Netflix’s Gilgo Beach serial killer film ‘Lost Girls’ revealed how top cop bungled investigation into search for suspect before new DA revived the hunt with special task force

• Lost Girls revealed how then Police Commissioner Richard Dormer ‘bungled’ the investigation into the deaths of sex workers on Gilgo Beach
• It wasn’t until last year that Suffolk County’s new Police Commissioner revived the search for the serial killer
• He announced Friday that Rex Heuermann, 59, was arrested and charged with three of the deaths and is the prime suspect in a fourth

A Netflix film documenting the murders of sex workers on Gilgo Beach revealed how Suffolk County’s top cop bungled the investigation into a serial killer.

Lost Girls, which premiered on the streaming service in 2020, tells the story of one mother’s quest for answers after her daughter went missing, and the ensuing discovery of 10 bodies found on the beach.

Throughout the documentary, Mari Gilbert (played by Amy Ryan) comes head-to-head with then-Police Commissioner Richard Dormer (played by Gabriel Byrne), who repeatedly insisted her daughter, Shannan, was hysterical and died of natural causes.

It wasn’t until last year that Suffolk County’s new Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison revived the search for the serial killer, developing a first-of-its-kind special task force comprising local, state and federal officers to hunt for the killer.

He announced on Friday that Rex Heuermann, 59, was arrested and charged with three of the deaths. He is also the prime suspect in a fourth.

But police continue to believe Shannan Gilbert’s death was unrelated.

Former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer (pictured) is accused of bungling the investigation into the Gilgo Beach serial killer

The ex-police commissioner was portrayed by Gabriel Byrne in a Netflix dramatization of the investigation

https://youtube.com/watch?v=UJzGE00wncU%3Frel%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26hl%3Den-US

The serial killer riddle began with the search for 23-year-old Shannan Gilbert, an escort from New Jersey who had vanished in 2010 after making a frantic 911 call.

Her mother, Mari, then pushed Suffolk County authorities to find her daughter, joining together with the other victims’ families to get justice for their daughters’ deaths.

With her urging, police combed Gilgo Beach where they found the remains of Melisa Barthelemy, 24; Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Lynn Costello, 27, all wrapped in burlap sacks.

The victims were not identified until the next year. Some of the four had been missing for three years by the time their bodies were found.

All were sex workers who advertised their services on Craigslist, leading police to believe that is how the killer first made contact with them.

Officials said the victims were probably killed and disposed of at different times.

Then, in March and April 2011, as police continued searching for Gilbert, another four bodies were found in the same stretch of coastline, including that of a toddler.

In March 2011, police found the skull of a prostitute named Jessica Taylor, 20. Most of the rest of her body was found in a wooded area of Manorville shortly after she disappeared in 2003. She also worked as an escort in New York City.

Body parts found on April 4, 2011, near Gilgo Beach were also linked to another corpse found in Manorville in 2000. That female victim, first known only as ‘Jane Doe No 6,’ was identified using genetic genealogy tools in May of this year as 24-year-old Valerie Mack.

Gilbert’s naked body would be found later in the marsh nearby. 

‘This book tells the story of five families who have lost a daughter and their various struggles over the course of about 10 years as they try to get authorities to help locate these girls,’ director Liz Garbus told Collider before the film came out. 

She said that Mari, in particular, ‘raised some hell and got the police to start looking, but of course, it was too late. And in doing so, a group of women came together to get justice for their loved ones.’

But as the mothers held press conferences urging an investigation, then Police Commissioner Richard Dormer ‘bungl[ed] the case — whether because of negligence or corruption, we really don’t know.’

The mystery began with the search for 23-year-old Shannan Gilbert, an escort from New Jersey who had vanished in May 2010 after making a frantic 911

Lost Girls tells the story of Mari Gilbert’s efforts to get justice for her daughter

Mari Gilbert managed to get the other victims’ family members to demand justice

In a 2011 interview with CBS News, Dormer said Gilbert likely drowned because she was ‘hysterical’ at the time.

He said the fact that she was found naked is ‘explainable because she’s hysterical.

‘We know that, and she’s discarding her possessions as she moves along,’ he said at the time. ‘Her jeans could have come off moving in that environment.

‘We’ve looked at this very carefully, and that is a possibility that the jeans came of and she kept running, kept running towards the lights,’ he added. ‘Obviously, she was disturbed that night.’ 

