Law&Crime Sidebar - Gilgo Beach Murders: DNA from Suspect’s Wife Found at Crime Scene

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Hair from Rex Heuermann’s wife Asa Ellerup was reportedly found on burlap used to wrap multiple female victims in Long Island, according to law enforcement sources. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber sits down with forensic DNA expert Tiffany Roy to analyze how her DNA could have gotten there and what it means for the case. SPONSOR:To learn more about the Genetic Witness Program and how to join GEDmatch, head over to https://www.gedmatch.com/SidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Again, if this happened, it was a complete double life. They have no information to provide. But again, they're not suspects. They haven't been questioned. I do not believe they have any relevant information, or they would have been questioned already and pulled them to the grand jury.

Complete double life. Sources say DNA from the estranged wife of the accused Gilgo Beach killer matches material found at crime scenes. How could this happen? And what does it mean for Asa Ellorup and Rex Heuerman? Forensic DNA expert Tiffany Roy comes on to explain. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Well, there is a development in the infamous Gilgo Beach killings case that we want to talk about right now. So as we know, Rex Ewerman was arrested in charge for the murders of three women near Gilgo Beach Long Island, Melissa Bartholomey, Amber Costello, and Megan Waterman. He is also the prime suspect in the killing of a fourth Gilgo Beach victim, Marine Brainerd Barnes, but he hasn't been charged with respect to her death.

Well, I should say, at least yet. Okay, now we know that cell phone evidence, Google search data, an eyewitness account, and of course DNA all played a crucial role in his capture. The DNA specifically, because originally, they were able to link DNA from a pizza box that he discarded with a male hair found on the burlap used to wrap Megan's body. And then when they arrested Heurman, they took a cheek swab from him and that matched the DNA from the pizza box. By the way, there were other sets of remains that were found in the Gilgo case. But right now, Heurman is not charged at this time in connection with any of them. One of those people is Karen Vergata, who police were able to ID through genetic genealogy. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, well, a good example of this is our sponsor Jedmatch.

So Jedmatch is the largest public DNA database. Many of our true crime fans will know exactly who they are. And that is because since 2018, Jedmatch has played a role, a crucial role in helping law enforcement solve over a thousand cases like the Golden State Killer, the NorCal rapist, the buckskin girl. It's really all because of regular everyday people who use the service. The way it works is you take a DNA test, you upload the data to Jedmatch, and you become, a genetic witness helping identify serial killers or unknown descendants. It's 100% free to sign up and upload. And also, you get all of these tools for your own genetic genealogy research.

So it's just a unique way that true crime fans can help fight crime. So if you want to learn more about the genetic witness program and how to join Jedmatch, you can head over to jeddmatch.com slash sidebar, or you can click the link in the description. Okay, so back to this new update that I was talking about. Well, now, law enforcement sources and multiple reports say that a cheek swab from Asa Ellorup, Uriman's estranged wife matches material found on the victims. Let me bring in forensic DNA expert Tiffany,

Roy, to talk a little bit more about this. Tiffany, thanks so much for coming here on sidebar, giving a little bit of authority and expertise on this subject matter. It's very much needed. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So let me provide everybody a little bit of context here. We had previously known that investigators said that

Ellorup was linked to Harris found on the victim's body. not new. They hadn't confirmed a DNA match, but it seems based on the reporting that the DNA that they took from the cheek swab matches the hairs. And it should also be noted that at the time of this recording, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office hasn't confirmed this report. Now, with all that in mind, what are your thoughts on this? My understanding is that they took a cheek swab from Ellerup when they arrested him on the day that they executed the search warrant. So this would be new. These would be new comparisons. I would expect there to be new reports. And my understanding is they compared the cheek swab sample to testing performed on the hairs from the burlap sacs. So there are some

hairs that are consistent with her profile, her STR profile, that were collected from the crime scenes. Now, let's expand upon that a little bit. So originally, there were two female hairs that were found on Megan, one on the tape that was used to wrap her head. There was another hair found on tape inside of the burlap wrapping around Amber and another female hair on a belt buckle used to restrain Marine. And I also have to be very clear here that Ellorpe hasn't been criminally charged. Investigators say she was out of town when the women disappeared. She's been cleared of wrongdoing. But given this news, does this change any of that? In my opinion, so hair evidence is one of those types of evidence that transfers really readily.

And so if you look at some historical cases, the Green River Killer, there was some trace evidence that transferred in the Atlanta Child Murders with Wayne Williams. There were a lot of transfers between fibers and materials that were in his home that were recovered from the bodies of those victims. And so this is another example of something that I would see in one of those cases where items that were used or taken from his home and used in the commission of these crimes, you know, they had the opportunity to transfer materials that were indigenous to the home onto those items. So this isn't something that's unexpected if he were involved with the crime.

We would expect to see these kinds of things on items that were used if he was the perpetrator. Just to be clear, are you saying that those hairs could have either been on these items before they were even taken from the home. Or B, the hairs were on his person and were transferred onto these items as he was disposing of the bodies. Again, allegedly, but I'm just trying to come up with different scenarios by which her hairs could have been transferred onto these, uh, at these crime scenes. And both of those things are possible. So it could have been, um, you know, just from him regularly using the belt or, um, the hairs on the tape, for example, Well, that could have been on his person and then transferred onto the tape at the time he was disposing of the body.

