Long Island Beach Remains Identified as Shannan Gilbert
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STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images(OAK BEACH, N.Y.) — Skeletal remains found in an impassable tangle of swamp and thick brush on a Long Island, N.Y., barrier beach have been identified as Shannan Gilbert, the woman whose disappearance led to the discovery of what police say is a serial killer’s burial ground.
The Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the remains Saturday, and though the cause of death is still undetermined, police have said they believed it was accidental.
The body was found last week about a quarter of a mile from where the 24-year-old Gilbert’s purse, identification and shoes were located last week, near Oak Beach.
“[The homicide squad] were on an amphibious machine edging forward into thick brush when the homicide squad detective spotted the skeletal remains lying on the surface of the ground,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said after the remains were found.
Oak Beach is on a barrier island along the South Shore of Long Island, separating the Atlantic Ocean from South Oyster Bay. In the summer the ocean beaches are crowded, but in winter the beaches are largely deserted.
Dormer called the area where the body was found a “very tough, desolate, tangled mess.”
He said that Gilbert could have likely been able to see the lights on a nearby parkway and attempted to go in that direction, but that she did not get very far in the marshy, tough ramble.
“If it is Shannan Gilbert, then her location is indicative of her trying to make it to the causeway, which is northeast of where her remains were found,” Dormer said.
“There’s no way Shannan Gilbert could have gotten through that brush to make it to the parkway,” Dormer said. “If somebody is disoriented and anxious and running, it certainly would take a toll on you.”
Gilbert, 24, was last seen in May 2010 apparently running from someone near today’s search area. On the night of her disappearance, witnesses told police Gilbert did not appear to be acting rationally.
“It appeared at first when they searched that there’s no way anyone could get in there,” Dormer said. “We went in with the idea that we were going to do this one last time to see if we can find anything and we did.”
The search for Gilbert led to the discovery of 10 sets of dismembered bodies that are believed to have been the victims of a serial killer, but Gilbert’s death is not believed to be linked to the other 10 deaths.
Detectives believe a single killer is responsible for the dismembered bodies of young women, a male transvestite and a toddler found dumped along a pristine stretch of Long Island’s south shore from 1996 to 2010.
Police believe that all 10 of the victims were linked to the sex trade, with DNA indicating that the toddler was the likely daughter of one of the victims.
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