All language subtitles for People Magazine Investigates.S01E01 [10Bit] [1080p.WEB-DL.H265-FT] [ENG-Lektor PL] [Alusia]_untitled_track3_[eng]

REPORTER: A gruesome find
by Gilgo Beach...

REPORTER: Tonight police say
they discovered three more bodies.

We could have a serial killer.

It is a nightmare.

There's a killer murdering women
left and right.

She's running
through the neighbourhood

screaming "Help, please help."
and vanishes.

Something was extremely suspicious.

Immediately I thought,
this is scary.

What happened to her?

They found remains.

This is the Long Island
Serial Killer.

And Shannan Gilbert's still missing.

Was there more to this story
that we didn't know?

It's a scary situation,
it's terrible

that we would even have to discuss
this type of thing but this is life.

This guy is an organised killer
so he covers his tracks very well.

But he's made a mistake some place.

And the investigators

got to find that mistake.

My daughter Shannan was loved

more than I think she realised
or understood she could be loved.

Shannan was a good big sister.

When she was younger

she would help her little sister
Stevie with homework.

She was very, very, very smart.

Shannan Gilbert was a talented,

gifted, smart student.

She graduated from high school
a year early

and was really full of promise.

She was cheerful and happy
and very ambitious.

And she had dreams
of becoming a singer.

ROBERT: Ellenville's this small town
where Shannan came from.

It's midway between New York City
and Albany

and for someone like Shannan
it really was the middle of nowhere.

And Shannan wanted to be
on the stage in New York City.

So in 2007 Shannan moved down
to Jersey City, New Jersey

which is right across the river
from Manhattan.

She would work at night and during
the day be able to go on auditions.

And when the auditions petered out,
Shannan studied.

She enrolled in college
and was, you know, taking courses.

My sister, she obviously
wanted to better herself.

But Shannan

was really struggling with trying
to kinda stay afloat.

CHRISTINE: Shannan, you know, she
never wanted to just be a waitress

and make, like, $5 an hour,
$7 an hour

and she was completely broke
and so she

got involved in the escort business
to start making money.

ALICIA: She could make between
$500 to $1,000 a night

and it and it made her feel like

she was able to take care
of herself and her family.

NARRATOR: The money gives Shannan the
freedom and independence she craves.

But it also comes with a high price.

When we first learned
that Shannan was escorting

I was super embarrassed, like,
I didn't even wanna talk to her.

I'm, like, thinking to myself
"Like you're so smart,

"you graduated when
you were 16 years old.

"You know, you could've had
a decent job and you're doing this."

She vehemently assured me

that she was OK, she would be safe.

It was only temporary
until she finished her education.

And regretfully I... (SIGHS)

didn't push it

because I didn't want to have her...

you know, move away from me.

ROBERT: The stereotype, I think
a lot of people mistakenly have

about a life of escorting

is that the people involved are
outcasts from their own families,

that they have no-one, that they've
been living on the streets.

And I guess for some people
that's true.

But Shannan was able to
maintain ties with her family.

She would go back to Ellenville.

Shannan would be there
with her sisters and with her mother

on special occasions.

SHERRE: She came over,
she had gifts,

she had gifts for the boys,
my nephew and my son.

She was really happy.

Throw a kissy.

Oh, you wanna get away from me now?

CHRISTINE:
Shannan actually went home a lot.

She wanted to prove to everybody
around her

that she could take care of herself,
and that's what she did.

NARRATOR: Shannan is in a shady,
even dangerous business

but she's not in it alone.

Shannan was with an escort service.
One of the drivers was Alex Diaz.

The two of them really hit it off.

And they fell in love.

They ended up dating

and moved in together
and became very serious.

ROBERT: They were making lots
of money, both living well.

And for a short period
they were happy.

Until the escort business
was busted by the cops.

(POLICE RADIO IN BACKGROUND)

SHERRE: Shannan and Alex
wanted the finer things in life.

