00:00:00
[Music] Do you remember the last time you spoke with your sister? I do. She called me
00:00:19
Sunday night at 11:30 at a train station in New York [Music] from Penn Station. I could hear the commotion from the
00:00:32
train station. Attention, please. So, you don't think she knew she was in danger at that time that she called you?
00:00:39
No. From the time that she called me, it was poof, she was gone. My sister's missing. Like, this isn't
00:00:48
normal. There was a ping from her phone after she went missing on Long Island. They knew that there was something very,
00:01:00
very wrong here. Young lady was reported missing. Shannon Gilbert. [Music] The missing person's uh unit had been
00:01:16
involved in trying to locate this young lady, find out what happened to her. We found human remains.
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It seemed to be wrap and burlap, which didn't make any sense. Everyone assumed it was Shannon Gilbert.
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But it wasn't, was it? No. The crime scene gets expanded. I'm I'm called and chief, we found
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another set of remains. They find another one and another one. We were dealing with a serial killer, but
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they're all 4' 11, very petite, hazel, green eyes. This killer has a type, right? Uh does he want the petite uh
00:02:01
body because he wants to feel more empowered and more in control? Is it easier to dispose of uh a lighter body?
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Investigators have found 10 sets of human gruesome discoveries. 10 victims in all.
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Things started to click as I was watching that. I have a feeling that this is Marine. One of them Marine. I
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just had a feeling. The detectives came to my house and just said that Moren has been positively
00:02:33
identified as one of the victims on Ocean Parkway. I have my sister's death always in the back of my mind.
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The killer or killers still are loose. No justice has been done. It's a symbol of the complete failure of the police
00:03:07
department to do its job. My name is Jerry Hart. I'm the commissioner of the Suffach County
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Police Department. So, it's again a very complex case, but I can tell you that we
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are fully committed to this investigation. We believe that the belt was handled by
00:03:22
the suspect and did not belong to any of the victims. We're working very hard that we're dedicated to this
00:03:28
investigation. What I want most is answers and justice. And I also want that the world to know like my sister
00:03:36
mattered. [Music] [Music] It's really, really hard. I miss her so much. Melissa K will never forget that wintry
00:04:41
day 10 years ago when she got the devastating news. I want answers. I just want answers. The remains of her older
00:04:50
sister, Moren Brainer Barnes, missing for more than 3 years, had been discovered on Long Island. Was there any
00:04:59
relief in at least knowing what happened to your sister? Or was it worse? It's worse. You're waiting. I don't know. I
00:05:07
don't know what I'm waiting on. She'll never come back. Okay. Good morning, everybody. Former
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Suffach County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer was stunned to have found the remains of four young women on an
00:05:24
isolated stretch of Long Island's Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. It looks like a car pulled up and opened the door and
00:05:33
the bodies were dumped into uh the bushes. Eventually, police would find 10 sets of remains in the area. Moren and
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three others were found first and dubbed the Gilgo 4, discarded in a similar fashion, roughly 500 feet apart. Each of
00:05:50
them swathed in burlap. I think burlap was selected because its ability to take dampness, moisture, and breathe, which
00:05:59
would promote decay as well as act as camouflage. Dominic Veron was chief of the Suffach County Detectives in 2010.
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Everybody knows the chief. He's retired from the police force, but is still haunted by the man who got away, the
00:06:17
Long Island serial killer. It was probably the biggest case we ever had, and we put a tremendous amount of effort
00:06:24
into that case. Moren was the first of the Gilgo for to disappear that summer night in 2007. Her
00:06:34
sister Missy believed Maren had gone to Manhattan for a modeling shoot and when she was on her way home made that call
00:06:41
from Penn Station. I'll see you in the morning. Love you. That was the last time I talked to her.
