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Everyday Morning Cup of Murder tells you a straightforward, short-form story about murder, true crime, cold cases, disappearances, serial killers, cults, and more. And I do that all in under 15 minutes. With over three years of stories and over 20 million downloads, the Morning Cup of Murder podcast has become a staple of so many people's daily routines. So why not add it to yours? Stream Morning Cup of Murder everywhere you listen to podcasts. And remember, stay safe. Mopac Audio.
If you love The List Podcast, please make sure you rate and subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. Also, take a quick moment to find us on social media where we post case updates, behind-the-scenes photos, and exclusive content. Follow us at our handle, Atlas Podcast, on Twitter. Instagram and Facebook. A note to listeners, the following podcast contains content that may not be suitable for all audiences. Welcome to season two of Lisk, Long Island Serial Killer.
If you haven't listened to season one, we strongly suggest you start there or much of this will make little sense. My name is Chris Moss. I'm a television and podcast producer whose team has now spent years delving into the list case. to understand what really happened and who could be behind it. For those of you who've been waiting for Season 2, we apologize for the delays. 2020 and COVID, as many of us have experienced, really set us back. Thank you for your patience.
And your grace, as you might hear some audio with life going on in the background. But before we get started, since it has been so long, here's a recap of Season 1. I know that she was waiting for a car, and whoever person it was picked her up, and they brought her to Long Island. It was August 2009, and there were flyers up, and there was this missing woman, Megan Waterman.
There's a good chance we never would have found any of these girls, but then Shannon Gilbert disappeared. The only reason the police found the bodies of all of these other people is because they were searching for Shannon. And the Suffolk County Police basically, they just blew me off.
And I was like, no, man. She was screaming. She had called the police while she was in Oak Beach. And the sad fact is that Shannon's disappearance wasn't really something that the police took terribly seriously until they found those other bodies. So in a very strange way, these women all helped each other get found. And they said that they had found female remains, skeletal remains, approximately 24 to 26 years old.
four foot nine. Jeff and I just started crying. We knew it was her. She walked into the room and right when she walked into the room, the guy slammed her against the wall. and had all sorts of torture devices set up in the room. I believe she threw the guidelines away because she knew the person and the person was somebody that...
you would normally trust. At the end of that Season 1 recap, you heard from Dave Schaller, who shared a house in Babylon with Amber Costello, the last we know of to go missing. Dave was talking about a photo we showed him of a potential POI, person of interest, from a file we at Mopac Audio were given. This file came by way of an accountant who has done some forensic accounting.
which is tracking crime and criminals through the old saying, follow the money. This person, who created the file and does not want to be identified, had an interest in the List case, began looking into it, and came across a POI no one had been considering. So they began by gathering an extensive collection of photos, maps, images, social media pages, tax and property records, business licenses, and other information. They then compared all this to the victims' lives.
and where their bodies would end up being found. This approach actually has an aim. Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative methodology that analyzes the locations of a connected series of crimes. such as with a serial murderer or rapist. And using a particular computer model determines the most probable location where the offender is based, usually where they live.
And then that can be used to manage information and prioritize suspects. That is renowned criminologist Dr. Kim Rossmo, who you'll hear more from this season. He actually created Geographic Profiling. and today he travels the world training police forces in the methodology. So it was with this technique that an in-depth geographic profile was created for this person of interest.
And because Dave Schaller had seen and interacted with many of Amber's clients, we showed him the POI photo, along with photos of other men connected to the List case. What's that guy do for a living? What does he do? This guy looks very familiar. You know, very familiar. That's him. And there's also Sarah, Maureen Brainerd Barnes, friend and co-worker. You might recall that two weeks after Maureen vanished in Manhattan...
Sarah received an odd phone call. I answered the phone. And he goes, hi, I saw your ad in Craigslist. I'm like, hi, how can I help you? You know? Are you from Connecticut? Yeah, how could you tell your area code? Hey, do you know Marie? What? Because that was her escort name, Marie. So here we played some audio of the POI's voice for Sarah. Fuck no. Sorry. He's so calm.
Everything he talks is so calm and soothing. And his S's. His S's and his calm. I'm sorry if I sound like I'm so hung up on that, but that sounds just like him. He's so calm. And there's one more. Melissa Barthelemy's sister Amanda who undoubtedly had the most interaction with the killer.
