Facing a mountain of lurid evidence and an approaching trial that seems primed to reignite the intense interest surrounding his case, a lawyer for Rex Heuermann, who has been charged with murdering seven women around Gilgo Beach on Long Island, offered a glimpse of his legal strategy on Wednesday in a Riverhead, N.Y., courtroom.
The lawyer, Michael J. Brown, has asked the judge in the case to toss out DNA evidence seen as central to the prosecution. He also wants the case broken up into five separate trials.
On Wednesday, the judge in the case, Justice Timothy P. Mazzei, said he would hold two hearings to consider the lawyer’s requests.
In addition to Mr. Heuermann’s phone records and internet activity, prosecutors are basing much of their case on cutting-edge nuclear DNA findings. They say the evidence links strands of hairs found with most of the Gilgo Beach victims to Mr. Heuermann, who appeared in court on Wednesday morning wearing a dark suit.
Mr. Brown made it clear that he would do all he could to undermine the DNA evidence. Speaking to reporters after Wednesday’s hearing, he disparaged the findings as “magic,” not science, and said they hinged on methodology that had not been deemed reliable as criminal evidence in New York State.
Ray Tierney, the Suffolk County district attorney, who is prosecuting the case, described the evidence as sound and said he was confident it would be deemed admissible in court.
He called the methodology “the next generation of DNA testing,” and added: “We look forward to proving the scientific acceptance and the effectiveness of this technology.”
Mr. Brown also sought to attack the prosecution as unfair for seeking to try Mr. Heuermann for all seven killings at once.
He argued that one trial was legally viable for the first three victims, whom Mr. Heuermann was charged in July 2023 with murdering, since the three killings bore similarities to one another and were carried out within two years.
But combining those cases with the four others, which he argued had “separate and distinct” elements and relied on weaker evidence, served to create a “cumulative effect” that was unfair to his client, he said.
He also argued that holding a single trial would overwhelm jurors and prevent them from weighing each charge separately.
But Mr. Tierney said it made sense to group all the charges and evidence into one trial.
“All of the evidence is properly joined, and we’ll make those arguments,” he said.
Justice Mazzei set a pretrial hearing for Feb. 18 to consider Mr. Brown’s request for separate trials. The judge plans to set a date for a separate hearing to determine whether the DNA evidence in the case can be presented.
Also on Wednesday, Mr. Brown filed a demand with the court for key genetic evidence he said prosecutors had not yet turned over to him, from a California firm hired by prosecutors to do genetic research in the case, and from firms outsourced by that company.
“We have not received a lot of this information,” Mr. Brown said.
Prosecutors responded in court that they had likely provided it and would clarify for Mr. Brown where to find it, amid the avalanche of evidence turned over in the case.
After Wednesday’s hearing, Mr. Tierney said the hearing about the DNA evidence would be an extensive one that included witnesses from both sides.
“This is complex scientific evidence, so it’s going to be a substantial hearing,” the district attorney said.
Mr. Brown has floated several defense strategies to reporters, including citing corruption early in the investigation, bemoaning the public portrayal of his client and disparaging the evidence as sensationalized and circumstantial.
Mr. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the killings, even as more charges and evidence have mounted against him. He was arrested in July 2023 and charged, at first, in three of the so-called Gilgo Beach murders, which occurred more than a decade ago along Ocean Parkway east of Jones Beach.
He was then charged with a fourth killing last January, two more last June and a seventh last month.
Prosecutors have tried to prepare for a trial even while trying to connect Mr. Heuermann to other killings in the area. Mr. Tierney told reporters on Tuesday that he would not rule out the possibility of Mr. Heuermann facing additional indictments before his trial.
But he said he was determined not to speculate. “That’s how prosecutors get themselves into trouble,” he said.
The post Gilgo Beach Killing Suspect Moves to Have Key DNA Evidence Thrown Out appeared first on New York Times.
