The Gilgo Beach investigation stretches back nearly a generation, a case that grew not from

a single crime but was kicked off by a single disappearance.

In May of 2010, 24-year-old Shannon Gilbert vanished after fleeing a residence in Oak Beach.

When police began searching for her, they found something else entirely.

Along the southern edge of Long Island, just off of Ocean Parkway, investigators stumbled

upon multiple sets of human remains.

By December of 2010, four women were located within a narrow strip of brush near Gilgo Beach.

They would become known as the Gilgo Four. Over the following

spring, six more sets of remains were found along that same corridor and nearby stretches

of the barrier island, ten victims in total, most of whom had advertised escort or sex

work services, creating an early sense that someone was hunting vulnerable women

and discarding them along the coast. Shannon Gilbert's bodies surfaced a year later in December

2011, deeper in the marshland. Her death was labeled an accidental drowning, although the search

for her had already anchored Gilgo Beach in the national imagination

as the center of something sprawling and cruel.

In the years that followed, police released sketches, composites, and updates drawn from forensic advancements.

Genetic genealogy eventually breathed new life into several identities once thought unrecoverable. The long quiet broke in the summer of

2003. On July 13th, police arrested Rex Heuerman, an architect from Massapequa Park. He was charged

with murdering three of the Gilgo Four, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, and Melissa Bartholomey.

As investigators dug further, additional

charges followed. By late 2004, he stood accused in seven Gilgo-related murders, including

the entire Gilgo Four. Huraman pleaded not guilty. For many, his arrest offered something

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