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I don't think it's a coincidence that four bodies ended up uh in this area. Long Island serial killer. 48 Hours has
00:06:57
reported on the Long Island serial killer from the beginning. My sister was a wonderful person. And over the years,
00:07:03
Missy talked to us about Moren. She was very smart, very creative. She liked being a mom. She loved being a mom, but
00:07:12
she faced obstacles as a single mom of two with no driver's license nor college degree. Moren would come and use my
00:07:21
laptop. Um, she would go and look for the help ads. These are all the jobs that she applied for. She was looking
00:07:29
for fast food jobs, grocery store jobs, telemarketer jobs. I mean, over and over
00:07:33
and over again. By early 2007, things seemed to be looking up for Moren. She had got a job
00:07:42
at a telemarketing place and she was doing really well and um she got her own apartment and she was really proud.
00:07:50
She was a very giving person and very loyal and she made a new friend, Sarah KS. We were office besties. You could
00:08:00
never ever ever be bored around her. When Moren went missing in 2007, her sister was filled with dread. I had a
00:08:08
drive in me to be like, "Oh, I'm going to find my sister. Like, I'm not going to stop until I find my sister." Missy
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called the police, reported Moren missing in her hometown of Norwich, Connecticut, and also in New York City.
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She didn't run away. Someone has her. This isn't normal. My sister is gone. Missy logged into Moren's email accounts
00:08:31
and got a shock. In the days before Moren disappeared, she was under enormous financial pressure. Moren was
00:08:39
about to be evicted from her apartment and was facing an ugly, expensive court battle for custody of one of her young
00:08:47
children. From her emails, I could see how desperate she was to get money to be able to save herself from being evicted
00:08:58
and save her son, save custody of her son. Yeah. She was terrified cuz her baby was going to be taken away from her
00:09:05
forever. But she's working. Yep. It wasn't enough. Working that stupid telemarketing job was not enough.
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Moren's emails revealed another secret. She was a sex worker. It wasn't modeling
00:09:21
that brought her to New York. Instead, she and Sarah had gone to earn extra money as sex workers advertising on
00:09:29
Craigslist. It was kind of devastating to to um learn, but my main focus was to find my sister. I didn't care what she
00:09:43
was doing. Sarah helped Missy reconstruct Moren's last weekend. Sarah described how they
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learned they had been banned from Craigslist for a few days and they couldn't post ads for clients. So, they
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decided to update their photos instead and hired a photographer. She picked old 40s Hollywood glamour. The way her curls
00:10:06
fell that day just looked so 40s with the makeup and everything like that. She was just so beautiful. All dressed up,
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the two young women wandered around Time Square like carefree tourists. It was just awesome. We were untouchable.
00:10:22
But the next day, Sarah returned to Norwich and says Moren remained to make more money. You've been flagged by
00:10:30
Craigslist. You're not able to put your ad on Craigslist. So, how would Moren meet anybody on that Sunday? She had
00:10:38
regulars. So, does that mean whoever took her and killed her was someone she had seen before? Most likely.
00:10:51
But Missy had no luck in her search. Months became years. All she knew was that someone had taken her sister. How
00:11:02
old was this person? How did this person look? How did he break through her her her guard?
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[Music] Miles away in Maine, a 14-year-old girl struggles with what happened to her
00:11:18
mother. I want them to find out who did it. Who vanished when she was just 3 years old. Part of you is like missing.
00:11:28
It's just like something's always off. She tells her story on television for the very first time.
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[Music] Heat. Heat. It's never going to be over. She's always going to be gone. I can't bring
00:12:12
her back. Not a day goes by that 14-year-old Lily Waterman doesn't miss her mom, Megan. I
00:12:21
would do anything to bring her back, but I can't. And it just like frustrates me
00:12:25
so bad. Lily was just 3 years old when Megan vanished. Waterman was last seen in Hopog, New
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York on Long Island at a Holiday Express. Megan's family says the 22year-old from
00:12:44
Scarboro, Maine, was a spunky but troubled kid who loved fashion. And in this video, at the time of her
00:12:50
disappearance, the family said she would never have willingly left her daughter.
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This little girl was her life. Lily, do you remember when your mom disappeared? Yeah, it's very like blurry
00:13:07
because it was so long ago. I was just very like confused on why she like wasn't around. That's all I can
00:13:17
like remember really. Lily says her memories of her mother's boyfriend, Akeem Cruz, are clear. All things I do
00:13:25
like remember of her are bad times. When Akeem was hitting her, was hitting me, was just being like rude. It was scary.
