Northeast
Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann loses bid to toss DNA evidence at upcoming murder trial
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Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann lost a long shot bid to have damning DNA evidence thrown out Wednesday, after a New York judge ruled that prosecutors can use the evidence against him at trial in a decision police expect to impact far more cases.
Heuermann’s shocking arrest came more than a decade after the death of his last known alleged victim. At the time, he was a New York City architect who commuted daily from his home in the suburban village of Massapequa Park. Prosecutors have alleged he tortured and killed his victims in the basement while his wife and children took vacations.
The sides had been tangling over the evidence since March, when the judge held a Frye hearing to determine whether a new type of DNA testing should be admissible. Heuermann’s attorney, Michael Brown, questioned the validity of new testing on rootless hair samples, which he likened to “magic” and said had not been used in New York state before.
Prosecutors allege that the state-of-the-art technology linked hairs found on six of the seven murder victims to Heuermann. Brown said it’s “a little weird” that each of the bodies is linked to his client by just one hair apiece. The hairs themselves do not all belong to Heuermann. Some were linked to his wife and daughter, whom authorities do not believe were involved in the crimes but whose hairs were allegedly transferred to the victims by Heuermann.
KOHBERGER PROSECUTOR REVEALS CRUCIAL MOMENT: ‘EVERYTHING HINGED ON THAT ARGUMENT’
Alleged serial killer Rex A. Heuermann is escorted into Judge Tim Mazzei’s courtroom at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead for a Frye hearing in Riverhead, N.Y. July 17, 2025. (James Carbone/Pool/Getty Images)
Judge Timothy Mazzei ruled that the new testing is accepted by the scientific community and therefore valid as evidence.
“This case was very aggressively and effectively litigated by both sides,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney told reporters after the hearing. “I think that the reason why we were able to prevail was one simple reason: The science was on our side.”
Tierney called it a “significant step” in forensic DNA analysis and said it looks at hundreds of thousands more points of data than traditional DNA testing, and he said the new method is already being rolled out to county cold case detectives, like any other new law enforcement technology.
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“When you look at old cases that happened that have remained unsolved for whatever reason, one of the first things you do, whether it’s phone evidence, whether it’s DNA evidence, whether it’s anything else, you know, new technology [can] help us to gather more information,” he said.
John Ramsey, the father of 1996 cold case murder victim JonBenet Ramsey, weighed in on the Gilgo case and the new DNA method in Denver at CrimeCon’s 2025 conference Saturday. He said he had already asked police handling his daughter’s case to try the new method.
“This is 21st century technology that should be used, and I expressed that strongly,” he said.
Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD cold case investigator and a professor of criminal justice at Penn State Lehigh Valley, called the judge’s decision in the Gilgo case “awesome news.”
“This DNA is leading the way to closing more cases,” he told Fox News Digital. Although he expects an appeal if Heuermann is convicted.
REX HEUERMANN’S FAMILY KEPT GRUESOME PIECE OF EVIDENCE, SOURCE SAYS
Crime scene investigators use metal detectors to search a marsh for the remains of Shannan Gilbert, Dec. 12, 2011 in Oak Beach, N.Y. Her disappearance led to the discovery of 11 bodies and kicked off the investigation into the so-called Gilgo Beach serial killings. (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, Pool, File)
The hearing
Heuermann entered the courtroom at 9:54 a.m. wearing a black suit, blue shirt and a green tie, looming over his attorney as the judge rendered his decision.
His ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, who divorced him after the charges but has publicly maintained she doesn’t believe he could’ve committed the crimes, sat quietly in the gallery. Their daughter, Victoria Heuermann, did not attend Wednesday’s hearing.
Prosecutors said Heuermann killed seven women over a period of at least two decades, dumping most of their remains on a remote parkway near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach. Some victims were dismembered, with parts of their bodies recovered from wooded areas about 50 miles to the east.
EX-WIFE OF ALLEGED GILGO BEACH KILLER STILL DEFENDS HIM, BUT DAUGHTER SAYS HE ‘MOST LIKELY’ DID IT
Rex A. Heuermann appears in Judge Tim Mazzei’s courtroom with his lawyer Michael Brown for a conference in Riverhead, N.Y., Oct. 16, 2024. (Newsday/James Carbone)
The oldest case in which he’s been charged was a cold case murder stretching back to 1993. The alleged crimes include torture and mutilation, and Heuermann allegedly took notes on the crimes, the targets and measures to avoid detection.
