Convicted killer John Bittrolff seeks review of case in light of latest Rex Heuermann indictment

A Manorville man convicted in two early 1990s slayings is seeking a review of his case after alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann was charged in a third homicide from the same time frame with an "eerily similar" crime scene, court records show.

John Bittrolff, who was convicted in the 1993 murder of Rita Tangredi and the 1994 slaying of Colleen McNamee — and was long suspected in the death of Sandra Costilla — is pushing for exoneration after Heuermann was indicted June 6 in the 1993 killing of Costilla.

“All three women — Sandra, Rita and Colleen — were all killed within the same time frame ... all three women were found in a wooded area, their legs were spread apart, their hands were above their head, they were each missing one shoe," Bittrolff attorney Lisa Marcoccia said in an interview. "Colleen and Sandra both had their shirts pulled up over their faces, and the DA’s [office] has also claimed that there were wood chips on all three bodies ... any logical person [would believe] one person was responsible for all three murders.”

Marcoccia, appeals deputy bureau chief for the Legal Aid Society of Suffolk County, is asking the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office to release forensic evidence from the Costilla crime scene and to perform the same mitochondrial DNA testing used to charge Heuermann on previously untested hairs found at the Tangredi and McNamee crime scenes, letters obtained by Newsday show.

District Attorney Ray Tierney, who was not in office when Bittrolff was charged and convicted, has rejected Marcoccia's requests.

“I’ve looked at those cases,” Tierney said of the Tangredi and McNamee killings. “If I thought there was a problem with them, I would do something.”

Heuermann was arrested outside the Fifth Avenue office of his midtown Manhattan architectural firm on July 13, 2023, and charged in the killings of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello. He was then called “the prime suspect” in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who along with Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello are known as the Gilgo Four.

Six months later, Heuermann was indicted in Brainard-Barnes' killing. Authorities believe Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Connecticut, was the first of the Gilgo Four to be killed sometime after she disappeared in 2007.

Heuermann was indicted on murder charges in June — 11 months after his arrest in the first three killings — in the killings of Jessica Taylor and Costilla, a Queens resident who was 28 when she was killed and her body dumped in a field in North Sea. She was last known to be alive in November 1993. 

Heuermann has also been identified as a suspect in the death of Valerie Mack, a New Jersey woman who was last seen in 2000. 

Two requests made

Before the 2014 arrest, Suffolk County police homicide investigators long had publicly stated that they believed the person responsible for the deaths of Tangredi, whose remains were discovered in November 1993 in East Patchogue, and McNamee, who was found in January 1994 in North Shirley, might have also been involved in the killing of Costilla, whose body was dumped in North Sea within weeks of Tangredi's. 

Marcoccia, whose office previously filed two unsuccessful motions to overturn Bittrolff’s conviction, sent a letter to Tierney on June 6, the day Heuermann pleaded not guilty to a second-degree murder charge in Costilla’s death. The letter, obtained by Newsday, asked prosecutors to turn over 1990s motor vehicle records for Heuermann, witness interviews in the Costilla case, documents and photos from the Costilla investigation, any forensic analysis conducted from the Costilla crime scene and all information obtained through devices that are relevant to the three killings.

“The goal of the District Attorney’s Office is not to win cases, but to seek justice,” Marcoccia wrote in the letter.

Marcoccia, who called the crime scenes "eerily similar," said the defense previously attempted to obtain the Costilla file from police and prosecutors both before and after the trial of Bittrolff. He is serving a sentence of 50 years to life at the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate Dannemora.

On June 18, having not yet received a response, Marcoccia sent a second letter to prosecutors, this time to Conviction Integrity Bureau Chief Craig McElwee, repeating her requests and also seeking mitochondrial DNA testing of hair evidence and computer files related to DNA collected at the Tangredi and McNamee crime scenes, records show.

Assistant District Attorney Guy Arcidiacono, deputy bureau chief of the Appeals and Training Bureau, denied the requests June 20, writing that “there is no basis on law or fact for providing you with these materials,” court records show.

“As you are aware, Rex Heuermann has been indicted for the Costilla murder,” Arcidiacono wrote. “Whether your client was ever investigated for the Costilla murder, it is evident he was not charged in that case. Neither the fact that he was not charged, nor that Mr. Heuermann has been charged is exculpatory as to Bittrolff’s murder convictions.”

Heuermann’s attorney, Michael J. Brown, of Central Islip, declined to comment.

Tierney said as his serial killer case continues, he will comply with any obligations under the law.

“If we saw something that would give us pause, we would certainly share that and act accordingly,” he said.

Similarities and differences

From the earliest stages of the investigations into each of the three slayings, law enforcement commented publicly on how the cases could be linked.

On May 26, 1994, then-Suffolk Homicide Squad Cmdr. Det. Lt. John Gierasch explained to Newsday why police believe the three women may have been killed by the same person.

All were white, around 5 feet tall and no more than 125 pounds, he explained. Their bodies were found nude in wooded areas. Costilla’s remains were discovered just 18 days after Tangredi, 31. McNamee, 20, was last seen alive within seven weeks of the final contact Costilla made with family.

