Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Brutally strangled, buried on lonely beach: Was Shannan Gilbert murdered by monster Long Island Serial Killer?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Nancy Grace is coming to Fox Nation. I Want justice.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace available now only on Fox Nation.
- 0:14Speaker 1: Shannon Gilbert dead, But is her murder part of a
- 0:22Speaker 1: much more complex series of murders? Of of course, Young
- 0:29Speaker 1: Women Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What happened to a
- 0:41Speaker 1: twenty four year old young girl? You know my daughter
- 0:46Speaker 1: is about to turn thirteen. This is only eleven years
- 0:50Speaker 1: older than that. First of all, I want you to
- 0:52Speaker 1: take a listen to our friend Michelle Segona at Crime
- 0:55Speaker 1: Watch Daily, not a day goodbye that Mary Gilbert doesn't
- 0:59Speaker 1: long for an answer to the death of her twenty
- 1:01Speaker 1: three year old daughter, Shannon. If you pick up the
- 1:04Speaker 1: phone and call the investigators or the detective that's been
- 1:07Speaker 1: assigned to you so you get called back, No, they
- 1:10Speaker 1: won't talk to me. Shannon had traveled from New Jersey
- 1:13Speaker 1: to Oak Beach, Long Island, New or Gilgo Beach for
- 1:16Speaker 1: a day. Later that night, she was seen running through
- 1:19Speaker 1: the neighborhood in a blind panic. Gilbert family attorney John
- 1:23Speaker 1: Ray has lounged over seven hundred hours on the case,
- 1:27Speaker 1: tracing her steps. That night, she runs out of his home.
- 1:31Speaker 1: She calls nine one one. She runs the neighborhood of
- 1:34Speaker 1: knocking on doors, and whenever someone comes to the door
- 1:39Speaker 1: who attempts to call the police but not take her in,
- 1:45Speaker 1: she runs. And that's the last anyone's heard of her.
- 1:50Speaker 1: Talk to me about what happens. Talk to me about
- 1:53Speaker 1: a phone call your daughter made nine on one call
- 1:55Speaker 1: for help, lasting twenty three man twenty dree man. Can
- 2:02Speaker 1: you imagine the pain that Shannon's mother endures her daughter
- 2:07Speaker 1: on the phone with a cell phone twenty three minutes,
- 2:11Speaker 1: running from door to door, screaming in fear, screaming that
- 2:17Speaker 1: she's afraid she's going to die, And she did. Just
- 2:22Speaker 1: twenty four years old. Shannon Gilbert loses her life. Joining
- 2:29Speaker 1: me an all star panel to break it down and
- 2:30Speaker 1: put it back together. Doctor Michelle Dupree, renowned medical Alexander
- 2:35Speaker 1: joining me out of South Carolina, author of Homicide Investigation,
- 2:38Speaker 1: Field Guide, Psychoanalyst to the Stars. Doctor Bethany Marshall joining
- 2:43Speaker 1: me from Beverly Hills. You can find her at doctor
- 2:45Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall dot com. James sheld At twenty seven years
- 2:48Speaker 1: Metro major case and SWAT now lawyer Shia Lapointe, Genetic genealogist,
- 2:55Speaker 1: the so called gene hunter. Also with me special guest,
- 3:00Speaker 1: the attorney for the family of the victim, Shannon Gilbert.
- 3:04Speaker 1: John Ray is with us, but first straight out to
- 3:09Speaker 1: our Crime online dot Com investigative reporters Dave mc investigative
- 3:12Speaker 1: reporter and Ellen Kilauren. You know, when you look at
- 3:16Speaker 1: it like a puzzle, Eka, Ellen Kilorm, Shannon Gilbert fits
- 3:22Speaker 1: in to a much bigger picture. But I want to
- 3:26Speaker 1: start with her. Where was her body found? Nancy Shannon
- 3:33Speaker 1: Gilbert's body was found not long not far from where
- 3:37Speaker 1: she disappeared. That it was a year and a half
- 3:40Speaker 1: before she was found dead. She had disappeared in May
- 3:44Speaker 1: of two thousand and ten in Oak Beach and was
- 3:48Speaker 1: never seen again. Do we know? Do we know? The
- 3:51Speaker 1: cod cause of death aka the official cause of death
- 3:54Speaker 1: is inconclusive. Authorities had been saying for years that they
- 3:58Speaker 1: believe what probably had and which she ran into the
- 4:01Speaker 1: marsh where she was found, became this oriented, became exhausted
- 4:06Speaker 1: and drowned in the sand and water in the marsh. Okay,
- 4:09Speaker 1: I've got a really hard time believing that because you know,
- 4:12Speaker 1: shall not help me out here, k I'm not doubting
- 4:15Speaker 1: your expert crack reporting. But shall not. You got a
- 4:20Speaker 1: woman twenty four years old on the phone screaming I'm
- 4:24Speaker 1: gonna die. Help me, help me, help me, help me,
- 4:26Speaker 1: beating on people's doors. If they don't take her in,
- 4:28Speaker 1: she runs. And you want to tell me she went
- 4:31Speaker 1: out into the marsh which is not over her head,
- 4:36Speaker 1: and then just says hey with it, and sits down
- 4:38Speaker 1: and dies. That is not what happened. Shall not. No,
- 4:42Speaker 1: that's not what happened. It doesn't make any sense. This
- 4:45Speaker 1: case should have been treated as a homicide from the
- 4:48Speaker 1: very beginning, and that should have been the default position,
- 4:50Speaker 1: but unfortunately it was not. You know, I just am thinking,
- 4:54Speaker 1: how in the hey they could even say that that
- 4:57Speaker 1: her cause of death she just sat down in the
- 4:59Speaker 1: mar and died. Marsh is a mixture of sand, earth, foliage,
- 5:07Speaker 1: and water. And I find it very difficult to believe.
