After 13 years of dead ends and blown leads, the Gilgo Beach murder investigation finally turned on pizza crusts that Rex Heuermann had tossed in a trash can in Midtown Manhattan. It was a jackpot for investigators who had watched Heuermann for months. “Pizza crust is like a sponge — it allowed the saliva to seep into the dough,” Ray Tierney, the Suffolk County district attorney, said in a recent interview.
With the DNA, investigators had a genetic match to connect Heuermann to four bodies found in 2010 on Long Island. Heuermann was charged in July with three murders and indicted on a fourth murder on Tuesday. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. When Heuermann’s trial begins, possibly this year, the DNA evidence will underpin the charges that he murdered women he had hired as escorts and left their bodies wrapped in burlap along a desolate oceanfront parkway, The New York Times reports, in a story that the paper has closely followed for years. Genetic experts say that Heuermann's lawyer will try to sow doubt among jurors about the DNA evidence. This could include challenging the constitutionality of obtaining the pizza sample and scrutinizing every aspect of the genetic specimens’ collection, transport and testing.