He also suggested Gilbert may ‘have been using drugs or succumbed to the elements after she reached the beach and got disoriented.’ 

It was later revealed that Gilbert had called 911 early in the morning on May 1, 2010 claiming claiming that someone was trying to kill her before she went missing near Oak Beach.

‘Something is going to happen to me,’ she said on the call.

‘There’s somebody after me, I don’t know where I am. I am inside a house. I don’t know where I am. Can you trace where I am?’

At one point a man is heard laughing and saying ‘shut up.’ 

Neighbors of the area later said they saw her knocking on several doors before vanishing. 

Gilbert had met with a customer named John Brewer in Oak Beach that night, and Brewer admitted to seeing Gilbert but has not been implicated in her death.

Police still do not believe Heuermann was involved in her death. 

The first victim, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, was discovered by Suffolk County Police on December 11, 2010. The body of Megan Waterman, 22, was found two days later

Maureen Brainard-Barnes was 25 years old when she went missing (left). Amber Lynn Costello was 27 years old. Their bodies were found near Barthelemy’s the same day

Mari Gilbert (pictured) never got to get justice for her daughter, as she was killed in 2016. Police still do not believe Shannan’s death is related to those of the other victims

Still, Dormer agreed with other investigators that the other 10 bodies discovered in the area were the victims of a serial killer.

But for many years, investigators flip-flopped on whether the victims were all killed by one suspect.

Then District Attorney Thomas Spota told reporters in May 2011 that up to four different killers may have been responsible.

Seven months later, he testified that at least three different suspects were involved.

But at the same hearing, Dormer contradicted his colleague, saying all of the deaths were related. 

By 2012, the investigation started to get cold, with FBI sources claiming that Suffolk police were unwilling to let them help in the investigation.

The families of the victims have since claimed that police were not interested in searching for a killer because the victims were sex workers.

Melissa Cann, whose 20-year-old sister, Maurenn Brainard-Barnes was the first to disappear in 2007, told New York Magazine that when she told a cop her sister was missing and ‘told him what she was doing up in Manhattan, it was like he didn’t care.’

Mari has since died without justice for her daughter, after being stabed to death by her other daughter, Sarra, who suffered from schizophrenia in July 2016.

Meanwhile, Dormer died of cancer in 2019. 

Manhattan architect Rex Heuermann, 59, is charged with three murders attributed to the Gilgo Beach serial killer, and is the prime suspect in a fourth victim’s murder

In an attempt to revive attention on the case that year, police released images of a black leather belt that was found at the crime scene – which they believe was handled by the suspected serial killer. The belt appeared to have embossed initials, WH or HM.

Cops also created a website specifically for the investigation in a bid to finally solve the cold case for which there have been no arrests.

In 2021, there was a renewed interest in the case again when Suffolk County Police Commissioner, Raymond Harris became appointed police commissioner.

He vowed to revive the dormant investigation at a news conference last year, saying ‘I believe this case is solvable, and identifying the person or people responsible for these murders is a top priority.’

The Suffolk DA also announced at the time that he would set up a task force to investigate the cold case.

That coalition eventually came across Heuermann’s name, prompting questions about why previous investigative units failed to nail him. 

Law enforcement sources tell DailyMail.com he has been on their radar since last year. Investigators matched him to the crimes by tracking the phone calls made from burner phones to the victims’ cell phones over 10 years ago.

Police officers stood guard as law enforcement searched Heuermann’s home on Saturday

Prosecutors allege he used burner phones and multiple email accounts to search for sites depicting sexual violence, to reach sex workers and to keep up with the investigation of the murders

Prosecutors allege he used burner phones and multiple email accounts to search for sites depicting sexual violence, to reach sex workers and to keep up with the investigation of the murders.

He also allegedly used fake names for email accounts and phones ‘to conduct thousands of searches related to sex workers, sadistic, torture-related pornography and child pornography.’

Many of the search terms, prosecutors allege, focused on violent sexual acts involving minors.

Authorities say Barthelemy’s burner phone was also used to make ‘taunting phone calls’ t her family members in the days after her disappearance, in which a male voice admitting to killing and sexually assaulting her.

The calls were later traced to a location near Heuermann’s Manhattan office. 

He has pleaded not guilty to the murders, and is being held in custody. 

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