I was at my cousin's house. We were just hanging out, watching TV, and all of a sudden my phone rings, and it says Melissa, and I hurry up, and I run outside to be in a quiet area, and I answer the phone, and there's a man on the other line, and it's not my sister. Over the course of about a month in 2009, 15-year-old Amanda received four to five disturbing calls from the killer. So we played her audio of the POI, along with audio of men connected to the List case.
to see if any of them struck a chord. Sounds too young. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like that one and then like the third one were like the closest. Overall, their responses, along with the data and facts in the file, are encouraging but far from conclusive. Especially given that Sarah, Amanda, and Dave are recalling potential interactions with the killer that are over a decade old.
And to be clear here, this person of interest, who is alive today with a family and job and reputation, is still entitled, thankfully, to his freedom until substantiated evidence proves otherwise.
Here's Dr. Kim Rossma with a good reminder. So if you think about it, if you have 10 really good suspects out of the 5,000 that have been generated, and I mean, think about 10 out of 5,000, that's not... unrealistic number nine out of ten of them will not be the guy and for another pertinent reminder the poi file really means little unless those investigating lisk take an interest in it
And given Suffolk County Police Department's track record, it's unlikely they'll entertain a file from us via a forensic accountant literally on the other side of the country. But as the saying goes, all cases need to catch breaks. And luckily for us, during season one, a listener reached out. He's a detective in the Lisk tri-state area and has worked several cases with SCPD. I've been a detective for about 10 years.
My first five years, I spent primarily doing investigative work in armed robbery, sex trafficking, prostitution, and organized crime. The last five years, I've been in the Major Crimes Unit, where I've primarily focused on cold case homicide. I started my career in December of 2010, which is pretty much in the heart of Lisk. It was about a year before Shannon was found, about six months after Shannon went to Spear.
I've worked with the Sussex County District Attorney's Office, with the New York Police Department, with the Suffolk County Police Department on three separate investigations. Because of the detective's continuing work with Suffolk County, he asked us not to divulge his name. But he is very plugged into the details of LISC, along with other similar cases in the area. So we asked him to look at the POI file to gauge the validity of the work.
The individual that created this file actually started back in 2011. So it was definitely a work in progress. The file is extensive. It's hundreds of pages. It took hours to pretty much go through. It's the general workings of a web sleuth who I'm not familiar with that basically researched the case and came up with their own thoughts and eventually came up with a person of interest who I have never heard of before and I've not read about in the media.
related to the Long Island case. After spending those hours going through the file, he highlighted some key elements that really grabbed his attention. The person of interest worked in and around Gilgo. The person of interest also worked in Manhattan. was constantly traveling back and forth. I bring up Manhattan because during one of the investigations, Melissa Bartholomew's sister received several phone calls from Midtown Manhattan from the killer.
So to me, that's a little bit intriguing because Gilgo is close to Manhattan, but it's still far enough away where you're not traveling that distance every day. He or she owns a company involving access to different vans, commercial vehicles, businesses, vacant houses. The person of interest is from the area, resided a couple miles south.
of where uh amber costello lived amber costello as we know was actually picked up by lisk outside of her house based on the available information we know that it's most likely not the first time that amber was picked up by lisk They had some type of relationship before. So the fact that the POI lived so close to Amber, circumstantially, it kind of fits. The POI also has access and drives a boat, which I kind of liked.
And I bring that up because I think an important part of the LISC investigation involves a cell phone tower on Fire Island. Maureen, when she went missing, her cell phone would register a communication off the tower there. Fire Island is just a small island off the coast of the mainland. I've been there myself. It's a small, close-knit community.
There is literally one cell phone tower and to register a communication, a call or text message or a ping off that cell phone tower, you either have to be on the island or in a boat very close to the island. In 2007, two weeks after Maureen disappeared, her phone was simply turned on and then turned off again. But that was enough to leave a digital footprint in a unique location. It's a small, close-knit community.
There is literally one cell phone tower and to register a communication, a call or text message or a ping off that cell phone tower, you either have to be on the island or in a boat very close to the island.
We also made it out to Fire Island, and it's worth noting that, for the average visitor, you either take the ferry, as we did, or you take a private boat over. So to the detective's point, for the date and time of that cell tower ping, the list for who it could be is relatively narrow in scope overall what's really encouraging is the detective sees enough in the file that with his connections to scpd he'll be able to get it in front of those who need to see it
I think coming from a law enforcement department, going to another law enforcement department, it's a lot easier to share information, especially something like this, especially for an investigation where... a department is receiving hundreds if not thousands of tips a week it might either fall by the wayside it might not really get looked at too hard so my hope is that me bringing this file to suffolk county as opposed to
Somebody just on the internet reaching out and giving to them might give more credibility to the file. I may meet with Suffolk and they may tell me, you know, we've seen this already. we've already ruled this person out. That's self-impossibility. I think just because the website didn't hear back doesn't mean that it's not something that they didn't look into.
