As expected, it was a madhouse at the Arthur M. Cromarty Criminal Court Complex on Friday, March 28th, with major media members and countless others turning out to gauge the state of the County’s prosecution of alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuremann.
Though the 61-year-old Massapequa native was in attendance, the star of these proceedings was Kelley Davis, an associate professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington with an impressive resume that took literally all day to comb through.
Davis was the first expert witness in the hearing, called upon to determine the admissibility of “nuclear DNA testing.”
The Magna Cum Laude Harvard and Cal State Berkeley graduate provided contextual overwhelm by describing her studies, fellowships, and peer-reviewing highlights.
She also detailed the high authenticity of nuclear DNA readings—particularly in narrowing down hairs beyond certain family members of a direct bloodline relation.
According to Davis, Mitochondrial DNA rules out a certain percentage—99% as it pertains to the Gilgo case.
DNA evidence concluded the hairs found on each victim allegedly belonged to Heurermann, his ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and daughter, Victoria.
The former NYC architect’s family are not suspected to have been involved, as they were out of town during the time-frame in which the seven murders currently linked to Heuremann took place.
They are: Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Sandra Costilla, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, and Melissa Barthlemey.
The lattermost victim, notably, featured no DNA evidence tying her to Heuremann.
Ellerup was in attendance on Friday with her attorney shortly after taking the next step toward finalizing a divorce from Heuremann. She first filed in the summer of 2023 after Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney and company’s bombshell arrest of Rex made national headlines.
The defense requested Friday’s hearing, demanding more clarity as to why DNA testing was outsourced to the Richard Green-founded Astrea Labs, which is based in California.
Heuremann’s attorney Michael Brown saw two objections overruled before being permitted to cross-examine the witness. He attempted to discredit Davis’ occupational relevance to the Gilgo case, being a population geneticist as opposed to a forensic scientist.
Davis confirmed she is being paid $400 an hour by Suffolk County, plus travel expenses.
What cannot be refuted, she and colleagues assert: nuclear DNA is more precise than mitochondrial DNA—which is exactly why the defense does not want what they denigrate as “magic” anywhere near this case.
In February, Brown intimated past police handling—or lack thereof—will play into his defense moving forward.
“We are looking forward to 12 people [jurors] from Suffolk County, the residents in Suffolk County who are familiar with what goes on in Suffolk County,” Brown told reporters.
“We are looking forward to having them sit in that courtroom and listen to the evidence, and listen to the lack of evidence, listen to the whole picture, as opposed to just snippets that you may have heard, looking forward to that.”