Eyewitness NewsLONG ISLAND (WABC) -- The search for the body of a missing woman resumes Thursday on a Long Island beach where police say new clues were found.
Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old prostitute from Jersey City, disappeared on the south shore in May of 2010, and the ensuing investigation led to the discovery of 10 sets of human remains near Oak and Gilgo beaches. Those victims are believed to be the work of a serial killer.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said officers have not yet found any of Gilbert's remains, but said the search would resume on Thursday. After police found some of Gilbert's personal items this week, they say they are now confident they will find her body. Police are suggesting Gilbert's death may have been an accidental drowning. They think she drowned after becoming upset for an unexplained reason.
"It's very easy to get engulfed with water, muck, and fall down and not be able to get out of there," Dormer said. "We surmise that's what happened to Shannan and she's in there some place and we're going to do everything we can to find her."
Investigators do not think Gilbert was the victim of the serial killer who has left at least 10 bodies in the nearby dunes.
The search in a marshy will continue now that police have found what appear to be several of Gilbert's possessions, including her purse, cell phone, jeans and shoes. Her mother, Mari Gilbert, was called by investigators to link the items to her missing daughter.
"It's so cold and lonely and painful," Mari Gilbert said. "I don't want them to be her items, but if they are, hopefully they're just closer to finding her."
Mari Gilbert has been waiting 19 months, hoping for something more definite.
"I am still doubtful," Gilbert said. "I need to see the items for myself to believe it."
Gilbert was last seen at a client's home in Oak Beach, a gated seashore community several miles east of Jones Beach State Park. She was taken by a driver to the Oak Beach community, where she met a client for sex. The client, Joseph Brewer, was interviewed by police but is not considered a suspect, authorities said.
Brewer has told police that Gilbert became upset after about two hours and that he summoned the driver to remove her from his home. The woman then reportedly fled the house.
Oak Beach resident Gustav Colletti has told authorities that Gilbert banged on his door at around 4:45 a.m. on May 1, 2010.
"She was saying, 'I need help, I need help, they're after me,"' Coletti has told reporters. He said he told the woman he was calling police, but she immediately turned around and fled.
A few moments later, a man in a sport utility vehicle drove past the house and told Coletti he was looking for the woman. Coletti said the driver told him they had been at a party and the woman had become upset. The driver also has been interviewed but was not identified as a suspect.
Suffolk Chief of Detectives Dominic Varrone said witness reports that the woman was acting irrationally are consistent with her likely demise.
"Apparently what we found yesterday is very indicative, very supportive of the fact that she just wandered and ran aimlessly into this marshy area," he said.
While the inquiry into Gilbert's disappearance appeared to be coming to a conclusion, homicide detectives still have 10 unsolved murder cases to contend with. Police have received more than 1,200 tips about the case and have offered a $25,000 reward but have yet to identify any suspects.
Officers searched 90 specific locations in and around a several-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway on Monday; areas that were mapped after the FBI took high-tech surveillance photos of the area this year. Inspector Stuart Cameron noted that most areas had already been searched, but said the FBI surveillance photos prompted a return to the some of the sites.
The remains of the 10 people - eight women, a man and a baby - were found strewn mostly along the remote beach parkway, but some body parts from those victims were found on eastern Long Island and nearly 50 miles away on Fire Island. Police have identified only five of the 10 victims. Those five were all women working as escorts. The oldest remains are linked to a case 15 years ago.
Dormer has pulled back on earlier theories that multiple killers might have left the bodies along the parkway, the first of which was a woman who went missing in 1996. Dormer said last week he believes that because nine of the 10 were involved in the sex trade, their killings are likely related.
The tenth victim, a toddler girl, was linked by DNA to a woman believed to be her mother. The remains of the mother and child were found seven miles apart.
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