LONG ISLAND - Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann was back in court for a hearing on DNA evidence on Tuesday.
Back in December, Heuermann was charged with a seventh murder in the death of Valerie Mack. The partial skeletal remains of Mack were found in a wooded area in Manorville, Long Island, back in 2000.
Heuermann is also charged with killing six other women whose remains were found on Long Island. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
What we know:
The defense still wants to have separate trials grouping certain victims together. The prosecution opposes this and just wants one trial.
Heuermann's defense team is claiming they need more evidence from the DA's office and the prosecution agreed to hand it over, but it's just taking an extremely long time.
It has taken about 8 days so far for data to download onto a hard drive from a company on the West Coast, and it's only 40% through.
FOX 5 NY's Michelle Ross reports this should be done by the next court date next month on whether this specific DNA evidence can be used during the trial that linked Heuermann's stray hairs on the victims' bodies.
This would be the first time this type of DNA would be used in a New York state court.
"This science has been around for many, many years. And if the defense wants to call it magic, that's fine. The defense could call it whatever it whatever it likes. But we will determine that at the hearing. We look forward to that hearing. And I can tell you this is sound science. It is the future of DNA analysis. Both in New York state and in this country," Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney said.
"This is novel information. They call it science, we are disputing that. So we are looking forward to getting things that we are entitled to in order to prepare and conduct this Frye hearing. So we've been on this for a year and a half, Astrea on the West Coast has been on this. Well before that, and we're still waiting for significant portions of discovery that we're entitled to," Heuermann's defense attorney Michael Brown said.
There still is not a date set for the Frye hearing on whether certain DNA evidence will be admissible in court.
The backstory:
The Gilgo Beach murders - the deaths of 11 people whose remains were found in 2010 and 2011 - have long stumped investigators.
Most of the victims were young women who had been sex workers. Several of the bodies were found near the remote town of Gilgo Beach on the southern shore of Long Island.
Determining who killed them, and why, has vexed a slew of seasoned homicide detectives through several changes in police leadership.
The bodies of the "Gilgo Four" were located within a quarter-mile of one another near Gilgo Beach back in December 2010.
Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker, vanished on May 1, 2010. A police officer and his cadaver dog were looking for her body in the thicket along nearby Ocean Parkway when they happened upon the remains of a different woman. Within days, three other bodies were found, all within a short walk of one another.
Gilbert's disappearance and search is what ultimately led to the discovery of several remains in the area.