- 5:11Speaker 1: Doctor Michelle dupris renowned medical examiner joining out of South
- 5:14Speaker 1: Carolina and author. Doctor Dupre, I'm not buying that for
- 5:19Speaker 1: one minute. Why are they even trying to tell me
- 5:21Speaker 1: that that she died because she got exhausted and sat
- 5:24Speaker 1: down in the marsh, and and and drowned. I don't
- 5:28Speaker 1: believe that for one minute they could look at her lungs,
- 5:32Speaker 1: doctor dupres and determine if she drowned or not. What, Nancy,
- 5:36Speaker 1: You've got excellent points. Normally you certainly wouldn't think that.
- 5:40Speaker 1: And I don't think that she just sat down and died.
- 5:42Speaker 1: She may have sat down, she may have passed out,
- 5:44Speaker 1: she may have m she may have hailed marsh muddy
- 5:49Speaker 1: gooey water. But yeah, sure, absolutely right. Why can we
- 5:53Speaker 1: not look at the autopsy and tell that's why we
- 5:55Speaker 1: do an autopsy? Hold on, I got I thought here,
- 6:00Speaker 1: and I don't want to lose it. Even a year later,
- 6:04Speaker 1: her body, as Ellen Klaurine just told us, was found
- 6:07Speaker 1: not far from what she was like spotted bamming on doors,
- 6:09Speaker 1: begging for help twenty three minute nine one one call.
- 6:15Speaker 1: So obviously she died that night. But are you telling
- 6:20Speaker 1: me that, one year later, doctor Dupree, they cannot look
- 6:25Speaker 1: at her lungs and determine ditch she drown or not. No,
- 6:29Speaker 1: that's exactly what I'm saying. You can't. Yes, we should
- 6:34Speaker 1: be able to do an autopsy, and we should be
- 6:37Speaker 1: able to tell. It's going to depend. Of course, on
- 6:39Speaker 1: the condition of the body. It always does. But chances
- 6:42Speaker 1: are we can take microscopic sections of lung tissue and
- 6:46Speaker 1: we should be able to tell. Okay, whoa when you
- 6:49Speaker 1: say we can take microscopic sections of brain tissue, how
- 6:54Speaker 1: do you do that? Is? Do you cut it with
- 6:55Speaker 1: a nine I'm talking about the lungs. You open the
- 6:58Speaker 1: body up in a ta bone, right a t you
- 7:01Speaker 1: open the cut. Okay, you get the lungs out. When
- 7:04Speaker 1: you say you take a piece of tissue, what do
- 7:06Speaker 1: you do it with? You pluck it off with tweezers
- 7:10Speaker 1: or do you slice it off? How do you do
- 7:12Speaker 1: that depends on the organ it is. With the lungs,
- 7:15Speaker 1: we'll take usually a scalpel and we'll take section small
- 7:18Speaker 1: sections of those lungs and they slice it off like
- 7:20Speaker 1: a knife with a knife. Yes, yes, then you put
- 7:24Speaker 1: that under the microscope. Just you don't just look at
- 7:26Speaker 1: the lungs like you're looking at a basketball. How big
- 7:28Speaker 1: are the lungs, doctor Dupree, Well, the lungs are about
- 7:32Speaker 1: the size of your forearm. Okay, So you don't just
- 7:35Speaker 1: look at them with a naked eye. You slice off
- 7:37Speaker 1: a piece, as you said, with a scalpel, and you
- 7:39Speaker 1: put that under a microscope. Correct, Well, we fix it
- 7:42Speaker 1: in formal one, which is a preservative, and then we
- 7:45Speaker 1: put it into a wax processing machine and we cut
- 7:49Speaker 1: slices of that and attach that to a microscopic slide
- 7:53Speaker 1: and look at under the microspite. So long story short, Yes,
- 7:56Speaker 1: you do put it under a microscope. Now wait a minute.
- 7:59Speaker 1: Remember I'm just a lawyer. You're the doctor. Now hold on.
- 8:01Speaker 1: You look under the microscope, and if you're looking to
- 8:04Speaker 1: see if she drowned, what would you expect to find. Well,
- 8:07Speaker 1: if she drowned, we may or may not be able
- 8:09Speaker 1: to see evidence of that, but we should be able
- 8:12Speaker 1: to see debris like the marsh, muddy water, something like that.
