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I am very much looking forward to talking with the listeners about the cases I have covered.
I am your host Bill Huffman and on this week’s show we will be wrapping up my conversation with producer and reporter Maggie Freleng, about the Long Island Serial Killer aka The Gilgo Beach Murders.
As I mentioned last week, all true crime fanatics know about this case. But if you don’t and have not listened to part one of my conversation with Maggie, please go back and listen, or you’ll be quite lost in this episode.
The true-crime community and the families of the victims have renewed hope this case will be solved. Because for the first time in a long time, a press conference was held to show off new evidence in relation to the case.
The Suffolk County police released pictures of a belt that was found at one of the crime scenes.
The reason why this could be a significant piece of evidence is the belt had the initials “WH” or “HW” painted on. They said the belt had been in their possession for more than a decade after it was found with one of the bodies.
Since it didn’t belong to any of the victims the police said they were confident the belt was “handled” by the killer.
They did not say how they can be so sure so we are left to speculate until we hear more.
A picture of the belt was released and the picture is up on the sloburnmedia.com website.
Police don’t seem to like to use the phrase cold case anymore but this case was cold. There had not been any new information in years, other than the lawsuits you heard about in the trailer.
But I will admit this time feels like they are giving a full pressure push to solve the case. They went as far as creating a new website, gilgonews.com so the public can submit information or tips.
The first set of remains was discovered in 20-10 while police were searching for another woman, 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert.
It when Gilbert’s body wouldn’t be found for another year, across the way on Oak Beach.
The total number of bodies discovered during their searches was now 11.
In a rather callous way of explaining the deaths, police said at the time, since most of the women worked in prostitution it was basically the job that killed them.
The first autopsy on Gilbert concluded she had died from drowning and drug overdose. Despite the fact only being 18 inches of water.
The family brought in Dr. Michael Boden to perform an independent autopsy on Gilbert’s body. He determined she was killed due to homicidal strangulation because the hyoid bone was missing.
The autopsy also showed that Shanna she did not die from a drug overdose or drowning.
The family of Shannan Gilbert fought the police for more information about their daughter’s death but were seemingly stonewalled by the Suffolk County Police.
The family hired the charismatic attorney John Ray to represent anything to do with Shannan. He was always suing somebody to get more information.
One crazy thing to note is Mari Gilbert, Shannan’s mom, was murdered by her youngest daughter.
Just a tragic set of circumstances for a family already torn apart due to a murder.
Apparently, Gilbert had a 21-minute conversation or call with a 9-1-1 dispatcher and the family attorney sued for the release of the tapes.
While police looked for Shannan the found four bodies that had obviously been dumped there.
As Maggie said in Part One, the demographics of the area are very wide-ranging and the terrain is mostly barren. true-crime
Police found more bodies on Gilgo Beach, which is on the opposite side of Oak Beach.
For whatever reason, the FBI was not involved with the case until the last five years so some of these new leads may be driven in part by their participation.
Now that I’ve run you through the basics of the case, let’s re-join my conversation with producer and true crime star, Maggie Freleng, and take a final look at the Long Island Serial Killer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRM__M4h3zo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRaripbEHkc&t=409s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJGeb8T9uH4
