NEW YORK — A judge has granted a motion by Long Island prosecutors ordering suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann to submit to a cheek swab for DNA testing.
That analysis is scheduled for Tuesday.
Prosecutors hope to use the 59-year-old architect’s DNA sample to strengthen their case. DNA played a key role in Heuermann’s arrest. Authorities have said that hair found at the crime scene matches DNA recovered from a pizza box the suspect threw in the trash.
According to the motion filed by the district attorney’s office, the sample would “provide further relevant evidence of the defendant’s identity as the perpetrator of the crime.”
Heuermann is accused of killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, who disappeared for a period of 14 months before the discovery of their bodies.
Prosecutors say Heuermann is also the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who disappeared in 2007. Her remains were found on the same quarter-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway as the other women, at across a bay from the town where Heuermann grew up and lived for decades in his childhood home.
He pleaded not guilty at his first court appearance and was ordered held without the possibility of bail. His attorney said Heuermann denied committing the crimes.
“The press has convicted my client without seeing a shred of evidence,” Michael Brown told reporters after the hearing, suggesting that prosecutors “might very well have the wrong guy.”
Heuermann is due back in court on September 27.
All of the women Heuermann is accused of killing were sex workers whose remains were discovered near each other. Investigators say they cracked the case with the help of sophisticated analysis of cell phone location data, DNA evidence and an old tip about a vehicle seen parked in front of the home of one of the victims.
Investigators spent nearly two weeks going through Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home, across a bay from where the remains were found, turning up yet more evidence that will eventually be turned over to his attorney.
The search included excavating the yard, dismantling a porch and greenhouse, and removing many contents from the house for testing.
Robert Macedonio, a lawyer for Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup, said the home was essentially “destroyed” en route, with investigators cutting into the bathtub, breaking floors and leaving kitty litter strewn around the home.
Ellerup filed for divorce after her husband was arrested. She and her two adult children, who also live at the home, returned last week after jumping between relatives’ houses and a rental car, where they were forced to spend several nights, according to the lawyer.
“These people are also innocent victims in this,” Macedonio added. “They are the unknown victims because nobody cares about them.”
A lawyer for the adult children, Vess Mitev, said his clients were considering legal action against the police for the “deplorable and crude handling of the investigation”.