- 8:16Speaker 1: In the lungs, we can tell us the lungs are congested,
- 8:18Speaker 1: meaning they have fluid in them. They should have air
- 8:21Speaker 1: and not fluid. So you can tell the difference because
- 8:24Speaker 1: you can tell. Let's just say somebody dies at sea,
- 8:28Speaker 1: but when they are autopsy, do you find out it's
- 8:30Speaker 1: fresh water in their lungs, so they didn't diet. See,
- 8:33Speaker 1: they died somewhere else like a bathtub, and we're put
- 8:36Speaker 1: at sea. My point is, can you analyze the debris
- 8:39Speaker 1: within the lungs and tell me was it marsh muddy,
- 8:43Speaker 1: marsh water? Was it something else? And was it to
- 8:47Speaker 1: the extent that she died of drowning as opposed to
- 8:50Speaker 1: something else? Yes, again answer It depends on the totality
- 8:54Speaker 1: of circumstances and the condition of that body. But those
- 8:58Speaker 1: are exactly the kinds of questions that autopsies are designed
- 9:01Speaker 1: to answer. We are talking about the death of Shannon Gilbert,
- 9:05Speaker 1: just twenty four years old, and her murder is just
- 9:08Speaker 1: the tip of the Iceberg Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
- 9:24Speaker 1: Everyone you are listening to crime stories. I'm Nancy Grace,
- 9:29Speaker 1: and I want to thank you for being with us.
- 9:32Speaker 1: What's you take a listen to our friends at Picks eleven.
- 9:35Speaker 1: This is Mary Murphy. Let's assume he said, Robert Moses
- 9:39Speaker 1: Cause Ocean Parkway. He's traveling westbound. We followed retired Chief
- 9:44Speaker 1: Dominic Vrone back to Gilgo. So he pull over, pop
- 9:48Speaker 1: the suv, pull out the body and just throw it
- 9:53Speaker 1: as far as he could, head first into the bramble.
- 9:57Speaker 1: Verne was here in December twenty ten as command under
- 10:00Speaker 1: of Suffolk County Detectives when the bodies of four Slane
- 10:03Speaker 1: sex workers were discovered at Gilgo Beach, some of the
- 10:06Speaker 1: yearlier murders. They were picked up in New York City.
- 10:10Speaker 1: In fact, the NYPD had investigated the disappearance of the
- 10:13Speaker 1: first victim, Melissa Barthelomy. She vanished from the Bronx in
- 10:17Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. Her unknown killer even used Barthelomy's
- 10:21Speaker 1: cell phone near Penn Station to taunt her family, who
- 10:24Speaker 1: spoke in twenty eleven, Melissa's a little sister. That's how
- 10:29Speaker 1: he started out the conversation, Melissa, Melissa's little sister, and
- 10:32Speaker 1: she answered, yeah, it was a very simplistic, hurtful call. Wow,
- 10:38Speaker 1: I'm want to go straight back out to Ellen Colaurin,
- 10:41Speaker 1: investigative reporter with crime online dot Com ek So, Shannon Gilbert,
- 10:46Speaker 1: the twenty four year old young lady were talking about today,
- 10:49Speaker 1: is one of how many dead bodies along Gilgo Beach
- 10:53Speaker 1: eleven including Shannons eleven including Shannon. Okay, back to you,
- 11:01Speaker 1: James shell Nutt twenty seventy years Metro major case Now lawyer,
- 11:06Speaker 1: you do agree with me. Unlike many defense attorneys, it's
- 11:11Speaker 1: got to be the same killer. They're all buried along
- 11:13Speaker 1: the same stretch of beach. You'll go beach, and I
- 11:16Speaker 1: find it very difficult to believe that one killer places
- 11:21Speaker 1: the body there and just by straight coincidence, or as
- 11:25Speaker 1: my son John Names says, on coincidence, somebody else comes
- 11:30Speaker 1: and finds the same exact promote area to hide their
- 11:34Speaker 1: dead bodies. Of course it's the same killer. Shell nutt.
- 11:37Speaker 1: Of course it is that. There's no doubt it's the
- 11:39Speaker 1: same killer. There were a lot of similarities to all
- 11:42Speaker 1: of these bodies were on the same side of the road.
- 11:46Speaker 1: Some of these bodies were within one hundred two hundred
- 11:49Speaker 1: yards of each other. Most of the bodies were within sight,
- 11:52Speaker 1: so if you're standing along the side of the road,
- 11:54Speaker 1: you can look down the road and see the portions
- 11:56Speaker 1: of the roadway or side of the roadway that these
- 11:58Speaker 1: bodies were buried. Several of the bodies were buried in
- 12:02Speaker 1: a burlap sack. Other similarities involved. There is no doubt
- 12:07Speaker 1: that it was a serial killer or serial killers that
- 12:11Speaker 1: placed the bodies there. I think it's one killer. And
- 12:14Speaker 1: you know why what is it, doctor Bethany Marshall. Nobody
- 12:16Speaker 1: can keep their yap shup. Here's an example. Remember all
- 12:19Speaker 1: the conspiracy theories about the setup of Orenthal James Simpson
- 12:22Speaker 1: O J. Simpson, that it was all a setup to
- 12:25Speaker 1: get him. Why why do we want to get OJ
- 12:27Speaker 1: Simpson other than he's a double killer. But there's no
- 12:31Speaker 1: way that all those police officers could have framed OJ
- 12:35Speaker 1: Simpson and then kept quiet about it for all these years,
- 12:39Speaker 1: because how many million dollar book deals would they have
- 12:43Speaker 1: if they talk. So I think there's one killer, and
- 12:47Speaker 1: it's definitely a man, and he killed all these women,
- 12:51Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany. I think so because when you look at
- 12:54Speaker 1: the mindset of the serial killer, what you see in
- 12:57Speaker 1: terms of victim selection is availability. That these are young
- 13:02Speaker 1: women out and about in society. You see vulnerability that
- 13:06Speaker 1: they are by themselves. Shannon Gilbert was so vulnerable knocking
- 13:10Speaker 1: on people's doors nobody would take her in on the
- 13:13Speaker 1: phone for twenty three minutes, incredibly vulnerable, and then desirability.
