In retrospect, all of this traveling by subway, hired car, etc. sounds rather expensive. Is it safe to assume taking "jobs" out in the Babylon/Oak Beach area was an expensive prospect? Is it possible the customers were offering a very high price for the services? Is it possible these services were of a "special type", too, thus justifying a very high price as incentive?
Many females will advertise ahead of time or let their clients know: "I'll be in your area this weekend Friday to Sunday. Then they book a hotel room and see multiple clients.
The thing is, these girls are not here to tell us what actually happened.
So, for example, while we have been told that Melissa was working on her own (independently), it's important to take note of where that narrative originated.
It originated from one person: her pimp, John Terry (or "Blaze"). So John Terry does an interview with Kolker for his highly anticipated book Lost Girls. The first book written about these murders, it's marketed as the first in depth look at the victims' lives through the people that new and loved them. It will tell the truth of who these victims were.
So John Terry sits down w Kolker and tells him Melissa was doing this job on her own. She was real secretive about it. I offerred her a ride but she didnt want it. Thats the last time i saw her. (Terry has now distanced himself from Melissa by implying they really didn't have a pimp/prostitute relationship and she did whatever jobs she wanted. And even though John Terry, with a heart of gold, offered to give her a ride, she declined. He couldnt have placed himself further away.)
And Kolker writes what John Terry says and now that version of the story becomes part of a book that is still used to this day as if it is a source of factual inarguable truth. Kolker is not an investigator. He is a book author who was racing to get this book out, the book that would make him famous.
When Lost Girls came out, there wasn't any organized linear summary of what happened. We just knew there was alot of bodies, one Commisioner would say this, another DA would say that. But Kolker gave everyone a source of organized information. I'm not saying he got everything wrong. But he certainly didn't delve into certain aspects. So as readers, neither did we and the statements given by prople like John Terry become solidified as fact. By us, the press, the podcasts, it's solidified in our minds. But who was John Terry exactly? John Terry lived in Brooklyn. He made trips frequently up to Maine to distribute narcotics. His clients in Maine would take what he'd bring - they were easier to sell a subpar product to than someone in NY for instance. So he'd often cut his drugs with other products which would increase his profit but the ppl in Maine didn't know the difference. While he was doing this in Maine, he would be recruiting girls. He'd make big promises, act like a boyfriend and bring them back to NY where he'd then integrate them into sex work. This is what he did to Melissa.These trips would continue, trafficking drugs up to Maine and recruiting girls back to NY. He would also integrate some girls, like Melissa, into these trips. So now, Melissa is a sex worker and helping her pimp traffic drugs to Maine. Why did Melissa and John Terry take a Concordia bus back and forth between NY and Maine? Why not just cut the time and drive? Busses don't get pulled over and passengers don't get searched. After Melissa was found deceased, John Terry was arrested for sex trafficking. He did his time in federal prison, got out, and went right back to his old routine. Travelling to Maine w narcotics, recruiting girls, bringing them back to NY. But once again, John Terry was arrested in Maine for drug distribution, and sent back to prison.
We have people like John Terry providing the accepted narrative all over this case.
Would you trust a word out of his mouth about Melissa going to some secret client to work a job on her own without him? I wouldn't. I also dont know what the actual truth is - but its not coming from someone like John Terry.
But these narratives that originate from the kind of people like John Terry are almost set in stone for us. The Kolker book comes out, magazines run cover stories on the "Real Story: The last hours of slain prostitute's life", Kolker gets rich, you better believe John Terry got paid to talk, magazines sell, docuseries and podcasts come out. This is a multi-million dollar business. And what actually happened to Melissa? We have only the words of John Terry and the world keeps turning.
Just my humble opinion.