Attorney David Schwartz, Former Prosecutor Talking About Rex Heuermann's Court Appearance on 88 WCBS

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0:00 suspect has been charged with killing a 0:02 fourth woman Rex hman due back in court 0:04 February 6 let's get more on this 0:07 joining us live is David Schwarz a New 0:09 York criminal defense attorney and a
0:11 former prosecutor David do we have any 0:13 idea why it took until now for hman to 0:16 be charged with this killing of a 0:18 Connecticut woman presumably linked to 0:21 the others right Bridget well I mean
0:24 first of all it took 13 years to even 0:26 bring the first arraignments what 0:28 happened was they were prevailing H uh H 0:31 hman for an entire year building a case 0:34 up and they had the first three cases 0:37
because the uh mitochondrial DNA came 0:40 back um which is a whole another story 0:43 but they didn't get it on the fourth uh 0:45 victim and so what they decided to do is 0:48 make the arrest for the first three
0:50 while uh this defendant is incarcerated 0:54 to to investigate for the fourth and 0:56 that's why we have the supplemental 0:58 indictment today okay as far as the 1:02 prosecution and their potential evidence 1:06 um we understand it involves belts one 1:08 with the initials wh believed to be from 1:11 the late grandfather of Rex hman um how 1:16 strong a case does this seem to be to 1:19 you well a a circum a circumstantial 1:23 case is sometimes much stronger than a 1:25 case where there's an eyewitness or 1:27
direct evidence so this is what tyranny 1:30 the DA has been building up ever since 1:32 he took office is to develop this 1:34 circumstantial case if the da had to 1:37 rely on scientific evidence alone the 1:40 way it the way the S the DNA lays out 1:43 they wouldn't be able to get a 1:44 conviction just on the DNA alone because 1:47 all the DNA does it doesn't show that 1:50 hurman himself committed these murders 1:53 it just it it it it takes away about 1:56 99.6% of the rest of the PO population 2:00 but doesn't doesn't exclude huran so 2:02 that's an important piece of evidence 2:04 but you have to take that in conjunction 2:06 with all the other circumstantial 2:07 evidence you mentioned the belt we have 2:09 the truck we have the phone records 2:12 there's a lot of circumstantial evidence 2:14 that we don't even know about right now 2:15 this is going to be a long trial and 2:18 it's all about putting the pieces of the 2:20 puzzle together uh in order to uh
2:23 convict him of these four murders as I 2:26 mentioned at the beginning you're a 2:27 former prosecutor you're also a crial 2:30 defense attorney how would you defend 2:32 Rex hman well certainly I would go after
2:35 the DNA which which you know can be 2:38 successful in the defense the problem 2:40 with the defense because you can show 2:42 that it doesn't show that hman himself 2:46 committed the murder just didn't exclude 2:48 him which is a very very big deal uh you 2:50 could go after the years and years of 2:53
decay of the DNA evidence of the hair 2:56 fibers but look you got to attack a each 3:00 piece of circumstantial evidence 3:02 directly and then tell that jury that 3:04 there's not enough that there's not 3:06
enough there's no eyewitnesses and and 3:09 they did not um connect each link of 3:11 that circumstantial uh chain you know 3:15 and and of course the da is going to say 3:17 use your common sense there is 3:19
overwhelming evidence circumstantial 3:21 evidence to convict this defendant David 3:23 Schwartz New York criminal defense 3:25 attorney and former prosecutor David 3:27 thank you so much WCBS news time 1108 3:30 your update next on traffic