Myself, I haven't worked an investigation this large in my career. I've worked a lot of investigations. I think part of my interest in this case is that A, where I work, it's not very far from Kilgore Beach. We have several... unsolved cases in my jurisdiction, which potentially for all I know could be Gilgo related. Also, hopefully Suffolk County will take the file serious if they haven't already, but you know, we'll see.
At the time of this recording, the detective is in the process of sharing the file with SCPD. Whatever information he's able to corroborate and can be shared will be passed on to you, the listener. Have you ever heard about the woman who woke up in a cold sweat like she just had a nightmare, but she knew what she saw while she was sleeping was more than just a bad dream?
Or the violinist who disappeared from the orchestra pit in front of thousands of people in the audience? What about when a mark left behind at a crime scene led investigators to wonder if there were devil-worshipping cultists prowling their rural neighborhood? Well, the Mr. Balan podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, is nothing but these kinds of stories.
Each episode is meticulously crafted to keep you hanging on every word until the final chilling twist. Seriously, the host, Mr. Ballin, has this unique ability to keep listeners balanced on the edge of their life and death with just a dash of excitement like they've never heard before.
Follow Mr. Ball and Podcasts, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Every town has a dark side. This is Andrew Fitzgerald from the Everytown Podcast, where every single week we dive into insane and mysterious true crime stories, most of which you've never heard of.
Stories like the bizarre disappearance of Tyler Davis in Columbus, Ohio, a 29-year-old father trying to find his way back to his hotel when he disappeared and was never heard from again, and Elizabeth Shove, from Lugov, South Carolina, who was abducted from her driveway by a madman and taken to his underground bunker in the woods. We give you all the details you're interested in hearing about without any fluff or fillers, because ain't nobody got time for that.
I cover everything from psychopaths to poltergeists, so go check out the Everytown podcast, because Everytown, no matter how nice it may seem, has a dark side. We started this season with the POI file for the obvious. That's how we wrapped up the main episodes of season one, and it had a worthy update. It also highlights our struggle to reconcile our desire to help identify Lisk.
with the presumed innocence of this person or anyone else connected with the case. Lastly, this POI file really speaks to a couple of the larger goals or themes for Season 2. As of this recording, the Liz case is more than a decade old. with little coming from SCPD and little recourse for the public. Yet there is one course of action. It's tapping into the magnitude of listeners and the sluice out there. The collective brain, if you will.
All who can help keep this case moving, or at least in the light and the pressure on the powers that be. However, as the years have dragged on, the List case has become cluttered and overrun. with random leads and conspiracies, misinformation, and your various unanswered questions. So one goal this season is to clear the table, if you will, to debunk conspiracies, clarify information, and settle some of your lingering questions.
And our hope is it will bring a baseline of information and a recalibration. So as we try to move this case forward, we're all headed in the same direction. We'll do this by using our resources and connections. by hearing from old voices and new experts. Those sources who know LISC or cases like it the best. Along with that, this season will also cover things we've learned along the way, and case updates since Season 1.
And in the back half of Season 2, we'll be looking forward, delving into the various suspects tied to the case, along with what has undoubtedly not helped move things forward, corruption within the SCPD. But where to begin? Well, if it weren't for Shannon Gilbert, there wouldn't be a Long Island serial killer case. The only reason the police found the bodies of all of these other people is because they were searching for Shannon. We start where basically the whole case did.
And we'll follow it along as it unfolded. And the sad fact is that Shannon's disappearance wasn't really something that the police took terribly seriously until they found those other bodies. So in a very strange way... these women all helped each other get found that is bob colker who you should know from season one he's a journalist and the author of lost girls the definitive book on the case which also became a netflix movie
Here's Bob with a reminder of Shannon's background. Shannon grew up in Ellenville, New York, which is a small town. But at a certain age, Shannon went to live somewhere else. Apparently, Shannon was difficult for her mother to manage. And at some point, her mother agreed for Shannon to leave her custody and to go live with a string of foster families. It was during this, in Shannon's teen years, that she began dealing with some mental health issues.
