SERIAL KILLER: Long Island Serial Killer

Unsolved serial killers always bring about theories, rumours and the unknown. LISK also brought unnamed victims.

Minimal known about the Long Island Serial Killer sometimes referred to as the Gilgo Beach Killer, Craigslist Ripper or Manorville Butcher. It’s believed that they were active for around 20 years between the 1990s to the 2010s. Despite starting in the 90s, LISK was only discovered in 2010 as police were looking for, at the time, missing woman Shannan Gilbert.

To start with, we’re going to briefly look at some of the theories around the case before tackling the ten that are officially linked with LISK. There are many more cases that are unofficially linked to LISK.

The first theory is that LISK was a regular “John”. A majority of the identified women were known to be sex workers at the time, with some getting offered high pay for a job right before they went missing. If this was the case it’s theorized that LISK only attacked when circumstances were just right; otherwise, they would use the service as normal.

The second theory is that LISK is a part of the music industry. This is because a majority of the linked victims had aspirations of getting into the business. It’s also since the music industry and sex work often overlap it could have been where LISK met the women.

The third theory is that LISK could have been a part of law enforcement. It doesn’t necessarily mean that LISK was a police officer as such but they could have been trained in the field. This is mostly based on the different countermeasures that were used throughout the cases.

The fourth and final theory is that LISK isn’t a single person. This is based on the major changes throughout the cases. In some cases, the killer called the victim’s family after the victim went missing. In some cases, the victim was found dismembered and their remains scattered in an area whilst others were found whole. Some victims were killed quickly — a single gunshot to the head — while others were seemingly tortured. That’s another big difference some victims were stabbed and others were shot, some were strangled.

Despite all the theories, these victims were still senselessly murdered and still haven’t gotten justice. Going in order of discovery the following cases are the unidentified victims that are often tied to LISK.

On April 20th 1996, people were walking on Blue Point Beach near Davis Park on Fire Island when they found a pair of disembodied female legs wrapped in plastic.
The legs had red painted toenails. The right leg had three notable scars. A 3.5-inch scar on the lateral mid-leg area, a 1-inch scar on the lateral mid to lower leg and a 1.5-inch scar on the medial ankle. The left leg had a surgical scar with adjacent suture scars on the medial ankle.
Authorities believed the victim had been killed a few months before being found. From this point forward she would be known as Fire Island Jane Doe, a white woman aged between 18 to 50.
Nothing else was found of her until April 12th 2011 when a skull was found off Ocean Parkway, west of Tobay beach. That’s all that is known about her.

On June 18th 1997 a hiker found a green Rubbermaid container in a wooded area of Hempstead Lake State Park, New York. They opened it to find a female torso wrapped in a black plastic bag. The container was approximately 35ft from the south side of Park Drive and west of the main entrance.

The torso had a small tattoo on the left side of her chest, it was an orange peach with a bite taken out of it, there were two green leaves at the top of the fruit and a blue water droplet below the bitemark. She also had a 6-inch surgical scar running horizontally across her lower abdomen, it was from a C-section. There was a maroon towel and dark-coloured floral pillowcase found near the Rubbermaid container.
Authorities believed that she had only been dead for a few days before she was found. From this point onward she was known as Peaches, a black or mixed woman aged 20 to 30 years.
On April 11th 2011, some of Peaches’ extremities were discovered on Jones Beach, they were found with two gold bracelets. This is all that is known about her.

The only picture of Peaches is of her tattoo.

On April 4th 2011, the skeletal remains of a John Doe were found at Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach, New York. It is possible that they were a transwoman or a crossdresser working as a sex worker, this is believed since they were found with undescribed women’s clothing. Police found their remains, along with some other victims, at a possible LISK dump site.
They were an Asian male who could have identified as a woman, aged 17 to 23 years and were approximately 5'6". They may have had a musculoskeletal disorder that affected how they walked and they had poor dental hygiene and were missing top and bottom molars along with a front tooth. They were killed by a blow to the head and passed at some point between 2000 to 2006. Police have linked Doe as a LISK victim.

On April 4th 2011, at the same LISK dump site as previous remains, police found the skeletal remains of a small child. Five years later DNA testing linked them to Peaches as her child. Baby Doe was found with a 16" gold necklace and two gold hoop earrings.

Not much is known about them, on NamUS their sex is unlisted while some reports say they are female. Their race is unknown but it is assumed they are either black or mixed due to that being Peaches’ race. They were listed as 16 months to 4 years old. Their date of death is unknown.

There are no pictures of Baby Doe other than the jewellery.

The rest of the cases are all identified victims yet not much is known about them as people, going in order of discovery.

