Just Another Client
Shannan Gilbert was a 24-year-old sex worker from New Jersey who sold her services via Internet classified ads. On May 1, 2010, a client who lived in the gated community of Oak Beach, Long Island, offered interesting sums of money for her services.
Even though Long Island was a bit far off, Shannan figured that the money was worth it. However, the morning before leaving for Oak Beach was the last time she was ever seen.
SOS
On the very same night she went missing, the police received a spine-chilling phone call. It was Shannon pleading for help, just as she screamed out the words "They are trying to kill me!".
Shannan told the 911 operator that she had tried knocking at the doors of the neighboring houses, but that nobody had reached out to help her. Desperate and panic-struck, 911 seemed like her last chance of survival. Here's what happened next.
They Never Saw It Coming
Unfortunately, Shannon never managed to explain to the operator what sort of trouble she was in and she didn't even remember her client's exact address. However, it was obvious that she was in some sort of danger as she hanged up before even finishing her last sentence.
Therefore, there was nothing the Suffolk County Police Department could do other than to trace the location of the phone call and send a patrol as quickly as possible. But while they were fully aware that the search could have a tragic ending, they were definitely not prepared for what they eventually found.
Missing Person Search
The police managed to trace down the exact house from which the call had been made, but there was nobody there. Therefore, a missing person search was launched in the area. This proved to be quite a challenging feat, and here's why.
The house was located in an weedy area near Oak Beach, a rather desolate village situated in a barrier island right next to Robert Moses State Park. If Shannon had been murdered, her body could've easily been dumped anywhere in those thick bushlands. It wasn't until 6 months later that the police made a grisly discovery...
A Body Is Found
On December 11, 2010, the local police found a body buried in the sand in a bushy area near Ocean Parkaway, just a few miles away from the house from which the phone call had allegedly been made.
However, the autopsy revealed that the corpse didn't belong to Shannan, but to another 24-year-old sex worker named Melissa Barthelemy. This was just the beginning of the nightmare, though, because two days later, the police found this...
Grilsy Discovery
After another search in the surrounding bushlands, the local police found the corpses of three other victims who had also been missing for months: 27-year-old Amber Lyn Costello, 22-year-old Megan Waterman, and 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
A couple of months later, in March 2011, the remains of 20-year-old Jessica Taylor were found off Gilgo Beach just a few miles away. This posed some inevitable questions: had they all been murdered by the same person? And, if so, was there any common pattern behind these victims?
A Common Pattern
Just like Shannan, these four girls were all sex workers in their mid 20s who advertised their services through an Internet site called Craiglist. This seemed hardly a coincidence.
Actually, this wasn't the first time that an American serial killer targeted prostitutes, so it did sound like a plausible explanation. However, it wasn't long before the police landed on a new clue regarding the murderer's identity.
Creepy Phone Calls
Shortly after the bodies were discovered, it was revealed that one of the victim's family had been receiving mysterious phone calls for nearly a month. To be more specific, Melissa Barthelemy's sister, Amanda, had started receiving strange calls ever since the night she went missing. The creepy part was that the calls were always made from Melissa's phone!
According to Amanda, "Every time my phone would ring, it was another clue to maybe getting closer to catching him". This went on for more than a week, until the alleged assassin made one last call telling Amanda that Melissa was dead. But was all this a prank? Or was the girl's murderer really taking the risk of being discovered?
Back To Square One
According to PI Dr. Louis B. Schlesinger, "Making that phone call is a display of his sadism and cruelty. This is very arousing for him, this is sexually stimulating for him, to have him know what he did to the victim and then to taunt the victim’s family members". In other words, the man behind those phone calls could've been the serial killer everyone was looking for!
Unfortunately, since those phone calls were brief and made from extremely crowded areas in New York City, the investigators never managed to track down the exact location from where they were made. Greatly discouraged, the police felt that they were back in square one, but a few months later, they made another grisly discovery...
Five More Victims
In April 2011, the police found three more bodies, all within a 5-mile area: an unidentified adult woman, a 2-year-old baby, and a 17-year-old Asian male. One week later, two other bodies, including the toddler's mother, were found in Nassau.