And when they didn't really
have that,

Shannan and Alex
had a really rough relationship.

ALICIA: As times became difficult
for the couple, they began to fight,

their relationship
turned very volatile.

According to arrest records,

Alex hit Shannan so hard
that it shattered her jaw.

CHRISTINE: She ended up having
to have surgery

and a titanium plate
was actually put into her jaw.

SHERRE: It's scary, you know,
you just,

you kinda fear for her life
at that point.

I was trying to tell her, like

"You have to get away from him,
he's not a good guy."

But even after all that happened
she still stayed with him.

It just kinda shocked us.

Shannan just loved him so much

but at the same time
I knew it wasn't right.

ALICIA: After the escort service
closed down

Shannan was struggling
to make ends meet

and so she decided to advertise
on Craigslist.

ROBERT: It made good economic sense,
you were eliminating the middle man,

you could take home more money
for the same amount of work.

But you need a driver
in those situations

because if you're out there alone
you're not safe.

Sometimes her boyfriend Alex Diaz
was the driver

but sometimes he wasn't

and she ended up
using a driver named Michael Pak.

ALICIA: Michael Pak was an older
gentleman who she felt safe around.

CHRISTINE: Pak was there to, like,

drive her to every location
and wait for her.

The john would always know that
she was brought there by somebody

'cause girls get ripped off
all the time on Craigslist

and they get beat up.

ROBERT: May 1, 2010

was a working night
like any other for Shannan.

She had been doing calls
in New York City.

Her driver was Michael Pak.

And then she got a call to go out
to a place she'd never been before

which was Oak Beach, Long Island.

ALICIA: Oak Beach, which is, like,
an hour outside the city.

There's about 40 or 50 houses
that are out there.

It's really desolate.

Oak Beach is a community generated

in the heyday of the '70s
and the early '80s.

Drugs, cocaine, alcohol,

party, party, party, party.

It is a party town.

It's a private community,
nobody bothers you,

the police do not patrol it
and you can do whatever you want.

ROBERT: Shannan got out there at
midnight this small beach community.

There's a gatehouse
and they call the john

to get the code for the gate.

The john comes out to greet them.

He's a friendly guy,
his name's Joe Brewer.

He's a little off kilter
but very sociable guy.

They go to the house.

ALICIA: And so Michael drops her off
and then waits in the car

as per their usual agreement.

NARRATOR: Shannan usually spent
an hour with each client.

But with the long drive to Oak Beach,
she was guaranteed five hours.

Michael Pak waited outside

until finally at one point
he fell asleep.

Somewhere around
4:30, 5:00 in the morning,

the sun hasn't quite risen,

there's a tapping on his car window
and he rolls down the window

and it's the john,
it's Joe Brewer.

And he's annoyed.

Joseph Brewer asks Michael's help
because Shannan won't leave

and at this point, Joseph just wants
this situation to be over.

ROBERT: He and Brewer walk inside

and there in the living room
Shannan is hiding behind a couch.

She is panicking,
she is very frightened.

Something has clearly gone wrong
inside the house

with Shannan and Joseph Brewer.

ROBERT: As he tries to engage
Shannan in conversation

Michael Pak comes to understand that
there's something else going on here

which is that Shannan
is on the phone.

She's on the phone with the police
and she says

"They're trying to kill me."

Not, "He's trying to kill me."
or, "I'm about to be killed."

But, "They're trying to kill me."

NARRATOR: In the private community
of Oak Beach, Long Island

something has gone wrong.

Shannan Gilbert is panicking.

Are the only two people
she knows there,

Michael Pak and Joe Brewer,
out to get her?

Shannan is talking to 911

and one of the things she says
to the 911 caller is

"They're trying to kill me."

ROBERT: It's unclear
what she means by this.

Was someone else in the house?

Joe Brewer or was Michael Pak doing
something menacing to Shannan?

