A literary account of the lives and presumed serial killings of five “Craigslist” prostitutes, whose bodies were found on the same Long Island beach in 2010. Based on the New York Magazine cover story.
Shannan wanted acceptance. Maureen wanted a solution. Megan wanted love. Melissa wanted adventure. Amber wanted to be saved.
Over the course of three years, each of these young women vanished without a trace: Maureen in 2007, Melissa and Megan in 2009, and Amber and Shannan in 2010. All but one of their bodies was discovered on Gilgo Beach, Long Island, an unsettled, overgrown seven-mile stretch of shoreline on the string of barrier islands along South Oyster Bay.
Sharing the same profile—all were in their twenties, all but one was under five feet tall, and all were prostitutes who advertised on Craigslist—the police concluded they were all the victims of one murderer, the Long Island serial killer—the most skillful and accomplished serial killer in New York since the “Son of Sam,” David Berkowitz. But as intrepid young reporter Robert Kolker discovered, the truth about these women went far deeper than common assumptions. The victims weren’t outcasts; they weren’t kidnapped or enslaved. All came from a slice of America ignored by politicians and the media: the poor, often rural and white parts of the country hit hard by economics, where limited opportunities force people to make hard choices—choices that lead them to places like Gilgo Beach.
Working closely with the women’s families, Lost Girls tells the stories of their deaths and their lives, offering a searing portrait of crime and circumstance that goes to the heart of modern America itself.
Lost Girls: True Crime Book Reviews Blog
I remember hearing about the stories and news reports of bodies washing up on the coast of Long Island. It captured my attention because it was not something that you see on the news every day in New York. Sure there are killings and random acts of violence that occur in the city, however, what amounted to a serial killer in New York was definitely news to me. Sure, there was Joel Rifkin and Robert Schulman, who were also based out of Long Island, and of course the infamous David Berkowitz AKA the “Son of Sam,” who was allegedly being commanded to kill by his dog. Like the prior serial killers listed, the Long Island serial killer also had a fixation on killing prostitutes or escorts. The difference, as it would seem, is that the dubbed Long Island serial killer has yet to be caught. This is not a spoiler alert as it is part of the book’s subtitle: An Unsolved American Mystery. The thought of reading a book, knowing that there was no resolution at its conclusion, would be absurd to some. But, then again there is also the excellent Michelle McNamara book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark which was also completed prior to the capturing of the Golden State Killer and remained a mystery until, of course, he was captured.
Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery was penned by investigative reporter, Robert Kolker and digs deep into the lives of the missing, then murdered, girls who made their living as escorts for one reason or another. At first glance, looking at it from the outside in, there can be a misunderstanding, of sorts, when questioning why they chose this particular lifestyle. Kolker interviews friends and family of the victims which gives us a better insight as to the why and the circumstances that led them down the path to their eventual demise. I would say the majority of the book delves into the occurrences surrounding the girls: their shortcomings and misgivings, and their lives prior to and during their stint as escorts. Their eventual disappearances and murders are not broached until the tail end of the book itself. It is here where it is evident that Kolker did painstaking research to understand the mindset of these young women, giving them life to the reader.
Because it felt like eighty percent divulged in the lives of these girls, it was easy for me to forget that I was reading about the Long Island serial killer. It would be easy to dismiss this book, painting it as being misleading, but Kolker managed to, in my opinion, give these girls an identity rather than just being unfortunate victims. Again, it wasn’t towards the tail end of Lost Girls that we start to get the makings of a serial killer beginning to unravel. There are quips and theories about who may have been the killer but ultimately it is pure conjecture and there is not a lot of weight behind them but just enough to make you wonder.
While Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery shares many intimate details of the murdered girls and their lifestyles, I would say that if you go in expecting a lot of investigation revolving around the murders themselves you might be disappointed with what you get. Initially, I was disappointed when I came to realize that the book was not about the investigation of the murders but rather an investigation of the lives of the girls. It would have been easy to dismiss this notion but instead, I was pleased to get to “know” these girls for who they were and not for how they chose to make a living. It made the whole ordeal sad and rather heart-wrenching. To make it all the more disturbing and sad, when I was done with the book, I looked into this further with a quick search of the internet and was saddened to read that the mother of one of the victims was later murdered by her surviving daughter. Again, a somber, if not depressing, affair.