- 13:19Speaker 1: Serial killers have a victim type. So if you start
- 13:24Speaker 1: to speak to their being just one perpetrator, look at
- 13:27Speaker 1: all these women. They're young, they're beautiful, they're vulnerable, they're available,
- 13:30Speaker 1: some of them sex workers. So they are like isolated
- 13:34Speaker 1: from society and they're rights targets. What about it, Ak
- 13:37Speaker 1: Ellen Claurin joining me from crime online dot Com. Ak,
- 13:42Speaker 1: what do we know about the physicality of the various victims?
- 13:45Speaker 1: The eleven women? Are they all? Why? We know that
- 13:50Speaker 1: they're all women, different races. Not all of the victims
- 13:55Speaker 1: have been identified. That's one thing. That's one thing to
- 13:58Speaker 1: keep in mind. There is one victim who is a
- 14:02Speaker 1: John Doe. They all of the others are women, and
- 14:08Speaker 1: one small child who police believe was killed with her mother.
- 14:13Speaker 1: Oh lord, that's right. That's Ryan Ellen. Complete deviation from
- 14:17Speaker 1: the typical mo emodus operandi method of operation. You know,
- 14:21Speaker 1: what's interesting is that when you look at serial killers,
- 14:26Speaker 1: for instance, I looked at all all the all the
- 14:31Speaker 1: victims of serial killer Ted Bundy, and the startling similarity
- 14:37Speaker 1: of their physicality, the way they looked is amazing. It's
- 14:42Speaker 1: shocking how closely they resembled each other. So I'm guessing
- 14:47Speaker 1: the lot of these women will look physically similar to
- 14:52Speaker 1: each other. And also, I don't know why, but we
- 14:57Speaker 1: learned that doctor Bethany Marshall, very often serial killers do
- 15:01Speaker 1: not cross racial boundaries. They will murder within their own race,
- 15:07Speaker 1: which is very interesting to me. I don't know what
- 15:09Speaker 1: it means, but I know it to be true. Well,
- 15:13Speaker 1: even though they put tremendous energy into their crimes, I
- 15:17Speaker 1: think they're also kind of lazy, scared, and rejection prone,
- 15:21Speaker 1: and because of that they croll for victims very in
- 15:25Speaker 1: their their own group where there's availability and access. There's
- 15:29Speaker 1: profound research about serial killers where that suggests that every
- 15:33Speaker 1: single one was rejected by their mother. Now we know
- 15:36Speaker 1: that there are a brain different Bethany, Bethany, Bethany, It's true.
- 15:43Speaker 1: I know I shouldn't, but I'm a psychologue. I really
- 15:46Speaker 1: wish you wouldn't because you know why, I am the
- 15:48Speaker 1: twins and I now I have to think about every
- 15:50Speaker 1: move I make. Is it going to turn them into
- 15:52Speaker 1: some crazy, deranged whatever. Thanks Bethany. That's something I can
- 15:57Speaker 1: think about tonight. But is a break in the case. Guys,
- 16:02Speaker 1: I want you to take a listen to Mary Murphy
- 16:04Speaker 1: joining us from Picks eleven. The sub police commissioner said
- 16:08Speaker 1: the killer left a black belt at one of the
- 16:11Speaker 1: multiple scenes where bodies were dumped, with the initials HM
- 16:15Speaker 1: or wh on it. We believe that the belt was
- 16:18Speaker 1: handled by the suspect. A law enforcement source who worked
- 16:21Speaker 1: on the Gilgo beach case told me that the initials
- 16:24Speaker 1: embossed on the inside of the black belt are about
- 16:27Speaker 1: a half inch high, and he said the hand he
- 16:29Speaker 1: work looks like something you might have found done at
- 16:31Speaker 1: a shopping mall in the eighties or nineties. The initials
- 16:36Speaker 1: on the belt have caused a frenzy of speculation, with
- 16:39Speaker 1: some web sludes tying the initials to a friend of
- 16:41Speaker 1: Disgrace Chief James Burke. Burke went to prison in twenty
- 16:45Speaker 1: sixteen for beating up a drug addicted suspect who stole
- 16:48Speaker 1: a stash of porn and sex toys from the chief's
- 16:51Speaker 1: official police car. Burke was released last year. Well, it's
- 16:56Speaker 1: a plot thickening. Why I wondered did they weigh so
- 17:00Speaker 1: long cops to tell us that a belt? Were the
- 17:05Speaker 1: letters HM or WH depending on if you were looking
- 17:09Speaker 1: at it upside down? HM or WH was found to
- 17:16Speaker 1: sharel a point in joining me the gene hunter g
- 17:19Speaker 1: e ne genetic genealogist. After all this time, what's the
- 17:24Speaker 1: likelihood of getting DNA off that belt? Nancy, I believe
- 17:31Speaker 1: they still have a very high likelihood of being able
- 17:34Speaker 1: to get DNA off of that belt. It's not the
- 17:37Speaker 1: same as say, if you were trying to get DNA
- 17:41Speaker 1: off off of a body in a rape case, the
- 17:44Speaker 1: DNA if the belt was touched by them, the murderer,
- 17:49Speaker 1: the DNA very possibly still would be in there, on there.
