In an ongoing case that’s shocked the world, the remains of 11 people were found in Gilgo Beach, located on the South Shore of Long Island, New York, between 2010 and 2011. Most of the known victims were sex workers who advertised on Craigslist, and Shannan Gilbert was the first to go missing near the towns of Gilgo and Oak Beach in Suffolk County. shortly after Gilbert’s disappearance, the remains of four victims, “The Gilgo Four,” were found within a quarter of a mile of each other near Gilgo Beach.
And then from March to April 2011, six more sets of remains were discovered in the Suffolk and Nassau counties. Gilbert’s remains were found a year after “The Gilgo Four,” but her exact cause of death is still speculated to be either accidental drowning or strangulation — according to her autopsy.
Netflix has seen a surge in popularity for true crime documentaries over the last decade or so. Some stand-outs include Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer, The Texas Killing Fields, Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, and The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. And now, Netflix has commissioned an untitled documentary focused on the Gilgo Beach murders.
The untitled three-part documentary series from director Liz Garbus (Harry and Meghan, Take Care of Maya) will race towards a conclusion as the case unfolds in real time. The series will recount the victims’ lives leading to their disappearance through exclusive interviews with their families, and will chronicle how police identified Rex Heuermann as a prime suspect. In July 2023, Heuermann was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in the killings of victims Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, and Melissa Barthelemy — three of “The Gilgo Four.”
“With the arrest of suspect Rex Heuermann on July 13 of this year, a new chapter began in the decades-old investigation of the missing and murdered women found in Gilgo Beach and beyond,” director Liz Garbus told Netflix. “And yet, just as some questions start being answered, new ones emerge.”
As of yet, a release date for the documentary series has not been announced, but we’ll be following this story as it develops.