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You were scared for your life. Why did she stay with him? Fear. Megan's aunt, Elizabeth Mazerve, says
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the family encouraged Megan to leave Cruz. She was afraid he would hurt her family. He would hurt Liliana.
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Cruz began taking Megan to Long Island where he pushed her into prostitution. When she was away, Megan called Lily
00:14:03
every night. And when she didn't call, then I know that was her last day. June 6th, 2010,
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Megan was seen exiting this hotel in Hop Hog at 1:30 a.m. There's footage of her
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walking down a little side path, I guess, that's along the back or the side of the hotel.
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She never returned. [Music] [Applause] Back in Scarboro, the family heard from Cruz that Megan was missing. They
00:14:44
reported her disappearance to the police. Chief Dom Veron says Aake Cruz was already on his radar. We knew his
00:14:53
background and we knew at that time that they had crossed state lines coming from
00:14:58
Maine to Long Island. So, we actually had the FBI unit involved in that case uh in in June of 2010. He set up all her
00:15:08
dates. Wouldn't he know the last person she saw? You would think that was a very, very heavy part of the
00:15:16
investigation. Veron concluded crews did not know who Megan's client was that night and had nothing to do with her
00:15:23
disappearance. Detectives continued their search for her and in December 2010 found her, one
00:15:33
of the Gilgo four. the police found her and so Lily said, "They found my mom, so why didn't they
00:15:41
bring her home?" But when Lily grew older and more techsavvy, she typed her mom's name into
00:15:48
the internet search bar. Was that tough? Yeah, for sure. I couldn't process it because my whole life I thought that she
00:15:57
just got like stolen and she never came back. I didn't realize how like the line
00:16:05
of work she was doing, how like brutal it was. I didn't realize that part of it.
00:16:16
Police say the remains of Melissa Bartholomew and three other victims were found in burlap bags in shallow graves
00:16:22
along this beach in December. How often do you think about Melissa? Every single
00:16:26
minute of the day. Lyn Bartholomew's 24year-old daughter, Melissa, had been missing a year and a half when her
00:16:33
remains turned up on Gilgo Beach. It just didn't happen to the girls. I mean, it destroyed all of our families.
00:16:39
Melissa moved from her home in Buffalo to New York City to work as a hairdresser. At some point, she turned
00:16:46
to sex work. When she stopped calling home in July of 2009, her mother panicked. We get on the internet. We
00:16:54
start calling hospitals. I didn't know what, but I knew something had to be wrong.
00:17:01
About a week later, her then 15-year-old sister got a call from Melissa's phone.
00:17:07
We agreed not to show her face. She was so excited. Oh my god, Melissa's finally calling me. And then there's a
00:17:16
guy on the other end. Suffach County police told 48 Hours that they believe the caller was in fact
00:17:23
Melissa's killer. He called seven times, threatening her younger sister and torturing her with details of Melissa's
00:17:31
murder. The last of the Gilgo four to disappear was Amber Costello, a sex worker who
00:17:40
vanished from her home on Long Island in September of 2010. She was an amazing person. She really was. Amber's friend
00:17:48
and former roommate, Dave Shaller, says she was a drug addict who used sex work to support her habit. As amazing as she
00:17:57
was, was as tormented as she was. Veron says Amber, Megan, Melissa, and Moren were all asphixxiated.
00:18:08
There were other striking similarities. very petite, 5 foot or under, 100 pounds, hazel, green eyes. You believe
00:18:18
this killer has a specific type of woman that he was choosing to kill, right? Veron worked with the FBI to come up
00:18:26
with a profile of the killer. He says the fact that the women posted ads online allowed the killer to scroll
00:18:34
through photos in search of his ideal victim. If he desires a particular height and weight and eye color, um, he
00:18:43
can do that. All right, everybody ready? Yeah. Our Father, who art in heaven, who art in heaven, be thy
00:18:52
name. The Gilgo 4 had another thing in common. Ready? Let's go. Families who love them. Look at them go. They're from
00:19:01
Oh my god, they look so beautiful. They do. Wow. Oh my god. They're beautiful just like all the girls. That's right.
