Lost Girls

On a warm night in May 2010, Shannan Gilbert vanished after running screaming through Oak Beach, a gated community on Long Island's barrier islands. Her driver, Michael Pak, had brought her there for an escort appointment with a local resident named Joe Brewer. Shannan pounded on neighbors' doors shrieking for help, but no one let her inside. When Pak pulled up in his SUV, she bolted past him into the darkness. Police arrived 45 minutes later and found nothing. Seven months later, in December 2010, police discovered four bodies wrapped in burlap along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, three miles from where Shannan had disappeared. DNA analysis identified the remains as four young women, all escorts who had advertised on Craigslist or its competitor Backpage: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello. Author Robert Kolker reconstructs each woman's life and Shannan's, tracing what led them into escort work, documenting how their families fought to find them, and exposing a law enforcement system that treated their disappearances as unworthy of investigation.

Maureen Brainard-Barnes grew up in subsidized housing in Groton, Connecticut. Her mother worked constantly, and her father died when Maureen was 21. A dreamer who filled notebooks with poetry and rap lyrics, Maureen left high school at 16 after becoming pregnant. She married, had a daughter, and later separated. Unable to sustain low-wage jobs, she discovered how much money escorts earned through Craigslist and began posting ads under the name Marie. She eventually traveled to Manhattan for bigger earnings. Facing eviction in July 2007, Maureen returned to New York to raise $1,100. Her friend and fellow escort Sara Karnes left the city on Monday morning, but Maureen stayed behind at the Super 8 Hotel. She was last heard from that night and then vanished.

Melissa Barthelemy was born in 1985 to Lynn Barthelemy, a 16-year-old in Buffalo, New York. Raised largely by her grandparents in a declining neighborhood, Melissa was smart and restless. After beauty school, she moved to New York City, telling her family a man named Johnny Terry had offered her a job cutting hair. In reality, Terry, known as Blaze, became her pimp. Melissa worked the streets of Times Square under the name Chloe. By 2008, she had switched almost entirely to Craigslist, working independently. On July 12, 2009, Melissa was last seen outside her Bronx apartment. For three days, police refused to file a missing-persons report, dismissing Melissa as a sex worker. Beginning four days later, Melissa's 15-year-old half sister Amanda received eight taunting phone calls from a calm, controlled man using Melissa's phone, culminating in the declaration that he was watching her body rot.

Shannan Gilbert was the eldest daughter of Mari Gilbert, a combative single mother in Ellenville, New York. From about age seven, Shannan spent six years in foster care. She graduated high school early, but her relationship with Mari was defined by conflict and longing. Shannan moved to New York City and began working for an escort agency, World Class Party Girls, where she met her driver, Alex Diaz. They became romantically involved and moved in together in Jersey City, New Jersey. During an argument, Alex fractured Shannan's jaw, requiring a titanium plate to be grafted onto the bone. After the agency was shut down in a police raid, Shannan turned to Craigslist and began working with Michael Pak. She used her earnings to shower her family with gifts. On the night she disappeared, Shannan crouched behind Brewer's couch, insisting that Pak and Brewer were trying to kill her. She called 911 but could not communicate her location before fleeing into the night.

Megan Waterman was born in 1988 in Portland, Maine, to Lorraine Waterman, a young mother with a history of drinking and unstable relationships. Lorraine's mother, Muriel Benner, gained custody of Megan after documenting neglect. Megan grew up volatile and defiant, cycling in and out of juvenile facilities, but she was also charismatic and desperate for love. At 18, she had a daughter, Liliana, and motherhood initially transformed her. Through a boyfriend named Akeem Cruz, known as Vybe, who became both her romantic partner and effectively her pimp, Megan began escorting on Craigslist under the name Lexi. On June 5, 2010, Megan checked into a Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge, Long Island. After posting a Craigslist ad, she was last seen on security footage leaving the hotel at 1:30 A.M. She never returned.

Amber Lynn Costello was born in 1983 in Pennsylvania. At age five, she was raped by a neighbor, an event that left lasting physical and emotional scars. Her older sister Kim began working as an escort in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Amber eventually followed. Amber oscillated between addiction and fervent religious devotion, marrying twice and joining churches, but each attempt at stability collapsed. After their mother's death in 2005, Amber moved to Long Island, where Kim's friend Dave Schaller helped get her into rehab. After her release, Amber, Dave, Kim, and Amber's boyfriend Björn "Bear" Brodsky formed a chaotic household in West Babylon. Amber worked Craigslist under the name Carolina while all four housemates descended into heroin addiction. On September 2, 2010, Amber arranged a $1,500 date with a client who offered to pick her up. Dave walked her to the edge of the lawn, and she disappeared.

After the four bodies were identified in January 2011, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer and District Attorney Thomas Spota formally acknowledged that police were searching for a serial killer. In the spring, a massive search along Ocean Parkway uncovered six more sets of remains, including dismembered body parts, an unidentified Asian man in women's clothing, and a toddler. The barrier islands appeared to be a long-standing dumping ground, possibly used by more than one killer. Chief of Detectives Dominick Varrone called it a "consolation" that the killer targeted escorts rather than the general public (231), a remark that enraged the families.

The families of the five women connected through Facebook and phone calls, forming a support network. They shared theories, compared phone records, and argued about what happened. Mari Gilbert insisted Shannan had been hunted, not simply lost, and accused Brewer, Pak, and a local doctor named Peter Hackett of involvement. Hackett, a local emergency-services physician, initially denied calling Mari but later admitted to two phone calls, claiming he was trying to help. A disgruntled Oak Beach resident named Joe Scalise Jr. launched an online campaign accusing Hackett, though no evidence beyond speculation supported the claim. A schism developed among the families over Mari's increasingly aggressive tactics.

On December 13, 2011, one year after the first four bodies were found, police discovered Shannan's skeleton on the far side of the Oak Beach marsh, a quarter mile from where her belongings had been found near Hackett's house. The titanium plate in her jaw confirmed her identity. Dormer theorized that Shannan, disoriented and panicked, had run into the marsh and drowned, declaring her death separate from the serial-killer investigation. Spota publicly contradicted Dormer. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death undetermined. Two of Shannan's three hyoid bones, small throat structures that can indicate strangulation if broken, were missing from the skeleton. Toxicology tests found no cocaine, and no other drugs were tested for. The case stalled.

In an afterword, Kolker recounts the tragic fate of Mari Gilbert. Shannan's sister Sarra, who has paranoid schizophrenia and had stopped taking her medication, stabbed Mari 227 times on July 23, 2016, believing her mother was a demon. Sarra was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The Suffolk County police department was further compromised when its chief, James Burke, was convicted in a federal corruption probe. Hackett and Brewer moved away from Oak Beach. Police refused to release Shannan's 911 recording despite a court order, and the case remains unsolved. Kolker argues that the five women made constrained choices shaped by poverty, addiction, and limited opportunity, and were repeatedly failed by a system indifferent to their safety. Despite her flaws, Mari spent her final years fighting for recognition that her daughter, and women like her, mattered.