Is she having a breakdown?
Are drugs involved?

But in a very short amount of time

Joe Brewer is suddenly walking over
to Shannan and trying to grab her

to get her out of the house.

She shrieks and she starts running.

Shannan runs out
of Joseph Brewer's house.

She's frantic.

At this point
Michael Pak is annoyed.

He's got Shannan behaving
erratically, talking to the police,

putting them both in danger.

He expects her to go to the car
but she doesn't.

She passes him
and runs down the road.

And this annoys Michael Pak
even more.

The driver's supposed to be
your security man,

if you're in trouble, the first
thing is go back to your driver.

With Shannan, it seemed
the last thing she'd ever do

is go back with the driver.

ALICIA: Shannan is in a panic,

she's running
through the neighbourhood

and is knocking on doors
begging to be let in.

She runs towards this guy named

Gus Coletti's house
and Gus Coletti is this older guy

that's been living in the community
for a long time.

It was about five in the morning
and Gus Coletti's up.

He opens the door, she comes in,
she's like, "Help me! Help me!"

Gus Coletti's like,
"What's going on?"

And she stood there for a minute
and then she bolted.

Coletti says when she observed
the headlights of Pak's car

coming down the road
adjoining his house,

that's when she ran.

Coletti, who I interviewed, said
that he sees this SUV, he sees Pak.

And he told Pak
that he had called 911.

Pak said to Coletti
"You shouldn't have done that,

"you're going to get
her in trouble."

As Michael and Gus are arguing,
Shannan disappears into the night.

Alex, Shannan's boyfriend
wakes up the next morning

and realises she's not there.

He calls Michael Pak, her driver

and Michael is shocked to find out
that Shannan isn't home.

He relays to Alex
the craziness of the night before

and how erratic Shannan's behaviour
had been

and exactly what had occurred.

ROBERT: According to Michael Pak
he had tried searching for Shannan

but at some point
he gives up and leaves.

He says
it was because it was sunrise,

thinking "Well, maybe
she'll find her own way home."

This is astonishing to me because
they both are hours from any place

that they have ever been before

and this is when Alex
starts to really worry.

He calls the police.

The police aren't helpful at all,

they say "She's an escort,
she's over 21.

"We are not gonna take this case
seriously.

"Besides, you need to report her
missing in her home town

"which is Jersey City."

I got a call from Alex

and he said
"Have you heard from Shannan?

"I haven't heard from her
since May 1."

Immediately
I thought... something was wrong.

Right after that phone call,
her driver Michael calls me.

And it's just a really weird
conversation with Michael.

He said he just wants to make sure
Shannan is safe and that she's OK

and I'm like "Well, you dropped her
off there at Oak Beach that night,

you should've stayed to pick her up,

make sure she was safe and bring
her home, so it was your fault."

He said "I have an alibi.
So I didn't do anything wrong."

I'm, like "Michael,
if you have nothing to prove

why are you telling me
you have an alibi?"

After the phone call from Michael,
I immediately call the police.

RICHARD DORMER: Shannan Gilbert
went missing May 1 2010.

Eventually it's picked up

by the Suffolk County Detectives'
Missing Persons Bureau.

And this initiates an investigation
into Shannan's disappearance.

She's gotta be out there some place.

NARRATOR: Police start their search
for Shannan

with the 911 call she made
the night she vanished.

That's when they discover
that call lasted 23 minutes.

During that call, Shannan told 911
she is on Long Island,

probably near Jones Beach.

Which in a way it is
but it's not Jones Beach.

911 turns the call over
to the New York State Police

because the State Police
deal with Jones Beach.

Jones Beach,
which is many miles further west

of Oak Beach.

And so the State Police operator
now has a conversation with Shannan

about where she is,

trying to determine the location
so they could send assistance.

At some point the phone went dead

and contact with her ended.

NARRATOR: But Shannan wasn't the only
person who called police that night.