Here's Alex Diaz, Shannon's boyfriend of two years before she disappeared. She told me she did spend some time in the asylum. She has spent some time there, so maybe there's something out there and all. She used to take bipolar drugs, but she started taking them, she told me. Even before she met me, she started taking them. This is important to revisit because later it might play a part in the stories of what led to Shannon Gilbert's disappearance.
And one big question with Shannon's case involves her driver and how, or more so where, that fateful night began. My name is Michael Pack and I'm from Queens, New York.
At the time, Shannon was living in Jersey City, New Jersey. And for about nine months, she and Pac had worked together with him driving her to various clients around New York City. The reason where Shannon lived is important because over the years... many have wondered why pack as her driver was not charged under the man act simply stated the man act makes it a federal crime to transport someone over state lines for the purpose of sex for money
We actually have a charge where we charge the drivers. It's a human trafficking charge. So very rarely do we ever go federal. This is our detective you heard from earlier with his take on why PAC has avoided this charge. New York hasn't charged potentially because charging something like that would take some type of cooperation because in the sex industry a lot of times
When the girls advertise, they don't advertise for sex. They advertise for either massages or time like hanging out with clients. And obviously those things turn into more. So basically, unless sex for money is explicitly stated. It's hard to make a case, but more so, it might have something to do with Michael Pack's claim. I was in my car at 32nd Street Broadway, and then Shannon came in and she was upset because, you know, we didn't have any calls.
It was getting late around midnight, and then finally somebody called. According to PAC, that night and every night they worked together, Shannon would take the train in from Jersey City to their meeting spot in Manhattan. So if he didn't pick her up in New Jersey... they never cross state lines and thus the man act doesn't apply what we do know from there pac and shannon head out to long island to meet the client or john joe brewer and then um
Shannon followed Brewer up into his house, and then I waited in my car. I put my seat back. I was relaxing there. The next big question that seems to linger with people comes soon after the date starts. And then about 30 minutes later, Shannon called me and she said, can you go to the store and pick up like playing cards, massage oil and lube?
So I said, you know, it's kind of late. How am I going to find a store around here? And she got upset and then she hung up. Pac did have a point. He didn't know the area. Oak Beach is very isolated and it was late. Now...
Confused by Shannon's reaction, Pac tries to sort out the situation. So I called her. She didn't pick up. I called Brewer's cell phone. Didn't pick up. And then he called back. And then he said, oh, it's okay. You don't have to go, right? You know, it's okay. Not too long after she was in there. And I'd see them, like, getting into his Jeep and zooming off. And here's the question. Where did Shannon and Joe Brewer go? And more importantly, what did they get?
It should be noted here that Joe Brewer hasn't wanted to talk to us about this or anything else to do with that night. But we do know that when he was questioned under oath about the various details, he took his lawyer's advice not to incriminate himself. And roughly three dozen times, he pled the fifth. Michael remembers Joe Brewer and Shannon getting into Joe's car and going off for about 15 minutes.
to run some unspecified errand that we still don't know exactly what the purpose is. And then they came back like 20 minutes later. So Pac's rough recollection of 15 to 20 minutes has been consistent. And if correct... It would have been nearly impossible for Brewer and Shannon to have driven to the mainland for anything in return in that time. We've made the trip, and just the driving there and back under the best conditions is roughly 30 minutes.
And I guess they went to pick up some more party drugs or something. But I don't remember them carrying any bags or anything. So it must have been like something small. So maybe like some cocaine or something. It's interesting his use of more, more party drugs. Pac is someone who had spent years in this industry and knew how these things worked. So this has led to speculation that the trip they took, seemingly for drugs, must have been to a nearby house, as there's nothing else in the area.
And whoever they might have gotten it from, and whatever was taken, might have fueled what was to come with Shannon. Here's Michael Pack picking up our timeline. And then they called me around 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. They said he wants to extend another hour. So I said, okay. Here is a good time to address what is most likely a conspiracy theory. The idea that there must have been some sort of collusion between Michael Pack and Joe Brewer. That these two men...
who by all accounts had never met before, worked together that night to cause Shannon Gilbert's demise and or cover up whatever might have happened. There are a few problems with this theory. The first one being, no evidence for it has ever come out. But the theorists, if you will, rightly point out that almost every detail of what happens that night, it all comes from Michael Pack. But...
