuermann was charged with the murder of Taylor, whose dismembered, partial remains had been found in Manorville in 2003, and near Gilgo Beach in 2011.
He was also charged with the murder of Costilla, who had been found dead in the North Sea in 1993. Costilla had long been considered a likely victim of convicted double-murderer John Bittrolff, a carpenter from Manorville, before Heuermann was charged.
Friday’s hearing, a Frye hearing, overseen by state Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei, is not to determine Heuermann’s culpability in the killings. Instead, the focus will be on whether or not DNA evidence linking Heuermann to hairs found at six of the crime scenes should be deemed admissible.
A Frye hearing, also known as a general acceptance hearing, is a legal proceeding used to determine that scientific evidence presented in court is widely accepted and considered valid within the relevant scientific community.
Heuermann's defense has pushed for the exclusion of the evidence from trial, arguing that whole genome sequencing, the technique used to obtain the DNA match, is not widely accepted by the scientific community.
Prosecutors disagree and are confident the court will deem the evidence admissible, saying the technique is used in a wide variety of scientific and forensic settings.
