Episode 10- The Mysterious Death of Shannan Gilbert & The Gilgo Beach Homicides

Episode Description- On May 1, 2010, a frantic 911 call was placed by Shannan Gilbert, a young college student who had dreams of becoming a writer and actress. She was working her way through college as an escort and had placed the 911 call from a clients house, then ran from her driver through the neighborhood before disappearing without a trace. The search for Shannan Gilbert would lead to the discovery of 10 other sets of human remains some of which are still unidentified. On July 13, 2023, a suspect was arrested in connection to three of the first four sets of remains to be discovered. In this episode we cover the case of Shannan Gilbert and the Gilgo Beach Homicides.

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Episode Original Publication Date- July 23, 2023

Page Last Updated- June 30, 2024

On May 1, 2010, in the early morning hours, a chilling 911 call would be placed by a young woman named Shannan Gilbert. Shannan was a college student who was working as an escort, with dreams of becoming a writer and actor. Shannan had started out escorting for an agency, but she and her driver, Michael Pak decided to cut out the middleman and go independent after Shannan had booked some clients on Craigslist and found success from it. According to her driver, Michael Pak in an interview that I was able to stream on the A&E Long Island Serial Killer episode, Shannan almost didn’t take the call that night, but the money had been too good to pass up- she had been offered $450 for two hours. The client was in an area they were unfamiliar with which was why they were hesitant to book this client, but they got into the car and made the long trip to Long Island from New Jersey. The client lived in the gated community of the Oak Beach Association. Pak waited in the car, and a while later, he was retrieved by Brewer because Shannan he said was freaking out and he wanted her to leave. Pak went into Brewer’s house. At this point, Shannan is on the phone with the 911 operator, who is struggling to find out where Shannan is calling from. The full 911 call was released in 2022, I was able to listen to it on YouTube… it’s just…. absolutely haunting. Shannan sounds confused, like she doesn’t really know what’s going on. She pleads with the 911 operator for help but doesn’t seem to know where she is, she ends up telling the operator she’s “around Jones Beach”. You can catch the full 911 call below. 

Shannan runs through the community where she is seen by residents who heard her yelling for help. She knocks on the door of another residence, where Gus Coletti would speak with Shannan and try to get her to come into his home to assist her. He’s interviewed on the LISK documentary episode as well and would say that when he saw a car following her, Gus stopped the car, which was being driven by Michael Pak, and told Pak that he was going to call the police, which he did. In his call, he tells the 911 operator that there was a young woman running around asking for help and she was being followed by a black suburban which matched what Pak was driving that night. Shannan would run through the neighborhood to another home, the home of Barbara Brannan. Brannan would also call 911 that night and report that a young woman was knocking on her door, seemed frightened and was asking for help and that she wasn’t going to let the girl in. Now, I’m going to stop here, because as I was reading through the comments on the 911 tapes, there was quite a bit of hate toward Barbara for not letting Shannan in, which to a degree I get but I also think it’s unwarranted. Let’s be real here, most of us, while we can easily say we would have done something differently had we been Barbara, don’t know what we would do in that situation. The world is a scary place anymore. There are cases where people are used to pose as victims to lure good Samaritans into dangerous and fatal situations. But this stuff happens and it terrifying. Barbara was protecting herself and her elderly mother who she tells the 911 operator is also in the house with her, she had a right to not open that door. There’s no guarantee that Shannan would have come into the house had Barbara even opened the door to offer her refuge, she had already run away from Pak, who she knew and had arrived with and from Gus who had offered to help her. Barbara does call a trusted male neighbor, who comes over to look for Shannan, and at that time there was no trace of Shannan or Michael Pak. Police arrived at the scene about 20 minutes after Gus placed his call to them and were unable to find Shannan or Michael Pak. 

Two days after Shannan disappeared, Shannan’s mother Mari would receive a call from a man named Peter Hackett. Dr. Peter Hackett called Mari and said that he “ran a home for wayward girls” and that Shannan was under his care. Now, at this first phone call, the Gilbert’s didn’t know that Shannan was missing. Her boyfriend, who Shannan had met at the escort agency, where he had worked as a driver, would contact Shannan’s sister after this, and ask if they had seen her because she hadn’t been in contact with him for a few days. Hackett would call Mari a second time in the days after Shannan’s disappearance but would later deny making these phone calls. Hackett is just… a strange dude.

Dr. Peter Hackett potentially fakes medical event after deposition 

Fast forward a bit to December 11, 2010, we’re now 7 months after Shannan went missing. On this day during a routine training exercise, a Suffolk County Police officer, John Malia and his K-9 Blue came across human remains on Ocean Parkway. This is about 3 miles from the Ocean Beach Association. On December 13, 2010, the remains of three more women would be found. They were not well hidden. They were wrapped in camouflaged burlap like hunters use and left above the ground about 500 yards from the roadway. Shannan’s family had gotten a phone call that they had likely found her body, however they would be both relieved and heartbroken to find out that she had been ruled out as being one of the bodies found as none of the remains had a distinct feature that would have identified Shannan- Shannan had a metal plate in her jaw from an assault by her boyfriend. The remains of the four victims would be identified as Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Melissa Barthelemy, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes who have become known as the Gilgo Beach Four. We’re going to talk about each of them. 

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