NEW REVELATIONS
Cause of former Ellenville woman’s death now ‘inconclusive’ rather than accidental
The nearly decade-long investigation into the discovery on Long Island of 11 sets of human remains, including those of former Ellenville resident Shannan Gilbert, took new twists Thursday when police revealed a previously unreleased photograph of evidence and, for the first time, said the cause of Gilbert’s death was Geraldine Hart declined to say exactly where the belt was found or to which one of the victims it was linked. She said investigators determined the belt was not owned by any of the victims, but “we do believe that this item was handled by the suspect.”
The disappearance of Ellen
ville High School graduate Gilbert in May 2010 triggered the hunt that led to the other 10 bodies being found, and to the belief that at least some of the deaths were the work of a serial killer. The dead included eight women who worked as prostitutes, and though Gilbert, whose body wasn’t found until late 2011, also was a sex worker, authorities long maintained her death wasn’t tied to the others. Gilbert’s family disagrees.
Detectives said for years that Gilbert’s death was accidental, but Hart was less committal when asked about it Thursday.
Investigators said soon after her remains were found that she drowned in a drug-induced haze after wandering into a wetland. But Hart — a former FBI agent who became police commissioner in 2018 — said Thursday that Gilbert’s cause of death was “inconclusive” and, according to Long Island newspaper Newsday, that investigators are “not necessarily certain” about whether she was killed.
Later Thursday, Gilbert family attorney John Ray reiterated his demand for access to a recorded 911 call that Gilbert, a Jersey City resident at the time, made the night she disappeared. Suffolk County police say doing so could harm their investigation, and they have appealed a judge’s order to turn over the recording.
The killings have vexed a slew of seasoned homicide detectives through several changes in leadership in the Suffolk County Police Department.
“The amount of work that’s gone into this case is perhaps unprecedented,” said county District Attorney Timothy Sini, who formerly served as police commissioner.
The investigation got a boost in September 2019, when state officials determined investigators could ask the FBI to deploy genetic genealogy, a technique in which genetic profiles are run though databases to find potential relatives of a homicide victim or suspect. Hart said Thursday that it wasn’t known how long that process might take.
Gilbert, 24, vanished after leaving a client’s house on foot in the seafront community of Oak Beach, Long Island, disappearing into the marsh.
Months later, a police officer and his cadaver dog were looking for her body in the thicket along nearby Ocean Parkway when they happened upon the remains of a different woman. Within days, three other bodies were found, all within a short walk of one another.
By spring 2011, that number had climbed to 10 sets of human remains — those of eight women, one man and one toddler. Some remains later were linked to dismembered body parts found elsewhere on Long Island, making for a puzzling crime scene that stretched from a park near the New York City line to a resort community on Fire Island and out to far eastern Long Island.
Gilbert’s remains were found in December 2011, about 3 miles east of where the other 10 sets were discovered.
In July 2016, Gilbert’s sister, Sarra, fatally stabbed their mother, Mari, in Ellenville. Sarra Gilbert was convicted of murder in April 2017 and was sentenced in August 2017 to 25 years to life in state prison.