Dispatchers took two more calls
about a woman frantic and screaming.

That officer that responded

didn't know anything
about Joe Brewer,

the driver, Pak or Shannan Gilbert.

And so the police officer
who responded

isn't sure
what to make of the situation.

There's nobody claiming
a crime has been committed.

All that he'd heard
was that a woman was screaming

and now the woman is gone.

And so that never gets connected

to Shannan Gilbert's
23-minute 911 call.

And because of this confusion

nobody went immediately
looking for Shannan.

NARRATOR: As police struggle
to gather information

regarding Shannan's disappearance,

her mother
receives an unexpected call

that may break the case wide open.

I received a phone call from a man
who identified himself

as Dr Peter Hackett.

He asked me if I...

know where Shannan is,
if she was home?

And I said "No, she's not here."

He allegedly told her that he ran
this home for wayward girls

and that he saw Shannan that night
and he was taking care of her

and that he gave her some drugs
to calm her down.

He continued to say
that he's worried about her.

Right away I knew
something was extremely suspicious.

NARRATOR: On May 1, 2010,

Shannan Gilbert disappears
from the small community

of Oak Beach, Long Island.

Two days later,

her mother gets a disturbing call

from one of its residents.

Mari Gilbert

has never known
Peter Hackett before.

He tells Mari Gilbert

on the phone,

"Hi, I'm Dr Peter Hackett,

"I run a home for wayward girls.

"Your daughter has come to me.

"I've treated her with medication."

He wanted to make sure she was OK
because when he had last seen her

she wasn't doing well.

When Mari asked her,
"How did you get my number?"

Hackett tells her,

"Shannan gave it to me."

MARI: Shannan would never give my
phone number to anyone.

She would never go to or need

a facility.

Her time away, her respite,

was coming home

which she did frequently.

Right away, I knew something was
extremely suspicious.

NARRATOR: Suspicious enough for
the Gilbert family to take action.

On Mother's Day, 2010 they drive
to Oak Beach looking for answers.

So we get down to the community,

we notice Peter Hackett's house.

We see him having a party
on his deck so we go there.

So we're, like "Oh, hi,
you know, we're here because

"you had called the day after
we found out Shannan was missing

"and we just wanna know if you
know more about her disappearance."

He denies
that he ever made the calls.

He said, you know,
"I would never do that,

"I don't run a home
for wayward girls.

"I would never have said that.

"I would never have made
those calls."

And we're like,
"You did call, you know,

we wouldn't just make it up."

So he just was kind of, like,
dumbfounded that we were even there,

that we were even questioning him
about my sister's disappearance.

When Peter Hackett denied
he ever spoke to me or called me

my first initial reaction
was... disbelief.

How someone could be
such an outright liar.

ALICIA: Mari tells police
about the call she received

from Peter Hackett

and when police follow that up
and contact Hackett

he denies ever having made the call.

REPORTER: Did you ever have any teen
centre or anything like that?

Nothing.

What do you think
about this phone call?

It's painful. It's hurtful.

ROBERT: The Suffolk County Police
knew Peter Hackett

as an emergency medicine doctor
who's been living

in Oak Beach for something like
20 years before Shannan disappears.

It's a small community
and everybody knows him.

NARRATOR: In fact, Peter Hackett

lives less than a half mile
from Joe Brewer.

ROBERT: He's not just a doctor,

he's sort of 'the' doctor
of the neighbourhood.

This is a neighbourhood
where everything is far away,

even a grocery store.

So if somebody cuts their finger,

Peter Hackett's the one
who comes to the rescue.

He considers himself
sort of the local big shot.

ALICIA: The police look into
Peter Hackett

and he's dismissed as a suspect.

MARI: It seemed that no-one at that
time was listening to me

and recognising what I had said

and what really had happened.

ALICIA: As the days go by

Shannan's family is increasingly
desperate to find her

and her mother, Mari, is distraught.

