Shannan Gilbert was 24 years old when she disappeared on May 1, 2010, after going to the home of a client in Oak Beach on Long Island.
Gilbert, an escort who operated using Craigslist, was last seen leaving the area on foot in distress, though Suffolk County Police say she had a driver waiting to take her home. The driver received a call from Gilbert’s client, who said she had started acting irrationally and demanded she leave, Fox News reported.
“After refusing to leave the location at the request of her client, Gilbert eventually fled on foot into the Oak Beach community,” police said, according to Fox. “She knocked on several doors before disappearing.”
Gilbert’s disappearance led police to search along Ocean Parkway, where they discovered multiple women’s bodies over the course of several days, including Gilbert’s. The first body found was Melissa Barthelemy. One year later, on December 11, 2011, police found Gilbert’s purse and cellphone a quarter-mile away from Barthelemy’s body. Two days later, Gilbert’s body was found in roughly the same area as the serial killer’s victims.
Now New York Police have released a 911 call previously deemed confidential in relation to Gilbert’s death, including a 12-minute video with sections from the call, along with maps and other visuals related to her disappearance and death. Homicide Commander Kevin Beyrer of the SCPD explained in the video that while Gilbert’s death is a tragedy, her death does not appear to be the result of violence, meaning she is not a victim of the Gilgo Beach serial killer.
Police also released the audio of Gilbert’s 911 call, which lasted more than 21 minutes, though much of it contains “dead audio,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told Pix 11.
“Somebody’s after me,” Gilbert repeats at the beginning of the call.
Joseph Brewer, the client that Gilbert met up with on the night she disappeared, can also be heard in the calls, attempting to get Gilbert to speak to her driver, Michael Pak, but she refuses. Brewer and Pak repeatedly try to get Gilbert to leave Brewer’s home but she refuses, eventually asking Pak what he would do to her and “are you going to kill me?” to which Pak responds, “Are you crazy?”
Gilbert continues to ask if Pak is going to kill her as he tries to calm her down and get her to leave Brewer’s home. “Come on, it’s me, Mike,” he says at one point, as if she doesn’t recognize him.
Later in the call, Gilbert can be heard asking Pak to take her home, then accusing him of being “part of this all along.”
Gilbert then left Brewer’s home and ran down the street toward a neighbor’s house. Gilbert can be heard screaming on the phone before she knocks on the door of a neighbor, Gus Coletti, who asks her if someone is after her. Gilbert says she needs “help” but leaves Coletti’s home.
Coletti called the police describing Gilbert as a 14-year-old, while describing Pak as a “boy” driving a Suburban.
In a third 911 call, neighbor Barbara Brennan says a woman is “banging” on her door and claiming to be in “danger.”
It is still unclear what killed Gilbert, though it does not appear that Brewer or Pak are considered suspects.