Just a warning that you may find this post upsetting if you are a friend or family member of one of the identified Gilgo victims (or if you are simply someone who feels passionate about obtaining justice & closure for the victims).
I know it bothers us when we hear it pointed out that the LISK is a killer of prostitutes (or when the media or government addresses the victims with phrases such as "
missing prostitute Shannan Gilbert").
No matter what we say or do, we aren't going to be able to change the views of the media, the government or the public. So I am just going to say what the reality is;
The LISK investigation is going to go cold because his victims were all sex workers from out of town.
It's cold and harsh to hear. Yet that is the truth. It already happened with this investigation many years ago when all of those bodies started appearing in the Pine Barrens around Manorville. Once one of the victims (Jessica Taylor) was identified as a prostitute from her prior arrests (and once all of the residents found comfort in the fact that the victims were not locals) the case went cold.
Heck, out of all of the Manorville bodies that were found (and according to the locals, there have been DOZENS over the years) we are only hearing about Jessica Taylor and the Jane Doe victim because some of their remains were found at Gilgo.
There is no mention of the two Hispanic men also found in Manorville near their remains...
No mention of the severed man's head found in the lake with a bullet hole...
No mention of any of the other victims (like the dead guy with the healed bullet wounds in his chest) other than what we hear from interviews with locals with firsthand knowledge.
Information about the majority of the remains found in the Pine Barrens around Manorville barely received any media coverage (and news about most of the bodies that were discovered out there did not make it to the internet when everything went digital).
The case went cold then and now that SG's remains have been found it will soon go cold again.
[These are not my views... I am just giving everyone the heads-up on what is coming next]
Yes, now that SG has been found, everyone here should be prepared to see this case go on the cold case pile. I know that this sounds highly unlikely (and very frustrating/sad) but it's just the way things work in Suburbia America.
Any department (police or FBI) empowered with investgating a killer who is regarded as a killer exclusively of prostitutes simply does not receive indefinite resources to solve the case in this Country (and probably in most other countries too). This is especially true on Long Island. For reasons I will not get into, the homicide units of both Suffolk & Nassau counties have some of the lowest ratios of taxes collected vs. funds being directed to their respective homicide departments (including crime labs) in the entire Country. Part of it has to do with the relatively low crime rates (compared to other areas in the Country with similar size population density). The rest of it is a political nightmare too complicated to explain in one post.
The bottom line is that in any suburban community, there reaches a point in these investigations where money does indeed become a factor. You are probably going to be angry when you hear this (so please don't be mad at me for passing it along) but due to the intense frustration among Long Island taxpayers & public officials empowered with allocating the funds collected from taxpayers, there reaches a point when both the taxpayers and the public officials put there foot down and say "enough is enough".
In other words, the police department will not have an open checkbook to fund this LISK investigation indefinitely.
Now that SG has been found, here are some of the questions that are already being asked by taxpayers & public officials at public meetings;
-How much has the department already spent on this investigation?
-What percentage of the homicide unit's resources are being allocated towards this investigation?
-Have the closure/solve rates of other homicide cases suffered as a result of the tremendous amount of resources being reallocated to this case?
-How much more money does the department plan to allocate towards this case?
-What will be the annual net cost per household for this investigation?
Now on the surface you are probably thinking to yourself, can this be for real?
You are surely thinking that a serial killer investigation should indeed have a do-whatever-it-takes-no-matter-what-it-costs priority.
Sorry to say, that is not reality.
The truth... the reality is... that this case can easily be viewed by many residents and public officials as a waste of the taxpayers hard-earned money.
I know this is tough to understand.
Truth is, (and this is not how I feel) this case is no longer about protecting the public from a possible serial killer. Truth-be-told, the general view among taxpayers & public officials (whether they admit it publically or not) is that the majority of the local residents do not feel threatened knowing that the LISK is on the loose because his identified victims were all women from out of town who travelled to Long Island to commit a crime (prostitution). The only victim who actually resided on Long Island was AC. However, she can easily be viewed as heroin addict from the Carolinas who jumped on a train to stay with a friend to use his home to turn tricks (I mean no disrespect for AC, just stating the way the public, media & government have mostly portrayed her). So basically, the LISK is not being viewed as a threat to anyone except independent prostitutes from out of town.
