Rex Heuermann was formally charged Tuesday with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, months after he was named as the prime suspect in her death when he was arrested in July for the murders of three other women. Heuermann was not released on bail.
The judge on Tuesday set the next hearing date for February 6.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, a former casino dealer, had left her hometown of Norwich, Connecticut, on July 9, 2007, and traveled to Manhattan for a prostitution tryst, with she planned to return the next day, according to friends who became concerned when she unusually stopped using her phone. She never returned to Connecticut.
Heuermann was arrested July 14 and charged with the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, three women who authorities said were also sex workers. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to all of these murders.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes was the first of the four women to disappear. Their remains were found in 2010 along the same 400-yard stretch of boardwalk in the Gilgo Beach area of Jones Beach Island, about 45 miles from New York City.
Additional searches turned up the remains of six other adults and a toddler, who was the child of one of the victims, but investigators said Heuermann, who lived in Massapequa Park, the other side of the bay, was probably not responsible for all these deaths. Some victims disappeared by the mid-1990s.
Investigators zeroed in on Heuermann when a new task force passed on an old tip about a pickup truck and then examined cellphone location data and call records, authorities said.
With that information, authorities collected discarded bottles — and even pizza crust — for advanced DNA testing, according to court documents.
Police said other evidence linked Heuermann to the victims, including cellphones used to arrange meetings with the murdered women.
2024-01-16 18:52:30
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