Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuerman wants numerous different trials for the seven women he is accused of killing, arguing they could be wrongly convicted due to a “cumulative effect” I'm here.
Heuerman's lawyers said in court documents Wednesday that the three women Heuerman was initially charged with murdering should not be tried at the same time as the four women he was later charged with murdering as well. insisted. According to Newsday.
In fact, they want separate trials for each of the four most recent murders he has been charged with: Maureen Brainard Burns, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and Sandra Costillo.
“Much of the evidence will be technical in nature, involving lengthy testimony and multiple pieces of evidence,” Heuerman's attorney, Sabato Caponi, said in a filing. “A trial covering all 10 counts would create an unreasonable risk that a jury would not be able to separate the evidence by its distinct and clear relevance to the individual cases.”
Mr Caponi also argued that the cases of the seven women were so different that the deaths occurred between 1993 and 2010 and that there were “significant discrepancies” between the evidence in the cases.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney's office previously said it would fight any effort to split the case into multiple trials.
Heuerman, 61, a former Massapequa Park architect, was charged with first-degree and first-degree murder charges in July 2023 for the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello and Megan Waterman in 2009 and 2010. He was first charged with second-degree murder.
Additional charges were added in 2024 for the murders of four other women.
Heuerman, a married father of two, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The bodies of Barthelemy, Costello, Waterman, and Mack were all found wrapped in burlap along Gilgo Beach, forming the basis of the so-called “Gilgo Four.”
The discovery of 10 sets of human remains along Ocean Parkway, along the beach, began a multi-year investigation.
All of Heuerman's victims were among these remains, except for Costillo, who was murdered in 1993 and whose body was found in the North Sea off Long Island.
Heuerman is in custody pending trial and is scheduled to return to court on January 29th.
