Netflix movie tells story of mom’s search for daughter
When former Ellenville resident Shannan Gilbert went missing on May 1, 2010, authorities on Long Island — where the 24-year-old was last seen — shrugged off her disappearance, characterizing her as a runaway.
But Gilbert’s mother, Mari, was unconvinced her daughter had simply vanished without a trace and launched a years-long crusade, first to force police to search for her daughter, then to have police declare her daughter’s death a homicide.
The story of Mari Gilbert’s unrelenting effort is told in the movie “Lost Girls,” based on a book of the same name about serial killings on Long Island, written by investigative reporter Robert Kolker. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, was released on Netflix on March 13.
The one-hour, 35-minute movie offers a fairly accurate depiction of Mari’s drive to find her daughter, a sex-worker who disappeared after visiting a client in the Oak Beach area of Long Island.
But the movie also offers viewers glimpses into the Gilbert family dynamic, providing viewers with a hint of Mari Gilbert’s predilection for the occult by depicting the mother of four at times wearing a pentagram on a chain around her neck and also of the struggles of daughter Sarra Gilbert, who on July 23, 2016, stabbed her mother to death.
In one of the earliest scenes in the movie, Mari Gilbert, played by Amy Ryan, is shown chastising Sarra for getting suspended from school, telling the girl that she has to take her medicine.
When Sarra Gilbert, played by Oona Laurence, protests that the medication makes her “sleepy,” her mother responds: “It also keeps you from lighting paper towels on fire in the girls’ bathroom.”
There are other subtle inferences to Sarra’s mental state throughout the movie. She often is depicted as sullen and quiet, while her younger sister Sherre is portrayed as outgoing and engaged. She is shown rocking in a chair or tapping restlessly while meeting with police officers.
In one scene, Mari is shown giving Sarra a pill from a prescription bottle. When Sherre, played by Thomasin McKenzie, asks what the pill is, Mari tells her it’s a mood stabilizer.
In fact, Sarra Gilbert had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had been hospitalized numerous times before Shannan’s disappearance.
On July 23, 2016, Sarra Gilbert asked her mother to visit her. When Mari arrived at Sarra’s Ellenville home, Sarra stabbed her mother with a 15-inch kitchen knife 227 times, beat her with a fire extinguisher, sprayed her with the foam from the extinguisher, stripped her and removed her jewelry. Sarra was convicted of second
degree murder following a trial in Ulster County Court and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
At her sentencing, defense attorney, John Ray, hired by Mari to assist the family in their hunt for Shannan, said Sarra’s actions were the result of years of abuse and mental illness.
“We know she was raised in one of the worst families this county has ever had in its bosom,” Ray said following Sarra’s murder conviction, recalling testimony that Sarra was sexually abused by one of her mother’s boyfriends, that her older sister was a prostitute with her mother’s blessing, and that her mother practiced “black magic,” which ultimately led Sarra to believe her mother was a demon.
But he also warned that without help, she would kill again. “I think Sarra will kill someone in prison. It is almost certain,” Ray said following the sentencing.
Ulster County Senior Assistant District Attorney Emannuel Nneji, though, said Sarra plotted and planned the murder and feigned mental illness to hide her drug use.
Sarra Gilbert is currently in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County.