The identification of a woman’s remains 20 years after she was reported as a missing person in New Jersey is just part of larger story involving a still-unidentified Long Island serial killer.
This is what we know so far, and how you can learn more about the mysterious story:
The investigation that kicked off the mystery
Shannan Gilbert, who officials say was a prostitute, was reported missing on May 1, 2010 and was last seen on Long Island.
While searching for the 23-year-old Jersey City woman, police found the bodies of 10 other people and concluded that it was the work of a serial killer.
A police officer and his cadaver dog were looking for her body in the thicket along Ocean Parkway in Long Island when they happened upon the remains of a different woman. Within days, three other bodies were found, all within a short walk of one another.
By spring 2011, that number had climbed to 10 sets of human remains — eight women, a man and a toddler.
Gilbert’s remains were not recovered until Dec. 13, 2011 in a marsh in Long Island and officials believed the cause of her death was drowning.
Gilbert’s family disputed the cause of her death and believed she was also the victim of a Long Island serial killer. The family hired a pathologist to review the 23-year-old’s autopsy and revealed she may have been strangled.
Another tragedy
Five years later, police were responding to a welfare check call when they found Shannan’s mother, Mari Gilbert, stabbed to death inside an upstate New York apartment.
Her other daughter, Sarra Elizabeth Gilbert, was charged with her murder after she stabbed her 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, according to the Daily Freeman.
The prosecution contended Gilbert plotted the killing and carried it out because the older woman had Gilbert arrested months earlier for killing a puppy and had temporary custody of Gilbert’s young son, the article stated.
Sarra was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in 2017.
This undated photo provided by the Suffolk County, New York, Police Department, Thursday May 28, 2020, shows Valerie Mack who went missing in 2000. Suffolk County police said the woman previously known as "Jane Doe No. 6" was identified through genetic genealogy technology. (Suffolk County Police Department via AP)AP
“Jane Doe No. 6″
At least one part of the mystery was solved Thursday when investigators determined that the remains of a girl, previously only identified as “Jane Doe No. 6," belonged to Valerie Mack.
Mack, who also went by Melissa Taylor, was last seen in 2000 near Atlantic City and was 24 years old when she disappeared.
Her remains were found in two places more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) and a decade apart: in 2000 in Manorville, near where Long Island splits into its two forks, and in 2011 near Gilgo Beach, where the remains of the others were found. Most of them were young women who worked as prostitutes.
The FBI used genetic genealogy, a technique in which genetic profiles are run though databases to find potential relatives of a homicide victim or suspect, to identify Mack’s remains.
Using DNA, investigators created a genealogy profile for the remains, leading them to possible relatives who provided DNA samples, which allowed for a positive identification, police said.
The other victims
Mack was not the first person whose body was identified by investigators.
Police found the skull of Jessica Taylor, a 20-year-old prostitute who disappeared in 2003, near Gilgo Beach and most of the rest of her body in a wooded area of Manorville in 2011.
There is no familial relationship between Mack and Jessica Taylor, despite Mack’s Melissa Taylor pseudonym, police said.
The other victims that have been identified include Melissa Barthelemy, 24, a Buffalo native who lived in the Bronx; Megan Waterman, 22, of Scarborough, Maine, last seen leaving a Long Island hotel; Amber Lynn Costello, 27, originally of Wilmington, North Carolina, but recently living in North Babylon, New York; and Maureen Brainerd-Barnes, 28, of Norwich, Connecticut.
None of the other remains recovered between the Gilgo Beach or Manorville sites have been positively identified.
The killer (or killers)
No suspects have been identified despite thousands of tips and the offer of thousands of dollars in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer, whom investigators believe was a man who possibly did not act alone.
However, a man believed to be the killer has made contact with one family.
In the days after Barthelemy was reported missing in 2009, someone used her cell phone to call her teenage sister in Buffalo at least a half-dozen times. The caller eventually admitted to the girl he was the killer.
New York City police tracked the call to midtown Manhattan and searched near Pennsylvania Station and the Port Authority bus terminal, but the signal went dead.
Cellphone records showed a call from Massapequa, on Long Island. Police canvassed the area, asking around at local hotels, but turned up nothing, the official said. There have been no calls in several years.
Where you can watch more
The notorious case became infamous enough to garner several TV specials and one movie detailing the grisly murders.
Two true crime television series aired in 2016; “People Magazine Investigates” and “The Killing Season," according to the Long Island Press. The People Magazine Investigates aired on the Investigation Discovery channel while The Killing Season was aired on A&E.
The first two episodes of both series focused on the case of the Long Island serial killer.
On March 13, a movie based on the murders of the women, Lost Girls, was released on Netflix.
The film focuses on Mari Gilbert, played by Amy Ryan, as she drives investigators to search for her daughter.
This article contains material from the Associated Press.
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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
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