00:19:10
In December of 2011, they gathered at Gilgo Beach. [Music] [Music] On the spot where each woman was found,
00:19:39
they erected a cross. And as the sun went down, they held a vigil in their honor.
00:19:49
Remember Shannon for the loving daughter? It was the search for Shannon Gilbert that led to the discovery of the
00:19:58
Gilgo 4. Remember her also as our girls angels and remember Shannon for Shannon and their families embraced Shannon's
00:20:06
mother Mary as one of their own. But where was Shannon? [Music] When the police found the Gilgo 4,
00:20:34
Sheree Gilbert, 22 at the time, was certain her missing sister Shannon would be among them. What's the first thing
00:20:41
that comes to mind when you think about Shannon? her singing, the jokes that we would tell.
00:20:51
Like Meen Brainer Barnes, Megan Waterman, Melissa Bartholomew, and Amber Costello, Shannon was working as an
00:20:59
escort the night she vanished. She was a talented young woman from a troubled family, dreaming of a singing
00:21:07
and acting career. At the age of 16, she graduated from high school. She skipped
00:21:12
a grade. Smart then. Really smart. Yeah, she had a lot of potential. Shannon was visiting a client in the
00:21:20
gated community of Oak Beach, Long Island, 8 miles from Gilgo Beach, when she vanished on May 1st, 2010. Her
00:21:29
family filed missing person's reports and drove from home in upstate New York to Oak Beach, desperate to find her.
00:21:39
Oak Beach is a very eerie place to me. It seems very desolate, very isolated, cold.
00:21:48
The family learned that Shannon's driver dropped her off here at her client's house at 2:00 a.m.
00:21:56
Nearly 3 hours later, Shannon made a panicked 23minute call to 911. Still on the phone, she fled the
00:22:07
client's home and ran to a neighbor's door and then anothers, begging for help and then she disappeared.
00:22:16
Weeks and then months passed with no word from Shannon. Former Chief of Detectives Don Veron says the police
00:22:23
questioned her client and dismissed him as a suspect, but took her disappearance
00:22:28
seriously. K9 searched the area at Oak Beach exhaustively for Shannon Gilbert. It was while searching for Shannon that
00:22:38
they made that stunning discovery of the Gilgo 4. And in the spring of 2011, six more sets of remains.
00:22:48
Victim number five, Jessica Taylor, an escort missing since 2003. Another set of remains police called
00:22:57
Jane Doe number six. Number seven, to their surprise, a toddler girl. Number eight, an Asian man. Number nine and 10,
00:23:08
a female skull and a bag of another person's bones, both found in nearby Nassau County.
00:23:16
Police weren't sure if these newly discovered bodies were victims of the same killer. They kept looking for
00:23:23
Shannon. And in December of 2011, a year and a half after she disappeared, they found the pocketbook belonging to
00:23:33
Shannon Gilbert. Shannon's purse, shoes, cell phone, even her jeans were found in
00:23:39
the marsh. The items were found a distant apart. A week later, a quarter of a mile from her belongings and yellow
00:23:47
crime scene taken. They finally found Shannon. to get that phone call when I was in
00:23:55
school. It was just devastating. And then to Shereice shock, investigators said they didn't think
00:24:03
Shannon was murdered. Instead, based on her frantic 911 call, they theorized she might have been high
00:24:11
on drugs and had run into the marsh where she died of hypothermia or possible drowning. She's running,
00:24:18
running down the street, pounding on doors. runs into this marsh. The Gilbert family didn't believe her
00:24:28
death was accidental and retained Long Island attorney John Ray. She was put there. He decided to retrace the path
00:24:36
authorities believe Shannon traveled. We're we're going into the marsh now. Veron says her skeletal remains were
00:24:45
found collapsed in thick brush. To say that she drowned, as was theorized, is on its face an absurdity. Ry also
00:24:54
commissioned a second autopsy. A private forensic pathologist determined that a damaged hyoid bone in Shannon's neck,
00:25:02
suggested she may have been strangled. He said that that would be consistent with homicide.