These findings left the whole country shook. All in all, 10 victims were found, most of them buried in the sand inside burlap sacks. However, the fact that a baby and an adult male were among the victims suggested that there no longer seemed to be a common pattern behind the killings. What if there was more than one killer in the loose?
The Long Island Ripper
By June 2011, the so-called "Long Island Ripper" had become trending topic worldwide. But not only were there no clues as to who the murderer could be, but the police wasn't even sure whether there were more bodies hidden among the bushes.
Ironically, while the search for Shannan was what had ultimately led to the discovery of those bodies, the young girl was still missing. Now, however, finding the serial killer was the top priority, as there was a high chance he had also been responsible for Shannan's disappearance. But did the police land on any further clues?
Police Under Scrutiny
Months went by and there still weren't any new leads on the Long Island Ripper and the Shannan Gilbert cases. It wasn't long before people began speaking out against the police's ineffectiveness.
Many people protested that the local Police Department should've dealt with the missing-persons cases with greater urgency. "If any of these young women had been a college student or the daughter of a judge, they’d be all over cable news", crime journalist Robert Kolker claimed.
No Time For Reproaches
In Kolker's view, if the connections between the disappearances had been made quicker, their remains would've been found earlier and Shannan's disappearance would've probably been avoided.
However, it was too late for regrets; Shannan's case required immediate action. This being said, it wasn't until late 2011 that her case took yet another unexpected twist...
Shannan's Body
In December 2011, Shannan's remains were finally found less than a mile from Oak Beach. While everyone was convinced that she had been yet another victim of the Long Island Ripper, the police thought differently.
According to the police, Shannan's murder "doesn't match the pattern of the Gilgo Beach homicides". The victim's family and lawyers, however, spoke out against the police, convinced that they were hiding something...
Disclosed Information
Shannan's family and lawyers are utterly convinced that the girl was another victim of the Long Island Ripper and that the police are hiding valuable information.
In this sense, they find it weird that the police still haven't revealed how Shannon or any of the other Gilgo Beach victims died. Here's what they've said so far about the circumstances surrounding Shannan's murder.
Cause Of Death
At first, the Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer suggested that Shannan's death had been an accident and that she had probably drowned. However, according to the girl's lawyer, there was no evidence proving she had died a natural death.
On the other hand, after performing an autopsy in 2016, NYC's Chief Medical Examiner Dr. M. Baden claimed that she could have died from strangulation. While he didn't rule on the cause of her death, he also doubts she died from drowning.
Where's The Tape?
Another reason why the police are under suspicion is that they've been reluctant to release the tape of Shannan's calls to her family and 911, even going against the judge's orders.
The Suffolk Police Department told the press that releasing the tape would supposedly jeopardize their ongoing criminal investigation. However, nearly a decade has passed and the tape still hasn't been disclosed. Does this mean that the mystery remains unsolved?
One Last Clue
While the Giglo Beach deaths (including Shannan's) remain shrouded in mystery, the police revealed a new clue in January 2020, nearly ten years after the murders were committed.
The police revealed a photograph featuring a black leather belt found near the crime scene, marked with the letters: HM or WH. But who did this belt belong to and why had this picture never been shown before?
The Mystery Belt
According to the current Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart, the item featured in the photograph probably belonged to the suspect. However, it's still unclear whether the belt was used as a murder weapon.
At the same time, Hart has never justified why it took so long for the police to come forward with this piece of evidence, especially considering they had had it in their possession for the past ten years. As of that day, DNA samples conducted on the belt were handed to the FBI to conduct searches on geneology websites.
Demand For Justice
To this day, the truth behind Shannan's murder and the identity of the Long Island Ripper haven't been unveiled. While not a single person has been tried for the Long Island murders, some believe that the culprit is already behind bars.
In 2017, a man named John Bittrolff was convicted for the murder of two prostitutes in the early 90s and Suffolk's District Attorney Robert Biancavilla speculated that he could also be the man behind all the other unsolved murders. However, this is nothing but a theory, and the families of the Long Island Ripper's victims are still waiting for justice to be made.