A New Jersey escort whose disappearance led to the discovery of 10 serial killer victims on Long Island was finally laid to rest Thursday five years after she went missing.
With her death still a mystery, Shannan Gilbert’s family still has no closure, but a chance to bury her remains and say a final goodbye was some measure of solace.
Authorities have maintained that the death of Gilbert — whose remains were found in December 2010 on Oak Beach more than 18 months after she was last seen screaming while fleeing a client’s home — was unrelated to suspected murders of eight women, a man and a child in the Gilgo Beach area.
Police said she ran into a nearly inaccessible marshland and likely drowned; the Suffolk County medical examiner has said the cause of death is undetermined.
But Mari Gilbert, even at her daughter’s somber funeral, said she believes Shannan was the victim of foul play.
“Absolutely, there’s no question in my mind,” Mari Gilbert told reporters just steps from where a small crowd of family members gathered at Amityville Cemetery.”I do believe that it is all connected.”
Shannan Gilbert’s silver coffin was adorned with carnations and daisies, and her mother, sisters and nephews stared at pictures arranged in the shape of a heart.
The funeral and burial for Gilbert, 24, came after an independent autopsy was completed Monday, said family attorney John Ray.
He would not disclose results from the autopsy.
But famed forensic doctor Michael Baden, who conducted the examination, told Fox News that a bone in Gilbert’s neck may have been fractured.
“If it is a fracture, that would be strong evidence Ms. Gilbert was strangled to death by neck compression,” said Baden, New York City’s former chief medical examiner. “It’s extremely rare for a young woman to die of drowning yards away from where four young women have clearly been murdered. The statistics don’t go along with that.”
Ray said Gilbert’s body remained at the Suffolk County medical examiner’s office for more than three years because the family was unable to pay for a funeral.
Area funeral directors donated their services, and the Amityville Cemetery donated a burial plot for the woman’s interment, he said.