00:25:09
Ray soon turned his attention to one Oak Beach resident, a local physician, Dr. Peter Hackett.
00:25:16
Shannon had last been seen in the area near his home and her belongings were found scattered in the marsh behind his
00:25:23
house. And two days after Shannon disappeared, Sheree says Hackett made a disturbing
00:25:31
phone call to Shannon's mother, Mary Gilbert. He identified himself, told Mary that he was running a home for
00:25:37
Waywood girls and that Shannon wanted to enter the home. A New Jersey detective told us Hackett told him the same story.
00:25:46
But when Mary Gilbert went out to talk to him, Dr. Hackett denied it. I never saw her. I never met her. Despite
00:25:55
Hackett's denials, Ry believes the doctor did encounter Shannon early that morning and gave her improper medical
00:26:02
treatment. Ry filed a civil suit against Peter Hackett in 2012 for wrongful death
00:26:09
and malpractice. The wrongful death claim has been dismissed. Malpractice claims are still pending. It wasn't an
00:26:17
accident. If it were an accident, her belongings wouldn't have been found behind Peter Hackett's home. Her jeans
00:26:24
wouldn't have been removed. Dr. Hackett declined our request for an interview. Previously, he wrote us saying, quote,
00:26:31
"I never treated her. She was never in my home." He says he only called Shannon's family to offer support and we
00:26:40
didn't pay that much attention to him. I don't think we missed anything. Chief Ferrron says he doesn't think Hackett is
00:26:47
a murderer. He says some call him a storyteller. I do not think Suffach County has put any effort into
00:26:53
investigating Peter Hackett to this day. And in 2015, John Ray helped the Gilbert
00:27:03
family bury Shannon. Amen. In a Long Island cemetery not far from Oak Beach. It was sad. You know, my mom was really,
00:27:14
really, really emotional and um we all were and it was just basically like our final goodbye to Shannon.
00:27:22
We come to perpetuate Shannon. Are you surprised that she's chosen for this higher purpose of justice?
00:27:31
Well, I'm not. The murderer will be outed. I have to prove it. And I intend to prove it. Shannon, rest now. We all
00:27:40
have much to do. [Music] Go inside the case at 48 hours.com. [Music] Shannon would still be alive today if
00:28:07
Suffach County police had actually done their job. In early 2012, weeks after the discovery of Shannon Gilbert's
00:28:15
remains, her family's attorney, John Ray, dug in, trying to understand what had happened to her. The Suffach County
00:28:23
Police Department failed to protect the lives of these people who are now gone. Yet with 11 dead and no killer in
00:28:31
custody, the Suffach County Police Department went through an upheaval that would have a lasting impact on the case.
00:28:39
We won't know for certain. First, Chief of Detectives Dominic Veron suddenly found himself out of a job. I get a
00:28:47
phone call that I'm being told to retire within 15 days or I'd be demoted to captain.
00:28:53
I'm yanked off the case. I was pushed out. Veron had been spearheading what would become the
00:28:59
largest unsolved murder case in New York's history. I had a tremendous amount of knowledge in the case and he
00:29:06
says he was not allowed to share what he knew about the serial killer with the new investigators. That had to hurt the
00:29:12
credibility of the investigation. That hurt the investigation and the public's perception. A new regime led by James
00:29:19
Burke took over the department. Don't become a statistic. Burke was named the new Suffach County Police Chief. He was
00:29:27
extremely powerful for police chief. Longtime newspaper reporter Gus Garcia Roberts is writing a book about Burke.