There are a few ways to validate his story. Shannon called me. So I called her. She didn't pick up. I called Brewer's cell phone. Didn't pick up. And then he called back. So there are the call logs that back up PAC's version of events. And as far as those two colluding, it would be hard to do much of it if PAC is exchanging calls with Shannon, who is with Brewer. And then there's Shannon's 911 call. And what we've learned from people who have heard the actual audio...
is that in many ways it supports PAC's version of events. And then around 5 a.m., right before dawn, he came out. And that was shocking because usually I don't talk to clients or see them. And he said she won't get out, you know, get her out. I was like, what? It seems while Brewer is outside getting PAC, that is when Shannon makes the 911 call. So it would mean that whatever caused Shannon to make the call happened before PAC would follow Brewer back inside.
So I went in and it was a very messy house and there was a lot of stuff. And then I saw her on the other side of the living room, about like 20 feet away. And that's when she was holding her phone, on the phone with 911. So once inside, Pac's story, that he finds Shannon somewhat calm but confused and on the phone with 911, has all been confirmed by the call. Here's former chief of detectives at the time, Dominic Verone, who has also listened to the call.
Well, it's a disturbing call. She is very obviously incoherent at times and seems to be irrational. When you listen to the audio, you kind of realize that Shannon is not comprehending very well. It almost sounds like she's having some type of a psychological episode or a drug-induced episode, it sounds like, on the phone. In Brewer's house, because she didn't tell me she was on the phone with 911.
And she said, they're trying to kill me. So I said, who's trying to kill you? And she wouldn't answer me. This line, they're trying to kill me, has always been one of the bigger mysteries of the Lisk case. But... From what we've been told, the 911 call audio is consistent with PAC's version of events, that Shannon's panic is not driven by some life-threatening act.
And it's worth mentioning that at this point, both Pac and Brewer knew Shannon was on the phone with the police, which would make it less likely that they would do something to threaten her life. So she ran out of the house. So this is still very dark. I could barely hear that she fell, so I thought she was hurt, but then she just got up and ran right away. But going back, the question then becomes what if they're trying to kill me was about something that was happening before Pat came in.
There have been rumors that it had been a party that night with Brewer and other men, and they must have done something to scare Shannon. First, and for what it's worth, it has been confirmed to us that before neighbor Gus Coletti is heard on the 911 call, The only discernible voices are Brewer, Pac, and of course, Shannon. There was no indication that there was a party or other individuals present that we could discern on the audio tape.
Pat claims there was no party going on. But here's Bob Colker and what he's gotten out of Brewer. Well, Joe Brewer's pretty cagey about what went on in the house there. He's told the police and he's told me and other people that there was no... He won't say whether there were other people there or not. And the only thing he'll say is that he's completely innocent. This has been Brewer's attitude the whole time. But it seems if there was a party, his Oak Beach neighbors would have known.
but so far none have ever come out and said there was one that night. Later, once the first body was found and SCPD thought it was Shannon, Brewer and Pack were scrutinized even more thoroughly. Here's former chief of detectives. Dominic Verone. They agreed to take polygraph exams. We listened to the 911 tape and their description of what occurred was consistent with what we heard on the tape.
That plus the fact that they passed the polygraph exams led us to believe that they were being truthful and not involved in her death directly. And for what it's worth... Here's Verone's boss at the time, Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, talking about the two men. He was thoroughly vetted at that time. The driver that drove Shannon out to Long Island was interviewed on a number of occasions. Both of them took a polygraph test.
there was nothing to show that they were being untruthful so we were satisfied that they didn't have anything to do with shannon's disappearance but now that we ended up with four bodies found months later near the same vicinity It was appropriate that the investigators go back and interview the principals involved, which would be Mr. Brewer. He voluntarily gave up his vehicle to be checked. He allowed the detectives to check his home and his backyard.
It was very cooperative, by the way. And please don't think we're covering for Brewer or PAC. We believe their actions that night were far from noble, in some ways criminal, but most likely not homicidal. It's my belief that once Michael Pack realized the police were coming, he decided to leave. In a way, that contributed to her death. Here's Bob Colker picking up our timeline, where Shannon ends up down the road at Brewer's Neighbor.
while Pac follows along in his car. So I talked to Gus Colletti. He says that that morning there was a bang at his door and he looked out and he saw Shannon and she's shrieking. And the only word that he can make out, according to what he told me, is help. She can't stop shrieking. And as soon as she hears the word police, she screams even more and she runs away.
Gus Coletti, C-O-L-E-T-T-I. She was pounding on my door yelling for help, help me, help me, help me. I came to the door, I opened the door, she stepped in. And she just stood there to yell and help me, and she had trouble saying anything on her feet. She was a little wobbly, and I realized that she had a problem, and I wasn't going to be able to solve it, so I called 911 right away.
