Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer returns to court

Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann returned to court Tuesday, where prosecutors provided additional discovery materials to the defense for review before the next pretrial date on Oct. 16.

Back in June, Mr. Heuermann, 60, of Massapequa Park was indicted on two counts of second-degree murder for the July 2003 killing of Jessica Taylor, whose partial remains were found in Manorville, and the death of Sandra Costilla, whose body was found in Southampton more than 30 years ago.

At a press conference held outside the courtroom Tuesday, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney responded to a reporter’s question about Valerie Mack, saying that it is “safe to say” Mr. Heuermann is still a suspect in her death. Ms. Mack’s remains were also found both near Gilgo Beach and in Manorville. Mr. Heuermann was first linked to her killing in a bail application made public last month.

Mr. Heuermann appeared briefly Tuesday before state Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei, alongside his attorney, Michael Brown. His estranged wife, Asa Ellerup, also attended the conference, accompanied by a family service dog. 

The defendant appeared to murmur something and shake his head as the prosecution described the extent of their discovery materials, which included 30 terabytes of data from five separate dates, consisting of raw data from electronic devices seized during the search of Mr. Heuermann’s home.

Additional material provided by prosecutors contains 1,600 pages of reports and bench notes, as well as 2,000 pages of raw data from the mitochondrial DNA lab works and underlying bench notes. 

Mr. Tierney revealed that  prosecution has turned over roughly 60,000 pages of evidence to the defense from the July 2023 search warrant. In addition, he said his office  has received over 7,000 tips from the public since the beginning of this case..

“The judge is pushing both sides to get the material out, obviously once the defense gets it, they have to evaluate that material and take whatever action,” Mr. Tierney said. “If you look at other cases of this nature, where you have a number of murders that occur over a period of time in jurisdictions across the country, this isn’t a robbery of a commercial establishment — it’s a tremendous amount of material.”

Mr. Brown said because of the additional murder charges and more discovery for the defense to review, it is likely everything will be pushed back. 

“It’s an unprecedented type of case with Suffolk County and possibly the State of New York, in the sense you’re now dealing with six victims over the course of 30 years,” Mr. Brown said. “None of us have encountered this before, so [the judge is] giving us the latitude and the leeway to do what we have to do.”

The defense attorney continued to tell the press he believes a motion will eventually be made by the defense to “sever the six individuals” and try them separately, instead of in one case in front of a special grand jury, as the prosecutors have indicated, Mr. Brown said.

Mr. Brown added that the defense is looking into the possibility of filing for a change of venue, but no decision has been made yet.

He expressed his desire to take this case in front of a jury and for Mr. Heuermann not to be tried by the government.

“I know why the prosecutor would want to put [Costilla and Taylor] in the indictment, because the more the merrier for them, but they have nothing to do with the other four,” Mr. Brown said. “The MO is different, the way the alleged murders were carried out were different, where the bodies were deposited or left is completely different, so as we know about the Gilgo Beach murders, those two have nothing to do with it.”

So far, Mr. Heuermann has been charged for the deaths of six alleged victims — all of which he has pleaded not guilty to — over a timeline of nearly 17 years and within a radius of more than 40 miles in which he allegedly dumped the victims’ remains. 

This includes his previous charges for the deaths of the “Gilgo Four”: Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman and Maureen Brainard-Barnes. The remains of those women were recovered along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach between the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2011. Their deaths occurred between July 2007 and September 2010.

The evidence linking Mr. Heuermann, a Manhattan architect, to the death of Ms. Taylor includes a male human hair discovered on a surgical drape found beneath her remains, eyewitness accounts of dark-colored Chevrolet pickup truck near the site of Ms. Taylor’s dismembered body that match a 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche Mr. Heuermann purchased, and phone records.

In April, Gilgo Beach Task Force investigators along with K-9 units searched a densely wooded portion of Manorville where the partial remains of Ms. Taylor had been discovered in 2003. In June, Mr. Tierney referred to the recent search of the “area of interest” as a “necessary investigative step.”

Police also searched a wooded area in Southampton where Ms. Costilla’s body was found. Law enforcement originally suspected her  death was related to the murders of two other women, Colleen McNamee and Rita Tangredi. John Bittrolff is currently serving a 50-years-to-life prison sentence for those murders, but was never charged with Ms. Costilla’s death. A recent DNA analysis of a male hair found on Ms. Costilla’s body excluded 99.96% of North America’s population as its source, but not Mr. Heuermann. A similar analysis in 2014 excluded Mr. Bittrolff as the source of the DNA evidence.

Both Mr. Brown and Mr. Tierney declined to comment on when they believe the trial will officially begin for Mr. Heuermann. 

“We anticipate there will be a lot of pretrial motions in this case; there are a lot of pretrial motions in most cases,” Mr. Tierney said at Tuesday’s conference. “But, in this case, it is just going to be a lot of motions given the length of time and breadth of this case.”