‘Unintended hero.’ A mother’s quest to find her daughter led to the eventual arrest of suspect in Gilgo Beach serial killings

CNN - Mari Gilbert did not live to witness the arrest of an architect from Long Island suspected of killing four young women whose remains were discovered in Gilgo Beach more than a decade ago.

But the search for her daughter Shannan Gilbert, who went missing in May 2010, ultimately led Suffolk County police to the bodies of those women, wrapped in camouflaged burlap and discarded along a desolate beachfront parkway.

Shannan Gilbert was 23 when she vanished. Her remains were found in December 2011 in another beach community just down the road. Authorities have said her death may have been accidental and not related to the other killings – a long dormant multiple homicide case known as the “Gilgo Four.”