As soon as I told her I called the police, they were on their way, she took off again. She can't stop shrieking. And as soon as she hears the word police, she screams even more and she runs away. Instead of accepting Coletti's help, Shannon runs away from him. And again, she flees Michael Pack, the one person she knows, has worked with for nearly a year, and whose job it is to drive her.
Going back to the exact hours that morning, Gus Coletti calls the police at 522. And at 530, which is about eight minutes later, she's at Mrs. Brennan's house banging on the door for help. Barbara Brennan, who first calls her neighbor Tom Canning, then makes what is now the third 911 call. But moments later, Shannon Gilbert vanishes. Now we know Shannon's 911 call.
because of the confusion on her stating she was at the state park jones beach was transferred from the county to the state still one question that has lingered why with three nine one one calls did it take scpd so long to show up Again, here's Dominic Verone to hopefully answer this once and for all. Police arrive at 540. So police are there within 20 minutes, actually less, 18 minutes of Gus Coletti's call.
and actually within 10 minutes of Mrs. Brennan's call. She's nowhere to be found. So that's based on phone records, and if they're correct, it's a solid response time given Oak Beach's isolated location. But that aside, there's still the question... why didn't scpd do more when they did show up the problem is there's no exhaustive search is done of the area because there's no reason to believe she ran off they check the area they go up and down the blocks if michael pack would have stayed
and told us that she was still there, that she ran off, then I think the officers would have done a much more exhaustive initial search. Basically, SCPD gets there, does a quick search, and once they find out about PAC... They assume Shannon left with him. And it would be weeks later before SCPD gets Shannon's frantic 911 call from the state police. The 911 call that she makes, a 20-minute call.
at the time, was never relayed to Suffolk County Police. But it was referred to the 911 operators for the New York State Police. The nature of that conversation and that phone call, the Suffolk County Police Department don't become aware of until the following month. We'd love to have the state police confirm this and what took them three to four weeks to pass along this frantic 911 call, but we haven't been able to talk to them yet. One thing we do know...
is that less than 48 hours after Shannon vanished, her boyfriend, Alex Diaz, and Joe Brewer went to a Suffolk County police station to report Shannon missing. And the Suffolk County police basically didn't really care. So they just blew me off, kind of like smirking about it and laughing a little bit about it. And Suffolk County, or at least Verone, has admitted this, that Shannon's work most likely played a part in SCPD's attitude.
So I think in the ensuing weeks, when you hear that the missing person, in this case Shannon, worked as a prostitute, not that there's... less empathy or less concern because if it comes to someone's well-being or murder or death, I mean, it doesn't matter. But certainly the fact in our lifestyle.
contributed to perhaps some of the delay of getting the ball rolling this treatment and lack of action is what led alex and michael pack back to oak beach for answers and as far as we know this is where dr peter hackett first gets involved Here's Kolker on his thoughts after meeting Hackett. So I got this sense of a guy who was sort of a natural dissembler, who sort of shaped his own reality as he talked. I did not necessarily get the sense that I was talking to a master criminal.
or somebody was capable of murder. Dr. Hackett is the slow beachy Hamlet's busybody who would go on to call Shannon's mother, Mary Gilbert, and then lie about it. This has helped convince some people that to have Mary Gilbert's number. Hackett must have seen Shannon that night and thus must be involved in her death. Now, only Dr. Hackett can explain his odd behavior, and we asked him to, but he turned us down. However, as far as how he got Mary Gilbert's number, there is another explanation.
It seems likely that Alex gave him Mary's number. What we don't know is why Hackett took it on himself to call Mary, why he would say something fictional about running a home for wayward girls. Here's Diaz about his first run-in with Dr. Hackett at Oak Beach. He would tell me not to worry about it. He goes, I'm going to have the police come over. You can go home and relax, and I'll keep in touch with you. And then he asked me for Cherie's number.
And the mothers know myself like that. Now, if you know anything about Dr. Hackett's background from season one or otherwise, you know about his desire to be at the center of the action. This helps explain why he might make some strange choices. But for us. it doesn't explain one of the biggest questions when it comes to shannon gilbert's story the oak beach gate security camera tapes there's a videotape at the gate and periodically and i think every week that videotape is
videoed over, that was lost. By the time investigators got to that, it was too late. So Hackett, the helper, the junior detective, and one of the few in charge of the gate, didn't save the videotape? At the time, Gus Coletti was asked about the tapes and what he thought happened to them. They were wiped clean. And why? Because they were like two months old at the time. Nobody had asked for them. We in the association then didn't even know.
that a crime had been committed. Don't forget this was May 1st that she was banging on my door and it was August before the police showed up at my door. So perhaps SCPD could have chased the tape sooner.