The victims were all described as “petite” women, most of them around 5 feet tall and barely over 100 pounds. An eyewitness in the case, who was the last to see one of them alive, described Heuermann, whose identity was unknown at the time, as an “ogre” driving a Chevrolet Avalanche.
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The Gilgo Four, clockwise from top left: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. The background shows a wooden cross in the marsh next to Gilgo Beach, N.Y., where their remains were found in the brush just yards from Ocean Parkway. (Suffolk County Police Department/Mega for Fox News Digital)
On July 13, 2023, Suffolk County police arrested Heuermann, who is 61, outside his Manhattan office in three cold case murders — the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Costello, 27, in 2010.
SUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER REX HEUERMANN CHARGED WITH SEVENTH SLAYING
Jessica Taylor, left, and Valerie Mack, right, were both murdered and dismembered. Suffolk County police discovered partial remains of each victim in both Manorville, N.Y., and along a stretch of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. (Suffolk County Police Department/Handout)
Over the next 12 months, they tacked on charges in four additional slayings. First, they charged him with killing Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, whose remains were near the other three. They filed charges for the alleged murders of Jessica Taylor in 2003 and Sandra Costilla in 1993. Then they added charges in the 2000 murder of Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old from Philadelphia.
Heuermann pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
But Tierney said his office has a lot of evidence prosecutors are ready to introduce at trial.
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“So, we now have nuclear DNA. We have mitochondrial DNA. We have phone records. We have witness statements. We have financial records. We have internet searches. We have phone activity. And we have other [evidence],” he told reporters. “When you look at the interaction of all of that evidence, it’s, we would submit, compelling.”
Next up for Heuermann is a hearing on whether he should be tried on all the cases together. His lawyer wants them split up, but Tierney said he believes they are all “intertwined” and should be tried at the same time.
It was the disappearance of another woman that set off the whole case and surprised the residents of Long Island, which includes the two easternmost boroughs of New York City and a pair of suburban counties.
In 2010, Shannan Gilbert placed a frantic and incoherent 911 call, begging for help and claiming someone was after her. The search for her went on for months. And before police found her remains, they found 10 other bodies along Ocean Parkway. Her death is the only one that police have said they believe was accidental.
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Boston, MA
Jets were 300 feet apart in Boston close call that forced Delta flight to abort landing, expert says
BOSTON (AP) — A Delta Air Lines jet was roughly 300 feet (90 meters) from an American Airlines plane during a close call at Boston’s airport that forced the Delta aircraft to abort a weekend landing attempt, an aviation expert said Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it was investigating the incident between two commercial flights that happened Saturday at Boston Logan International Airport.
Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer at Boeing, estimated the distance between the two jetliners using Flightradar24, a website that tracks flights. Curtis now coproduces a podcast about flight safety issues.
“This is a significant incident,” Curtis said, adding that it was particularly concerning because it involved two professional airline crews.
He said federal aviation officials have been concerned about such runway incursions for a while now and will scrutinize Saturday’s close call.
Near-misses and runway incursions at U.S. airports will be the subject of a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. The Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation will seek ways to strengthen safety across the national airspace system.
The Delta flight from Dallas had to execute a go-around, or aborted landing, to avoid the American plane departing from an intersecting runway, according to the FAA and flight logs.
The crew of Delta flight 2351 coordinated with air traffic control to perform the go-around, an airline spokesperson said. The plane, which had 129 passengers and six crew members on board, landed safely and deplaned normally, according to the spokesperson.
Go-arounds are safe, routine procedures performed at the discretion of the pilot or air traffic controllers, according to the FAA.
Pittsburg, PA
Pittsburgh Juneteenth celebration sees peaceful end after Market Square fight prompts chaperone policy
The 2026 Juneteenth celebration in downtown Pittsburgh came to an end Sunday with no additional major issues reported following the large group of juveniles fighting Friday night in Market Square.
The group of 40-50 juveniles fighting toward the end of Friday’s celebrations led to police using pepper spray and clearing the square, according to Pittsburgh Public Safety.
