UPDATE: Gilgo Search Tied to Oak Beach Disappearance

The renewed search for human skeletal remains today at Gilgo Beach comes 108 days after the first female victim’s remains were discovered along the Ocean Parkway beach area west of the Robert Moses Causeway bridge.

Late yesterday, as reported this morning by Patch, more remains, which police said may be human, were found east of the original search location.

The ongoing search, which police said began about 4 p.m. yesterday, is tied to the disappearance of Craiglist escort, Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old New Jersey woman who was reported missing in May after being seen in the Oak Beach area after visiting a client. Gilbert was not one of the four identified in late 2010.

Shortly after the first remains were found in mid December police talked to a West Islip man who authorities said had used the services of Gilbert the night she went missing.

In January the police released the identification of four women whose remains were uncovered on December 11 and December 12.

One was Amber Lynn Costello, a 27-year-old North Babylon woman last seen in early September. Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Connecticut, and Melissa Barthelemy, 24, of Erie County, New York, were also identified.

In police had identified the first female remains as Megan Waterman, a missing 24-year-old Maine woman who was last seen in Hauppauge.

All four women were prostitutes who used online services, such as Craiglist, for business, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.

In February police said they planned to return to the crime scene once weather conditions improved.

Initially police called the gruesome discovery the potential work of a serial killer, and that belief was restated by Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota at the last press conference when the last identities were released.

“I believe it [the murders] is the work of a serial killer,” said Spota at the time, noting that the four cases were similar but declining to release any specific details on how the women were murdered. Police said the victims were killed elsewhere and dumped at the Gilgo Beach location.

Police have been offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and have not identified anyone as a person of interest in the case.

Costello, a 5’0 blonde with hazel eyes, was last seen in North Babylon on September 2, according to police, and no official missing persons report had been filed about her disappearance. Brainard-Barnes was last seen in New York City in July, 2007. Barthelemy was last seen in July, 2009 in the Bronx.

Police say the women were killed at different times and the bodies were disposed of at different times, but have since refused to provide any further details.