- Rex Heuermann, accused Gilgo Beach serial killer, appeared in a New York court Tuesday.
- Prosecutors turned over to the defense the first tranche of evidence, totaling some 2,500 pages.
Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann received his first tranche of evidence at his second court appearance in a Long Island, New York, courtroom on Tuesday — a quartet of black, two-terabyte hard drives that his lawyer carried out of court in a bulging briefcase.
The evidence turned over by Suffolk County prosecutors includes thousands of pages of documents and photographs from the earliest days of the 13-year investigation into the "Gilgo Four," the young sex-workers Heuermann is suspected of strangling.
"It includes photographs of remains and autopsy and DNA reports," along with surveillance images of one of the victims, and paperwork generated at the time of Heuermann's arrest, Assistant District Attorney Nicholas J. Santomartino told the judge.
Heuermann, 59, wore a dark gray suit and a blue Oxford dress shirt open at the collar during Tuesday's brief hearing. He was front-handcuffed, and spent most of the hearing staring straight ahead, his eyes at times narrowed and his mouth stern.
He is being held without bail in a county jail, where he has been on suicide watch since his arrest two weeks ago. On Tuesday, Brown called that status precautionary, as did a spokeswoman for the county Sheriff's Department.
The Manhattan architect and lifelong resident of the Nassau County town of Massapequa Park maintains he is innocent and that prosecutors have the wrong man, his lawyer, Michael Brown, told reporters after court.
"The press has convicted my client without seeing a shred of evidence," Brown complained at a press conference.
"What has my client told me?" the attorney said. "He told me he didn't do this."
But Suffolk County Prosecutor Raymond A. Tierney says Heuermann is linked to the four victims by DNA and a trove of other evidence, including analysis of cell phone location data and stray hairs left on the burlap that bound the bodies, all found within 500 feet of each other in the dense underbrush along a beachfront highway.
Additional evidence, including from a nearly two-week forensic examination of Heuerman's home, will be turned over to the defense "on a rolling basis," Tierney told reporters, calling the entirety of evidence in the ongoing case "a massive amount of material."
Heuermann is a married father to a daughter and stepson, both adults. Neither they nor his wife, Asa Ellerup, who is suing for divorce, attended court.
Robert Macedonio, an attorney for Ellerup told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the family home was pretty much "destroyed" by the recent search, which involved investigators cutting through the bathtub and ripping up floors.
A family attorney, Vess Mitev, told the AP that they are considering legal action against local police for the "deplorable and roughshod handling of the investigation."
Family members of at least two of the victims did attend. They have asked for privacy and will not be speaking to the press, Tierney said.
Heuermann is charged with murdering Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello. He is the prime suspect in the murder of the fourth sex-worker, Maureen Brainard-Barnes. All four were in their 20s.
The nearly 200-seat courtroom was filled with dozens of reporters and curious members of the public, some of whom waited hours for a seat.
"I saw his eyes — so creepy," one audience member, Laura Gilliar, 28, of Massapequa Park, said of watching Heuermann's arraignment two weeks prior.
She explained Tuesday's return trip to court this way: "I live just five blocks away," from Heuermann's home. "So I'm here just because he was so close."
She added, "I work in television. The writers are on strike, so I have nothing else to do."
Gilliar, who does props for such TV shows as The Good Wife," and "Only Murders In the Building," said the press presence in the neighborhood has been intense.
"The news helicopters were insane," she said. "The helicopters were like living in a war zone."
Heuermann is due back in the same criminal courthouse in Riverhead, NY, on September 27 before New York Supreme Court Justice Timothy P. Mazzei.
August 1, 2023: This story has been updated with comments from a press conference after the appearance.