Judge allows advanced DNA evidence in Gilgo Beach serial killing trial
[September 04, 2025]
By PHILIP MARCELO
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday said prosecutors can use DNA
evidence obtained through advanced techniques in the forthcoming murder
trial of Rex Heuermann, the man accused of being Long Island’s Gilgo
Beach serial killer.
Judge Timothy Mazzei, in his 29-page ruling, concluded that experts
presented by defense lawyers provided no “empirical proof to refute the
validated empirical evidence“ presented by prosecutors and their expert
witnesses during recent hearings and court filings.
Prosecutors and experts have said it would be the first time advanced
DNA analysis has been allowed as evidence in a New York court — and one
of just a handful of such instances nationwide. Suffolk County District
Attorney Ray Tierney, whose office is prosecuting the case, said the
decision marked a “significant step” in forensic DNA analysis.
“We were able to prevail for one simple reason: The science was on our
side,” Tierney said after the brief hearing in Riverhead court.
“This is where we are heading in terms of the science,” he continued.
“It just mirrors all the other scientific fields that use this evidence.
The criminal justice system caught up today.”
Heuermann’s attorney Michael Brown said he was disappointed in Mazzei’s
decision and that his legal team has raised new arguments to get the DNA
evidence excluded from trial.
In a memo filed Wednesday, they allege DNA evidence developed by Astrea
Forensics violates state public health law because the California lab
does not hold a required permit from New York’s health department.
“Any analysis performed by Astrea Forensics is unlawful and must be
deemed presumptively unreliable,” the defense memo reads. “To hold
otherwise would be to ignore and render meaningless the plain
unequivocal provisions of the New York State public health law.“
Tierney said prosecutors will respond in writing but that he’s not
convinced the defense’s latest argument applies as prosecutors worked
with the FBI and followed national standards on DNA testing.
Mazzei said he’ll rule on the defense’s latest motion, as well as their
pending request to break up the case into multiple trials, at a hearing
on Sept. 23.
No trial date has been set. Heuermann appeared in court Wednesday but
didn’t appear to react to the proceedings.
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Rex Heuermann, charged in a string of deaths known as the Gilgo
Beach killings, appears in Judge Timothy Mazzei's courtroom at
Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y., for a status conference on
Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, File)
The 61-year-old Manhattan architect, who was arrested more than two
years ago, has been charged in the deaths of seven women in a series
of killings that prosecutors say stretched back at least to 1993.
Most of the women were sex workers whose remains were discovered
along an isolated parkway not far from Gilgo Beach and Heuermann’s
home in Massapequa.
Prosecutors say DNA analysis conducted by two separate labs using
different testing methods strongly links Heuermann to the killings
that haunted the New York City suburbs for years.
Mazzei’s decision pertained only to the analysis conducted by Astrea
Forensics, which used whole genome sequencing to analyze highly
degraded hair fragments recovered from some of the victims' remains.
Heuermann’s lawyers argued the lab’s calculations exaggerate the
likelihood that the hairs match their client’s DNA. They also
complained the statistical analysis Astrea conducted was improperly
based on the 1,000 Genomes Project, an open-source database
containing the full DNA sequence of some 2,500 people worldwide.
But prosecutors dismissed the critique as “misguided” and a
“fundamental misunderstanding” of the lab’s methods. Mazzei, in his
ruling, agreed, calling the defense arguments “flawed.”
Whole genome sequencing allow scientists to map out the entire
genetic sequence, or genome, of a person using the slimmest of DNA
material.
While it is relatively rare in criminal forensics, the technique has
been used in a wide range of scientific and medical breakthroughs
for years, including the mapping of the Neanderthal genome that
earned a Nobel Prize in 2022.
Prosecutors and experts say whole genome sequencing has the
potential to allow researchers to generate a DNA profile of a
suspect in instances where long accepted DNA techniques fall short,
such as when a sample is very old or highly degraded, as is the case
with the hair fragments found on the Gilgo Beach victims.
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