Gilgo Beach prosecutors play Jurassic Park clip in surprise move to boost the case for DNA evidence

Prosecutors played a clip from “Jurassic Park” at a hearing in the case of the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Wednesday – in an unusual move to defend their DNA evidence.The scene from the sci-flick was used to bolster the argument that the “nuclear” DNA testing that linked alleged killer Rex Heurmann to six of seven slain sex workers was legitimate as his attorneys push to have the evidence tossed out as junk science.Prosecution expert witness Nicole Novroski — the associate director at the Center for Human Identification for the University of North Texas — said Wednesday the type of science used for DNA analysis by investigators of the Giglo Beach killings is not new and has actually been trusted for decades.During Novroski’s testimony, prosecutors played a clip for the judge from the popular film franchise, showing how scientists extracted dinosaur DNA from a mosquito preserved inside amber and then used it to clone the animals that have been extinct for some 66 million years.Novroski said the DNA science referenced in the movie has been around since before it came out in 1993 and it has been verified “thousands of times” by people in the scientific community.She said it’s accurate and reliable to use in forensics.Investigators were forced to use the particular type of nuclear DNA testing, rather than more commonly used testing because the hair samples of the remains of the women were extremely degraded — in part because of the length of time between their deaths and when they were finally uncovered.Heuermann, 61, is charged with killing the women starting in 1993 and then ditching them along Ocean Parkway only for their remains to be found in 2010 and 2011.

It wasn’t until July 2023 that Heuermann — an architect living in Massapequa Park — was arrested for the murders of Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman and Melissa Barthelemy.He was also charged with killing Maureen Brainard-Barnes in January 2024 with the four women becomin...