00:29:34
He was charming. It's an individual split-second decision. And then in other situations, intimidating and sort of
00:29:41
brutish, more akin to like a a mob boss than a police chief. Burke had an unlikely rise up the ranks
00:29:50
in part because he had a powerful backer, Suffach County District Attorney Thomas Spoda. They had their own little
00:29:57
thief there. Burke and Spotta met in 1979 when the brutal murder of a boy found behind this school rocked the
00:30:06
peaceful suburb of Smithtown, Long Island. There's a lot of pressure to solve the case. The victim was
00:30:13
13-year-old John Pius Jr. Tom Spot was the young sort of ambitious prosecutor. His specialty was getting that witness
00:30:21
who said exactly what the case needed in order to sort of clinch it. James Burke
00:30:26
was just 14 at the time. Everybody called him Jimmy back then. Burke and others testified against four teenage
00:30:33
boys. Tom Spot by then had taken a shine to the kid and had taken him under his wing to some extent. The ambitious young
00:30:43
Spoda later became district attorney of Suffach County. James Burke became a cop
00:30:49
and by age 27 was already a sergeant in the police department. We're one of the highest paid departments in the country.
00:30:56
Former Suffach County Detective John Oliva, who investigated gang violence, says Burke's background set him apart
00:31:04
from most other cops there. A lot of professional guys, you know, most guys have a college degree or they were in
00:31:10
the military. I heard that James Burke had none of that. Burke's unprofessional behavior
00:31:15
set him apart, too. He's a reckless character driven by sex. In the early 1990s, he had sex with
00:31:24
a prostitute in his police car and also failed to safeguard his weapon. He left his gun behind and she recovered his
00:31:32
weapon. Internal affairs investigated the incident, but Burke kept his job. Oliva suspects Boda may have protected
00:31:40
him. Wouldn't something like that end most cops careers? Something like that should end most cops
00:31:48
careers. I mean, he became police chief, chief of the department, fourstar. And the man tasked with finding the elusive
00:31:56
serial killer. We have 11 dead people and nobody's found anybody connected to them. Something that frustrates attorney
00:32:03
John Ray, the man who patronized sex workers, is in charge of the investigation of murdered sex workers.
00:32:13
Burke ended cooperation with the FBI on the serial killer case. Was it because Burke didn't want to share credit or was
00:32:20
it to keep out prying eyes? It could be a combination of both. Many believe losing FBI technology and expertise
00:32:29
slowed down the investigation. If I'm the chief of department and I've got dead bodies on the side of the road,
00:32:37
I would take any help I could get. But James Burke soon had other problems. Beginning one night in December 2012
00:32:46
when a petty thief named Christopher Low picked the wrong SUV to rob. It happened
00:32:52
to be James Burke's police truck. And Lo didn't know that. Lo stole Burke's duffel bag containing his gun belt,
00:33:01
porn, and sex toys. Lo was arrested, locked into a room, and chained to the floor. According to court testimony,
00:33:10
detectives began to beat him before Burke himself took over. He starts slapping Chris Lobe, choking him,
00:33:18
grabbing him by his ears, yelling at him, threatening him that he's going to give him a hot shot, which is a laced
00:33:25
heroin injection, which would be fatal. Every time I asked for a lawyer, I got hit again. I got hit again. I got
00:33:32
choked. I got choked. I got punched. I got slapped. I got kicked. The rumor mills were running wild. It
00:33:38
was out there that this had occurred. When the FBI investigated, Burke, with the help of his mentor, District
00:33:44
Attorney Tom Spoda, began a cover up. Other investigations, including the serial killer case, languished. His
00:33:53
first priority clearly wasn't this serial killing on his turf. His top priority was staying out of
00:34:01
prison. Prison. Mr. Spott, is there anything that you can say to us, sir? Do you plan to resign, sir? Spotta was
00:34:07
eventually convicted of obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and conspiracy in the Chris Lobe case. A
00:34:15
tumbling fall from grace. Political shock waves on Long Island tonight. And in February 2016, James Burke pleaded
00:34:23
guilty to violating lobe civil rights and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He was sentenced to 46 months in federal
00:34:33
prison. He got what he deserved. Burke declined our request for an interview. There's always been throughout his
00:34:39
career this thin line between being a cop and being a criminal. With the serial killer case seemingly
00:34:48
stalled, graffiti appeared accusing the former chief of being the serial killer.
