Gilgo serial killer lawyer Rex Heuermann has claimed his “sadistic” internet searches do not mean he is a murderer.
“When you search the Internet, ask yourself what you’re looking for on your computers and phones,” attorney Michael Brown told reporters Tuesday after Heuermann was charged with killing a fourth Long Island woman.
‘One thing leads to another: you see a program about something, you start looking, and they talk about how someone was murdered… You start looking, and then they talk about another way, and you start looking ,” Brown added. .
“Imagine if they looked at your own personal search history, suddenly you were guilty because of your search history?”
Investigators say they found dozens of alarming Internet searches on a burner phone and email account Heuermann used under the name “Thomas Hawk.”
Rex Heuermann was charged Tuesday with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, a Long Island sex worker who disappeared in July 2007. Her body was found three years later
Rex Heuermann’s disturbing internet searches in April 2021 were revealed in new lawsuits
The searches included “redhead porn torture,” “girl with beaten up face,” “chubby 10-year-old girl crying,” and “Asian twink tied up.”
On Tuesday, Heuermann was charged with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, a 25-year-old sex worker who disappeared in 2007.
Last summer he was accused of murdering three of the ‘Gilgo Beach four’: Megan Waterman, Amber Costello and Melissa Barthelemy.
He denies all allegations and his lawyer Brown has claimed that the DNA testing is not infallible.
Brown said: “He has maintained his innocence from day one. We had announced in advance that it was coming, I explained it to him. He said, “I’m not guilty,” he looks forward to fighting these charges.
‘All along we have been told that the evidence is not suitable for nuclear DNA testing. There are testimonials, laboratory reports that said it was unable to perform nuclear DNA testing.
“Those statistics are not very convincing.”
A female hair found on the belt used to bind Maureen’s body matched Heuermann’s wife, new charging documents show.
DNA found on the belt buckle that bound Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ body matched Heuermann’s wife
Heuermann has been charged with the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello and Megan Waterman. He is the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes
She and the children were out of town when Maureen disappeared in July 2007 and no charges have been filed.
In new charging documents today, prosecutors revealed how police followed Heuermann’s daughter, Victoria, onto a Long Island Railroad train in May 2023.
They seized a discarded can of Monster Java, an energy drink, that she had been drinking from to test her DNA for traces found on the victims’ bodies.
Maureen was 25 when she disappeared after taking a train from Connecticut to New York in 2007.
Her corpse was discovered three years later, tied to a distinctive belt with a buckle engraved with the initials ‘WH’ or ‘MH’. Investigators said it could have belonged to a relative of Heuermann.
All four women were sex workers whose remains were discovered in 2010 on a stretch of coastline on Long Island near Heuermann’s home.
The following year, another six bodies were discovered on another stretch of beach. He has not been charged in these murders.
In 2010 and 2011, a total of ten bodies were found on stretches of Long Island beach near where Heuermann lived
Heuermann, an architect who lived with his wife and children in Massapequa Park when the killings occurred, has pleaded not guilty.
Last year he was charged with developing a bomb case after a new team of detectives revisited the decade-old case and found traces of his DNA on some of the victims and the tarps in which they were wrapped.
Police also traced phone calls from some of the victims’ families to the areas where Heuermann lived and worked.
The deaths had long baffled investigators and sparked enormous public attention on Long Island and beyond, with the killings spawning the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls.”