On November 19th 2000 hikers discovered a woman’s torso wrapped in plastic bags in Long Island Pine Barrens in Manorville. She was described as being near or fully skeletal. This woman would later be identified in 2020 as Valerie Mack.

There isn’t all too much known about who Valerie was as a person. All that was continuously said was Valerie worked as an escort at the time of her disappearance and she was living with her boyfriend and young son. Her disappearance was never reported and her family didn’t know exactly when they last saw Valerie, saying it was either the Spring or Summer of 2000.

Not much else came from the case until April 4th 2011 when Valerie’s head, hands and right foot were found in a plastic bag. The discovery was made in the vicinity of Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach.

Jessica Taylor was only a teen when she first left home in Poughkeepsie she made it to Brooklyn before beginning to settle down. She started working as a sex worker soon becoming under the control of a pimp called Khalil ‘Remy’ White. For three years, Jessica would work under White, occasionally travelling up and down the east coast for work.

It was on one of those trips to Washington D.C. where Jessica left part way through after making comments about wanting to escape the lifestyle. She left on July 15th 2003, White reported Jessica as missing not long after she had left. Her car was found broken down on the way back to Brooklyn and it was thought she had hitchhiked the rest of the way. Reports say that Jessica was seen at the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan at some point between the 18th to the 21st of July.

Just days later on the 26th, a woman’s torso was found wrapped in a plastic sheet in Manorville, New York. The remains were at the end of an access road off of Halsey Manor Road. A medical examiner put the time of death just a few days before. There was a tattoo on her right hip that had been mutilated with a sharp instrument. The tattoo was of a red heart with an angel wing with the words “Remy’s angel” on it. Police in Washington recognised the tattoo as Jessica’s, and just seven months after she disappeared, the remains were identified as Jessica’s.

On May 9th 2011, a skull, pair of hands and a forearm were found at Gilgo Beach.

Just like many other victims, not much is known about Maureen Brainard-Barnes aside from what she was doing for money. Like the other linked women, Maureen worked as a sex worker advertising her services online using sites like Craigslist, Backpage and similar, she often went by Juliana or Marie. Her typical routine was to travel to Manhattan for a few days before returning to her home in Connecticut. Whilst in Manhattan, Maureen would stay in either the Super 8 Motel, The Red Roof Inn, Carter Hotel or the Manhattan Hotel.

Sometimes Maureen would travel with another sex worker and her friend who worked a similar route. They sometimes went with one of their male friends calling him their ‘cousin’ it’s believed this was done for safety. The weekend that Maureen went missing, the friend she went with left earlier than Maureen.

On July 9th 2007 at 11:43 pm, Maureen was on the phone with a friend back in Connecticut, she told her friend that she was meeting someone outside the motel on one of her rare “out-calls”. This was the last time someone heard from Maureen. It’s reported that Maureen was robbed outside her hotel and that stopped her from going with her client but it isn’t confirmed.

Maureen’s friend reported her missing on July 14th the initial report being made to Norwich Police Department before it was transferred to NYPD. Her phone had pinged in the Fire Island area in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. Not much was found of Maureen’s case until three years later.

Before Maureen’s remains were discovered the friend who reported her missing received calls from an unknown man claiming he had seen Maureen at a “whorehouse in Queens”. He said he would call again with the address but that second call never came. The friend couldn’t hear a discernible New York or Boston accent.

On December 13th 2010, on the north side of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, Maureen’s body was found during a search for another victim. She had been strangled.

Aspiring hair stylist Melissa Barthelemy was last seen on July 12th 2009 just outside of her apartment in the Bronx, New York. She had been to the bank at some point that day to deposit an $1000 check from a job she worked as a sex worker. Her boyfriend and pimp later claimed she had another $1000 date lined up the following night, the meeting was set somewhere in Long Island.

Shortly after Melissa went missing, her sister began receiving a series of calls from an unknown man using Melissa’s phone, the calls came on the 16th, 19th, and 23rd of July and the 26th or 27th of August. He claimed to be Melissa’s killer. The calls were traced to crowded locations in New York City, Times Square being one of them. Records showed that whoever was using Melissa’s phone had accessed her voicemail at some point on July 12th in Massapequa, New York.

Melissa’s body was found on December 11th 2010 beside Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach alongside three other women, she had been strangled.

Megan Waterman was living in Scarborough, Maine when went out to New York for work. Whilst she was working in New York, Megan would call her young daughter multiple times a day. Her last call was on June 5th 2010.

At the time it’s believed that Megan was working under the control of her boyfriend and pimp Akeem Cruz.

