Former Homicide Prosecutor Matt Murphy Talks Rex Heuermann

Veteran homicide prosecutor Matt Murphy, who was not involved in the Gilgo Beach investigation, believed Rex Heuermann may have taken deliberate precautions to avoid leaving DNA behind during the killings. Murphy compared the suspected methods to those portrayed by the fictional serial killer Dexter Morgan, theorizing that Heuermann may have worn protective clothing or a gown, used condoms and carefully cleaned crime scenes to limit the amount of nuclear DNA investigators could recover. Murphy based that theory largely on the forensic evidence available at the time, which had relied heavily on mitochondrial DNA recovered from hairs rather than stronger nuclear DNA from blood, saliva or other biological material. He argued that the apparent absence of significant nuclear DNA suggested that whoever committed the murders had gone to extraordinary lengths to minimize forensic evidence.

Investigators had nevertheless developed a substantial circumstantial and forensic case against Heuermann. A male hair recovered from the burlap surrounding Megan Waterman’s remains had been linked to Heuermann through mitochondrial DNA testing, while female hairs recovered with the victims had been linked to his wife, whose whereabouts investigators had examined during the periods when the women disappeared. Prosecutors had also relied heavily on cellphone evidence, alleging that Heuermann’s personal phone, burner phones connected to the crimes and victims’ phones had traveled through overlapping areas and communicated through the same cellular towers. Murphy said that phone evidence had been especially compelling and argued that the overall picture suggested a calculating offender who had actively thought about how to conceal his identity and avoid detection for years.


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