That's possible. It's really impossible to say when, at what point they were introduced to those items. But that's what I would expect that, you know, at some point they were in the home or in contact with him and he was in contact with her. And that's how they could have transferred. How accurate is this to say, you know, they originally thought it could have, I'm using a kind of legal parlance in a way. I'm just basically talking like at Everyman. They had an idea that it was her hairs, but after taking the cheek swab, it seems like it definitively confirmed it.

But how accurate is that? We would never say that they're definitively her hairs. We would say the DNA profile that we took from the cheek swab consistent with the DNA profile that was developed from the root material on the hair. And then usually we would, you know, that information is our data. We would present that to the person going to make the legal decision. And then they would decide if it was her hair. it wasn't her hair. It makes sense that, you know, what I would have to look at the data

to see how much information was developed, if they have a complete, you know, profile from the hairs, because hairs are notoriously difficult to test, and they vary in their amount of nuclear DNA that they might have on the root material. So, you know, you'd have to look at that, but, you know, if they had a clear single source email profile that was developed from the hairs, that's really strong information, very descriptive. and, you know, we would expect that to be a rare event, a random match of something like that. And it's not just one hair. It's multiple hairs on different prime scenes, which is not great for his case.

You mentioned this before, and I thought it was interesting, that it wasn't as if they took a cheek swab from Ellerup, you know, last week or months after. They took it the day Heerman was arrested. Is that standard operating procedure to take a cheek swab of a family member? on the same day that another family members arrested? They would have had to have some legal basis to compel that sample, or they could have maybe just asked for her participation, but they would have had to have some reason to, some legal reason to compel her standard.

It's not standard to get DNA from people who are not suspected of crimes unless you have a really strong basis for making that request. Well, they already had it in like the bail application, I believe, which was what we saw relatively shortly after his arrest, so that they already knew that it could have been her hairs, but I guess they really wanted to move forward to make sure it was hers. You know, her attorney, his name is Bob Macedonio,

said, quote, there is nothing new in the reports. This is consistent with what the prosecution stated at Rex Ehrman's arraignment. We have not seen or received any further DNA reports. The prosecution has been consistent since day one that Asa Ellorup is not a suspect and was not in the jurisdiction when these homicides were committed. And by the way, Ella-Up has also filed for divorce from her husband, Rex Eurman.

Did you find it interesting that the DA hasn't come forward and confirmed this reporting, that we're seeing it from law enforcement sources and it was picked up by other outlets? Does that strike you was a bit odd? Yes, especially for this case. This is a very tight-lipped case. And these investigators, the analysts who have been involved in the testing, The lawyers who have been, you know, putting this case together, it's been a really tight shift. They haven't released a lot of information unofficially.

And so I was surprised to hear that a law enforcement source confirmed this match, which obviously took place after his arrest. So this is going to be a new report. It'll be a new comparison. And they may be in possession of it at the prosecutor's office and at the crime now, but it's not something that's been divulged publicly and definitely not turned over to the defense and discovery yet. I was surprised to see this. And to be clear, this matching of the hairs to the pizza box, the hair to the pizza box, the hairs to Ellerup, is this a relatively new advancement in DNA technology? Or is this something that we've seen for quite some time?

Because I am wondering ways that defense attorneys could try to poke holes in it, but it feels pretty concrete. The testing that would have come from the buckle swab and the cheek swab that they took from Ellerup, I believe it's standard testing, standard STR testing. Do I think they used some other methods? Do I think they involve genealogy in this investigation? And did they send some of the hairs down to the lab in Texas, ophrum for whole genome sequencing?

I do think that. And so there are aspects of the DNA work that I think are definitely new and novel. And they haven't been worked through the legal system and regulated in any meaningful way yet. So there are some cutting edge aspects. And then there are some traditional aspects of the DNA testing that have been in place for, you know, 30 years. There's a specific name to this kind of testing, right? That, I mean, I don't think I heard of before this case, but can you tell us what that is?

So mitochondrial DNA testing is traditionally done on hair shaft samples that don't contain any root material. Standard DNA testing that takes place in the crime of you need some cells, some live cells. And the carotinized cells that are in hair are not suitable for. standard DNA testing even though we are developing systems and in some instances we are able to get some information from the hair shaft now with traditional methods it's just not as robust as profiles that we would generate from the root material so there has been some discussion that there was some mitochondrial DNA testing performed in relation to this case but the kind of

testing I'm talking about is different a little bit different from that so it's its whole genome sequencing and that's the kind of testing that is used in genealogy investigations and we're searching through the genealogy databases and real quick to wrap this up tiffany um how do you imagine his attorneys are going to strike against this this hair evidence they're going to need experts they're going to retain their own experts um and have people look into this obviously what needs to take place first and foremost is just to make sure that there's no human error involved in the testing because humans are performing these tests in the crime lab so things do happen um so you want to check and make sure everything

is is clean everything looks like it's been performed correctly all the machinery worked as we would expect um so just on that basic level but then certainly looking into some of these other methods um and making sure that those additional tests were performed correctly and in line with ethics and in line with the law. We're definitely going to be looking into that they're going to need helps from multiple experts, legal experts who deal with this kind of thing, and then scientific experts to make sure that the science is clean and clear. Tiffany Roy, thank you so much for explaining this to us. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. That's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.