Shannan Gilbert, who is 24 years old, was last seen on May 1, 2010, in Oak Beach, New York. After seeing a client on the south shore of Long Island, she vanished.
Background
Shannan Maria Gilbert was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on October 24, 1986. She was the daughter of Mari Gilbert and her partner at the time. She had four sisters, and she was the oldest.
Her family moved to Ellenville, New York, when her parents split up. Gilbert and her siblings lived in foster homes for a while before their mother took care of them again.
Gilbert went to high school in Ulster County, New York, at New Paltz High School. After she graduated from high school in 2003, she worked at a hotel reception desk, as a hostess at Applebee’s, and at a senior center making snacks.
Gilbert moved to New Jersey in 2007 and rented a condo for $1,200 a month. In 2009, she put herself up as an escort on Craigslist to make money. She also took online communication classes from Phoenix University to get out of prostitution.
Gilbert was told she had bipolar disorder when she was young. She also had a history of using drugs, which often made her act in strange ways. Gilbert was attacked once while she was escorting, and she had to get a titanium plate put in her jaw to fix it.
Disappearance
On May 1, 2010, around 2:00 a.m., Gilbert’s driver and bodyguard, Michael Pak, dropped her off on Fairway Drive in Oak Beach, which is near the beach, so she could meet a client, Joseph Brewer.
Gilbert has been asked to go to a party on a “date” through Craigslist. She stayed for a while at her client’s two-story wood frame house before she allegedly started acting strangely.
At 4:51 a.m., Gilbert used her cell phone to call 911 and seemed to scream for help. She was heard saying that “someone was after her” and trying to kill her. When the 911 dispatcher asked her where she was, she couldn’t tell them.
Around 5 a.m., while she was still on the phone with 911, Gilbert ran out of the house and knocked on the door of a neighbor, who let her in. The resident tried to calm her down and call 911 himself, but she ran out the door soon after.
Shannan Gilbert was gone when the Suffolk County police finally got there at 5:40 am. She never went back home, and no one knows where she is now.
On May 3, 2010, her family asked the Suffolk County Police Department to look for her.
Investigation
After Shannan Gilbert went missing, the police looked into Joseph Brewer and Michael Pak. During the 23-minute 911 call, the voices of both people could be heard. In the end, they did well on a polygraph test.
Police didn’t find any proof of wrongdoing, so neither person was named as a suspect in the case.
