Netflix's new true crime film Lost Girls landed on the streaming service on Friday, and follows a determined mother, Mari Gilbert, who does whatever it takes to track down her missing daughter, Shannon. The desperate mum discovers more than she ever realised she would after several bodies of missing women are identified in the search, uncovering a serial killer at work and forcing an uninterested police force and the media to take notice.
The real Mari Gilbert
The series is based on a bestselling non-fiction book of the same same by Robert Kolker, which looks at the murders of several young woman who were thought to have been killed by the same perpetrator, and who is known as the Long Island serial killer, or the Gilgo Beach killer. He is also known as the Craigslist Ripper, as several of his victims were sex workers and had advertised their services on the website.
WATCH: Netflix's Lost Girls trailer
Who was Shannan Gilbert?
Shannan, 24, was working as an escort when she was reported missing back in 2010. She had last been seen asking a man, Gus Coletti, for help, who spoke about the incident to NPR. He said: "All of a sudden, somebody was screaming at the door and banging on the door, help me, help me, help me. So I came out. I opened the door. She stepped in. And she just kept staring at me. And I kept saying, 'what's the matter? What's your problem? 'And all she'd say is, 'help me, help me'." Although Gus called the police, he said that she left before they arrived.
Lost Girls was released on Netflix on Friday
It was the investigation into her disappearance that led to ten more murder victims being found on Ocean Parkway. Although the police initially thought that Shannan had accidentally drowned after running from a client's home and being caught in the wetlands, the case was reopened as a murder investigation – but it still listed as an accident. At the time of her discovery in December 2011, one year after she was reported missing, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said that it was "certainly a sad day for the Gilbert family... and our condolences to that family on the death of their daughter".
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Mari was vocal in her unhappiness at the investigation into her daughter's death, telling Newsday: "I was very angry, as any parent should be. But as time went by, I kind of realised that maybe that was her destiny, to help other families."
What happened to Mari Gilbert?
Mari was horrifically killed when she was 53 in 2016 by one of her four daughters, Sarra, in New York. Sarra had a history of mental illness and had a diagnosed schizophrenic, and was charged with second-degree murder for the crime. Speaking to People, her attorney John Ray said: "It was schizophrenia. Sarra was hospitalised several times. Over the past couple of days she began to hear voices. She called her mother and said come over. … And she stabbed her to death."
READ: 6 true crime shows that have reopened cases
Mari was killed by Sarra (back centre)
