Judge allows advanced DNA evidence in Gilgo Beach serial killing trial

NEW YORK (AP) — New charges brought against the man accused of a string of killings on New York’s Long Island are raising questions about another man’s murder conviction. Prosecutors said Thursday that Rex Heuermann was responsible for the death of Sandra Costilla in 1993. For years prosecutors believed that Costilla’s death may have been linked to the killings of two other young women who disappeared around the same time and were found in similar positions. John Bittrolff was convicted in 2017 of killing those two women. His lawyers say the new indictment against Heuermann casts further doubt on their client’s guilt and are asking for prosecutors to reopen the case.

NEW YORK (AP) — For years prosecutors saw a connection in the killings of three young women who disappeared in the winter of 1993 and 1994, their nude bodies found strangled, beaten and left in similar poses in the Long Island brush.

In new charges unveiled Thursday (June 6, 2024), prosecutors said Rex Heuermann — the man already accused in a string of deaths known as the Gilgo Beach serial killings — was responsible for the death of one of the women, Sanda Costilla. The findings, authorities said, indicate that Heuermann began hunting victims more than a decade earlier than previously thought.

That in turn has raised questions about the conviction of another man, John Bittrolff, who is incarcerated for the murder of the other two women — Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee — and who prosecutors once considered a suspect in Costilla’s death.

Bittrolff’s lawyers have long accused prosecutors of relying on dubious forensics to convict him. They say the new charges against Heuermann cast further doubt on the case against their client, who has maintained his innocence since being sentenced to 50 years to life in 2017.

“You have three women killed in the same time frame and displayed in the same way, and now one is alleged to have been killed by Rex Heuermann,” said attorney Lisa Marcoccia of the Legal Aid Society, which is handling the appeal. “The evidence points to one killer, and the new indictment supports John Bittrolff’s claim of innocence.”

The trio of killings came roughly 16 years before the discovery of the remains of 10 people — mostly female sex workers — along a highway near Gilgo Beach on Long Island’s south shore. Heuermann, an architect, has pleaded not guilty to five of those killings and is considered a suspect in a sixth, in addition to Costilla’s death.

In the new indictment, prosecutors said forensic testing of hairs found on Costilla’s body determined they were likely Heuermann’s. The killing occurred shortly after Heuermann’s mother and another person moved out of his home, leaving him with “unfettered time to execute his plans,” prosecutors said.

Like the Gilgo Beach killings, those in the early 1990s stumped investigators for years. Then, in 2014, authorities caught a break: A DNA sample taken from Bittrolff’s brother proved a partial genetic match to semen found on the bodies of Tangredi and McNamee.

That led them to Bittrolff, a carpenter and father of two living in Manorville, on Long Island. His DNA was a full match.

Shortly after the arrest, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota speculated publicly that Bittrolff might have also been responsible for the death of Costilla, who disappeared weeks after Tangredi and two months before McNamee.

Though Bittrolff’s DNA was not found on Costilla, all three victims were displayed in the same sexual manner and missing a single shoe, prosecutors said, and wood shavings were found at all three scenes. Both Tangredi and McNamee were known to engage in sex work, while Costilla “led a similar lifestyle,” Spota said.

At the 2017 trial, Bittrolff’s lawyer conceded it was possible his client had sex with the two women but said that didn’t mean he killed them. Multiple sperm samples were found on the two women.

Prosecutors relied on the testimony of Suffolk County Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Caplan, who said he analyzed the density of the sperm to conclude Bittrolff had sex with them shortly before their deaths.

Defense lawyers did not call an expert to rebut that. But in an appeal motion, they cited DNA analyst and molecular biologist Dr. Karl Reich, who described sperm density analysis as “pure junk science.”

“Dr. Caplan’s testimony on a timeline since intercourse is not based on any scientific foundation,” Reich wrote in an affidavit, adding that such methods have “no precedent in forensic DNA practice.”

Jurors deliberated for seven days, repeatedly telling a judge they were deadlocked before eventually convicting Bittrolff. Afterward one said Caplan’s testimony was key to swaying undecided jurors, according to trial lawyer Jonathan Manley.

Spota credited the “miracle of DNA evidence” for catching and convicting Bittrolff.

Less than six months after the conviction, Spota was arrested for obstructing an investigation into the chief of the Suffolk County Police Department, who was accused of beating a prisoner. Both men were eventually convicted and sentenced to prison.