The last time that Megan would be seen would be on June 6th at 1:30 am, she was seen on security cameras leaving a hotel in Hauppauge, New York. She was recorded in the lobby and leaving the hotel itself, the footage was released to the public in April 2022.
Megan’s body was found on December 13th 2010 beside Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, she had been strangled.

Cruz’s laptop was seized by the police on April 16th 2011 to try and find a list of clients that Megan may have been set to meet with that night. A year later, Cruz pled guilty to federal charges of transporting women over state lines for sex with paying clients, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Just like so many other victims, Amber Costello was mostly forgotten, more is known about her death than her life. She was living in New York just after her second divorce. Her roommate last saw her on September 2nd 2010 leaving their North Babylon home, wearing a pink hoodie and jeans, she left her phone behind. She was going to meet with a client that had called her three or four times. On the fourth call, it was at 10:30 pm. Amber was offered $1,500 for her services, an offer that she couldn’t refuse. 

Police found Amber’s body on December 13th, 2010 beside Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. She had been strangled to death.

The final identified victim is Shannan Gilbert, the woman whose searches revealed most of the previous victims. She was known to be actively working as a sex worker at the time of her disappearance with a driver named Michael Pak helping her travel.

It’s truly disturbing how suddenly the information we know about Shannan’s last moments just stops, her last movements from 12 am to 5:30 am were nearly entirely documented on calls to 9–1–1 dispatch before Shannan just disappeared.

On May 1st 2010, Shannan had two clients lined up for the early morning. One appointment was in Midtown, Manhattan that lasted for twenty minutes at midnight. When she was done, Shannan called Pak for a ride to her next client, Pak taking her to Oak Beach, New York. They had left at 1 am, arriving outside Joseph Brewer’s house an hour later. Shortly after, Shannan and Brewer left in his car for fifteen minutes before they returned.
The next known contact Shannan made with anyone was at 2:55 am when she called a CVS in West Islip followed by multiple back-and-forth calls between Shannan and Pak.
It is reported that nearly two hours later at 4:45 am, Shannan became agitated for unknown reasons. Brewer went as far as to get Pak inside to remove Shannan, both men failed with Shannan reportedly saying that “you guys are trying to kill me” and hiding behind a sofa to try and stay safe.
She called 9–1–1 from her hiding spot, telling them that someone was trying to kill her. Reportedly, her call was transferred to New York State Police rather than Suffolk County Police. This call would last for the next 23 minutes.
During the following five minutes, Pak left and had gotten back inside his SUV. He witnessed Shannan burst from the front door and fall down the stairs before taking off running.
Shannan ended up at a neighbour’s home, banging on the door for help, Gus Coletti allowed her inside before going to call the police. As Coletti was on the phone, Shannan ran out of the house, hiding behind Coletti’s boat.
At 5:10 am Pak approaches the house, Coletti going to talk to him, Pak told Coletti that they were at a party and Shannan got upset and ran off. Shannan took off running from Pak after he spotted her behind the boat. He quickly lost sight of her when she turned onto Anchor Way. Not too long after this point, Shannan’s call with 9–1–1 had ended but another was made by Coletti and another neighbour also called in that Shannan was on her doorstep asking for help. Shannan was last seen alive at 5:24 am.

Some reports say police arrived at 5:40 am while others say it was as late as 6:10 am. No matter the time, Shannan was gone. Pak was already heading home after giving up on finding her.

The 23-minute call that Shannan made would eventually be released to the public after a lengthy court battle for the recording. The Gilbert family attorney said that the tapes were valuable as they conflicted with what was said in official police reports.

Shannan’s mom, Mari Gilbert, received a call shortly after Shannan vanished. It was from a resident of Oak Beach, he claimed to be Dr. Peter Hackett who allegedly “ran a home for wayward girls”. He said he treated Shannan on the night she vanished. Six days after Mari was called one of Shannan’s sisters received the same call from Hackett. It was quickly determined that Hackett wasn’t a suspect in the case.

On December 6th 2011, Shannan’s pocketbook, ID, phone, jeans and shoes were found in the marshland near Anchor Way where she was last seen. A week later Shannan’s remains were found a quarter of a mile further into the marsh.

The police claim that she had accidentally drowned after wandering into the marsh in a drug-induced panic. Drug toxicology came up negative for any drugs in her system and Shannan was found face-up which is possible but very rare for drowning victims. Her death was ruled inconclusive by the ME.
An independent autopsy done in 2014 found damage was done to her hyoid bone, the examiner claiming it was “consistent with homicidal strangulation”. There still wasn’t enough evidence to give an exact cause of death.

Each one of these cases remains unsolved to this day with some of the victims still not having their names.