Cops call in FBI as serial killer case develops on Long Island

But none of four bodies on beach is Shannon Gilbert

by John Lauinger

New York Daily News

December 15, 2010

Cops who feared a serial killer has turned a Long Island beach into a dumping ground Tuesday called in the FBI for help.

The New York City medical examiner is also helping Suffolk County police identify the four decomposing corpses a cadaver dog discovered in Oak Beach, L.I.

Cops were looking for clues to the fate of prostitute Shannon Gilbert when they discovered the remains on Saturday and Monday.

An early analysis suggests none is Gilbert - who vanished in May after a sex romp in a gated community in Oak Beach.

"Preliminarily, it doesn't look like it is her," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer told the Daily News yesterday.

The bodies - at least two are women - were found on a narrow island off Long Island's South Shore, between Gilgo Beach and Cedar Beach.

Officer John Mallia and his dog Blue were walking along the shoulder of Ocean Parkway on Saturday when the pooch's tail suddenly perked up.

"At that point, I saw the skeletal remains of the body," Mallia said.

He and Blue were called in for followup searches Monday, and they found the other three bodies within a quarter mile of the first - about 50 feet apart.

Dormer said police are operating on the assumption the victims were slain by a single murderer who drove to the area and dumped the bodies in the roadside brush.

It's unlikely that any of the discovered bodies is that of missing prostitute Shannon Gilbert.

"We could have a serial killer," he said. "I don't think it's a coincidence that four bodies ended up in this area." He would not say if there was any sign of trauma or confirm a report that two of the bodies were wrapped in burlap. "It does look like the bodies were there for some time," Dormer said. "You can tell from the physical evidence that it's possible they were there for a year, a year and a half, two years." He declined to say whether cops were trying to link the bodies to any missing-persons cases beyond Gilbert's. The tattooed 24-year-old, who lived in Jersey City, was last seen by her pimp running frantically out of a john's pad inside the gates of the Oak Island Beach Association, a private community. Oak Beach resident Gustav Coletti, 75, said Gilbert was crazed and clearly high when she pounded on his door, begging for help. "She was just screaming at the top of her lungs and banging on the door," he told The News. "When I opened the door, she almost fell into the house. I said, 'What is the matter?' She just looked at me and started screaming. "She said, 'Help me! Help me!' She didn't say anything about people trying to hurt her," Coletti said, adding that she ran off when he offered to call police.

Dormer said cops interviewed the john and the pimp in May. Gilbert used craigslist to find escort work - as did a Maine woman who went missing in Hauppauge during the summer.

Maine cops investigating the disappearance of Megan Waterman, 22, have spoken with Suffolk police about the Oak Beach bodies.

Atlantic City prosecutors said they have spoken with cops about similarities between the Long Island cases and four dead prostitutes found dead behind the Black Horse Pike motel four years ago.

Cops said they asked the FBI to get involved because of the likelihood the case could cross state lines.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/12/15/2010-12-15_maniac_on_loose_4_bodies_found_at_beach_in_li_hint_at_slayer.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's another related article:

A K-9 unit searches the Long Island beachfront area.

Missing NJ hooker not found dead on Long Island beach by Kieran Crowley, Selim Algar and Josh Margolin New York Post December 17, 2010 A missing New Jersey hooker is not among the dead women found on a sleepy stretch of Long Island beach -- dealing cops a major setback in their increasingly frustrating serial-killer probe. The surprise announcement from police detectives came after buzzing helicopters and cadaver dogs spent another day searching for more bodies and clues leading to the identification of the four women whose skeletal remains have turned a normally quiet oceanfront area upside down. "None of the human remains found in Gilgo Beach during the past week are that of Shannan Gilbert, 24, who was reported missing in May," Suffolk County cops said in a statement last night. A law-enforcement source told The Post that Gilbert was eliminated as a match through X-rays of the four bodies. "We knew she was unlikely pretty early because of the state of the body, but we just couldn't be sure," said another source. Gilbert's mother found little solace in the news. "I'm confused. Where is she?" Mari Gilbert said at her home in upstate Ellenville. "I still miss her and I want her home, and she's still not here."

Police still haven't concluded whether any of the bodies is Megan Waterman, a 22-year-old hooker from Maine who disappeared last June after arranging to meet a john in Suffolk County.

Waterman's mother supplied investigators with a fresh DNA sample on Wednesday but said she hasn't heard anything since.

Sources believe Waterman, too, will be eliminated because the remains appear to date back further than the summer.

"You can imagine, this is a difficult case," Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said. Still, he insisted, "I don't want anyone to think we have Jack the Ripper running around Suffolk County with a knife dripping with blood."

The New York City Medical Examiner's Office is aiding Suffolk authorities in the forensic investigation.

One body was received at their Manhattan lab Wednesday and the rest arrived yesterday, a source said. From the bones, an anthropologist will attempt to determine age, sex and race, as well as bodily trauma such as a gunshot or knife wound.

Before yesterday's announcement, investigators were focusing their attention on Gilbert -- a Jersey City woman with histories of prostitution, mental illness and drug use -- and the strange series of events that occurred before she disappeared May 1.

Cops quickly trained their sights on Joseph Brewer, 46, a local businessman who was the last john to see Gilbert alive after arranging to have sex with her through Craigslist. They searched his home and confiscated his Jeep Cherokee on Wednesday.

Brewer was relieved after The Post told him Gilbert was ruled out as a victim.

"I said this from the beginning, that I was innocent, that I didn't do anything, and now it's come out," said Brewer, who called the episode a "nightmare."

"I'm praying for those four girls and for the family of Shannan Gilbert as well," he said. "This has been a rough time for me, but I'm not the victim here. Those four girls are the real victims. I just hope there is some sort of ending that will give these families some peace."

Brewer's neighbor, Gustav Coletti, whose home Gilbert ran to after fleeing from Brewer's house on May 1, said he always doubted Brewer was involved with the serial killings.

"What guy would murder four people and dump them right outside the door here? That would be a pretty stupid thing to do," Coletti said. "I guess we'll see what happens."

Investigators widened their search area by 10 miles yesterday and have been in touch with their counterparts as far away as Atlantic City, NJ, where four hooker homicides from 2006 remain unsolved.

Yesterday's beach search did turn up some possible evidence, a police spokesman said, though he declined to elaborate on what was recovered. K-9 teams and detectives will resume the search today

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/li_bodies_case_hits_dead_end_dO9Dwr5g7afnDjQ9NL5qMJ