RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- New charges were filed Tuesday against accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann.
They include the murder of a fourth victim found not far from the other three women he is already charged with killing.
The accused serial killer, his hands shackled behind his hulking back, showed no emotion at all. He came in and out of the courtroom stone-faced as Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney announced a grand jury has pinned a fourth murder on him, the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose sister was in the courtroom.
"It has been 16 years since I last saw my sister, 16 years since I heard her voice, because 16 years ago, she was silenced," sister Melissa Cann said.
"While the loss of my mom has been extremely painful for me, the indictment by the grand jury has brought hope for justice for my mom and my family," daughter Nicolette Brainard-Barnes said.
When Heuermann was arrested in July and charged as the elusive Gilgo Beach serial killer, prosecutors said his DNA from discarded pizza and burner phone evidence tied him to three murdered women -- Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello -- whose bodies were found along Gilgo Beach in 2010.
Now Maureen Brainard-Barnes has been added to the list.
"She was an intellectual. She was a writer. She was an artistic person. She cared very deeply about the people that she loved," Tierney said at a news conference Tuesday. "It's been an honor and a privilege to work these cases, and to provide that small measure of closure."
The petite 25-year-old from Norwich, Connecticut, was a mother of two. She was working as a Craigslist escort in Manhattan when she disappeared in July 2007. Her remains were found three years later near three other women's bodies, dumped along desolate Ocean Parkway on Long Island.
Police dubbed them the "Gilgo Four." They were all sex workers, wrapped in burlap. Now prosecutors say they were all murdered, at different times, by Heuermann.
"We also recovered numerous electronic devices from the defendant, including a number of laptops, smartphones, tablets," Tierney said. "From that, we learned that the defendant undertook numerous searches for software that could assist in erasing, or wiping, data from computers and digital devices."
Court documents say hair in the buckle of a belt used to bind Brainard-Barnes is linked to Heuermann -- DNA obtained in an energy drink from Heuermann's daughter riding a Long Island Rail Road train. Prosecutors allege there's also cellphone evidence Heuermann checked her voicemail after she disappeared.
Heuermann maintains he is innocent.
"You're talking about a gentleman who has never been arrested before. He's a productive member of society. He's going to work every day. He's supporting his family, and he's incarcerated. And he's claiming he didn't do this. But he is looking forward to having his day in a courtroom," Heuermann's attorney, Michael Brown, said.
Asa Ellerup, Heuermann's wife, and her legal team were also present in court. They said the indictment bolsters her case that she had absolutely nothing to do with the murders, since she was out of town when Brainard-Barnes was killed.
The DA said the grand jury will continue to try to solve the remaining murders at Gilgo Beach.
The next court date in the case if Feb. 6.
New York criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor David Schwartz spoke with CBS New York ahead of Tuesday's court appearance to put the developments into perspective. He called it a "scientific case."
"Heuermann was indicted and remanded for the first three murders. They made the strategic decision to make the arrest at that moment in time, because they were already surveilling him for about a year. They just didn't want anything to go wrong," he explained. "So they made that arrest, and in the meantime, they were investigating the fourth murder. They were waiting for the mitochondrial DNA analysis on the fourth murder."
Schwartz went on to add "DNA is not a layup."
"They didn't use nuclear DNA, which specifically points to a particular person. They used mitochondrial DNA, because of -- 13 years later, all this time went by, which excludes 99.6% of the population," he said. "So it's scientific evidence, plus circumstantial evidence -- they have his truck, they have phone records, they have all types of other evidence that they're going to piece this case together. So I expect this case to be a complicated case, and I expect it to last a good amount of time."
Carolyn Gusoff has covered some of the most high profile news stories in the New York City area and is best known as a trusted, tenacious, consistent and caring voice of Long Island's concerns.
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