Long Island cops believe they have found the remains of missing hooker Shannan Gilbert, a year after the search for her revealed a serial killer’s beachfront graveyard. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Police in an “amphibious vehicle” spotted the bones Tuesday in a “tangled mess” of a marsh in Oak Beach, about a quarter-mile from where her purse, identification, phone and clothes were found last week.

The medical examiner will confirm the remains are Gilbert’s and determine the cause of her death, although police outlined a scenario in which she stumbled and drowned.

“I don’t believe this is Shannan,” said her mother, Mari Gilbert. “I need positive ID before I believe that.”

The body was discovered a few miles from Gilgo Beach, where 10 other sets of remains were found in the last year and where relatives of the victims planned to hold a vigil Tuesday.

Gilbert, 24, vanished in May 2010 after fleeing a client’s Oak Beach house in hysterics.

Cops were searching for her seven months later when they found the first of the bodies now linked to an unidentified serial killer. Five of th victims were prostitutes.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Dormer said the timing of the discovery of Gilbert’s remains was purely “coincidental.”

e suggested she wasn’t the victim of foul play but got stranded while flailing through unfamiliar terrain in a panic.

“At that time of the morning there would be lighting on the parkway and it’s possible she could see the lights and was attempting to get there,” Dormer said.

“The rambles and thick-brush terrains would have made it impossible.”

She traveled “at least a half-mile, three-fourths of a mile, on foot through that thick muck and mud,” Dormer added.

“It would be very easy to get exhausted, fall down, and not be able to move any further.”

His comment was met with skepticism by relatives of the Gilgo victims.

“She was murdered!” Lorraine Ela, mother of slain call girl Megan Waterman, screamed during Dormer’s remarks.

Ela said she and other family members were erecting crosses at the Gilgo gravesites for an afternoon vigil when they saw the edical xaminer’s van come by.

“I felt sick,” Ela said.

On Gilgo Beach, police have found the remains of eight women, a man who dressed as a woman, and a small child who may have been brought to a “date” by her mother.

Five women have been identified: Waterman, Melissa Barthelemay, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Barnes, and Jessica Taylor.

Part of Taylor’s body was found in Manorville, L.I., in 2003. Her hands, arm and head were found in Gilgo Beach.

Another body found in Manorville in 2000 was also linked to body parts at Gilgo. That victim has not been identified.

DN