By Hank Russell
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office is calling on the court to deny the defense’s request to sever the trial for alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann. Michael Brown, Heuermann’s attorney, argued some of the crimes happened at separate locations, and so there should be different dates.
On February 25, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Lee submitted a request to the New York State Court of Suffolk County that only one trial be held for the seven murder charges against Heuermann. As previously reported in Long Island Life & Politics, Heuermann, 60, of Massapequa Park, stands accused of seven counts of murder.
Brown is looking to sever the trial into five separate trials: one for the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, and one each for Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and Sandra Costilla. Calling the defense’s request “contradictory and meritless.” Lee also wrote that holding five separate trials would not be served “in the interest of justice.” Instead, “[h]olding a single trial under the circumstances of this case is both appropriate and logical.”
The reason for the separate trials, Brown said, was that the murders “had nothing to do with each other” with regards to where the bodies were found, how they were killed and “the evidence [the DA’s Office] has.”
Lee said that Heuermann admitted there were “ minor inconsistencies” between the condition in which the victims’ bodies were found and the material used to package them in his planning document. “Despite these minor inconsistencies, the targeted victims, the patterns underlying the respective initial encounters, and the postmortem behavior exhibited by the defendant all followed the same, overarching pattern.”
As previously published in Long Island Life & Politics, the DA’s Office used state-of-the-art technology to connect Heuermann to the murders. The defense called for a Frye hearing, challenging the admissibility of the DNA evidence. A Frye hearing has been scheduled for March 12.
Brown emphasized that he does not want a change in venue, just five separate trials over five separate dates. But Lee argued this would hamper their case.
“[N]ot only would the prosecution be unfairly prejudiced by having to present five separate trials with overlapping evidence, but more importantly the jury would be unable to consider the full narrative of events, which are necessary to comprehend a serial, homicide investigation.”