The month search for a missing New Jersey woman finally came to an end this week when police on Long Island, New York, announced the discovery remains believed to be year-old Shannan Gilbert. On Saturday, Dec. As "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports, the search for Gilbert uncovered a greater mystery.
This is not the first time that Sheree Gilbert has heard the news that her older sister had been found. The first call came a year ago, when her sister, Shannan, had been missing for seven months. Investigators had found the first body -- wrapped in burlap -- on a secluded stretch of beach. I started crying. I couldn't believe it. As Sherre waited for a positive ID the news got even worse.
Three more bodies were found on the same beach; a total of four, all about feet apart, all wrapped in burlap. This body, this body. It's really crazy. Someone was strangling young women and then dumping their bodies just feet from the road. Newspapers soon dubbed him the "Long Island Serial Killer. Sherre didn't know it, but the plot was about to take another bizarre twist: None of the four bodies were Shannan.
Who were the four victims? And where was Shannan Gilbert? The mystery of Shannan's disappearance began on May 3, Sherre Gilbert got a phone call from her sister's boyfriend reporting that Shannan hadn't come home in two days. I knew when he called me that it was something serious It was the call Sherre and her sister, Sarra, had been dreading ever since learning Shannan, diagnosed with a bipolar disorder and struggling with depression and mood swings, had turned to selling her services online as an escort.
The Gilberts say they immediately filed a missing persons report, but with no news, they drove miles from their home in upstate New York to Oak Beach, Long Island, to look for Shannan themselves. By then, she had been missing for eight days. We went everywhere. They spoke to a dozen witnesses and homeowners in the area trying to piece together a timeline.