But with what Dr. Hackett knew and how he wanted to help, the tapes should have been waiting for them. But Gus Colletti doesn't blame Dr. Hackett. He actually defends him. But with what Dr. Hackett knew and how he wanted to help, the tapes should have been waiting for them here's gus at that same press conference when asked if dr hackett might have killed shannon let me ask you something if you were a murderer and you killed somebody would you dump them on your front lawn
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We do know Joe Brewer has stated that a neighbor he trusts told him that Dr. Hackett claimed to have given Shannon a sedative that night. Is this neighborhood gossip, or another time Hackett was just playing up his role, or did he really see Shannon that night? Was he called to intervene by Barbara Brennan or their neighbor Tom Canning? Was Shannon given something to calm her and somehow it all went south? And Hackett's wife and daughter, who were home, what did they see?
Only Brennan, Canning, Hackett, and his family know if something nefarious happened that night or early morning. But we think there's probably some truth in the old saying, that you can keep a secret between three people if two of them are dead. Meaning, secrets are hard to keep, so maybe nothing happened. Or maybe the secret just hasn't come out yet. I'm pretty convinced that the people of Oak Me each know a lot more than what they're letting on about what happened to Shannon that night.
I'm convinced that it wasn't just Barbara Brennan and Gus Coletti who saw her run up the street. I'm pretty convinced that Hackett saw her too, and that whatever happened to her next is something that they know and the police don't. It's good to remember that's coming from Bob Kolker, who we found to be very rational and not one to entertain conspiracy theories. Now the months go on. We're not exactly sure what happened to Shannon.
And we did an immediate search of the area, absent the marsh, which for the most part was underwater. But John Mallier, our canine officer, began going along Ocean Parkway. That's former Chief of Detectives Verone stating that in this small neighborhood, hemmed in by the ocean to the south and a marsh to the north, they skipped searching where Shannon would ultimately be found because it was underwater. We just want to know.
that on Google Earth's past satellite images, there's one of the marsh from September 19th, 2010, in the time frame they'd be searching, before heading west along Ocean Parkway to the first body that December. In this September satellite image, The marsh is virtually dry. And you're welcome to look at it yourself, and you'll see there is no standing water, much less an area underwater. Then the canine officer decided to head to the north side of Ocean Parkway.
and head towards Gilgo Beach. Again, here's former Commissioner Dormer. He wanted to give the dog more work. He was out there with his dog anyway, so he decided to head west towards Gilgo Beach. And on December 11th, which was a Saturday, he came upon remains on the top of the surface in Gilgo Beach. Now, when I got the call from the chief of detectives,
We were assuming that this was Shannon Gilbert. So according to Dormer, and the actual canine officer who was interviewed back then for an article in the New York Times, from Oak Beach... He and the dog continued searching west along the north side of Ocean Parkway until they found Melissa Barthelemy. That means along the way, they initially missed locating six of the victims. To clarify...
According to the victim map SCPD would release later, by the time Melissa was found, the canine officer and his dog passed by Valerie Mack, Baby Doe, Asian Doe, Jessica Taylor, Megan Waterman. and Marine Brainerd Barnes. We're not sure what this means. Maybe SCPD's lone cadaver dog wasn't that good. Maybe the search actually took a different route. But it's just something we thought was worth noting.
So the forensic people went back that Monday with homicide. The canine officer with the same dog heads west. And I get a call in my office late that morning from the chief, Chief Verone. We found another body. And I was really taken aback. I said, another body? And now that's two. About an hour later, he calls again. We found another one. I'm wondering what the heck is going on out there. And then he calls again.
a couple of hours later and he said we got another one here's former chief of detectives verone okay now after we find those three more skeletal remains now winter sets in Now it's like snow on the ground out there and it's freezing and terrible, terrible conditions. And we have to wait for the spring thaw to continue the search. So roughly in a 48-hour span, they found Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainerd Barnes, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello, collectively known as the Gilgo Four.
