RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — New fees have been filed Tuesday towards accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann.
They come with the homicide of a fourth sufferer discovered no longer some distance from the opposite 3 girls he’s already charged with killing.
The accused serial killer, his arms shackled in the back of his hulking again, confirmed no emotion in any respect. He got here out and in of the court stone-faced as Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney introduced a grand jury has pinned a fourth homicide on him, the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose sister was once within the court.
James Carbone
“It has been 16 years since I last saw my sister, 16 years since I heard her voice, because 16 years ago, she was silenced,” sister Melissa Cann mentioned.
“While the loss of my mom has been extremely painful for me, the indictment by the grand jury has brought hope for justice for my mom and my family,” daughter Nicolette Brainard-Barnes mentioned.
When Heuermann was once arrested in July and charged because the elusive Gilgo Beach serial killer, prosecutors mentioned his DNA from discarded pizza and burner telephone proof tied him to a few murdered girls — Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello — whose our bodies have been discovered alongside Gilgo Beach in 2010.
Now Maureen Brainard-Barnes has been added to the listing.
“She was an intellectual. She was a writer. She was an artistic person. She cared very deeply about the people that she loved,” Tierney mentioned at a news convention Tuesday. “It’s been an honor and a privilege to work these cases, and to provide that small measure of closure.”
The petite 25-year-old from Norwich, Connecticut, was once a mom of 2. She was once operating as a Craigslist escort in Manhattan when she disappeared in July 2007. Her stays have been discovered 3 years later close to 3 different girls’s our bodies, dumped alongside desolate Ocean Parkway on Long Island.
Police dubbed them the “Gilgo Four.” They have been all intercourse employees, wrapped in burlap. Now prosecutors say they have been all murdered, at other instances, by way of Heuermann.
“We also recovered numerous electronic devices from the defendant, including a number of laptops, smartphones, tablets,” Tierney mentioned. “From that, we learned that the defendant undertook numerous searches for software that could assist in erasing, or wiping, data from computers and digital devices.”
Read the superseding bail utility within the Gilgo Beach murders case
Court paperwork say hair within the buckle of a belt used to bind Brainard-Barnes is connected to Heuermann — DNA acquired in an power drink from Heuermann’s daughter using a Long Island Rail Road teach. Prosecutors allege there may be additionally mobile phone proof Heuermann checked her voicemail after she disappeared.
Heuermann maintains he’s blameless.
“You’re talking about a gentleman who has never been arrested before. He’s a productive member of society. He’s going to work every day. He’s supporting his family, and he’s incarcerated. And he’s claiming he didn’t do this. But he is looking forward to having his day in a courtroom,” Heuermann’s legal professional, Michael Brown, mentioned.
Asa Ellerup, Heuermann’s spouse, and her prison staff have been additionally found in courtroom. They mentioned the indictment bolsters her case that she had completely not anything to do with the murders, since she was once out of the town when Brainard-Barnes was once killed.
The DA mentioned the grand jury will proceed to take a look at to resolve the rest murders at Gilgo Beach.
The subsequent courtroom date within the case if Feb. 6.
Watch: Legal skilled at the case
New York prison protection attorney and previous prosecutor David Schwartz spoke with CBS New York forward of Tuesday’s courtroom look to place the traits into standpoint. He referred to as it a “scientific case.”
“Heuermann was indicted and remanded for the first three murders. They made the strategic decision to make the arrest at that moment in time, because they were already surveilling him for about a year. They just didn’t want anything to go wrong,” he defined. “So they made that arrest, and in the meantime, they were investigating the fourth murder. They were waiting for the mitochondrial DNA analysis on the fourth murder.”
Schwartz went on so as to add “DNA is not a layup.”
“They didn’t use nuclear DNA, which specifically points to a particular person. They used mitochondrial DNA, because of — 13 years later, all this time went by, which excludes 99.6% of the population,” he mentioned. “So it’s scientific evidence, plus circumstantial evidence — they have his truck, they have phone records, they have all types of other evidence that they’re going to piece this case together. So I expect this case to be a complicated case, and I expect it to last a good amount of time.”