Rex Heuermann Charged With Fourth Murder in Gilgo Beach Killings

Rex Heuermann, whom prosecutors charged in July as the Gilgo Beach serial killer, was indicted Tuesday morning in connection with a fourth murder.

Mr. Heuermann, 60, was previously charged in the killings of three of the four women who in 2010 were found bound in similar fashion with burlap, belts and tape on the Long Island oceanfront.

In July, prosecutors called Mr. Heuermann the prime suspect in the murder of the fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Conn. Ms. Brainard-Barnes disappeared in 2007, becoming the first of the so-called Gilgo Four to vanish.

But charges in her killing were delayed, pending DNA test results on a hair recovered from her remains, and the grand jury in the case continued its work. Months later, it finally returned a murder indictment in connection with her death.

In a Suffolk County courtroom Tuesday morning, Mr. Heuermann, his hands shackled behind his back, remained silent and maintained a calm demeanor as the district attorney, Ray Tierney, asked the judge to keep him remanded without bail.

Mr. Heuermann pleaded not guilty, as he has to all previous charges.

The DNA tests showed that the hair had belonged to Mr. Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup, prosecutors say, and was likely tracked to the crime scene by Mr. Heuermann.

Prosecutors say that Ms. Ellerup, who has not been charged in the Gilgo Beach case, was out of town during the disappearances of the women, whom they say Mr. Heuermann hired as escorts and then killed.

Court papers filed on Tuesday added details that would strengthen prosecutors’ claims that DNA evidence connected Mr. Heuermann to all four victims, and that he was trying to cover his tracks by using software to erase online interactions with escorts.

Mr. Heuermann was first identified as a suspect in the killings in early 2022, shortly after a new multiagency task force was formed to investigate the case.

Investigators say he made numerous calls and texts to Ms. Brainard-Barnes just before her disappearance.

Prosecutors say they also have records of damning internet searches he made, as well as mobile phone location data corresponding to his home in Massapequa Park and his architectural consulting office in Midtown Manhattan.

The DNA evidence connecting him to the murders includes several stray hairsfound on the bodies belonging to Ms. Ellerup, and a male hair that corresponds to a genetic sample taken from pizza crusts Mr. Heuermann discarded outside his office, prosecutors say.

Investigators say Ms. Brainard-Barnes’ remains, likely the most decomposed of the four sets, were bound by three belts.

The stray female hair was found near one belt, and another belt had a distinctive buckle bearing the initials W.H., which the authorities said in 2020 could have belonged to Mr. Heuermann’s father.

“He has maintained his innocence from day one,” Michael Brown, Mr. Heuermann’s lawyer, said outside the courtroom after the hearing on Tuesday. “He’s looking forward to fighting these charges and we’re doing that.”

Mr. Brown cited weaknesses in the mitochondrial DNA testing used by investigators.

The technology does not prove a link to a specific person, but instead eliminates suspects by ruling out others. Mr. Brown has argued that Mr. Heuermann could be among a group of “thousands and thousands” of suspects.

After the four women’s bodies were discovered in 2010 along a stretch of oceanfront parkway, six more sets of remains were found. The circumstances around those deaths are still being investigated.