“The investigation has definitely linked [Tangredi and McNamee],” Gierasch said at the time. “Additionally, we have reason to believe Sandra Costilla ... may possibly be linked as well. We believe based on the totality of the circumstance, they were most likely sexually motivated homicides.”

Gierasch noted that Costilla, unlike the others, had no ties to Long Island and no obvious ties to sex work, though prosecutors have since said she did. Costilla’s cause of death was strangulation, while autopsy reports for McNamee and Tangredi list the cause of death as blunt force skull and brain injuries as well as strangulation.

Following Bittrolff’s arrest a decade later, former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said he also believed Costilla’s case could be connected but noted her body was mutilated unlike the others.

Speaking with a Newsday reporter in June and again last week, Tierney gave several reasons why he views the Costilla case as unrelated to the others. The injuries on Costilla’s body were caused by sharp-force instruments, he said.

“[Tangredi and McNamee] were ruthlessly beaten by blunt-force weapons,” Tierney said.

The district attorney also points to Costilla living in New York City, similar to other alleged victims in the Gilgo Beach case. Tangredi, who attended Brentwood schools, and McNamee, a 1991 graduate of Sachem High School, had strong ties to Suffolk County, where they were known sex workers. And the body of Costilla was found roughly 26 miles from where McNamee was found in North Shirley and 32 miles from Tangredi in East Patchogue. Bittrolff lived in Brookhaven Town and hunted woods in the areas where his alleged victims were found within 10 miles of each other, Tierney said.

Heuermann, 61, was linked to Costilla through mitochondrial DNA testing of hair found at the crime scene, prosecutors have said. 

Bittrolff was linked to Tangredi and McNamee through DNA testing of semen found in each of their bodies, according to the evidence presented at his trial.

Tierney also noted an investigative theory based on a document obtained from seized devices in Heuermann’s home that he would “clean the bodies” of his victims, leaving less of a forensic trail for investigators to follow.

“[Heuermann] would have, according to his methodology, cleaned out the bodies, both inside and out, which would have eradicated John's seminal fluid,” Tierney said of the possibility that Heuermann could have encountered both women after Bittrolff.

Bittrolff trial

The evidence linking Bittrolff to Tangredi and McNamee was uncovered after one of his brothers was arrested in an unrelated misdemeanor case and his DNA presented a familial match to semen found at both crime scenes. Bittrolff was charged after a Suffolk Homicide investigation that determined he was the source of the DNA.

It was the only evidence presented at trial linking Bittrolff to the two women, but it was not the only biological evidence captured at the scenes.

The semen of other men was present at both the McNamee and Tangredi crime scenes, crime lab witnesses testified at trial. Forensic scientist Thomas Zaveski, of the Suffolk County crime laboratory, also testified to fibers and hairs “with little evidentiary value” that were stored in evidence, Newsday reported during the 2017 trial. No mitochondrial DNA testing was performed on hair from unknown sources found on McNamee and Tangredi, he testified.

Marcoccia believes further testing of DNA evidence could assist Bittrolff in his appeal.

“There were unknown hairs found on both Rita and Colleen's body that were never tested against,” Marcoccia said.

The appeals attorney also questioned the testimony at trial regarding semen evidence. Investigators established Bittrolff would have been the last person to have had sex with the women based on a controversial science known as sperm density.

On cross examination, former Suffolk County Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Caplan said he had never before testified as an expert on sperm density, and Marcoccia said her team could not find other examples of the science being used in a homicide trial in New York State.

“You can’t determine when someone died based on the number of sperm,” Marcoccia said, adding that Bittrolff’s trial attorneys should have requested an admissibility hearing on the science.

The jury in the Bittrolff case deliberated for seven days before delivering a guilty verdict. On three occasions they told the Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro they were deadlocked. Jurors told Newsday afterward that they were split 10-2 in favor of conviction while deliberating. 

Following Bittrolff’s sentencing, lead prosecutor Robert Biancavilla repeated he believed he was also responsible for the death of Costilla and possibly others at Gilgo Beach.

“I suspect there are other victims out there,” Biancavilla said at the time. “This is behavior that he’s comfortable with.”

Biancavilla, who twice declined to discuss the case in recent months, has since retired. Spota is serving the final months of a federal prison sentence in a halfway house after his conviction for helping to cover up a 2012 police beating of a suspect in an unrelated case.

Maintaining his innocence

Patti Asero-Bittrolff, of Manorville, who stood by her husband during his trial but has not commented publicly about the case, provided a statement to Newsday saying, “I know my husband is innocent.”

“We have known each other since we were 12 years old and we have been married for 29 years,” she wrote. “He is a caring, thoughtful person and is loved by his family and friends. He is missed every day by all of us. We pray that we can bring him home.”

At Bittrolff’s sentencing, Thomas McNamee Sr., one of McNamee’s brothers, called him a “liar” and an “animal.”

“You’re a disease to society, a killer who will always pose a threat to society,” said McNamee, whose parents have both died since the Bittrolff trial.

Reached for comment on the new developments in the case, McNamee said in a statement: “The family of Colleen McNamee has not changed their view on the case.”

Tangredi’s family declined to comment for this story.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.