Evidence of Missing L.I. Sex Worker Found, Drugs Likely Involved

Yesterday, police in Suffolk County, New York, discovered clothes, a cell phone and ID of a missing 24-year-old prostitute along a lonely stretch of Long Island that has become a macabre burial ground over the past year. According to Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert was not a victim of the Seashore Serial Killer, who investigators believe has killed and buried 10 other victims on this narrow barrier island on the outskirts of New York City. Instead, on May 1, 2010, Gilbert became disoriented while fleeing a local john. According to her driver, Mike Pak of Jersey City, she drowned in swampy lowlands, the victim of her a drug-induced panic.

It all began just after midnight, when Pak dropped her off at the home of a client in Oak Beach. Two hours later, she became upset and called Pak, but fled the house before the he arrived. Minutes later, at 4:45 am, she banged on a neighbor’s door. “She was saying, ‘I need help, I need help, they’re after me,’” the neighbor told reporters. He called police, but by then Gilbert had turned and disappeared in the swamp. “It’s very easy to get engulfed in water, muck and fall down," says Dormer. "We surmise that’s what happened."