She continues to pressure police.

She calls,
she puts flyers up around town,

she asks as many people as she can.

And the search continues
for Shannan.

NARRATOR: It's been seven months
since Shannan's disappearance.

But on a cold December morning

something happens
that turns this missing persons case

into one of the most baffling
mysteries in New York history.

When you train
with a cadaver sniffing dog

you train on open cases.

So Shannan Gilbert
was a perfect training exercise.

The cadaver dog with the handler
does a search around at Oak Beach.

There's thick brush,

it's not a very friendly
environment.

I remember

getting the call at home
from the Chief of Detectives

and he said
"I think we've found Shannan."

I got a phone call

and I was told that a body was found

and that it could possibly be
my daughter Shannan's.

We're all hysterical.
You know, we're in shock.

But then at the same time
a part of us is relieved.

OK, she's found.

CHRISTINE: They knew that Shannan
had that titanium plate in her jaw

from the time
that her boyfriend Alex broke it.

So if she was the victim, they knew
that they'd be able to identify her.

Well, it turns out when they tested
the body, the remains,

it didn't have
the metal plate in her jaw.

It's not Shannan. It's someone else.

I got the news that it was not
my daughter that they had found.

And it just confused me.

ROBERT: It's horrifying.

Suddenly you find a woman
like Shannan but it isn't her.

And then within a day
the dog finds more.

They find the bodies of four women
over three days.

All of them
are women in their twenties,

all of them are presumed
to be prostitutes like Shannan.

None of them are Shannan Gilbert.

The crime scene becomes the scene
of a potential serial killing.

I don't think it's a coincidence

that four bodies ended up
in this area.

And that's when
Commissioner Richard Dormer

appears before the TV cameras.

REPORTER: It seems
you have a serial killer

dumping bodies along this stretch.

Well, you know, I'm not going
to say that but certainly

we're looking at that,
we're looking at that

that we could have a serial killer.

And that's when the media
goes crazy.

NEWSREADER:
A gruesome find by Gilgo Beach,

skeletal remains discovered
right off of Ocean Parkway.

NEWSREADER: Tonight police say
they discovered three more bodies.

NEWSREADER: They may have found
what appears to be another body

near Gilgo Beach.

NEWSREADER: The body count along
Ocean Parkway continues to climb.

ROBERT: These four bodies
that were found,

they were obviously related
to one another

and not just because all the victims
were women in their twenties

who were prostitutes.

It's also because they all
were fully intact skeletons

and they all were shrouded in burlap

which leads most people to believe
that they were in burlap bags.

ALICIA: Along with being wrapped
in burlap bags

all four of these young women

have been killed by strangulation.

CHRISTINE: When the police found
these women

the bodies were about 500 feet apart
from each other,

almost side by side.

ROBERT: You can almost imagine the
killer in the middle of the night

driving along the highway slowly
and pulling over

and throwing one body
into the bramble.

And then driving on and away
before anyone notices.

Initially, jaded people
and the media said

that you might never figure out
who these women are.

Maybe they'd be undocumented
immigrants who were off the grid.

And again this case defied
expectations because

the four women who were discovered
all had lives,

they all had people who loved them,

who had been looking for them
for years

but the police
had neglected their cases.

The first to disappear in 2007
was Maureen Brainard-Barnes,

she lived in Connecticut.

She was a mother,
she had a boyfriend and a sister

and a brother and a mother.

She was having a lot of problems.

She had a daughter, she was about
to get evicted from her apartment.

She was struggling and she'd go
to New York on the weekends

and work the weekend
and make a lot of money.

Go back home, be with her kid
and then come back on the weekends.

The second to disappear
two years later in 2009

was Melissa Barthelemy.

Melissa had a family in Buffalo
who she was in steady touch with

and a little sister who would come
to visit her in New York City.