Event organizer William “B” Marshall responded with a chaperone policy starting Saturday, requiring kids to be joined by adults in Market Square.
Pittsburgh Public Safety told KDKA-TV that they don’t know of any issues with groups of kids on Saturday evening, and Marshall called the policy—and the event—a success.
“It’s been fantastic,” Marshall said. “We’re getting a lot of parents coming down with their children. We don’t want to stop anybody from coming and enjoying some Juneteenth.”
KDKA-TV still saw groups of kids unaccompanied in the square on Sunday, but none were disruptive. Marshall said they didn’t have to remove any kids from the square, which had programming aimed at older adults.
“I’ve been seeing a lot of adults. I haven’t seen a lot of groups of kids,” said Zhane Wilds, a mother who brought her kids to the celebrations on Sunday. “Everybody’s getting along, which is great.”
A big crowd gathered in Point State Park for an evening of music, helping to wrap up another year of Juneteenth in Pittsburgh.
“It’s been a vibe down here. Everything is going very good,” Wilds said.
Other attendees said the event was nice and fun.
“The festival has been great, we’ve had great weather, people are happy, and I’m happy,” Marshall said.
It’s hard to say if the lack of fights was directly due to the police. Marshall said that overall, there weren’t too many issues.
Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Sheldon Williams told KDKA-TV on Saturday that they weren’t enforcing this chaperone policy, that it was Marshall’s idea, but they would be on standby inside the square in case they needed to step in.
At the same time, Williams said they support the idea and Marshall’s efforts.
Looking ahead to next year, Marshall said they plan to kick off the celebration with an indoor performance from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
More than 150 vendors took part in the event this year.
Connecticut
Florida High School State Bronze Medalist Dajah German Verbals To Connecticut For Fall 2027
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Florida high school state bronze medalist Dajah German has announced her verbal commitment to swim and study at the University of Connecticut beginning in the fall of 2027. She publicized the news on SwimCloud, writing:
I am so excited to announce my verbal commitment to continue my academic and athletic career at the University of Connecticut! I’m incredibly grateful for everyone who has supported me throughout this journey, my family, coaches, teammates, and friends who have pushed me to be my best throughout the years. And a very special thank you to Coach Chris and Coach Nicole for believing in me and giving me this opportunity. I’m so excited for what’s ahead. GO HUSKIES!
A rising senior at Fort Lauderdale High School in Florida, German trains year-round with Swim Fort Lauderdale and primarily specializes in the sprint and middle-distance freestyle events.
German has improved each year of her high school career, most recently dropping from 23.78, 51.39, and 1:50.56 in the 50/100/200 free to 23.54, 51.35, and 1:49.69 during the 2025-26 short course season.
German’s top meet of the season was the Florida Senior Championships in March, where she recorded her current PBs in both the 50 and 200 free. She finished second in the 500 free (4:55.94) and 1650 free (17:02.78), third in both the 50 free and 200 free, and fifth in the 100 free (51.43). She set her current 100 free PB at a smaller holiday meet in December. In the 500 free, she clocked a season-best 4:55.21 at the Speedo Cup in January, with her lifetime best of 4:53.19 coming at the 2025 Florida Senior Championships.
German has qualified for the FHSAA (Florida High School Athletic Association) State Championships for the past three years, with her top performance coming at the 2025 iteration in November. She placed third in the 50 free (23.96), fifth in the 500 free (5:01.12), and helped Fort Lauderdale to fourth place in both the 200 free relay (24.64 leadoff) and 400 free relay (53.08 anchor).
Top SCY Times:
- 50 Freestyle: 23.54
- 100 Freestyle: 51.35
- 200 Freestyle: 1:49.69
- 500 Freestyle: 4:53.19
A Division I Mid-Major program, Connecticut competes in the Big East, with the women’s team placing second out of seven teams at this past season’s conference championships. German’s current lifetime bests would have placed third in the 200 free, fourth in the 500 free, eighth in the 50 free, and ninth in the 100 free, setting her up as an immediate contributor with two full seasons of training still ahead before her first conference meet.
German joins Anna Mumford, Lyla Devlin, Lena Brown, and Louisa Holda in committing to the Huskies’ class of 2031 so far.
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
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