By PHILIP MARCELO and DAVID COLLINS (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — An architect charged in a string of slayings referred to as the Gilgo Beach killings was accused Tuesday within the loss of life of a fourth girl, a Connecticut mom of two who vanished in 2007 and whose stays have been discovered greater than three years later alongside a coastal freeway in New York.
Rex Heuermann was formally charged within the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, months after having been labeled the prime suspect in her loss of life when he was arrested in July within the deaths of three different girls.
In courtroom, Heuermann wore a darkish go well with and didn’t say something in the course of the proceedings. He will proceed to be held with out bail. The decide set the subsequent courtroom date for Feb. 6.
Heuermann has maintained his innocence from “day one” and appears ahead to defending himself in courtroom, lawyer Mike Brown stated. He entered a not responsible plea on the newest costs. Brown stated he’s nonetheless reviewing new data introduced by prosecutors in courtroom paperwork Tuesday morning.
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney and different legislation enforcement officers deliberate a information convention following Tuesday’s courtroom listening to.
Brainard-Barnes, 25, who was as soon as employed as a supplier on the Foxwoods Resort Casino, left her hometown of Norwich, Connecticut, on July 9, 2007, and headed to Manhattan for intercourse work, with plans to return the next day, in line with associates who turned involved when she uncharacteristically stopped utilizing her telephone.
She by no means got here again.
Heuermann was arrested July 14 and charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, three girls who authorities say additionally have been intercourse staff. Heuermann’s lawyer stated he has denied committing the crimes. He beforehand pleaded not responsible to killing Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello.
Brainard-Barnes was the primary of the 4 girls to vanish. Their stays have been discovered alongside the identical quarter-mile (400-meter) stretch of parkway within the Gilgo Beach space of Jones Beach Island in 2010. Additional looking out turned up the stays of six extra adults and a toddler who was the kid of one of many victims.
Police concluded that an eleventh individual discovered lifeless in a tidal marsh on the identical barrier island unintentionally drowned.
Investigators have stated Heuermann, who lived in Massapequa Park throughout the bay from the place the our bodies have been discovered, was most likely not accountable for all of the deaths. Some of the victims disappeared within the mid Nineteen Nineties.
Investigators zeroed in on Heuermann when a brand new process drive ran an outdated tip a few Chevy Avalanche pickup via a car data database. A success got here again figuring out a kind of make and fashions belonging to Heuermann, who lived in a neighborhood police had been specializing in due to cellphone location knowledge and name data, authorities stated.
With the tip respiration new life into the investigation, authorities charted the calls and travels of a number of cellphones, picked aside e mail aliases, delved into search histories and picked up discarded bottles — and even a pizza crust — for superior DNA testing, in line with courtroom papers. Detectives stated Heuermann’s DNA on the pizza crust matched a hair discovered on a restraint used within the killings.
Police stated different proof linked Heuermann to the victims, together with burner cellphones used to rearrange conferences with the slain girls.
After the arrest, investigators spent practically two weeks combing via Heuermann’s residence, together with digging up the yard, dismantling a porch and a greenhouse and eradicating many contents of the home for testing.
According to a bail utility, Investigators discovered “hundreds” of digital units throughout their prolonged search of Heuermann’s residence.
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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”