- 17:53Speaker 1: And but how after all this time is it because
- 17:57Speaker 1: of the oil end of fingertip when you touch it,
- 18:01Speaker 1: it really has to be washed with what a soap
- 18:04Speaker 1: type substance to get that oil, which is really why
- 18:07Speaker 1: you have a fingerprint. Are you saying that could still
- 18:10Speaker 1: be on there? Yes, ma'am, it still can be on there.
- 18:13Speaker 1: It's it's trace DNA, and when you touch an object,
- 18:20Speaker 1: your DNA stays on that object. Of course, it would
- 18:24Speaker 1: depend on the elements where the belt was. I can't
- 18:28Speaker 1: help but feel that because of the advancements in DNA technology,
- 18:34Speaker 1: maybe they were able to process it with these new
- 18:38Speaker 1: methods and find more information. Oftentimes you have multiple DNA,
- 18:44Speaker 1: you know, it may have been the victims DNA and
- 18:46Speaker 1: the murderer's DNA, and it may have been difficult to
- 18:49Speaker 1: separate in the past, but with new technologies it's become
- 18:53Speaker 1: easier to do those things. And it's very possible that
- 18:57Speaker 1: that's why all of a sudden the belt has become important.
- 19:05Speaker 1: Hi guys, Nancy Grace here, we have all worked so
- 19:09Speaker 1: hard to bring to you Don't Be a Victim, Fighting
- 19:14Speaker 1: back against America's crime Wave, a brand new book. After
- 19:19Speaker 1: interviewing literally hundreds of crime victims and police, we put
- 19:25Speaker 1: our knowledge into Don't Be a Victim. You could pre
- 19:30Speaker 1: order now go to Crime online dot com. Pre order
- 19:33Speaker 1: now and know that portions of our proceeds goes to
- 19:38Speaker 1: the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Crime Stories
- 19:47Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. Eleven people have lost their lives, all
- 19:55Speaker 1: women and one child, all buried along a lonely stretch
- 20:00Speaker 1: of Gilgo Beach. But still the perp is unapprehended, even
- 20:07Speaker 1: calling one of the victim's families with the victim's cell phone.
- 20:13Speaker 1: On one occasion, her little sister picked it up and
- 20:17Speaker 1: it was traced back to the Penn Station area where
- 20:21Speaker 1: Madison Square Gardens is. That in itself, reveals a twisted,
- 20:27Speaker 1: twisted mindset not only murder one of eleven people, but
- 20:32Speaker 1: then call the victim's family from the victim's cell phone again.
- 20:39Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for
- 20:41Speaker 1: being with us. Is there a break in the case,
- 20:45Speaker 1: a belt with the initials WH or h M, which
- 20:51Speaker 1: could be either if you look at the belt upside
- 20:55Speaker 1: down with me an all star panel. But first, I
- 21:00Speaker 1: want to go to a very special guest joining us.
- 21:02Speaker 1: It's John Ray, and he is the lawyer for the
- 21:07Speaker 1: family of then twenty four year old Shannon Gilbert. John Ray,
- 21:12Speaker 1: you've put in literally hundreds of hours on this case.
- 21:19Speaker 1: Who do you think murdered these women? Well, there's a
- 21:25Speaker 1: number of possibilities, of course, but it's fairly clear that
- 21:28Speaker 1: there's more than one person. Shannon is running away. Well, yeah,
- 21:33Speaker 1: when Shannon's running away, she's saying on the we know
- 21:36Speaker 1: she said on the nine one one calls, they're trying
- 21:39Speaker 1: to kill me in the floral. We also know, by
- 21:42Speaker 1: the way that there are no lungs found, because only
- 21:45Speaker 1: her bones were found. And when you, I think you
- 21:49Speaker 1: had said before that she died that night, there's no
- 21:51Speaker 1: evidence that she died that night. She could have lived
- 21:54Speaker 1: for a long time. Nobody really knows, And that she
- 21:58Speaker 1: died in the marsh is absurd because or in the
- 22:01Speaker 1: way they say the police say she died, it's because
- 22:04Speaker 1: I walked that marsh. A year later, in at the
- 22:08Speaker 1: same time that Shannon would have walked. The water is
- 22:11Speaker 1: only inches deep. Where she's found, she's found laying down,
- 22:15Speaker 1: face up with her head on a bush, So none
- 22:19Speaker 1: of those things can be true. And certainly where she
- 22:22Speaker 1: was found, she's only thirty maybe thirty to fifty feet
- 22:25Speaker 1: away from the roadway to the Ocean Parkway. And on
- 22:32Speaker 1: the other side there are houses. You can see right
- 22:33Speaker 1: into their breakfast tables as you're having breakfast at that
- 22:37Speaker 1: time of the morning. So there's just no way she
- 22:39Speaker 1: just suddenly decided to drop dead. Of are agreed question
- 22:44Speaker 1: to you with me the lawyer for Shannon Gilbert's family,
- 22:46Speaker 1: John Ray, who's devoted I'm sure over a thousand hours
- 22:51Speaker 1: to this case. By now, John Ray, you were saying
- 22:54Speaker 1: that you don't or she didn't necessarily die the night
- 22:59Speaker 1: that she was running calling nine one one. Are you
- 23:02Speaker 1: suggesting that she was held against her will for a
- 23:05Speaker 1: period of time and then killed. That's a real possibility.
