Gilgo Serial Killer Suspect Rex Heuermann Tied to Slaying by DNA From Daughter’s Can of Coffee: Prosecutors – The Messenger

A jolt of java enjoyed by accused Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann's daughter gave authorities a boost in building their case against him, according to court papers filed Tuesday.

New evidence disclosed by prosecutors following Heuermann's indictment in a fourth slaying included DNA testing on a beverage can that investigators allegedly saw his daughter drink from last year.

Heuermann, who was arrested in July, has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his lawyer has suggested authorities charged the wrong person.

Victoria Heuermann, who worked at her father's architectural firm in New York City, was trailed by undercover investigators as she boarded a commuter train to the family's suburban hometown of Massapequa Park on Long Island, on May 25, 2023, according to court papers.

During the trip, Victoria Heuermann, then 26, was seen sipping from a gold-colored can of "Monster Java" energy drink. A legal filing includes a photo of her with her face blacked out, holding the can with one hand and a cellphone with the other.

When the train arrived in Massapequa Park, she got off, tossed the can into a trash barrel and walked away from the station.

Investigators retrieved the can and took it to the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory in Hauppauge, where scientists later concluded that a female DNA profile obtained from the can matched one from a cheek swab of Victoria Heuermann, prosecutors wrote.

An unidentified forensic lab also generated DNA sequencing data from a hair on Amber Costello one of Rex Heuermann's four alleged victims and "conducted a one-to-one autosomal nuclear DNA comparison" between that profile and Victoria Heuermann's which linked them, according to court papers.

Victoria Heuermann's profile allegedly includes her single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, which are the most common type of genetic variation among people, according to the National Library of Medicine.

A report from the lab said the hair found on Costello was 4.654 times 10 to the power of 63 "more likely to have come from a person genetically identical to Victoria Heuermanns SNP Genotype File than from an unrelated individual," prosecutors wrote.

Court papers said Victoria Heuermann was "almost one-month shy of her 14th birthday" when Costello disappeared and was killed, and prosecutors have previously said she was out of town at the time, suggesting that Rex Heuermann allegedly transferred her hair to Costello by accident.

In addition to Costello, Heuermann previously faced murder charges in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman, and he was charged Tuesday in the slaying of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

The women, known as the "Gilgo Four," were sex workers who disappeared between 2007 and September 2010 and were found in December 2010 along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in Babylon, on Long Island's South Shore.

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Gilgo Serial Killer Suspect Rex Heuermann Tied to Slaying by DNA From Daughter's Can of Coffee: Prosecutors - The Messenger