The Gilgo Beach Killer

Lauren DeFranco started this journey in 2010, when Shannan Gilbert—a 24 year old sex worker from New Jersey—vanished from Oak Beach New York, a small gated community off the east end of Jones Beach Island. At the time, Attorney John Ray and Gilbert's mother Mari Gilbert pressured police to take Shannans disappearance seriously. Months later a police officer on a training exercise with his K9 partner discovered the bodies hidden along a stretch of Gilgo Beach. Gilbert's body was eventually found in the marsh a year later, nine miles from the ten sets of remains.

Lauren was on the scene when former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer tried to ease the fears of the community, telling reporters, “I don’t want people to think that we have a Jack the Ripper running around Suffolk County with blood dripping from a knife. This is an anomaly.”

Turns out Dormer was downplaying a deadly scenario, with a serial killer hiding in plain sight for three decades. In July of 2023, a task force arrested 59 year old Rex Heuermann, an architect from Massapequa Park who took the LIRR to his Midtown office on a daily basis. The investigation which was largely focused on “the Gilgo Four” was hampered by corruption within law enforcement. Former Police Chief Jm Burke and DA Tom Spota restricted collaboration with the FBI and blocked any real attempts at finding the killer or killers during those critical years. 

Lauren has covered the Long Island Serial Killer extensively, even speaking to Gilbert’s “John” Joseph Brewer by phone in 2010 when he insisted he had nothing to do with Gilbert's disappearance. Lauren also interviewed a forensic expert, who put the crime scene into perspective, taking a deeper dive into how the bodies were placed and wrapped in burlap, and offered a chilling profile into the mindset of the LISK. 

Most recently, Lauren attended Attorney John Ray’s lengthy symposium at John Jay College, new murder indictments against Heuermann, the search for Asian Doe’s identity, the Frye hearings regarding the validity of the DNA evidence and finally the long awaited identity of “Peaches” and “Baby Doe.” Lauren has incredible tenacity and institutional knowledge of LISK, working during the reign of corruption in Suffolk County.

As an independent journalist, trying to uncover the truth surrounding Gilbert's death, while uncovering the twisted story behind alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann, Lauren continues to ask the relevant questions and leaves no stone unturned. Shannan Gilbert was the catalyst, the unintended hero and the protagonist in a murder mystery that one day will hopefully be solved.