Police To Release Gilgo Beach Video, 911 Call: Report

GILGO BEACH, NY — Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison recently announced that he will publicly release videotape evidence and 911 audio that is part of the Gilgo Beach serial killer investigation, Newsday reported.

The audio is of Shannan Gilbert, Harrison said, a sex worker who was trying to get away from a client in Oak Beach the morning of May 1, 2010.

Harrison told Newsday that he will be conferring with one of his top investigators, Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer, before he releases the evidence to be certain the disclosure wouldn’t compromise the Gilgo investigation.

The video depicts a Gilgo Beach victim, Megan Waterman, fleeing a hotel, a law enforcement source told Newsday.

She was 22 years old when she disappeared. Her remains were found near the Ocean Parkway in 2010.

“There is a narrative out there that we need to change,” Harrison told Newsday. “It starts with talking about the case, seeing people who might have heard anything, getting information from somebody that might have heard something that could help us, give us a lead into the investigation.

No one has been charged in connection with the killings.

There have been developments in the Gilgo beach case in recent years.

In 2020, twenty years after her death, a woman dismembered by the Gilgo Beach killer was identified, police said.

Suffolk County police, along with the FBI, revealed the name of the woman known as"Manorville Jane Doe," or "Jane Doe #6," as Valerie Mack. Mack, who also used the name Melissa Taylor, went missing in 2000 at the age of 24, police said.

She was working as an escort in Philadelphia at the time of her disappearance and family members last saw her in the spring or summer of 2000 in the area of Port Republic, New Jersey, police said.

Mack's partial remains were found by hunters Nov. 19, 2000, in a wooded area off Halsey-Manor Road in Manorville. More than a decade later, other dismembered remains were found in April, 2011, near Cedar Beach along Ocean Parkway.

Mack, who was 5 feet tall and 100 pounds with brown hair, was identified after authorities used genetic genealogy, the first time a law enforcement agency in New York State has used the new scientific techniques as part of an investigation, police said.

DNA analysis confirmed that the two sets of remains were a match.

The new scientific techniques led to the establishment of a genetic profile that gave homicide detectives leads to pursue that directed them to areas of New Jersey where Mack had ties, officials said. Interviews were conducted with relatives, who also gave DNA samples for analysis that led to her identification.

At the time, fficials said there was much work still to be done: The remains of two Suffolk victims are as of yet still unidentified. Those victims, former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said, "present additional challenges."

The Suffolk County Police Department launched the Gilgonews.com website in 2020 as a platform to update the public on developments related to the Gilgo Beach homicide investigation.

Also in 2020, police released a "significant piece of evidence," in the Gilgo Beach murders — a black belt embossed with the letters "HM" or "WH,"; the letters are 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch. The belt was found at the initial stages of the investigation at a crime scene and is believed to have been handled by the suspect and did not belong to the victims.

In 2020, Hart detailed the timeline of the years since 10 sets of remains were found; those remains included an unidentified toddler, her mother, whose remains were found in Nassau County, an unidentified Asian male between the ages of 17 and 23, and the women located.

Shannan Gilbert's remains were found in 2011 in Oak Beach; Gilbert was a New Jersey escort who disappeared 10 years ago after meeting a client for sex on Oak Beach, leading to the discoveries of the 10 sets of human remains.

The search for Gilbert first led to the bodies of four other prostitutes, all of whom were strangled and stuffed in burlap bags. A total of 11 sets of human remains, including Gilbert's, were found along Ocean Parkway. Police have been searching for a serial killer ever since.

Mari Gilbert, Shannan's mother, was later murdered by another daughter.

A Netflix movie, "Lost Girls," was made about the case; the movie was filmed on the North Fork in 2018.

With reporting by Lisa Finn.