Murder Of Shannan Gilbert

Shannan Gilbert was an escort who advertised her duties via Craigslist. Though her job was frowned upon, there was no denying her ambitions to achieve a better future. Her cleverness was outstanding and by age sixteen, she had already graduated high school early.

After graduation, Shannan held several jobs ranging from an Applebee's hostess, hotel receptionist, and making snacks for those residing in a senior center. Moreover, she was taking part in online classes at Phoenix University. She wished to relocate to New York to pursue a career in acting, singing, and writing.

 

With the lack of money received by previous jobs, Shannan turned her attention towards escorting. This was meant to be temporary until she had the necessary funds to feel satisfied moving to another residence.

 

In May of 2010, Shannan was accompanied by her escort driver -- Michael Pak -- to meet her client, Joseph Brewer living in the gated society of Oak Beach. She came at approximately 2:00 a.m. Three hours later Shannan called 911 saying to the dispatcher, They are trying to kill me! as she fled from her client's home. The dialogue had lasted twenty-three minutes, but the full transcript has never been released to the public.

 

At 5:00 a.m. Shannan soon ran to the closest neighbor, Gustav Coletti. He was in the middle of shaving when he suddenly heard unusual screams and knocks on his front door. Gustav answered her plea, and she rashly ran inside with sheer terror on her face. Out of concern for Shannan's wellbeing, Gustav said he was going to call the police. Strangely, those words caused even more distraught, prompting her to sprint from his home.

 

Thereafter, Gustav saw a black SUV driving slowly down the road. He proceeded to confront the person behind the wheel -- Michael Pak -- and ask him about his ambitions. He responded with, "I'm looking for Shannan." With Gustav unaware of Shannan's occupation, he told Michael Pak that he had called the cops, causing him to drive away.

 

Amid that industry, Shannan went to another resident in the society, Barbara Brennan. Fearing for her security, she refused to answer her front door. However, she called the cops and her next-door neighbor, Tom Canning, who went outside to check on the noise, but Shannan had already left the scene.

 

According to Tom, he allegedly witnessed Shannan making contact with Dr. Peter Hackett who stayed in the vicinity. From there, Shannan has never been seen alive again. Two days after Shannan's missing mother, Mari Gilbert received a telephone call unexpectedly from Dr. Peter Hackett who was seemingly asking if Shannan was safe and feeling better, but her family members had zero information that anything was amiss.

 

The phone conversation between Dr. Peter Hackett and Mari Gilbert continued. He described the events that happened in the early morning hours and said that he gave medication for Shannan to calm her nerves (It's unclear why type of medicine, but it's presumed to be a benzodiazepine). Furthermore, he spoke of that he was running a halfway house for women in need.

 

Finally, Mari asked Dr. Peter Hackett how he obtained her phone number. In answer, he told Mari it was policy to have anyone's contact information if a person entered his home to obtain a prescription.

 

Mari Gilbert relayed this information with detectives and once news coverage began, Dr. Peter Hackett was questioned by reporters, to which he rejected all reports of having any phone conversation on live television. Shortly after, call records were released publically which verified his deception.

 

After recanting his earlier statements, Dr. Peter Hackett did confess his guilt but remained adamant on never mentioning anything relating to halfway homes or treating Shannan Gilbert with an unknown element of the drug(s).

 

Months later in December of 2010, six months after Shannan Gilbert's missing, a police officer conducting a regular training exercise with his cadaver dog stumbled upon the bony remains of a woman wrapped in a burlap sack. Two days later the bodies of three more women were found in the same area, none of which were Shannan.

 

VICTIMS

Megan Waterman was the first woman to be recognized properly by name. She was a twenty-two-year-old mother from South Portland, Maine, and was living in a hotel located in Hauppauge, New York when she vanished on June 6, 2010, after meeting a client that accepted her escorting ad on Craigslist. When she left to meet up with the unknown male she left her phone and wallet behind.

 

Maureen Brainard-Barnes was a twenty-five-year-old single mother from Norwich, Connecticut touring New York. Her disappearance happened in July of 2007 -- also using the internet for prostitution.

 

Amber Lynn Costello lived in North Babylon, New York -- ten minutes from Gilgo Beach. She was twenty-seven and disappeared on September 2, 2010, after meeting up with a client who called her several times offering $1,500 for her firm.

 

Melissa Barthelemy was a twenty-four-year-old online escort from Erie County, New York. She went disappeared on July 12, 2009, and when her family members reported her missing, authorities refused to inaugurate a search until many days later when Melissa's younger sister, Amanda started receiving close to a dozen phone calls from Melissa's cell phone.

 

Unfortunately, the caller was not her older sister, but a man that harmed Amanda by saying things such as, Do you know what your sister is? She's a whore. His final message to Amanda was, I murdered her. I know where you live and I can kill you too. During the several phone calls, the police made a handful of tries to trace the caller's location which led them to Manhattan, but due to the populated area, it was nearly impossible to well pinpoint the caller.

 

Even more, the inquiry was the caller's awareness of police tactics. He kept his phone calls under three minutes and his knowledge of concealing his identity in a location that is a daily trafficked day to night was unparalleled. This made the police assume the caller was an active or retired member of law enforcement, yet others theorize that information was easily collected by television shows such as CSI or NCIS.