As with the Gilgo Beach investigation, the case against Bittrolff was dogged by allegations of mistakes and misconduct by police and prosecutors. During the trial, the Suffolk County police admitted to accidentally destroying the wood chips found on one of the women’s bodies and, separately, wood chips discovered in a car used by a police sergeant who was a potential suspect.

Police were also accused of prematurely destroying the sergeant’s investigative file. In their appeal, defense attorneys said prosecutors did not turn over another internal file containing allegations by the wife of a separate officer that her husband killed one of the women. Prosecutors maintain they did turn over that document; a judge has yet to rule.

John Ray, an attorney who has represented the families of some of the Gilgo Beach victims, said he had concerns about the case against Bittrolff from the beginning.

“There were huge defects in the presentation of the testimony, there was a question of incompetent counsel and the handling of the evidence was disgraceful,” he said. “Given what is now known, the prosecutors have an ethical duty to revisit and reexamine the Bittrolff case.”

Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta, a former detective on the FBI’s violent crime task force, agreed. “It’s worth another look,” he said. “Nothing would surprise me in this county.”

A spokesperson for the DA’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Outside court Thursday, an attorney for Heuermann, Michael Brown, said that his client was “obviously in a bad place in terms of the new charges.”

In the months before his arrest, court records show, Heuermann may have had an interest in the man whose high-profile murder charges preceded his own. Among the hundreds of online searches that prosecutors say they found on his computer was a query that read: “John Bitroff.”

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — The New York architect accused of murdering multiple women and leaving their corpses scattered along the Long Island coast kept a “blueprint” of his crimes on his computer, prosecutors revealed Thursday (June 6, 2024) as they brought charges against Rex Heuermann in two more killings.

Heuermann, 60, appeared before a judge to be arraigned in the deaths of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla, two young women who were long suspected of being the victims of men preying on sex workers. He had previously been charged with murdering four other women in a string of deaths known as the Gilgo Beach serial killings.

Taylor disappeared in 2003. Costilla was killed 30 years ago, in 1993, and her inclusion in the case indicates that prosecutors now believe Heuermann was killing women for much longer than previously thought.

The new charges came after recent police searches of Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home and a wooded area on Long Island tied to the investigation.

In a court filing, prosecutors said they were able to use new forensic testing methods to match hairs found on or near the vicinity of both victims to a DNA profile that is a likely match to Heuermann. Additionally, prosecutors say they recovered a file on a hard drive in his basement used to “methodically blueprint” his killings.

The all-caps document features a series of checklists with tasks to complete before, during and after the killings, as well as practical lessons for “next time.” Among the dozens of entries written are reminders to clean the bodies and destroy evidence, to “get sleep before hunt” and to “have story set.”

One section, titled “things to remember,” appears to highlight lessons from previous killings, prosecutors said, such as using heavier rope and limiting noise in order to maximize “play time.” A “body prep” checklist includes, among other items, a note to “remove head and hands.”

Prosecutors believe that entry may connect Heuermann to yet another victim, Valerie Mack, whose partial skeletal remains were discovered near the body of Taylor after her disappearance in 2000.

Heuermann has not been charged in the death of Mack. But asked during a news conference after Thursday’s hearing if he was a suspect, District Attorney Ray Tierney replied, “That’s fair to say.”

Heuermann pleaded not guilty to killing Taylor and Costilla during the hearing and was ordered held without bail. His lawyer, Michael Brown, said outside court that Heuermann is “obviously in a bad place in terms of the new charges.”

Afterward, Tierney said the additional charges provide “some small measure of closure” for the victims’ families.

Since late 2010, police have been investigating the deaths of at least 10 people — mostly female sex workers — whose remains were discovered along an isolated highway not far from Gilgo Beach on Long Island’s south shore.

Those victims disappeared over a span of at least 14 years. Vexed detectives made only halting progress in identifying possible suspects. Investigators long said it was likely that not all of the deaths were the work of the same killer. Some of the victims vanished in the mid-1990s. Investigators concluded that an 11th person who disappeared in 2010 from the barrier island community of Oak Beach had accidentally drowned.

Heuermann, who lived across a bay from where the bodies were found, was arrested last July. Prosecutors said a new investigative task force used mobile phone location data and DNA samples to link the architect to some of the victims. He was charged with killing four of the women: Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

Investigators who searched Heuermann’s home extensively and dug up his yard last summer returned to the house last month and spent nearly a week searching it again. They focused their efforts mostly in the basement, according to a lawyer for Heuermann’s wife.

