Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer is a three-part docuseries, directed by Liz Garbus, that examines the case of the alleged Gilgo Beach Killer, Rex Heuermann, from the perspective of his victims and their families. Ten sets of remains were found in a relatively small area between December of 2010 and April of 2011, but Heuermann wasn’t arrested for the murders until 2023.
Opening Shot: “May 1, 2010. Long Island, New York.” As we look at beach-side brush, we hear a 911 call from Shannan Gilbert.
The Gist: The the search for Gilbert is what ended up being the catalyst that led law enforcement in Suffolk County on Long Island to find the remains of ten different women, all in the same area of brush alongside a highway on the southern shore of the island. But that search would not have happened without the constant pressure of Gilbert’s mother Mari.
Because Shannan Gilbert was a sex worker, finding her seemed like a low priority for the Suffolk County police. Mari Gilbert’s consistent pressure via press conference and other media coverage finally prompted them to start looking. In December, 2010, a full skeletal set of remains were found, then in short order three other sets of skeletal remains were unearthed.
None of them were Gilbert, though. Through DNA, officials were able to identify the “Gilgo Four” as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, all of whom are sex workers who disappeared between 2007 and 2010. During the press conference where they were identified, the Suffolk County police commissioner wanted to allay fears by saying the women engaged in “risky activity,” but all that did was offend the families that mourned their deaths.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Garbus also directed Lost Girls, a 2020 scripted feature film about this case. The tone of Gone Girls is reminiscent of another Garbus project, I’ll Be Gone In The Dark.
Our Take: We approached Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer a little warily; as residents of the New York metropolitan area, we have read and heard the extensive coverage of the Gilgo Beach murders and know well how much law enforcement dragged their feet on the case because the victims — as well as Gilbert, whose body was found miles away and isn’t a direct victim of the the killer — were sex workers.
Garbus wanted to make sure the victims, especially Gilbert and the “Gilgo Four” are given their proper due, which is why the first episode has friends and family of the five women discussing their lives and who they were as people.
That approach is giving the docuseries a slant that’s different than what we usually see in true-crime serial-killer genre. Too many times, the killer is the one who gets the biographical treatment, and the victims are given a momentary nod and little else. It’s alarming but not surprising that law enforcement downplayed the victims because of what they did for a living, and Mari Gilbert’s constant media presence pressuring Suffolk County law enforcement officials to act was a major component of this case. Without Mari’s efforts, those remains might still be out there, and ten families of missing women might have never gotten the closure they deserved.
The other two episodes in this series will concentrate on the search for Gilbert, as well as how law enforcement needed over a decade to pin most of these murders on Heuermann; he was an architect who hid in plain sight, working in Manhattan and living in Massapequa Park. What we hope, though, is that Garbus will continue to keep the victims in the front of the viewers’ minds, because that’s where they need to be in order to appreciate just how many people the killer’s actions affected.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: A shot of Heuermann’s house, with a prosecutor saying “I learned [the killer] was living among us the whole time.”
Sleeper Star: Long Island Press reporter Jaclyn Gallucci gives a really local viewpoint of the case, talking about how the area were the bodies were found shattered her sense that nothing bad could happen along the beaches on the south shore.
Most Pilot-y Line: As always, we are not fans of reenactments, but they’re merely annoying instead of distracting here.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Because Liz Garbus incorporates stories about the victims in the narrative of the Gilgo Beach story, Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer give viewers a much fuller picture of the horrors that the killer wrought.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.