 

His way of speech indicated he is a white male between the ages of 20-40. He talked with a special elegance that considered him rather intelligent, along with calm behavior and using the proper usage of wording. After that happening, he never made contact with Amanda again and his personality is still a mystery.

The Suffolk County Police Commissioner at the time, Richard Dormer, said ABC News that he thinks a serial killer is on the prowl for women.

 

The following year in March and April, the police arranged another search for Shannan Gilbert which was extended to Nassau County. To their horror, six more sets of remains were found, but this discovery caused even more difficulty.

 

Unlike the first four victims, these remains were partial, suggesting dismemberment. In an interesting outcome, one specific set of remains discovered was linked to a pair of severed legs bundled in plastic that washed up on the shore of Fire Island in 1996. Her name has yet to be determined.

 

Also, one victim turned out to be an Asian male that wore women's clothing. Law enforcement went through their database of missing Asian males from Long Island, but none were an explicit match. The consensus is that the male was mistaken for a woman who also traded their body for sex.

 

 

Jessica Taylor was last seen in Manhattan near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in July of 2003. Three weeks after her missing, a woman walking her dog came across a torso and a set of legs, but missing from the scene were a skull, hands, and tattoo maimed from the hip. Her skull, hands, and other partial remains were amid the multitude of other victims and DNA testing verified them to belong to Jessica.

Roughly 200 yards away from the newly found remains of Jessica Taylor was a female child between the age of 18-24 months covered in a blanket. Without a name, she was pertained to as Baby Doe. She was later linked to being the daughter of a nameless woman dubbed "Peaches" because of a tattoo consisting of a heart with a peach in the middle on a torso found in 1997 at Hempstead Lake State Park.

 

Two assumptions arose with this uncovering: Either two killers were disposing of their victims coincidentally in the same area, or a serial killer responsible and have been active for at least twenty years. In six months, ten corpses had been found, but it wouldn't be until December of 2011 when the remains of Shannan Gilbert was finally found -- practically in Dr. Peter Hackett's backyard.

 

The Suffolk County medical examiner took four days to perform a postmortem, but Richard Dormer preemptively declared Shannan's death as an unexpected drowning due to the location of her body without having the results, which rightfully irritated her surviving family members. Soon after, an official ruling could not be concluded, thus assuming Shannan's death as inconclusive.

 

The Gilbert family wholeheartedly thought Shannan was a victim of foul play. They hired an attorney, John Ray, who proceeded to hire an unrelated coroner to get a second opinion. This postmortem had signs suggesting Shannan's death was consistent with homicidal strangulation because of a fractured hyoid bone from her neck, which is common to those killed in that fashion.

 

With the inconsistencies and misinformation regarding Shannan's death by local governments, the Gilbert family forthrightly accused Dr. Peter Hackett of being responsible for Shannan's death and alleged killing.

 

These claims backed up Tom Canning's testimony on seeing Shannan make contact with Hackett, as well as the phone calls made to Mari Gilbert from Hackett two days after Shannan's missing stating he administered medication to calm her nerves -- to which he publicly refused, but recanted after the phone logs verified his misconceptions.

 

In 2012, Mari Gilbert and her attorney, John Ray, filed an unlawful death lawsuit against Dr. Peter Hackett, he wasn't charged with any wrongdoings. Afterward, he moved to Florida and is not supposed a suspect in Shannan's death or the other ten bodies found very close to where he once lived.

 

The horrible case of the Long Island Serial Killer doesn't end there, however. In 2015, Leanne, an escort from Long Island working alongside the Gilbert family attorney -- John Ray -- came forward to tell an interesting story.

 

One year after Shannan Gilbert disappeared, Leanne encountered James Burke at a house party in Oak Beach, months before he was promoted to Suffolk County's Chief of Police. He partook in the cocaine and alcohol that was freely passed around. Furthermore, he became physical and muffled her ferociously, forcing her to give oral sex all the while calling her a "no good whore." She even swore that more than one member of law enforcement within Suffolk County was a client of hers and was willing to take a polygraph test to verify her claims.

 

In November 2015, James Burke resigned from being Suffolk County's police chief after being served a 46-month federal prison sentence for hardly beating Christopher Loeb when he stole a duffel bag full of sex toys and pornography out of his SUV, who then compelled other members of law enforcement in his jurisdiction and many encircling counties to cover up his indecencies; a series of events that happened for three years.

 

Even more fascinating was the discovery that James Burke denied the FBI's assistance when they were brought in to take over the Long Island Serial Killer case. Although Burke's intentions aren't totally clear on why the sheer fact of his decision led many to suppose a possible tie-in personally to the LISK case that he needed to remain secret. Nevertheless, there has not been any direct proof connecting him to being the serial killer.

 

In July of 2016, Shannan Gilbert's mother, Mari, was brutally killed by her youngest daughter, Sarra, who continually stabbed her mother with a large knife. Sarra, who suffers from schizophrenia, told the police voices in her head are what prompted her violent attack. She still resides in jail until further notice.

 

As for the inquiry concerning the Long Island Serial Killer, it's still a case that's being actively worked on daily. Unfortunately, not a lot of data has been made evident to help push the case forward with momentum.

 

When people hear the name "Shannan Gilbert," it's typically similar to the LISK. Was she an escort? Yes, but she was much more than that, and so were the other victims that were killed by one or more killers. While Shannan's death was awful, she is also the catalyst to shed light on events that have changed Long Island forever.

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