Archived article:
"I have dreams about her every single night," said Sherre Gilbert, who still holds out hope her sister is alive somewhere. "I just don't know what to think."
Shannan Marie Gilbert had a scattered, sometimes traumatic upbringing that may have led to her career path, her family said in interviews Tuesday. Born in Lancaster, Pa., Gilbert was diagnosed as bipolar at a young age and quickly became a ward of New York State, shuffling among several foster homes in Rockland and
Ulstercounties, family said. She graduated from New Paltz High School at age 16.
Soon, Gilbert had moved in with a boyfriend in northern New Jersey, where she was arrested with several other women and charged with prostitution in 2007, police say. The outcome of that case was not known Tuesday.
That year, she moved to
Jersey City and began her first attempts to extract herself from a life of paid sex and hard drugs, her sister said. She auditioned for singing roles, pursued an online degree in communications and drank up Manhattan's fashion scene, wearing skinny jeans, oversized sunglasses and a variety of wigs while carrying large designer purses.
"She always told me she was going in for an audition," said her
live-in boyfriend, Alex Diaz, 28, of Jersey City.
But a need for cash, said her younger sister Sarra, 21, lured her back into prostitution. She worked for at least two escort services before deciding this year to become independent, advertising her services on
Craigslist and hiring her own driver, friends and family said.
Her family knew about her job but, Sarra said, "we knew it was more or less for survival."
SHANNAN Gilbert was the big sister with the golden voice, an in-vogue style and the guts to leave her impoverished upstate home for a chance to make it big in New York City.But Gilbert's dream of beco
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*I didn’t realize she had a live-in boyfriend