- 23:08Speaker 1: And uh, there's strange evidence. There's a lot of evidence
- 23:12Speaker 1: that the public doesn't know. But I've you know, I've
- 23:14Speaker 1: glombed from our investigations and depositions. I've taken numerous depositions
- 23:20Speaker 1: of people in Oak Beach. And the long and short
- 23:22Speaker 1: is that, um, there could be It could very well
- 23:26Speaker 1: be she was held for a while before she finally disappeared.
- 23:30Speaker 1: When the police helicopters flew over the marsh, they were
- 23:33Speaker 1: unable to see her, so she might not have been
- 23:35Speaker 1: There is one, you know, one theory as well. Uh.
- 23:40Speaker 1: The some of the things that were found Shaddon's belongings
- 23:45Speaker 1: were uh, they didn't look like they had been in
- 23:47Speaker 1: the marsh very long at all, as opposed to Shaddon's body,
- 23:51Speaker 1: which was completely decomposed. So, I mean, there's there are
- 23:56Speaker 1: many more follow your theory three to its logical conclusion,
- 23:59Speaker 1: and is that more than one person is involved in
- 24:02Speaker 1: the death of these eleven people, all women, one child.
- 24:05Speaker 1: Is that your your theory? You think they're more than
- 24:08Speaker 1: there's more than one killer. Yeah, that's my theory. And
- 24:10Speaker 1: also it's it's nine nine women, one Asian male y,
- 24:15Speaker 1: a cross dresser and a child. And uh, and in
- 24:19Speaker 1: these cases as well, there could be very well, it's
- 24:22Speaker 1: what's entered into our investigation is a cultish element that
- 24:26Speaker 1: could be involved, which would then suggest more I mean,
- 24:29Speaker 1: what cultish element are you talking about? Well, there's uh,
- 24:33Speaker 1: you know, Mary, the mother of Shannon, was a practicing
- 24:38Speaker 1: which for twenty two years, and she had a lot
- 24:41Speaker 1: of connections in that area. UM and in fact, she
- 24:45Speaker 1: was living off of Shannon's earnings uh during that time.
- 24:49Speaker 1: So when Channa was alive, and there's a real possibility
- 24:53Speaker 1: that there's some connection there with the people who are
- 24:55Speaker 1: involved in that kind of us are practice, and I
- 25:00Speaker 1: find that that's getting to be outlandish. I mean, I'm
- 25:03Speaker 1: not saying it's something not to investigate, but to suggest
- 25:08Speaker 1: that these eleven people, and yes, one of them was
- 25:11Speaker 1: an Asian male cross dresser, you're absolutely correct to suggest
- 25:16Speaker 1: that a group of people would commit murder as part
- 25:20Speaker 1: of the I assume you're referring to the Wiccan beliefs. Yeah,
- 25:24Speaker 1: but I mean I really hard to believe. That's just
- 25:26Speaker 1: one angle. But but it's a lot of things are
- 25:29Speaker 1: hard to believe in this case, So you got to
- 25:31Speaker 1: they have to be pursued. Like to go with what's
- 25:35Speaker 1: it probable, what's not? What's possible? I mean, it's possible
- 25:41Speaker 1: that little Green men flew down from Mars and committed
- 25:44Speaker 1: the murders. It's possible. Is it probable? No, it's not.
- 25:49Speaker 1: And I find the proximity of her body's discovery to
- 25:55Speaker 1: where she was banging on doors to be a probitive.
- 25:58Speaker 1: It proves something too me to you. John Ray, renowned
- 26:03Speaker 1: lawyer who is working with the victims family, Shannon Gilbert's family.
- 26:08Speaker 1: How far from those doors she was banging on to
- 26:10Speaker 1: save her own life? How far from those doors was
- 26:13Speaker 1: her body found? Her body found about I would say
- 26:17Speaker 1: less than a mile away, on the other side of
- 26:20Speaker 1: the marsh from where the other victims were found. Okay,
- 26:24Speaker 1: let's analyze that, because that's hard evidence that you can't
- 26:27Speaker 1: get away with away from. James shell Night, twenty seven
- 26:31Speaker 1: years Metro Major k swat now lawyer shell Nut. What
- 26:36Speaker 1: does that tell you? Tells me that she did die
- 26:42Speaker 1: close to the night, if not the night she was
- 26:45Speaker 1: bamming on doors because somebody was chasing her. And then
- 26:51Speaker 1: they find her body less than a half a mile
- 26:53Speaker 1: that's a five minute walk from where she was bamming
- 26:56Speaker 1: on doors. Yeah, I agree. I thought that this world
- 27:00Speaker 1: put it definitely links back to everything that we know.