That followed a search in April of a wooded area in Manorville, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Heuermann’s home, and in the Southampton hamlet of North Sea, where Costilla’s remains were discovered decades ago.

Tierney said the planning document was recovered in March, providing the impetus for the recent searches.

Prosecutors also said they found a book in Heuermann’s possession by the retired FBI agent John Douglas, “The Cases That Haunt Us.” They say the planning document referenced specific pages in another work by Douglas, “Mind Hunter,” that allude to the personality types of serial killers and profiles of those who use mutilation and sexual violence.

Jessica Taylor, 20, vanished in 2003 while working as an escort in New York City. Some of her remains were discovered in Manorville that year. Other remains were found during a 2011 search of the beach scrub by the side of Ocean Parkway, the road where the other Gilgo Beach victims were found.

Taylor’s mother, Elizabeth Baczkiel, was at the courthouse for Thursday’s hearing. She held up childhood photos of her daughter but didn’t speak to reporters. Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, read a statement from Baczkiel in which she described her daughter as “loving, compassionate and so funny,” and said she would have made a great mother.

“My darling daughter, you will never be forgotten,” the statement said. “You will forever be in our hearts.”

Valerie Mack, 24, who had been working as an escort in Philadelphia, disappeared in 2000 and was last seen by her family in Port Republic, New Jersey, near Atlantic City. Some of her skeletal remains were discovered that year in the Manorville woods. More of her remains were found in 2011 during the search around Gilgo Beach.

Initially known as “Jane Doe No. 6,” Mack’s remains went unidentified until 2020, when genetic testing revealed her identity.

Costilla was 28 when she was killed and had lived in New York City.

A decade ago, Suffolk County prosecutors said publicly that they believed Costilla had been killed by John Bittrolff, an area carpenter who was convicted of murdering two other women whose bodies were found in the same part of Long Island.

But Bittrolff was never charged with Costilla’s death due to lack of evidence and has insisted he didn’t kill anyone.

“After today’s confirmation that John Bittrolff had nothing to do with the death of Sandra Costilla, I sincerely hope that the Gilgo Beach Task Force will conduct an actual, meaningful investigation into the murders of Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee to find their real killer,” his lawyer Jon Manley said Thursday, referring to the two women Bittrolff was convicted of killing.

Heuermann’s lawyer, Brown, said he planned to request the prosecution’s files on Bittrolff.

“Quite frankly, the police department and the district attorney’s office all had the finger pointed at Bittrolff for that murder,” he said.

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (AP) — Authorities say a woman whose remains were among discoveries that became known as the Gilgo Beach killings has been identified after 27 years. Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney announced Friday (Aug. 4, 2023) that she was 34-year-old Karen Vergata. She had previously been known to the public as “Jane Doe No. 7.” She disappeared around Valentine’s Day 1996 and was living in Manhattan. Some of her remains were first discovered in 1996 on Fire Island. More of her bones were later found near Gilgo Beach in 2011.

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (AP) — A woman whose remains were among discoveries that became known as the Gilgo Beach killings has been identified after 27 years, authorities said Friday (Aug. 4, 2023).

Known until now to the public only as “Jane Doe No. 7,” she was Karen Vergata, 34, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney told a news conference.

Her family last heard from her on Valentine’s Day in 1996, when she called her father on his birthday, according to a 2017 court decision that declared her presumptively dead.

Friday’s development was part of a reinvestigation that, last month, spurred the first arrest in connection with the long-unsolved string of killings that emerged when remains of 10 people were found over a decade ago along a coastal parkway in Gilgo Beach, on Long Island in New York.

But it is unclear whether Vergata’s death might ever be tied to the ongoing case against Rex Heuermann, an architect who has been charged with three of the killings and named the prime suspect in a fourth. Tierney declined to comment on “what, if any, suspects we developed” in Vergata’s death.

Some of Vergata’s remains were discovered in 1996 on Fire Island. More of her bones were found in 2011 near Gilgo Beach, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of the original location.

Vergata lived in Manhattan, Tierney said. He said investigators believed she was working as an escort; most of the other victims in the Gilgo Beach killings also were sex workers.

