As the case against Rex A. Heuermann grinds toward a trial, his lawyers have vehemently sought to exclude damning DNA evidence central to his prosecution in the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
But on Tuesday, the judge presiding over the case in Suffolk County, N.Y., admitted the genetic findings that prosecutors say connect Mr. Heuermann to seven murdered women found along an oceanfront parkway on Long Island more than a decade ago. The judge, Timothy P. Mazzei, also declined the defense’s request to sever the case into separate trials for some of the killings.
The rulings cut off two major offramps for Mr. Heuermann as the case, which has transfixed the public and set off a wave of true-crime shows and podcasts, moves forward. A trial is expected next year.
Michael J. Brown, a lawyer for Mr. Heuermann, had argued that the case should be broken into as many as five separate trials, saying that trying Mr. Heuermann for all seven killings at once would create an unfair “cumulative effect.” A single trial, he added, would overwhelm jurors and prevent them from weighing each charge separately.
After the hearing in Riverhead, N.Y., Ray Tierney, the Suffolk County district attorney, said Justice Mazzei’s decision to ignore the request was the correct call in the interest of “judicial economy” and in light of a document that prosecutors say they found last year in Mr. Heuermann’s basement that details methods of pursuing, killing and disposing of victims. Mr. Tierney described the grisly manual as a unifying element.
The judge has yet to set a date for the trial, and Bob Macedonio, a lawyer for Mr. Heuermann’s ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, called the wait agonizing. Ms. Ellerup and Mr. Heuermann’s daughter, Victoria Heuermann, attended the hearing Tuesday to see the defendant, who appeared in court with a fresh haircut and a dark suit.
Afterward, the two women faced reporters alongside Mr. Macedonio. “The longer it drags out,” he said, “the longer they have to have their lives on hold.”
Prosecutors recently turned over evidence to the defense and Mr. Tierney said his team would prepare for a trial by coordinating scores of witnesses and organizing a “dizzying amount” of material. The evidence amounted to the equivalent of millions of pages, taking up some 100 terabytes of computer space, he said.
Mr. Heuermann, who turned 62 this month, was an architectural consultant and family man who commuted daily from his suburban home to his office in Midtown Manhattan. He was arrested in July 2023 and charged initially with killing three women whose remains were found near one another, disposed of in a similar manner, in 2010. He was charged with a fourth killing in January 2024, and then with three more later that year.
He has pleaded not guilty to killing the women, who all had worked as escorts. Mr. Heuermann has remained in county jail since his arrest.
Prosecutors say their DNA analysis, which uses whole genome sequencing, connects hairs found with the remains of most of the victims to Mr. Heuermann. But Mr. Brown has disparaged the science as unreliable and invalid as legal evidence in New York State and has argued that the DNA information should be thrown out.
After the hearing, Mr. Brown said he remained confident he could convince a jury that the methodology was nothing but “magic.”
Mr. Macedonio told reporters that Mr. Heuermann’s family was still waiting to weigh all the evidence and planned on attending the trial, to “see it through to the end.”