- 27:05Speaker 1: So for you know, there's been a lot of drama
- 27:09Speaker 1: surrounding the case in that police are not releasing a
- 27:12Speaker 1: lot of the vital information. Take a listen to our
- 27:16Speaker 1: friend James Ford at Picks eleven News. We are launching
- 27:22Speaker 1: a website. It's called gilgonews dot com, with the hope
- 27:25Speaker 1: that with its release the public will generate new tips
- 27:29Speaker 1: and new investigative leads. But the website has yet to work,
- 27:33Speaker 1: and there's been criticism of investigators development. For years, nine years,
- 27:38Speaker 1: the Suffolk County Police Department has covered up the fact
- 27:42Speaker 1: in this investigation. John Ray is the attorney for the
- 27:45Speaker 1: family of Shannon Gilbert. She was a sex worker whose
- 27:48Speaker 1: disappearance after leaving the home of a client in the
- 27:51Speaker 1: Gilgo area in twenty ten sparked the search that resulted
- 27:55Speaker 1: in so many bodies being found. Gilbert had called nine
- 27:58Speaker 1: on one at length the night she vanished. Release of
- 28:01Speaker 1: the tapes of that call was among many things blocked
- 28:04Speaker 1: by then police Chief James Burke and then District Attorney
- 28:07Speaker 1: Tom Spoda. Both men have now been convicted of crimes
- 28:11Speaker 1: unrelated to the Gilgo killings. New leaders say today's disclosures
- 28:15Speaker 1: show more openness, but they're still not releasing Shannon Gilbert's
- 28:20Speaker 1: nine one one tape. We don't think she never match
- 28:22Speaker 1: as many of the patterns of the Gilgo Beach homicides.
- 28:26Speaker 1: So was Shannon Gilbert's murder part of the work of
- 28:30Speaker 1: a serial killer? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a case
- 28:47Speaker 1: that has never been resolved? Are there other bodies? Are
- 28:52Speaker 1: there other victims? We're focusing today on Shannon Gilbert. You know,
- 28:56Speaker 1: I don't really understand why this is true. They has,
- 29:00Speaker 1: you know, to Dave Mack joining me along with Ellen Klaurin,
- 29:03Speaker 1: both investigative reporters at Crime Online dot com. Dave Mac,
- 29:07Speaker 1: why is it that every time someone introduces this case,
- 29:12Speaker 1: they go a sex worker. You know, that little girl,
- 29:14Speaker 1: the little the child. That child wasn't a sex worker.
- 29:19Speaker 1: And very often, when you're talking about homicide cases or
- 29:22Speaker 1: any case, forget just homicide, you don't say, oh, I'm
- 29:27Speaker 1: Jackie Howard was a victim today and she's a radio producer,
- 29:31Speaker 1: because that doesn't factor into it. These women, no matter what,
- 29:35Speaker 1: are always tagged as a sex worker, as if somehow
- 29:42Speaker 1: that makes their lives less valuable. Yep, and Nancy, you know,
- 29:46Speaker 1: the sad reality of what you're playing out is I
- 29:49Speaker 1: went to the Gilgnews dot com website while you were
- 29:52Speaker 1: talking just to see how did they handle it well,
- 29:54Speaker 1: you know, the first line is the story about Shannon Gilbert,
- 29:57Speaker 1: who says Shannon Gilbert Comma, a Craig's list escort, went
- 30:03Speaker 1: missing two ek Ellen Kilauren joining me. Ellen. What do
- 30:08Speaker 1: we know about the child that was buried with the
- 30:11Speaker 1: child's mother, Nancy. We know very little because we don't
- 30:15Speaker 1: have an identification on either of those victims. But there
- 30:21Speaker 1: we know that there were no the mother was dismembered,
- 30:26Speaker 1: the child was not. There were no visible signs of
- 30:29Speaker 1: trauma on the child. But we really know very very
- 30:31Speaker 1: little about that case, and the police believe that it
- 30:35Speaker 1: predates the Guild go for I still say it Snike coinstance.
- 30:39Speaker 1: They're all buried together. So the discussion that there's more
- 30:42Speaker 1: than one serial killer using the same dumping ground, that's
- 30:46Speaker 1: you know, you're let's just think of you're at one
- 30:51Speaker 1: end of the football field and you look down to
- 30:54Speaker 1: the other end. They're not that much further away from
- 30:57Speaker 1: each other than that. These bodies, the burlap bags used
- 31:01Speaker 1: consistently with many of the victims to put their bodies in. Yes,
- 31:06Speaker 1: it's the same killer. To doctor Michelle Dupree, South Carolina
- 31:10Speaker 1: Medical examine or author of homicide investigation field guide, Doctor Dupree.
- 31:16Speaker 1: When you find a child's body, even if skeletonized, correct
- 31:21Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong. You can tell if it's a
- 31:24Speaker 1: girl or a boy by the teeth, a jawline, in
- 31:27Speaker 1: the pelvic area. You can tell the age, and of
- 31:32Speaker 1: course the length of the remains. What can even if
- 31:37Speaker 1: the child's body is skeletonized, what can you tell me
- 31:40Speaker 1: about the identity of the child? Yes, Stancy, we can
- 31:43Speaker 1: tell the sex. We can determine the approximate age. We
- 31:47Speaker 1: can also tell other things depending on you know, how
- 31:51Speaker 1: the child died. If there are injuries to the skeletal remain,
- 31:55Speaker 1: we can see if they're you know, gunshot wounds or
- 31:57Speaker 1: sharp forced injuries or things like that, or on trauma,
- 32:00Speaker 1: if there is fractures. So we're able to tell through
- 32:04Speaker 1: oftentimes through mitochondrial DNA, which we can recover from the
- 32:09Speaker 1: bone era to who that child is related to, provided
- 32:12Speaker 1: we have a sample, of course, to match it with.