And then, as you just heard, Verone says SCPD shut down the search because it's cold. But here's SCPD's top cop at the time, Commissioner Dormer, trying to explain. Well, no, not because it was cold. From here, Dormer seems to catch himself and he spends the next 30 seconds changing topics and rambling before he finds his way back on script with SCPD's Talking Points.
Well, the weather conditions, it was very harsh out there. If you're familiar with that area, the dogs have trouble working that, the canine dogs. And the handlers are telling us, the boss of that unit was telling us that the dogs don't even like to work that area. So we made a prudent decision to wait till the weather got better. We're not the only ones who took notice of this decision. Here's retired NYPD Detective Squad Commander Mike Blangiaforte.
who in 2013 had a series of interviews with Commissioner Dormer about the LISC investigation. Mike would end up asking Dormer about this decision to shut down the search three separate times. Oh, boy, did that piss me off. And the reason I pressed him was, you know, I don't know. I mean, that may be the NYPD. We had a different. Basically, we didn't give a shit if the ground was frozen.
if somebody was missing and you have bodies turning up to say oh you know what we'll start up again in the spring you keep looking you find bodies and body parts and evidence you don't just stop So yeah, that was a point of contention. So yeah, I was very surprised that they called it off, not for a week or two, they called it off for months.
And yeah, and then for the ground to thaw, then the ground thaws, and then all of a sudden, you know, now the body starts to get discovered again. So just to be clear, on our end at least, SCPD quit searching for three months. because it was cold and there was some snow, which left Shannon's family, along with who knows how many other families who had missing loved ones, waiting to see who else might be there to find. Again,
Here's retired NYPD Detective Squad Commander Mike Blanjoforte. Like I said, if I'm being honest with you to this day, that's one of the things not only will I always disagree with, But I will always question it and it will always confuse me because I don't get the logic. I never did and I never will. But anyway, that's in the history books now. That's what they chose to do. That's what was done.
Did it change the course of the investigation? I don't know. I mean, certainly it changed my opinion on, you know, this was an important case and there were families out there. and then they don't discover those remains till late march i think april or 11. so you know those families had to wait an additional few months because of frozen terrain okay whatever
This has never made sense to us, especially when you learn about the incredible abilities of cadaver dogs. We've worked on cases where we've had dogs find bodies that were underwater that you couldn't see. that there's no other way we would have ever known that the body was there. Yes, you heard him right. And who you heard, and we'll hear more from later, is Dr. Danny Westcott, the director of Texas State University's Forensic Anthropology Center.
And among the many things Dr. Westcott does is train cadaver dogs. Dogs that have detected bodies in water that are more than 20 feet deep. But to stay on point, cadaver dogs having to work in some snow is not a problem. So what SCPD did to those families for months is unforgivable, especially when back in 2014, Commissioner Dormer would admit they expected to find more bodies. That was our theory.
that there was probably more bodies out there. And that was proven when we found the remains. And, you know, now we, as you can imagine. So it's hard to give SCPD the benefit of the doubt. especially when we got to hear from someone who was at almost every search. My name is Stephen Barcelo. I used to be a journalist for the New York Daily News. And Steve even liked SCPD. And with his work, he had a lot of connections on the force.
But when it came to the Lisk investigation, things were different. They didn't want to talk about it. It was something that they just wanted to go away. Jimmy Burke, the chief of police at the time, we got along pretty well.
I remember one time I called him up after Hurricane Sandy blew in. I said, listen, this is Steve Marcello, Daily News. We just had the storm blow through. Are you guys going to be bringing cadaver dogs out now that the beach is all torn up? I mean, any older bodies and stuff? And what I got was a response.
the last thing we need to find is any more deadhuggers. So I took that as a no and assumed they weren't going out. But they basically, they kind of want to put this behind them is the feeling I've got. Coming up on LISC, Long Island serial killer.
Why hasn't the List case been solved? I think the biggest issue is time. One of the canine guys from Suffolk came up to me and said, almost all those dogs out there are not cavern dogs. They're bomb-sniffing dogs. He goes, this is purely a show they're putting on for the man. Yeah, this person committed suicide and it was shortly after I had a press conference in which I put out the theory that it was probably one killer. If I were running the investigation, I would treat every body.
like a separate investigation. So 11 different investigations. And if you're of the belief that there is one killer, all you need to do is solve one. This episode was written, produced, and recorded by myself, Chris Moss, Jonathan Beal, and Shannon McGarvey. Editing and musical composition by Blake Maples. Executive producers are Jonathan Nowzarden, Jonathan Beal, and me, Chris Moss. Brought to you by Mopac Audio.