00:34:57
Investigators don't believe Burke had anything to do with the murders, but that hasn't stopped the gossip. It
00:35:03
speaks to a complete absence of trust in the law enforcement system in Suffach County, which regardless of any veracity
00:35:14
of that graffiti, I think it's completely deserved. [Music] [Applause] Why are these serial killer cases harder
00:35:46
than regular homicides? They're a stranger to the victim, which is unusual in homicide cases. We usually Geraldine
00:35:53
Hart, a career FBI agent, was assigned to the Long Island Bureau when the agency was cut out from the serial
00:36:00
killer investigation. Not having the FBI involved consistently from the beginning
00:36:05
has uh has definitely hindered this investigation. And in 2018, Hart became the Suffach County Police Commissioner.
00:36:13
We are fully committed to this investigation. We are utilizing every technique available, every technology
00:36:18
that we can. Today we are announcing that Jane do number six has been positively
00:36:26
identified as Valerie Mack. Using new genetic genealogy tools, investigators were finally able to
00:36:34
identify one of the victims found on Ocean Parkway. She has a name and she's a person and she has a family. Valerie
00:36:41
Mack, who was 24 years old in 2000 when she went missing, was described as 5t tall and approximately 100 pounds with
00:36:50
brown hair and hazel eyes. Many of these characteristics are shared by the Gilgo
00:36:55
4. Identifying Valerie gave investigators new leads, new associates and friends and family to talk to,
00:37:04
people who can tell us her whereabouts and her connections. The department also released images of evidence. A black
00:37:11
leather belt embossed with the letters HM or WH was recovered during the initial stages of this investigation.
00:37:22
Hart says the belt belonged to a large male. handled by. It's an item that we feel was handled by the suspect, did not
00:37:30
belong to any of the victims, and was found at one of the crime scenes along Ocean Parkway. To attorney John Ray,
00:37:36
it's too little, too late. Why isn't there an explanation of as to why after 9 years, the initials of the belt were
00:37:44
finally for the first time revealed. What's more, Ry says he has offered Shannon's computer, papers, and cell
00:37:51
phones to the department. Hart has declined to look at them, saying there's no way to know if the evidence has been
00:37:58
tampered with, but Hart insists Shannon's case is still open. So, you're saying that they're still investigating
00:38:06
her death? Certainly, as a possible homicide? As a possible homicide, Ray fought for and won access to the 911
00:38:12
calls made that night. He's forbidden by court order from sharing the contents, but insists they shed light on Shannon's
00:38:20
disappearance. [Music] Ray vows he'll never stop fighting for Shannon. John, tell me why you become emotional
00:38:31
even talking about this. It's hard to say. I've put a good part of my life devoted
00:38:39
to this case. It just seems to me that this this young lady, this human being, this woman Shannon Gilbert
00:38:49
deserves justice. That's what keeps Shannon's sister Sheree going, too. Do you think at some
00:38:59
point you're going to know what happened to your sister? I hope. I pray, but I don't know.
00:39:10
It's the same feeling 14-year-old Lily Waterman is grappling with. She thinks about her mom, Megan, every day. If I
00:39:20
could talk to her, I would just want to tell her that like I love her. I never got to really say those words
00:39:28
and like know what love really was, like understand how much I really care about
00:39:34
her. I just want her to know like she has a special place in my heart. No one can ever replace her or come like above
00:39:41
her. Moren Brainer Barnes was the first of the Gilgo four to disappear. Meen's friend Sarah KS can't believe
00:39:55
they haven't found her killer in all these years. It's been 10 since I found her and they haven't found him
00:40:04
and like I don't want to wait for that phone call. Meen's sister Missy K will wait as
00:40:16
long as it takes because this person whoever killed my sister thought that they were taking away my
00:40:26
sister's voice but he didn't know that my sister had a sister like me. So whether he's caught 5 months from now,
00:40:35
10 years from now, I just hope he knows that I'll be sitting in that courtroom and he didn't weaken me or my family. He
00:40:45
just strengthened me. [Music] I'm Eron Morardi, 48 hours, and this is my life of crime. Subscribe on Apple
00:41:11
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The role of a journalist is to bring
00:41:17
Americans a greater understanding. We have to make sure that we're right, that we're fair, but also hopefully bring
00:41:23
Americans closer together.