Although Shannan Gilbert went missing after most of the other victims, it was her frantic call to 911 right before her disappearance that was the precipitating event that led to the eventual arrest of the alleged Long Island Serial Killer. 

Gilbert, 23, was working as an escort on the night she disappeared, and had traveled to Long Island with her driver, Michael Pak, to meet with Joseph Brewer, a client who lived in the area. At some point after leaving Brewer’s house, Gilbert attempted to ask for assistance from two neighbors before vanishing into the night. Though she had told the 911 dispatcher that she believed someone was after her, police initially told her mother, Mari Gilbert, that she would likely turn up again soon. “I will continue to fight nonstop until I bring my girl home, where she belongs,” Mari told the press. After months of pressure from the missing woman’s family and friends, the Suffolk County police finally began to search the area where Gilbert had last been seen — and instead found the bodies of four other women (who came to be known as the Gilgo Four) located in close proximity to each other.

Increased pressure from the Gilbert family led to the police finally discovering her body and belongings on Dec. 13, 2011. The authorities could not confirm that Gilbert’s death was not a murder, but a second examination by a forensic pathologist found cause to disagree with that conclusion, citing marks consistent with homicide by strangulation.