Judge grants bid from convicted murderer John Bittrolff to compare DNA from crime scene to DNA from accused Gilgo serial killer Rex Heuermann

A Suffolk judge has granted a request from twice-convicted murderer John Bittrolff to compare DNA from accused serial killer Rex A. Heuermann to unknown DNA found at one of Bittrolff's crime scenes in a quest to clear the incarcerated Bittrolff's name.

Judge Richard Ambro, in a Friday order, granted the defense request to compare unknown genetic material found at the scene of one of the murders Bittrolff is convicted of to a profile of Heuermann, who is currently charged in the 1993 killing of Sandra Costilla, a case Bittrolff was previously a suspect in.

Ambro wrote that the presence of the unknown DNA "has the potential to create a reasonable probability that the verdict could have been more favorable to the defendant had such evidence been made available to the jury and proved to have originated from Rex Heuermann."

The judge stayed his order until Nov. 7, giving prosecutors time to "consider any further action."

Bittrolff's attorney declined to comment Friday. Heuermann's lead defense attorney Michael J. Brown did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Ambro denied the defense's other requests, including a bid to vacate Bittrolff's convictions and to conduct mitochondrial DNA testing and compare the sample with the FBI's CODIS database.

Bittrolff, a Manorville carpenter, was convicted in the 1994 killing of Colleen McNamee. Another man's genetic material was found on a pair of "men’s jeans" discovered at the Shirley crime scene, a pair of black stretch pants and on the victim.

Suffolk prosecutors had urged the judge to deny the motion to vacate the conviction, arguing it was a misguided attempt to connect Heuermann to the killings.

Prosecutors also argued that both sets of pants belonged to McNamee and the DNA profile is likely of a man who had sex with her before Bittrolff.

In January, Bittrolff's attorneys from the Legal Aid Society of Suffolk County filed the motion after they said reanalyzed DNA evidence in McNamee's killing showed the new unknown profile.

"Defendant has neither demonstrated a nexus between Rex Heuermann and Ms. McNamee, nor provided an adequate legal basis to perform a comparison of Heuermann’s DNA — which is not evidence in this case," Assistant District Attorney Rosalind Gray wrote in May.

Heuermann has pleaded not guilty in the killings of seven women.

Bittrolff was convicted at trial in 2017 in the strangling and bludgeoning killings of McNamee and Rita Tangredi, whose body was found in a wooded area in East Patchogue in November 1993. Both McNamee and Tangredi were known sex workers.

Ambro earlier signed a subpoena in July directing the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office to provide Bittrolff’s appellate attorneys with the raw DNA data in the McNamee and Tangredi cases, court records show.

Cybergenetics, a DNA company with proprietary software using computer "probabilistic" determined that Bittrolff was not a contributor to the male DNA found on the jeans, stretch pants and a separate swab of McNamee’s body.

Bittrolff was arrested in July 2014 after investigators learned DNA found at both crime scenes partially matched the DNA of one of his brothers.

Bittrolff was later identified as a match for the DNA found on two different swabs of Tangredi, a separate swab of McNamee and fingernail scrapings of Tangredi’s left hand.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.