In May of 2010, a sex worker named Shannon Gilbert went missing after running through a neighborhood in Oak Beach, a gated community in New York's Long Island.

Gilbert, who had been suffering a manic episode of some kind at the time of her disappearance,

would not be found for the better part of two years, but her disappearance would lead

to the discovery of nearly a dozen bodies buried along Long Island's Gilgo Beach.

Over the next several years, a morbid saga would begin to play out in this relatively

affluent area of Suffolk County.

Police initially discovered just a few sets of remains, and then roughly a half dozen more in the months to come.

Four of the bodies were identified as missing sex workers that had disappeared in the preceding years.

25-year-old Maureen Brainerd Barnes, 24-year-old Melissa Bartholomey, 22-year-old

Megan Waterman, and 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello. But, the other sets of remains would go

unidentified, a status that they retain to this day. Police would spend the next several years

linking other potential victims to this horrific crime spree,

which had been preying upon sex workers and other disenfranchised women for over a decade.

Some public discord would shed light on the Suffolk County Police Department's own internal infighting,

which seemed to differ on whether or not they believed this was the work of one serial killer or several,

a disagreement that ultimately prevented the FBI from coming in to handle the investigation themselves.

I detailed this investigation, as well as the many scandals plaguing the Suffolk County Police Force during this time period,

in my original three-part series back in

2016, titled The Long Island Serial Killer.

The first episode addressed the disappearance of Shannon Gilbert, the second explored the lives

of the other known victims, who I named just a moment ago, The Lost Girls, and the third

episode detailed the drama surrounding Suffolk

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