Personally, as long as the LISK is out there, I fear for the residents of all of the East Coast (and that is why for Christmas Santa is installing a high tech security system on my home complete with dozens of infrared night vision motion-activated video cameras. Also invested in a cooperative plan with all of my neighbors to hire a private security guard to patrol the neighborhood and even watch the local children as they walk to school). But for the average resident of the East Coast (especially those who still live on Long Island), this type of sense of urgency (or acknowledgement that a real threat to the public from the LISK exists) simply is not present.
So here is the true reality-
You have millions of households paying tens of thousands of dollars each in taxes (between property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, government fees, etc...) and they (and their elected officials) are watching millions of those dollars being spent on an investigation to attempt to solve the murders of a handful of Jane Does and five (possibly six if we count SG) women from out of town who travelled to Long Island for the sole purpose of committing crimes. This is happening before everyone's eyes while the economy is in the pits, unemployment rates are sky high and living expenses are through the roof. School districts are laying off teachers because they can't afford to pay their salaries because there is not enough tax dollars to go around yet millions and millions of dollars are being spent to find the killers of victims who (for argument's sake) more than likely never contributed a dime in taxes themselves.
I know this sounds harsh (because it is, but they are not my views!). And I know on the surface this doesn't say much about the Long Island community. However, dig a little deeper and you can start to appreciate that it's not the community & the elected officials looking to be cruel towards the victims. This same scenario is played out in suburban communities everywhere (so don't be upset with Long Islanders).
In a perfect world, everyone surely would want the LISK off of the streets and behind bars. But the simple fact remains that in our world... our reality is all about
MONEY. There is only so much that can be allocated towards an investigation before you have to either
1) Raise taxes to continue to sustain the investigation.
2) Attempt to secure State or Federal aid/assistance with the investigation.
3) Put the investigation on a budget (or on the cold case pile).
Obviously, the morally correct course of action is to respect the victims for who they were (beautiful, loving human beings) and not classify them based upon their occupation, their unfortunate addictions, or where they came from. Usually in the public eye (and on paper), local governments/police departments usually go out of their way to make it appear that they treat all victims (including prostitutes, drug addicts, & convicted felons) with equal respect and protection (justice is supposed to be blind right?) Whether or not the police department indeed made themselves appear this way in this case is subject to debate. Regardless of appearances, we all know the truth of how gang members, prostitutes, junkies, etc... Simply do not receive the same sense of urgency from law enforcement when a crime is committed against them as would a member of the mainstream public.
And then the sad truth is that eventually most of these cases hit a brick wall.
The leads stop rolling in...
There are no longer any known victims that are missing from the area...
Time passes by without any more remains being found...
Nobody ever steps forward to identify the Jane & John Does...
At about the same time that these cases hit those brick walls, the money to investigate them almost completely runs out. New cases (many much easier to solve) take the spotlight and demand the department investigate them. And since most of the residents and their families never actually felt threatened by a "killer of prostitutes", nobody will seem to care much about this case (just as most people stopped caring about the
Butcher of Manorville for such a long period of time).
I know this makes you angry because it makes me angry (and rightfully so).
The problem is that this isn't a perfect world.
Crimes need to be solved.
Murderers need to be put behind bars.
A very large percentage of successful police work is based upon timing and taking advantage of windows of opportunity at the time when they present themselves for the taking. In a perfect world there would be unlimited resources with unlimited manpower using the most expensive state-of-the-art technology. In that perfect world, almost every crime can be solved and almost every murderer could be put behind bars. But in our world, this simply is not the case.
So when decision time comes it is nearly impossible ignore other crimes that can be solved because their windows of opportunity are ripe in exchange for beating down a case that's hit a brick wall (and one that the investigators can't even be certain if there is one murderer responsible or three or more).
When decision time comes (and it's coming soon) we will see this investigation shift from proactive back to reactive. And when that happens, all we will be left with will be listening to the heartless rumors, hopeful (yet worrisome) speculation every time a local murder, missing persons case or an arrest of a psycho hits the news, and a really bad case of wondering what the police should've, could've or would've done differently throughout the entire case.