She wanted to be a cosmetologist

and she was basically trying
to make up enough money

so she could go actually move back
to Buffalo

and open up her own store.

ROBERT:
And then Megan Waterman disappeared.

And Megan came from
Scarborough, Maine, near Portland.

And she had a boyfriend

and the two of them worked together.

He was sort of her agent
and she would come in for weekends

to make money much the same way
that Maureen Brainard-Barnes did.

And then finally, the fourth
to disappear in September of 2010

was Amber Costello.

Amber had a very close relationship
with her older sister Kim.

The two of them
had both worked as escorts

but they weren't going to
do it forever.

Amber was from North Carolina
and she was a real sad story.

She had been married
and just got involved in drugs

and she ended up becoming, like,
really addicted to heroin.

And actually her sister's friend
brought her to New York

and she went into rehab

and she actually cleaned herself up
for a while

but then got involved in drugs again
and the escort business

just so she could get high.

NEWSREADER: Maureen Brainard-Barnes,
Megan Waterman,

Amber Costello
and Melissa Barthelemy

went missing
over the past four years

and all of them were working as
escorts off the website, Craigslist.

This generates a huge outcry of fear

that there's a killer that's
murdering women left and right.

NEWSREADER: Shannan Gilbert was here
in Oak Beach alive.

What happened to Shannan Gilbert
on the streets of Oak Beach?

If it takes the rest of my lifetime

till the day I die,
I'm gonna find out.

ROBERT: The media is all over
the community

and it is a complete nightmare
for the residents of Oak Beach.

Did you see Shannan Gilbert
on that night?

How could we? She was missing.
She was missing.

Prostitutes, murderers,
everybody's sick of hearing it,

everybody is just tired
of hearing about the stories

over and over again.

That seems to be the prevailing
opinion of most neighbours

in Oak Beach.

Everybody go home, leave us alone.

Nobody even expresses any sympathy
for Shannan Gilbert

or for her family.

NARRATOR: Four dead young women,
all murdered.

But what happened to Shannan Gilbert
is still a mystery

and with winter setting in

the search will have to wait
until spring.

We decided to postpone
an extensive search

till the start of spring, April.

And we went out there with
detectives,

park police, State police,

fire department personnel
with their ladders

that could look over the brush
along the side of the highway.

We find four more remains.

Now it's eight.

NARRATOR: Authorities wait four
months for winter to end

before resuming their search.

When they do, they're shocked
to discover four more bodies

bringing the total to eight.

Now we're chasing a serial killer
and Shannan Gilbert's still missing.

All eyes are on
the Suffolk County Police Force.

They wanna know
where Shannan Gilbert is

and how long it'll take
to find her.

We've redoubled our efforts
to try and find Shannan

and there's about 400 acres
of swampland.

It's a vast area.

And so, I remember sitting down
with the task force.

We told Nassau County
and the State Police,

two jurisdictions that work
next to Suffolk County Police,

to do a search in the area
that we didn't get to.

And they find even more bodies.

I couldn't believe it.
They had found two more remains.

Now we had 10.

One of them was an Asian male
wearing women's clothes.

The other was a toddler.

Now this was really a twist
in the investigation.

I remember saying
to the Chief of Detectives

"What do we have,
a dumping ground?"

I mean, this is unbelievable.

He says "I don't know what the heck
we have but it's big, it's huge."

It was such a scary thought to know
that all of these bodies are found.

You have a serial killer
right in your backyard.

Could my sister
really be a part of that?

RICHARD: Most of the victims
were in the sex business.

Shannan was in the sex business.

We wanted to find out was there more
to this story that we didn't know.

And so we did an exhaustive
investigation of Brewer,

Shannan's last client...

and Pak, Shannan's driver,

the last two people with Shannan
the night she disappeared.

ROBERT: The police
go straight to Joe Brewer's house

and they start to search everything.

RICHARD: They search his house,
the backyard, his vehicle.

