Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann charged with murdering 4th woman

Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann was charged Tuesday morning in the death of a fourth woman, more than a decade after the recovery of her remains and those of several others stoked fears of a Long Island serial killer.

Heuermann faces a second-degree murder charge for allegedly killing Maureen Brainard-Barnes, a Connecticut resident whose skeletal remains were found near the Long Island coast years after her death in 2007, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

“The most significant hair for the purposes of the superseding indictment was the hair that was found on Brainard-Barnes that was found on the buckle of the belt that secured her lower body,” Tierney said on Tuesday morning.

Heuermann, an architect and consultant who lives in Massapequa Park, pleaded not guilty to the new charge on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

He pleaded not guilty last summer to the alleged murders of Melissa Barthelemy, who died in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, who both died in 2010. With Brainard-Barnes, the women were known as the Gilgo Four — the first to be found along Ocean Parkway in 2010 and 2011.

The hair found on Brainard-Barnes in 2010 was identified as a woman’s “Caucasian head hair fragment” at the time but not deemed suitable for nuclear DNA profiling. It was ultimately sent for further DNA analysis, the bail application filed on Tuesday reads.

“The DNA profile generated from the female hair on Barnes, which was recovered from a belt buckle utilized to restrain Ms. Brainard-Barnes’ remains, is 7.9 trillion times more likely to have come from a person genetically identical to Asa Ellerup’s SNP Genotype File than from an unrelated individual,” the filing reads, referring to Heuermann’s wife.

Heuermann’s family was out of town at the time of Brainard-Barnes’ disappearance, as was the case with the three other women, Tierney said.

Ellerup, the couple's daughter Victoria, and Heuermann's stepson Christopher Sheridan submitted themselves for DNA testing in July that was compared with evidence collected from trash cans outside Heuermann’s home.

Prosecutors will move forward with their cases and continue investigating the death of six other people whose remains were found around Ocean Parkway.

Heuermann appeared in Suffolk County Supreme Court Tuesday morning to face the new charges and the DA’s request that he continue to be held without bail. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story has been updated with new information.