2-time killer John Bittrolff asking appellate court to toss convictions, court documents show

A Manorville carpenter is asking an appellate court to overturn his convictions nearly a decade after a jury found him guilty of two cold-case homicides based largely on DNA evidence linking him to both crime scenes, documents show.

An attorney for John Bittrolff, 60, argued in a recent filing with the Second Judicial Department in Brooklyn that the convicted killer’s trial was “riddled with egregious errors” by prosecutors, his defense team and the Suffolk judge who oversaw the case.

“While the deaths of these women should not be disregarded, what also cannot be disregarded is another tragic aspect of this case — the prosecution of John Bittrolff as the perpetrator,” Suffolk County Legal Aid attorney Lisa Marcoccia wrote in a 102-page filing on July 31. “There has never been a clearer case of injustice.”

Prosecutors under former Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota relied heavily at the 2017 trial on a rarely used forensic technique known as “sperm density” to argue that Bittrolff was the last person in the presence of victims Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee, two sex workers whose bodies were found months apart in wooded areas of southern Brookhaven Town.

Tangredi, 31, was found dead from blunt force trauma in East Patchogue on Nov. 2, 1993. The battered remains of McNamee, 20, were discovered in Shirley on Jan. 30, 1994.

Failed attempts

Bittrolff was charged in both killings more than 20 years later, in August 2014, after police used a sibling’s DNA to connect him to matching samples found in both women’s bodies.

The defense, which has made three unsuccessful attempts to overturn Bittrolff’s conviction in the trial court, cited eight reasons the verdict should not stand, including more recent DNA discoveries and the failure to challenge key forensic evidence at trial. Bittrolff, who is serving a 50-years-to-life sentence at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate Dannemora, is seeking a reversal of his convictions or a reduction in his sentence.

One question on appeal is whether Bittrolff’s trial counsel was ineffective for failing to seek a hearing challenging the admissibility of the rare methods used to connect him to the crime scenes. His attorneys argue that sperm density “had never been validated” in New York before a former Suffolk County medical examiner testified at Bittrolff’s trial.

With no other witnesses or physical evidence placing Bittrolff with the victims or at the crime scenes, Dr. Michael Caplan was the prosecution’s “most important witness,” the defense argues.

“Although he was given expert status on sperm density analysis at trial, Dr. Caplan conceded that he had never testified about sperm density before this case and had never written, conducted experiments, or researched sperm density analysis or the estimated persistence of sperm,” Marcoccia wrote.

Newer forensic tech

Bittrolff’s attorneys also are asking the appellate court to consider whether newly developed DNA profiles from additional genetic material found at the McNamee crime scene could have led to an acquittal if the evidence had been presented to the jury.

The DNA profiles were developed by an independent laboratory hired by Bittrolff’s appeals team in 2024 from a mixed sample previously deemed inconclusive. The analysis found genetic material from another man, determined not to be Bittrolff, on a pair of men’s jeans and women’s stretch pants found at the crime scene as well as on McNamee’s body.

“This new evidence is highly significant because it not only shows that [the unknown man] had sexual intercourse with Colleen but that he was also present where her body was discovered since his sperm was found on her stretch pants, which were found hanging on a bush, and on the dungarees, which also had Colleen’s blood on them, and were found a short distance from her body,” Marcoccia wrote.

The motion argues that if the jury — which reported being deadlocked three times during deliberations — had known about the new DNA findings, “there is little doubt the jury may have acquitted” Bittrolff. The defense also argues that Justice Richard Ambro erred by not granting a mistrial as deliberations continued for seven days.

Bittrolff’s attorneys are asking the higher court to consider several other issues, including whether prosecutors engaged in misconduct during closing arguments or violated Bittrolff’s rights by failing to produce a witness who conducted the partial DNA-match search.

They also question whether his sentence was “harsh and excessive” and whether Ambro should have ordered prosecutors to turn over the file from the investigation into the 1993 killing of Sandra Costilla, a case police and prosecutors had previously linked to the McNamee and Tangredi murders.

Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann, of Massapequa Park, pleaded guilty to killing Costilla in April and is serving multiple life sentences at the same upstate prison where Bittrolff has been housed since shortly after his conviction.

Heuermann has been excluded as a contributor to the unknown DNA samples from the McNamee crime scene, court records show.

Neither Bittrolff nor Heuermann emerged as a suspect in their respective homicide cases until decades later. Both men lived normal lives running their own businesses and raising a family.

Arguing the case

At the time of his arrest, Bittrolff lived with his wife and children at a home he purchased within 12 miles of the McNamee crime scene.

Attorneys with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Appeals Bureau have not yet responded to Bittrolff’s appeal, according to the court and spokesperson for the district attorney. Prosecutors have opposed his three previous attempts to obtain relief.

Unlike those earlier efforts, which sought to overturn the convictions in the trial court, the appeal will be argued before a panel of judges in the Second Department.

Anna Sokol, communications director for Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney, declined to comment on the substance of Bittrolff’s appeal, saying it would be more appropriate to respond in court.

“However, as Bittrolff was convicted in September 2017, we are glad that the defense appeal has finally been filed after nine years, so that we can now respond to his claims,” Sokol wrote in an email.

Oral arguments on the appeal have not yet been scheduled.