‘Significant development’ in case against accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann
James Carbone/Newsday RM via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors on Long Island plan to announce a “significant development” in their case against accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann on Tuesday, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
The architect and father has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the murders of six women whose remains were found in a remote spot along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach and parts of eastern Long Island.
Prosecutors have also linked him to the death of several other unsolved killings — including that of Valerie Mack, a New Jersey woman whose remains were discovered in Manorville and near Gilgo Beach. Like the other women, the prosecutors have said she was also involved in sex work.
Prosecutors named Heuermann a suspect in Mack’s death in June based on evidence allegedly found on an electronic device seized from Heuermann’s home in Massapequa Park on Long Island. Prosecutors have said Heuermann kept detailed notes about serial killings, body disposal and torture pornography.
A spokeswoman for Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney declined to comment.
Heuermann, 61, is scheduled to appear in court in Riverhead at 9:30 a.m.
Erik Menendez, left, and is brother Lyle, in front of their Beverly Hills home, Nov. 30, 1989 Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — Erik and Lyle Menendez’s infamous case was back in front of a judge Monday, with their aunts appealing to the judge on their behalf, during a status hearing regarding the brothers’ habeas corpus petition, which was filed last year for a review of new evidence not presented at trial.
The hearing was delayed 40 minutes due to challenges with trying to get Lyle and Erik Menendez to be available in court via video. After several attempts, the brothers were able to listen to the proceedings on the phone.
A lottery drawing was held for 16 public seats in the courtroom. Dozens of members of the public arrived early in the morning to wait for a chance to witness the hearing.
Judge Michael Jesic allowed testimony Monday from two of the brothers’ aunts — their mother’s sister, Joan VanderMolen, and their father’s sister, Terry Baralt — due to health concerns.
The aunts “both made impassioned pleas with the judge to send the brothers home,” defense attorney Mark Geragos told reporters after the hearing, calling it a “moving experience.”
The aunts testified about “all of the good things” the brothers have done in prison, Geragos said.
Jesic pushed back another scheduled hearing regarding the brothers’ resentencing recommendation from Dec. 11 to Jan. 30 and Jan. 31.
Jesic said he needs time to go through 17 boxes of files on the case and said he wants to give the newly elected Los Angeles district attorney ample time to get up to speed.
“By Jan. 30 or 31, we’re hoping that by the end of that, or sometime sooner, that we will, in fact, get the brothers released,” Geragos said.
Two new pieces of evidence are at the center of the brothers’ habeas corpus petition.
One is allegations from a former member of the boy band Menudo, who revealed last year that he was raped by the brothers’ father, Jose Menendez.
The second piece is a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse from his father. The cousin testified about the alleged abuse at trial, but the letter — which would have corroborated the cousin’s testimony — wasn’t found until several years ago, according to the brothers’ attorney.
The case began in 1989, when Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, fatally shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in the family’s Beverly Hills home. The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, but prosecutors alleged they killed for money.
The first trial, which had separate juries for each brother, ended in mistrials. In 1996, after the second trial — during which the judge barred much of the sex abuse evidence — the brothers were convicted and both sentenced to two consecutive terms of life without parole.
As the habeas corpus petition moves through the courts, the brothers have two other potential paths to freedom.
One path is through resentencing. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced last month he was recommending the brothers’ sentence of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence.
The DA’s office said its resentencing recommendations take into account many factors, including rehabilitation in prison, and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.
Shortly after Gascón’s announcement, he lost his race for reelection to Nathan Hochman. The incoming DA, who is set to take office on Dec. 2, said he plans to read through the evidence — including confidential prison files and interviews with family, lawyers and law enforcement — before showing his support for resentencing.
The other possible path to freedom is the brothers’ request for clemency, which they’ve submitted to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Last week, Newsom said he’ll defer to Hochman’s “review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
ABC News’ Alex Stone, Matt Gutman and Ashley Riegle contributed to this report.
(STARR COUNTY, Texas) — Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham is offering the incoming Trump administration 1,402 acres the state purchased along the Texas-Mexico border to be used in a mass deportation operation.
In a letter to President-elect Donald Trump, Buckingham said she’s offering the land “to be used to construct deportation facilities.”
The Texas General Land Office purchased the plot of land from a farmer in October to facilitate Texas’ efforts to build a wall.
“My office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history,” Buckingham wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday.
The move shows that despite the Democratic governors of California and Arizona, two other southern border states, pledging not to aid the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans, the incoming administration will have allies in Republican-led states.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs told ABC News Live on Monday that she would not use state police or the National Guard to help with mass deportation.
“We will not be participating in misguided efforts that harm our communities,” she said.
Trump on Monday confirmed he would declare a national emergency to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission, and pledged to get started on the mass deportations as soon as he enters office.
A spokeswoman for the Trump transition team said the president-elect will “marshal every lever of power” to launch his mass deportation plans.
“Local and state officials on the frontlines of the Harris-Biden border invasion have been suffering for four years and are eager for President Trump to return to the Oval Office. On day one, President Trump will marshal every lever of power to secure the border, protect their communities, and launch the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrant criminals in history,” Karoline Leavitt said.
In an interview with Fox News, which first reported the news of the Texas General Land Office’s offer, Buckingham reiterated she is “100% on board” with the incoming administration’s promise to deport criminals.
The plot of land is in Starr County, about 35 miles west of McAllen, Texas.
“Now it’s essentially farmland, so it’s flat, it’s easy to build on. We can very easily put a detention center on there — a holding place as we get these criminals out of our country,” she told Fox News.
(LOUISVILLE, KY) — Opening statements are set to begin Monday in the federal retrial of Brett Hankison, a former Louisville police officer accused of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend and their neighbors in 2020, when Taylor was shot and killed in a botched police raid.
The initial trial ended in a mistrial last year when the jury reached an impasse because they were not able to reach a unanimous decision.
Hankison was charged in a two-count indictment in August 2022 for deprivation of rights under color of law, both of which are civil rights offenses. According to court documents, he was charged with willfully depriving Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, of their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures, which includes the right to be free from a police officer’s use of unreasonable force during a seizure.
According to court transcripts, he was also charged with willfully depriving Taylor’s three neighbors of their right to be free from the deprivation of liberty without due process of law, which includes the right to be free from a police officer’s use of unjustified force that shocks the conscience.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The trial marks the third trial for Hankison, following the initial mistrial as well as a state trial in 2022, in which he was acquitted of multiple wanton endangerment charges.
U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Jennings last week granted the prosecution’s motion to exclude references to Hankison’s prior court proceedings in the retrial, according to WHAS, the ABC affiliate in Louisville covering the case in the courtroom.
The judge denied the prosecution’s request to introduce evidence of his prior alleged wrongdoing while employed as a Louisville police officer, according to WHAS.
Hankison was one of three officers involved in the raid.
The plainclothes officers were serving a warrant searching for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who they alleged was dealing drugs. He was not at the residence, but her current boyfriend, Walker, thought someone was breaking into the home and fired one shot from a 9 mm pistol at the officers.
The three officers opened fire, shooting 32 bullets into the apartment, several of which struck Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was in bed at the time.
Hankison fired 10 rounds, none of which hit anyone. He was fired for violating department procedure when he “wantonly and blindly” fired into the apartment. Several of the rounds entered a neighboring apartment where a man, child and pregnant woman were living, according to prosecutors. The neighbors — Cody Etherton, Chelsey Napper, and her son, Zayden — were all sleeping at the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.
The other two officers involved in the raid, Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly, were not charged in the incident. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron called Taylor’s death a “tragedy” but said the two officers were justified in their use of force after having been fired upon by Walker.
