Prosecutors defend DNA hair analysis they say links accused Gilgo serial killer Rex Heuermann, family to six victims

"It’s not magic — it’s science."

That was the final point put forth by the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office on Friday in its legal brief to persuade a judge that novel genetic testing and analysis techniques should be admissible in the murder trial against accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann.

Prosecutors have said they linked rootless hair samples found on six of the victims to the Massapequa Park man and his family using a method that has never been presented in a New York court.

Michael J. Brown, a defense attorney for Heuermann, derided the technique as "magic" and argued it should be excluded from the evidence presented to the jury at trial.

State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei, looking to settle the matter, held a series of hearings between March and July — referred to in legal parlance as a Frye test — to vet the method, the laboratory and the doctors performing the testing and analysis.

Heuermann, who remains in a Suffolk jail pending his trial, has been charged with the murder of seven women, but the DNA testing used only applies to six victims — Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack.

Last week, in a legal brief submitted by co-counsel Danielle Coysh, the defense attorney questioned the foundation of the testing, known as whole genome sequencing. She also questioned the method of analysis and what she said is a conflict of interest by the doctor who has a financial stake in the methodology at Astrea Forensics, the California lab he co-founded that performed the work for the Suffolk County district attorney.

The defense team cautioned against introducing evidence at trial that has not been properly tested by a wide scientific community.

Assistant District Attorney Andrew Lee, in his response brief, argued that New York has often been on the vanguard of investigative techniques like cellphone tracking and field sobriety tests that now have become standard in law enforcement.

Additionally, the new method, called WGS in shorthand, has been widely adopted in related fields such as human identification, disease genetics and prenatal care and is used for critical medical decisions, Lee said in court papers.

"Given the clear advantages and widespread acceptance of WGS in related fields, WGS should be recognized as an established method in forensic DNA analysis in New York," the prosecutor said.

Richard Green, the co-founder of Astrea, specializes in testing and analysis of ancient or degraded DNA samples and was part of a team that sequenced the first Neanderthal genome.

Defense attorneys sought to cast doubt on his forensic analysis — called IBDGem — noting he owns a financial stake in the lab and has several patent applications pending for which he holds a 35% stake in the royalties.

Prosecutors dismissed the conflict, arguing Green is just ahead of the scientific curve.

The doctor has co-authored 109 peer-reviewed articles for some of the top scientific publications like Cell, Science and Nature, often garnering the front page.

Lee also questioned the credentials of defense experts Nathaniel Adams and Dan E. Krane, who testified that the evidence testing method and analysis had not been fully vetted by the broader scientific community.

Lee said the accusation of bias leveled toward Green was "projection" by the defense witnesses, saying that other courts have described Adams and Krane as “‘professional contrarians’ who render opinions that are ‘in stark contrast to what is being done in the field of forensic DNA testing.’"

Coysh pointed out in her defense brief that the new technique has only been used in one other criminal trial, but Lee cited the lab work in half a dozen other criminal cases in the United States.

"This widespread adoption reflects the technology's integration into mainstream forensic practice," Lee wrote.

He said that DNA advancements have often outpaced legal rulings, but "New York Courts have historically embraced this evidence once its reliability has been established."

The judge is expected to rule on the matter by Sept. 3.