They sat down with him,
he was very forthcoming.

Joe Brewer says "My life is ruined
and my heart goes out to this girl

but I had nothing to do with this."

RICHARD: Next, we interviewed
Shannan's driver, Mr Pak.

Mr Pak told us, after Shannan
ran out of Joe Brewer's house

he drove around looking for Shannan.

He indicated that he drove around
on Ocean Parkway

which is the main highway

next to Oak Beach
where Joe Brewer lives.

Couldn't find her
and then drove back to Manhattan.

Even though Mr Pak and Joe Brewer
were very forthright

we still got polygraph tests
on them.

After we had run them
through the vetting process

in our opinion anyway,
in the investigators' opinion

they were not involved.

NARRATOR: With Michael Pak
and Joe Brewer off the hook

detectives turned their attention
towards the other victims

and any connection to Shannan.

One of the things that comes out
after the bodies were found

is that Melissa Barthelemy's
disappearance

a-year-and-a-half earlier

has an amazing set
of circumstances.

CHRISTINE: Eight days after
Melissa disappeared

her younger sister Amanda
got a call.

It's Melissa's number
but it's a man on the phone.

He taunted her and he'd asked

"Are you planning
on becoming a prostitute?"

RICHARD: He called her
a number of times

to talk to that youngster
in very explicit terms.

CHRISTINE: He'd never stay
on the phone for very long,

less than three minutes.

And then he would hang up.

The very last call he told her
that he killed her sister.

Shannan Gilbert's family believes

they've been taunted
by the killer as well.

JOHN: Peter Hackett calls
Mari Gilbert and tells her

"I run a home for wayward girls.
Your daughter has come to me.

I've treated her with medication."

He was involved in a sort of
a tormenting of the mother

in making this weird call.

ROBERT: Of course the doctor
has denied any involvement.

But according to Shannan's family

Hackett knows way more
than he is saying

and he has the capability
of being especially deceptive.

NARRATOR: It takes nearly a year,

but Mari Gilbert's claim
that Dr Hackett called her

two days after her daughter Shannan
went missing

is finally substantiated
through phone records.

When they confront Hackett
with that phone record,

Hackett changes his story and says
"Oh, sorry, I was only kidding.

"I do remember now I made one call
but it was just to comfort Mari."

ALICIA: Peter Hackett
has no reason to call Mari.

They're not acquainted,
they're not friends.

Why is he inserting himself
into this case

if he doesn't have any information
to share

about the whereabouts
of Shannan Gilbert?

Hackett was like a wrench

in the wheel of this investigation.

He wasn't forthright
with the investigators at first.

That caused a delay
in furthering the investigation.

I don't believe
and our investigators didn't believe

that he had anything to do
with Shannan's disappearance

or the serial killer case.

SHERRE: The investigators decided
to do one last search for my sister.

The Suffolk County Police
start searching Oak Beach again.

They say it's because of some data
that they found

from aerial photography.

Bulldozers start showing up
at the marsh

right in the centre of Oak Beach.

We get the special equipment
that can go into this swampy area.

It's a kind of a machine

that moves on the surface
of the mud and muck and water.

ROBERT: They go to the marsh,
further than it would seem

anyone would be able to go in
by themselves

but within a day

they discover a purse,

a shoe, a pair of jeans.

And when you look at that marsh
on a map,

the house that directly
abuts that marsh

belongs to Dr Peter Hackett.

Two days later police find the body
of a young woman

face up and naked.

It's two years from the time

that they first found
those four bodies

and now, in the same area
where Shannan was last seen

they found a body.

SHERRE: The first way to determine
if it was her or not

would be to see if she had
that metal plate in her jaw.

They didn't really have to do any
DNA because they saw the plate.

Without a doubt it's Shannan.

Now the hope is gone.

JOHN: The police drive up
to Ellenville, New York

and pick up Mari Gilbert

and bring her down to the site.