No missing persons report was filed when Vergata disappeared, Tierney said. However, her father, Dominic Vergata, said in court papers that he hired an investigator, alerted law enforcement agencies and contacted her acquaintances to try to find her, according to the court decision that declared her legally dead. It was not clear when the father undertook those efforts. He died in December, according to an obituary.

A new investigative task force, formed last year to investigate the Gilgo Beach killings, developed a DNA profile of the woman whom investigators called Jane Doe No. 7, Tierney said. Then the FBI used genetic genealogy techniques to identify her tentatively as Karen Vergata and the task force obtained a relative’s DNA to cement the identification in October, he said.

“It’s important that we remember and honor not only Ms. Vergata but all the victims on Gilgo Beach,” the prosecutor said, adding that the investigation into all of their deaths continues. He declined to answer any questions at the news conference.

Authorities have yet to identify some other victims, including a woman whom investigators nicknamed “Peaches,” after a tattoo on her body. Some of her remains were discovered stuffed inside a plastic tub in Hempstead Lake State Park in 1997; others turned up near Gilgo Beach in 2011, along with the remains of an unidentified toddler believed to be her daughter.

Tierney said authorities held off releasing Vergata’s name while contacting her relatives and furthering their investigation, which led last month to Heuermann’s arrest in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello. Prosecutors say they also are working to charge him with the death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, but they have not yet done so.

Heuermann has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer says the 59-year-old denies killing anyone.

Authorities have said he is unlikely to be responsible for all the deaths.

Authorities zeroed in on him as a suspect in the killings of Barthelemy, Brainard-Barnes, Costello and Waterman when the task force ran an old tip about a Chevy Avalanche pickup truck through a vehicle records database.

The records search turned up an Avalanche belonging to Heuermann, who lived in a Long Island neighborhood police had been focusing on because of cellphone location data and call records, authorities said.

Detectives said they were later able to link Heuermann’s DNA to a hair found on a restraint used in one of the killings.

After his arrest, investigators spent nearly two weeks combing through his home, including digging up the yard, dismantling a porch and a greenhouse and removing many contents of the house for testing.

Earlier this week, prosecutors said they have begun providing Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael Brown, with reams of evidence including autopsy findings, DNA reports and crime scene photos.

The case first drew headlines in 2010, when police began searching for a missing woman named Shannan Gilbert near Gilgo Beach. Instead, they discovered 10 sets of remains of other people, including eight women, one man and the toddler.

Gilbert’s body was found in December 2011 in the marsh in the community of Oak Beach, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) east of where the other 10 sets of remains were discovered. Investigators have found she drowned accidentally; her relatives have long disputed that determination.

JULY 15, 2023:

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — Authorities on Long Island are vowing to continue investigating a string of killings known as the Gilgo Beach murders after charging an architect in the deaths of three of the 11 victims.

Rex Heuermann, 59, is accused of killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello over a decade ago. He is also considered the prime suspect in the death of another woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

Their bodies were bound and hidden in thick underbrush along a remote beach highway across the bay from the Massapequa Park community where Heuermann has lived all his life. Investigators have said it’s unlikely just one person killed all the victims.

“We’re going to continue to work, investigate, and try to get a small measure of closure for all the victims’ families,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

Heuermann, 59, was arrested late Thursday (July 13, 2023), a year and a half after authorities formed an interagency task force with investigators from the FBI, as well as state and local police departments, aimed at solving the case. He was charged Friday.

Heuermann was first identified as a suspect in March 2022, when detectives linked him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010. In March, detectives recovered Heuermann’s DNA from a pizza crust he discarded and matched it to evidence found on one of the victims, authorities said.

“They never stopped working and will continue to work tirelessly until we bring justice to all the families involved,” Suffolk County police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said.

Heuermann was ordered jailed without bail after his lawyer entered a not guilty plea on his behalf at an arraignment Friday in state court in Riverhead. In denying bail, Judge Richard Ambro cited “the extreme depravity” of Heuermann’s alleged conduct.

Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael Brown, said his client told him: “I didn’t do this.”

Investigators were continuing to search Heuermann’s home, about a 25-minute drive across a causeway spanning South Oyster Bay to the sandy stretch known as Gilgo Beach where the remains were found in 2010 and 2011.

Most of the victims were young women who had been sex workers. Their deaths long stumped investigators, and the mystery fueled immense public attention and led to a 2020 Netflix film, “Lost Girls.”