Gilgo Beach murders: A key test in use of advanced DNA techniques in criminal trials

Riverhead, NY – When the skeletal remains of Maureen Brainard-Barnes were found hidden in the road scrub near the beach of Gilgo de Long Island in winter 2010, there was practically no physical evidence that could help investigators find his killer, with the exception of stray hair.

But at the time, the extraction of DNA evidence of the degraded strand exceeded the capacities of the laboratories of the crime. Investigators continued to seek other clues that could help them identify an alleged serial killer who had dispersed the women’s body along a coastal walk.

Then, about seven years ago, the investigators turned to Astrea Forensics, a California laboratory using new techniques to analyze old very degraded DNA samples – including root -free hairs like the one discovered with the Brainard -Barnes body.

Now the work of this laboratory is at the center of a central decision in the case closely regarded. A state judge weighs whether to authorize the DNA evidence generated by the sequencing of the whole genome of Astrea Forensics in the trial of Rex Heuermann, accused of having killed Brainard-Barnes, 25 years and six other women.

If it is authorized, it would mark the first time that such techniques could be admitted to a New York court, and one of the few of these cases nationally, according to prosecutors, lawyers and defense experts.

Prosecutors say that Astrea’s conclusions, combined with other evidence, massively involve Heuermann, 61, as a killer.

But the lawyers of Manhattan’s architect argue that the company’s calculations exaggerate the probability that the hairs recovered from the burial sites correspond to their client.

“You can imagine the pressure on this judge because he probably has more than a decision that will open the ground for all cases continuing,” said April Stonehouse, an DNA crusion expert at Arizona State University who is not involved in the case.

DNA analysis is no longer new, but tests generally used by criminal laboratories across the country have limits.

Astrea is part of a small but growing number of private laboratories which say that they are able to take extremely short DNA fragments found in very old bones and hair and to use them to rebuild the whole genetic sequence of a person, or the genome.

During the testimonies of the courts, the experts called by the Office of the Suffolk County District District underlined how scientists use similar techniques in a wide range of scientific and medical work, such as the cartography of the Neanderthal genome – an effort has awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine 2022.

The co-founder of Astrea Forensics, Dr. Richard Green, described before the court how the results of the sequencing of the genome of his laboratory were authorized as proof during the trial and the conviction of last year of David Allen Dalrymple in the murder at Cold Case of Dararyn Johnson, 9, in Idaho.

Heuermann’s lawyers argue that Astrea’s DNA methods have not yet been submitted to a meticulous examination and warned that they needed more evaluation because they had the potential to “reshape considerably” the way legal medicine is used in criminal trials.

They focused on the statistical analysis that the Green laboratory made on the DNA profiles that it generated from the hairs recovered from the remains of the victims, claiming that it potentially overestimates the probability that a cartographed genome is a correspondence with a particular person.

For its calculations, Astrea Forensics uses reference data from an open source database containing the complete DNA sequence of some 2,500 people worldwide, called the 1000 Genomes project.

Dr. Dan Krane, a professor at the Wright State University in Ohio, testified to the defense that the methods of Astrea’s criminalic was “madly and unjustly prejudicial”.

The prosecutors replied that Krane’s criticism was “wrong” and revealed a “fundamental misunderstanding” of laboratory methods.

William Thompson, professor emeritus of criminology at the University of California in Irvine, who is not involved in the case, agreed with the defense that the statistical analysis of the criminalic Astrea was “not validated” and lacked wide acceptance in the scientific community.

“This new technique could possibly be up to the claims of its promoters, but that has not yet happened,” he said.

But Nathan Lents, professor of biology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, who is not involved in the case either, not agreeing, suggesting that the “mathematical problem” has not justified to reject the evidence.

“The main thing is that there are real scientific concerns about how statistics are calculated, but not with laboratory techniques,” he said. “The concerns are real, but probability ratios always seem very overwhelming for defense, no matter how they are calculated.”

Prosecutors have raised other evidence against Heuermann, accused of having killed women in 1993.

In legal files, they say that the mobile phone calls for information and monitoring of data shows that Heuermann organized meetings with some of the victims shortly before their disappearance.

Last year, the prosecutors revealed that they had gave themselves Heuermann computer files which they describe as a “plan” for murders, including a series of control lists with reminders to limit noise, clean the bodies and destroy proofs.

They also have a second DNA analysis completed by a separate crime laboratory that has used more traditional methods that have long been accepted in the New York courts. They say that these conclusions, mitotyping technologies, also convincingly connects the hair found on certain victims in Heuermann or his family members.

Investigators say that in the disposal of his victims, Heuermann used articles from his house – including ribbons, belts, bags and a surgical drape – which had traces of hair from his wife and daughter.

In the case of Bruinard-Barnes, however, only the advanced DNA tests carried out by Astrea identified a match, finding that the hair found with its leftovers belonged to Heuermann’s wife.

New York Supreme Court Judge Timothy Mazzei should announce whether it will allow Astrea’s DNA to work in the trial during a Wednesday hearing in Riverhead.

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