They bring her

to a house which has a deck
26 feet up on top of the house

so that you could look out
over the whole community.

He pointed to where they found
my daughter Shannan's remains.

JOHN: They bring her up on this deck
to show her this

and the deck they bring her
up on is Dr Peter Hackett's deck.

MARI: Can't get anymore ironic
than that.

Shannan's remains were found
to the right of his house.

And her belongings were found
to the left of his house.

It was a sad day.

I knew deep down inside

from that first minute of that
phone call from Dr Hackett

something seriously wrong
had happened.

I do believe in my heart

that... Dr Hackett

did play a major role
in my daughter's death.

It was already proven
that he was a liar once

by denying he called me,
for over a year.

NARRATOR: But police have
a different theory,

one where Dr Peter Hackett's name
is never even mentioned.

It appears that she was heading
towards the Parkway

towards the lighting on the causeway

and so that would lend to our theory

that she was trying
to get out of the area.

Everything pointed to Shannan,

that night,
running out of Brewer's house,

scared, upset and running away

into that marshy area where she

was overcome by the elements.

Of course her family
didn't believe that

and said that she was murdered.

So they hired
a renowned forensic pathologist

who performed an autopsy on her.

Shannan had been found on her back

in a marshy area

but there was no evidence
that there was enough

water present that
she could have drowned.

In my examination
of the skeletal remains

was that all of the bones
were normal

except for the hyoid bone
in the upper throat.

That is the bone
that is most commonly broken

by squeezing on the neck.

Homicide by manual strangulation
cannot be ruled out.

ROBERT: There are two scenarios
you could look at with Shannan.

The first is that she was murdered

and her body was stashed
as deep in the marsh as possible

because they thought that no-one
would possibly ever look there.

And the other scenario
is the police scenario.

Shannan was having
some sort of panic moment

perhaps drug induced.

She ran away from the one guy
she knew there,

her driver Michael Pak
who could offer her safety.

That she ran from another neighbour
who offered to help her...

that she ran into a thick marsh

that doesn't look like anything
you could possibly enter...

the idea that she took off
all of her clothes

and all of her belongings
when she was inside the marsh

and then she is able
to fight her way through the marsh

3/4 of a mile
before finally falling down

and perhaps drowning
in a little few inches of water...

it makes no sense.

NARRATOR: To this day,
Shannan Gilbert's case remains open.

Even if the Suffolk County
Police Department is correct

and she drowned in the marsh,

the Long Island Serial Killer
remains at large.

The only people who seem
to really be fighting for this case

are Shannan Gilbert's family.

They brought a civil suit

that they hope will force residents
of Oak Beach to be deposed

and to talk about what happened
to their daughter and sister.

They wanna know
what happened to Shannan.

It's obvious to me

that Dr Peter Hackett, you know,
is the one who killed my daughter.

When are others going to see
what I can see?

It's, like, even up to now
it seems as if nobody's listening.

My sister when she was younger
always wanted to be famous.

It's weird because... her story

maybe it's not the famous
that Shannan was talking about

but if it wasn't for her

none of these other victims
would've been found

and I think that it was something
that she was destined to do.

(CRIES) There's so many times where
I just wanna talk to my sister,

there's so many times where I just
wanna, like, tell her about my day.

WOMAN IN VIDEO: Throw a kissy!

(CRIES) I have three kids
now. She's only met one.

I would just want her to see,
like, the life that I have now.

I would just talk and be, like,
you know,

"How are you? I miss you."

(CRIES)

I can't even do that.

The coroner said my daughter Shannan
chose to be an escort.

A life is a life and...

you know, don't judge...

any person

or family

because that has

nothing to do

with their life
being taken.

What if it was your daughter,

your mother, your sister?

Murder is murder.

It's senseless,
it's evil.

And it's
painful.

The person who

needs to be judged

is the murderer themselves.

Captions edited by Ai-Media
ai-media.tv