By Aaron Miller-
The architect accused of murdering at least three women and leaving their bodies along a remote stretch of coastline near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach, appeared in court on Tuesday.
Rex Heuermann, 59, is charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, who disappeared in 2009 and 2010. Prosecutors say he is also the chief suspect in the death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who vanished in 2007.
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He denies all the killings.
All the women were sex workers whose remains were discovered near each other on a barrier island off Long Island’s southern coast.
The court was filled with members of the media and the family of the victims.
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Suffolk County prosecutors said at a brief court hearing that they have given Heuermann’s lawyer at least eight terabytes of material — equivalent to about 2,500 pages of records, along with about 100 hours of surveillance video recorded outside Heuermann’s home and office prior to his July 13 arrest.
District Attorney Ray Tierney said that is a fraction of the evidence amassed since the bodies of four women were found buried along a remote beach highway in 2010 and 2011.
More evidence will be turned over on a rolling basis as part of the discovery phase, he said.
“You’re talking about 13 years of investigation,” Mr Tierney said. “It’s a massive amount of material.”
Speaking outside the court afterwards, his attorney, Michael Brown, fought the corner of his client, engaging the media and insisted on his innocence.
Heuermann’s attorney, Michael Brown, repeatedly said he hadn’t seen any evidence. He said his client would not take a plea deal and plans to go to trial.
“There’s no plea deal, he said from the moment I met him that ‘I did not do this,’ so we’re prepared to go forward,” Brown said. “We will defend this case in a court of law and we are prepared to go to trial on this case.”
Brown said he will take the hard drives back to his office and start reviewing it Tuesday afternoon.
Outside of Long Island, police have also been searching in other parts of the country where the suspect may have ties, like South Carolina, Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
‘He told me he didn’t do this,’ he said, before bemoaning the size of the evidence file and how long it will take to go through it.
‘The DA has a whole office… I’m just one guy.
‘Just to pore through the discovery is an enormous task but we’re going to do it, we’re prepared to do it.
‘Whether it’s one year or a year and a half, whenever that day comes we’re looking forward to defending this case,’ he said, adding that he would try to have the trial moved out of Suffolk County.
‘This case is one we are going to try in the courtroom.
The press has convicted my client without a shred of evidence, he doesn’t stand a chance,’ he said.
Investigators spent nearly two weeks combing through Heuermann’s home in Massapequa Park, across a bay from where the remains were found.
The search included digging up the yard, dismantling a porch and a greenhouse and removing many contents of the house for testing. Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup, told the New York Post that the search left the home in shambles, with belongings piled in heaps, part of her bathtub cut away and furniture broken up.
“My couch was completely shredded. I don’t even know if there’s any parts to the couch,” said Ms Ellerup, who filed for divorce after her husband was arrested. She said her two adult children, who also live in the house, were crying themselves to sleep.
A lawyer for the adult children, Vess Mitev, said his clients were considering legal action against police for the “deplorable and roughshod handling of the investigation that turned upside down their lives, their home, their very status in the social hierarchy”.
“In the haste and zeal to arrest Mr Heuermann, we believe certain things were done that shouldn’t have been done,” he added.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He was ordered to be held without the possibility of bail in his first court appearance in mid-July. He is due back in court on September 27.
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