According to Suffolk police, none of the three bodies found yesterday near Gilgo State Beach belong to the missing Jersey City prostitute Shannan Gilbert—the search for whom has led investigators to find a total of eight bodies in the area.
As for who the newly found bodies were, police are declining to speculate as they await information for New York City medical examiners and forensic anthropologists. In the meantime they are continuing to comb the Gilgo State Beach area, with the search now expanded into the gated Oak Beach community a few miles away. And the folks there are not loving it.
Since the first bodies were discovered in December, Oak Beach has been a focal point of the investigation as it is the last place that Shannan Gilbert was seen alive (her john, 46-year-old Oak Beach resident Joseph Brewer has been questioned numerous times but no longer appears to be a suspect). And as such it has seen its property values decrease precipitously. According to a former president of the home owners association, homes there used to sell for nearly a million folks would be lucky to sell for $600,000 now. And one resident said of the police presence, "My fiancée sent me a text that said: ‘They’re in our backyard. Literally."
