Gilgo Beach murders: Rex Heuermann back in court for DNA evidence hearing

LONG ISLAND - Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann was back in court for a hearing on DNA evidence on Tuesday.

Back in December, Heuermann was charged with a seventh murder in the death of Valerie Mack. The partial skeletal remains of Mack were found in a wooded area in Manorville, Long Island, back in 2000.

Valerie Mack (inset) went missing in September 2000. Some of her remains were found in Gilgo Beach, N.Y., in 2011. Those remains were finally identified in 2020.

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Heuermann is also charged with killing six other women whose remains were found on Long Island. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

What they're saying:

It has been a year and a half since Heuermann was first charged with these murders and the judge is trying to push this case forward.

Now, the judge has allowed for an additional two weeks for Heuermann's defense team to receive more evidence from prosecutors before the next court date.

Alleged Gilgo serial killer Rex Heuermann appears in Judge Timothy Mazzei's courtroom at Suffolk County Court for a status conference on February 25, 2025 in Riverhead, New York. The 61-year-old has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths

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One of the major reasons causing the delay was his defense attorney, Michael Brown, trying to get the trial split up into five different trials.

Brown argued that not all the victims should be grouped together.

"They have nothing to do with each other in the sense of the location of where the bodies were found, the type of murder committed, the evidence that they have," Brown said.

The other issue causing the delay is DNA, specifically, hair follicles allegedly belonging to Heuermann and his wife that were found on the victims.

The science used to identify the hair is called nuclear DNA and has never been used in a New York state courtroom.

The defense calls it magic and not science. The District Attorney says it's been used to identify 9/11 victims, among other things.

"It's prevented people from dying from disease. It's detected diseases. It's used in amniocentesis is identified war dead," Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney said.

What's next:

The next court date is set for March 12, which is when the judge hopes to set a date for the Frye hearing.

The Frye hearing will determine if that DNA can be used in court.

Brown also said he will not seek in a change in venue for the trial because he said he trusts the people of Suffolk County who know the history of the police department. 

What are the Gilgo Beach murders?

The backstory:

The Gilgo Beach murders – the deaths of 11 people whose remains were found in 2010 and 2011 – have long stumped investigators. 

File: An aerial view of police cars near where a body was discovered in the area near Gilgo Beach and Ocean Parkway on Long Island on April 15, 2011 in Wantagh, New York. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Most of the victims were young women who had been sex workers. Several of the bodies were found near the remote town of Gilgo Beach on the southern shore of Long Island.

Determining who killed them, and why, has vexed a slew of seasoned homicide detectives through several changes in police leadership.

The ‘Gilgo’ Four

The bodies of the "Gilgo Four" were located within a quarter-mile of one another near Gilgo Beach back in December 2010.

Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker, vanished on May 1, 2010. A police officer and his cadaver dog were looking for her body in the thicket along nearby Ocean Parkway when they happened upon the remains of a different woman. Within days, three other bodies were found, all within a short walk of one another.

Gilbert's disappearance and search is what ultimately led to the discovery of several remains in the area.