Compelling DNA evidence connecting Rex Heuermann to the murder cases of several women, whose bodies were found near Gilgo Beach, will be permitted during his trial.

In a brief court session in Riverhead on Wednesday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei decided that key evidence using innovative DNA technology is allowable in the trial, dealing a significant setback to the defense of the alleged serial killer.

This decision follows a series of Frye hearings where the prosecution and defense debated the new method that was utilized to associate the 61-year-old architect and married father with the murders of seven women spanning from 1993 to 2011.

The enhanced nuclear DNA analysis conducted by California-based Astrea Forensics lab identified hairs on six of the seven victims as belonging to Heuermann’s former wife, Asa Ellerup, their daughter Victoria Heuermann, and another person connected to the alleged serial killer.

The defense claimed the technique should be rejected since it had never been applied in a New York court, while the prosecution contended it was already widely recognized by the scientific community.

Heuermann, who was handcuffed and sporting a shorter haircut, gave no visible reaction inside the courtroom to the judge’s decision.

Ellerup, who maintains her husband’s innocence, showed her support by sitting in the public gallery with her lawyers. She swiftly exited the courtroom once the brief hearing concluded.

The couple’s daughter Victoria was notably absent. Victoria attended some of the Frye hearings in recent months after her hairs were found on some of her father’s alleged victims. 

But in a bombshell Peacock documentary released in June, she revealed she now believes her dad ‘most likely’ is the Gilgo Beach serial killer.

Ellerup, meanwhile, denied her ‘hero’ husband could be connected to the murders in the show.

The accused serial killer is currently charged with seven murders over a two-decade reign of horror running from 1993 to 2011.

The Gilgo Beach serial killer case had haunted the Long Island community for more than a decade, ever since the first of multiple bodies were discovered along Ocean Parkway in December 2010.

No arrests were made for more than a decade.

Then, in July 2023, the Massapequa Park local was dramatically arrested as he left his office in midtown Manhattan.

Heuermann was initially charged with the murders of three women: Amber Costello, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman.

Since then, he has been charged with the murders of four more victims: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack.

All the victims were working as sex workers when they vanished after going to meet a client.

Their bodies were found dumped along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach and other remote spots on Long Island. 

Some of the victims had been bound, others had been dismembered and their remains discarded in multiple locations.

The 61-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

In Wednesday’s ruling, Judge Mazzei said that – after hearing testimony from both state and defense expert witnesses during the Frye hearings – he has concluded that the DNA testing in question is ‘reliable and generally accepted by the scientific community’.

Astrea Forensics uses whole genome sequencing to develop a DNA profile – in this case, the source of rootless hairs found on the victims’ bodies.

Whole genome sequencing involves extracting all the fragments of DNA from the hairs and then assembling them on a human genome like a puzzle, to come up with a DNA profile.

A software called IBDGem is then used to compare that DNA profile with the DNA profile of a known suspect or individual. 

Following Wednesday’s hearing, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney told reporters he was ‘satisfied’ with the judge’s decision.

‘We won. The evidence is admissible. Full speed ahead for trial,’ he said outside the courtroom. 

Heuermann’s defense attorney Michael Brown meanwhile announced he is appealing the judge’s decision. 

In a motion filed on Wednesday, the defense referred to Astrea Forensics as an ‘unaccredited’ lab and argued it does not have a New York state health department permit, is banned from accepting DNA specimen from the state and does not meet the state’s minimum accepted and approved standards of clinical labs.

‘Any evidence created by Astrea Forensics which was derived from the genetic examination of samples submitted from the State of New York must be precluded by this Court as patently unreliable and unlawfully procured,’ the motion alleges.

Heuermann’s legal team is also seeking to split the case into five separate trials. Judge Mazzei is yet to rule on that matter.

The two sides will return to court for a hearing on September 23. 

The admissibility of the DNA evidence had the potential to make or break the case against the suspected serial killer – tying him to the murders of multiple women and a case that has struck fear into Long Island for more than a decade. 

But the judge’s decision also has implications far beyond the Gilgo Beach serial killer case, paving the way for the use of the advanced DNA testing in other criminal cases across New York state.

Heuermann was first linked to the murders following a tip about a pickup truck.

According to a witness, Costello had disappeared after going to see a client who drove a green Chevy Avalanche in September 2010.

Following the launch of a new taskforce, investigators learned that Heuermann drove that same type of vehicle at the time of the murders, prosecutors say.

He also matched the description of the client seen by the witness.

As well as the DNA evidence, prosecutors said investigators also found a chilling ‘planning document’ on a hard drive in the basement of Heuermann’s family home in Massapequa Park.

In the haunting document, he allegedly had a section detailed ‘PREP’ and noted that ‘small’ women were preferred.

Heuermann has lived his entire life in Massapequa Park and would commute to his architecture job in Midtown Manhattan, where some of the victims worked and were last seen alive.

He was especially familiar with Ocean Parkway, where the victims’ bodies were dumped, thanks to a job he had at Jones Beach in his 20s, according to prosecutors.

Fears that a serial killer or killers were at large on Long Island began back in May 2010, when Shannan Gilbert vanished in bizarre circumstances one night.

The 24-year-old, who was working as an escort, had gone to see a client in the Oak Beach Association community when she made a terrifying 911 call, saying that someone was trying to kill her.

During a search for Gilbert in December 2010, officers came across the body of Barthelemy in the marshes by Gilgo Beach.

Within days, three more bodies – Costello, Brainard-Barnes and Waterman – had been found.

The four victims, who became known as the Gilgo Four, had been dumped within a quarter mile of each other, some of them bound and wrapped in burlap.

Over the following months, the remains of seven other victims were found.

Gilbert’s body was found last. Investigators maintain that she was not a victim, but died by accidental drowning after she fled into the dense thicket that night.

Heuermann has not been charged in connection to the deaths of the other four victims: Karen Vergata and three still-unidentified victims, known only as ‘Asian Doe,’ ‘Peaches,’ and Peaches’ toddler daughter.

Costilla, meanwhile, had never been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killer case until Heuermann was hit with charges for her murder in 2024.

Her murder expands the timeline that the accused serial killer is alleged to have been actively preying on victims.

Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He is next due in court on September 23.