At 5 in the morning on May 1st of last year a disheveled young woman comes to the door of one Gustav Coletti in the town of Oak Beach. She is screaming “Help me, help me!” She claims a man is chasing her. This is probably Shannon Gilbert who the police have been looking for. This incident prompted the search of the desolate beachfront on December 11th, when the first body was found. Two days later three more bodies were discovered.
As such, are the two events connected? An extension of the account of the frantic, young light-brown haired woman, who also placed a 20 minute call of desperation to 911, is that an Asian man driving a dark-colored sport utility vehicle queried Gustav Coletti, just moments after the women fled into the weeds of an embankment near his house.
Coincidentally, the Asian man was looking for our young lady in question. This man offers a cover to Gustav. “Things got out of hand at a party and I’m just looking for her.” Coletti tells him he called the police and the stranger retorts: “you should not have done that.” Threatening. Man drives off in the direction of where the woman disappeared to. Spooky!
Needless to say, Shannon Gilbert was not one of the women identified on this lonely stretch of land near the highway and the beach. This confuses the picture somewhat. But now we know for certain who these four women are and can sense that a serial killer has been at work in this area of New York. This raises the possibility that this Asian man is the ‘Seaside Sicko.’
The four young women all used Craigslist to advertise their trade. This internet thread could be used to trace back to the perpetrator. That is, he must have answered emails with all four victims? This leaves some kind of electronic trail. This was how the cops nabbed the Craigslist serial killer, Philip Markoff.
The identification of the four women is a big break through. They are: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello, and Megan Waterman. Each has different stories to tell, but each, somehow, ended up in this area known as Gilgo Beach. On a sadder note, now their families know why they vanished, without knowing the exact circumstances of their death. Accounts offered in the press are touching; these women weren’t bad, but merely lured into the escort business to make some money.
This tragic factor is the angle that makes these crimes all the more heinous and raises a red-flag about this ‘Seaside Sicko.’ Who is he and why is he doing this? Has he done this sort of thing before? Where and when? Will he strike again soon? What happened in his childhood that turned him into a killer? I sure hope they catch this maniac before he strikes again? He may be walking around amongst us even as I type? Identify yourself, you scoundrel!
If he had been a client of one of these girls for some time, you think she would have told someone about him? Maybe another girl who was friends of either Melissa, Amber, Maureen or Megan had heard some casual chat one time, and if there was mention of an Asian man, this would definitely stick out and be significant. And what ties the girls together? They were all petite, most were under 5 feet tall and their weights were light.
An immediate thought comes to mind. The ‘Seaside Sicko’ knew that small women could be easily over-powered. One pertinent clue for me is the burlap sacks the bodies were wrapped up in for disposal. This could tie the killer in with the seafood business, since these types of sacks are used to contain seafood for shipment.
And could the killer be a roamer or a mover, leaving behind one area of the country, laying low for a while, then resuming his killing in a new area? This was the MO of Ted Bundy and of Henry Lee Lucas, who hitchhiked all over the nation with Otis Toole, leaving a trail of bodies wherever he went. Investigators are currently looking for a connection between Long Island and Atlantic City, where a similar crime scene was discovered in 2006. Many dots need to be connected.