- 32:15Speaker 1: I'm eternal sample. Mitochondrial DNA comes from the mother, and
- 32:20Speaker 1: that is different from nuclear DNA, which you get, for instance,
- 32:25Speaker 1: from let's just say, a root of your hair, which
- 32:27Speaker 1: as the mother and the father's genetic profile in it.
- 32:31Speaker 1: To Sheryl A point, speaking of the gene hunter, a
- 32:35Speaker 1: genetic genealogist. I'm still blown away by this belt they found,
- 32:43Speaker 1: But i find it very hard to believe Cheryl a
- 32:46Speaker 1: point that we can't identify who the purpose. You've got
- 32:51Speaker 1: a belt likely with DNA may even being used to
- 32:55Speaker 1: strangle one of the victims. It had to be for
- 32:59Speaker 1: a sex dead. There should have been the killer's DNA
- 33:03Speaker 1: in in or on the victim's body. And you've even
- 33:08Speaker 1: got the killer using one of the victim's cell phones
- 33:11Speaker 1: to taunt the victim's family. The little sister picks up
- 33:15Speaker 1: when he calls the victim's home. Put it really heartibly.
- 33:19Speaker 1: With all that evidence, we can't get the killer. They've
- 33:23Speaker 1: got eleven dead bodies that we know of in this
- 33:28Speaker 1: one dumping ground. Share the point, shouldn't there even on
- 33:33Speaker 1: and a body that's been disposed of, shouldn't there be
- 33:36Speaker 1: just let's just say the victims were raped. Why can't
- 33:40Speaker 1: we get DNA, Nancy, If the victims were raped, you
- 33:43Speaker 1: only have a certain amount of time that that DNA
- 33:46Speaker 1: would be viable to you know, you'd have to collect
- 33:50Speaker 1: it within a certain amount of time to be able
- 33:53Speaker 1: to identify that specific deal. Wait, let me explain what
- 33:56Speaker 1: you just said. I think, and you correct me if
- 33:58Speaker 1: I'm wrong, Because we hear of cases getting cracked years
- 34:02Speaker 1: and years and years later, like the Golden State killer case. Remember,
- 34:06Speaker 1: and they had but they took the DNA, the sperm,
- 34:11Speaker 1: the semen at the time of the rapes. So what
- 34:18Speaker 1: you're saying is if the body is disposed of and
- 34:20Speaker 1: years pass, you may not be able to get the semen,
- 34:27Speaker 1: whereas in the earlier cases many years passed before it's cracked,
- 34:31Speaker 1: but they got the DNA the semen at the time
- 34:33Speaker 1: of the rape. Is that right? That is correct, Nancy.
- 34:37Speaker 1: They would have attained that DNA, obtained that DNA at
- 34:42Speaker 1: that time. If these bodies were found decomposed later, at
- 34:49Speaker 1: a later time from when the death occurred, you won't
- 34:52Speaker 1: have that particular DNA. Now you could identify these victims
- 34:57Speaker 1: who are unidentified with obtaining DNA from their bones, and
- 35:06Speaker 1: that is when investigative genetic genealogy can come into play.
- 35:11Speaker 1: You would first run this DNA through the CODA system
- 35:16Speaker 1: to see if you could identify the bodies. If not,
- 35:19Speaker 1: you run it again looking for a familial DNA, possibly
- 35:23Speaker 1: a relative of the DNA from the body, and if
- 35:27Speaker 1: that doesn't work, we will genetic genealogy familial DNA such
- 35:31Speaker 1: as what was used by I think it was Paul
- 35:34Speaker 1: Holes when he crack helped as part of a team
- 35:36Speaker 1: crack the Golden State Killer case. To you special guests
- 35:41Speaker 1: joining us. The lawyer for Shannon Gilbert, it's John Ray.
- 35:46Speaker 1: He's right, he said, if this had been some millionaire debutante,
- 35:52Speaker 1: you couldn't have kept the experts and the CSI away
- 35:57Speaker 1: from this spot. But that was not to be for
- 36:00Speaker 1: Shannon Gilbert. And that breaks my heart because I think
- 36:03Speaker 1: of her mom wondering what happened to Shannon. I'm just
- 36:09Speaker 1: thinking about the discrepancy in the way that this case
- 36:13Speaker 1: was treated because, as Gilbert said, she was not a debutante.
- 36:19Speaker 1: You know, I bet a lot of people in this room,
- 36:24Speaker 1: like myself, we're not debutots, and I would certainly want
- 36:29Speaker 1: our cases to get the love and attention that every
- 36:34Speaker 1: case deserves. A family, many families, eleven families waiting for answers.
- 36:42Speaker 1: Some of these women still Jane Doe, we don't even
- 36:45Speaker 1: know who they are. And having prosecuted a Jane do case.
- 36:51Speaker 1: I know how that feels. You don't know who your
- 36:54Speaker 1: victim is. You can go to gilgnews dot com more information,
- 37:01Speaker 1: But we wait as just as unfalls Nancy Grace crimes story,
- 37:07Speaker 1: signing off, goodbye, Fenn