Accused Gilgo Seashore serial killer Rex Heuermann needs quite a few completely different trials for the seven girls he’s charged with murdering, claiming he may very well be unfairly convicted as a consequence of a “cumulative impact.”
Legal professionals for Heuermann argued in court docket papers Wednesday that the preliminary three girls he’s charged with murdering shouldn’t be tried similtaneously the 4 girls he was later additionally charged with slaying, in keeping with Newsday.
In actual fact, they need separate trials for every of the newest 4 murders he”s charged with — Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and Sandra Costillo.
“A lot of the proof will contain prolonged testimony, a number of displays and be of a technical nature,” Heuermann lawyer Sabato Caponi wrote within the submitting. “A trial encompassing all 10 counts would unjustifiably create a robust danger that the jury shall be unable to segregate the proof by its separate and distinct relevance to every particular person incident.”
Additionally, the circumstances of the seven girls are too completely different — with the deaths having occurred between 1993 to 2010 and with there being a “substantial disparity” between the proof within the circumstances, Caponi argued.
The workplace of the Suffolk County District Lawyer Ray Tierney has beforehand stated it will struggle any efforts to interrupt the case into a number of trials.
Heuermann, the 61-year-old former architect of Massapequa Park, was first charged with first- and second-degree homicide for the 2009 and 2010 deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello and Megan Waterman in July 2023.
Further costs had been added in 2024 for the murders of the 4 different girls.
Heuermann — a married father of two — pleaded not responsible to all the fees.
Barthelemy, Costello, Waterman and Mack’s stays had been all discovered wrapped in burlap alongside Gilgo Seashore — forming the idea for the so-called “Gilgo 4.”
A years-long investigation was launched after 10 units of human stays had been found alongside Ocean Parkway alongside the Seashore. All of Heuermann’s victims had been amongst these stays, aside from Costillo’s who was killed in 1993 along with her physique discovered by the North Sea, on Lengthy Island.
Heuermann — who’s behind bars pending trial — is due again in court docket on Jan. 29.
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