HOW SHANNAN GILBERT HELPED ‘PUT A FACE’ ON THE VICTIMS OF THE LONG ISLAND SERIAL KILLER

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PEOPLE editors and true crime experts gathered for the People Magazine Investigates After Show, which aired Monday night, to analyze the series’s two-hour premiere about the Long Island Serial Killer case.

One conclusion from the group was about the “extraordinary” effect Shannan Gilbert had had on what happened. It was her disappearance, and the subsequent search for her, that led authorities to the 10-plus bodies in the Gilgo Beach area on Long Island, New York.

“Shannan Gilbert, whether she was a victim of this killer or not, has really done something extraordinary in our society,” Lost Girls author Robert Kolker said during the after show.

“I don’t think any of us can name one of the victims of Joel Rifkin — or of Jack the Ripper, for that matter,” he said.

Kolker continued, “And the fact that is, from the Green River Killer to the Southside Slayer in Los Angeles, the victims in these cases are often sex workers and escorts — people who are living unsafe, risky lives but who are overlooked by police and aren’t helped by police.

“And Shannan puts a face on these people.”

Gilbert’s relatives felt the same: Her mother was featured on Monday night’s premiere episode of People Magazine Investigates. As she told PEOPLE in a recent cover story, “I hope [the case] will bring awareness to any police department anywhere that regardless of who you are and what you do for a living that you are not judged, and that all cases are handled equally.”

—People.com

LOST GIRLS IN TWO NEW DOCUMENTARIES

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Robert Kolker’s LOST GIRLS is getting some special television attention this fall.  LOST GIRLS introduces readers to the Long Island Serial Killer and the women he targeted, all forced to turn to prostitution via Craigslist.

Investigative reporter Robert Kolker delved into the stories of each of these women, and his research is used in upcoming projects that bring these stories to the screen:

A&E: THE KILLING SEASON
· The 8-episode documentary series is about the Long Island Serial Killer, and the author will appear in 3 episodes.
· It premieres Saturday, November 12 at 9 pm ET.

PEOPLE INVESTIGATES
· The Long Island Serial Killer is the subject of the first episode of the new 10-episode series. The author was interviewed for this episode.
· It premieres on Investigation Discovery on Monday, November 7 at 9 pm ET.

-- HarperCollins

THE MILLIONS: FATHER'S DAY BOOKS FOR FATHERS WHO ACTUALLY READ

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Perhaps no section of the bookstore is more heavily stocked with schlock than the one devoted to true crime.... Good true-crime writing should do more than pile up the bodies. It should use crime to shed light on an underside of a society, teaching us the unspoken rules of the world we live in by telling the stories of those who break those rules in the most aberrant ways.

Few recent books do this as well, or as hauntingly, as Robert Kolker’s Lost Girls, about the murders of five prostitutes buried in shallow graves along Long Island’s South Shore. Lost Girls is an unsettling read because the murders remain unsolved, but Kolker provides a fascinating look into the shadowy world of Internet escorts. Unlike prostitutes of an earlier era, modern sex workers can connect with their johns online, eliminating the need for pimps or brothels. This means the women can keep more of their earnings and are freed from what is often an abusive and controlling relationship, but as Lost Girls illustrates, this freedom costs them the physical protection of a pimp, making them especially vulnerable to violence.

— The Millions

'LOST GIRLS' PAPERBACK LAUNCH

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This week marks the launch of the paperback version of LOST GIRLS.  I'm grateful for the added visibility this book has brought to the case -- how it has brought added pressure on law-enforcement, inspired more news coverage about the case, and raised important questions about how these women and others became so vulnerable.  I continue to hope that keeping this case visible will help lead to a resolution.

WNYC: The Economics of Sex Work

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The Department of Justice released a massive study earlier this week about the sex trade, with a focus on pimps and human trafficking. On WNYC's "The Takeaway" today, I talked with host John Hockenberry and author Melissa Gira Grant about what the study does and doesn't reveal.

"I think [the sex trade] is fundamentally different—it's as different as the book industry has been over the last 10 years," says Kolker. "The internet has disrupted sex work, in my opinion, almost as substantially. There are a lot of people that aren't working walking the streets anymore, they aren't working with a pimp anymore, they aren't working with an escort service anymore, and they're just using the internet—BackPage or formerly Craigslist—to be solo practitioners or freelancers."

Kolker says while this report sheds light on some aspects of human trafficking, he says this report ignores this substantial change in the sex trade.

"Anyone new who might be getting into the business, if they're not being trafficked or coerced, they're probably doing it on their own," he says. "This study seems to focus more on pimps than the high-end escort services or the freelancers."

Kolker says that the internet as a vehicle for casual sex work has grown since 2007 and believes that the report may have had an heavier emphasis on this if it were commissioned slightly later. 

"This study was commissioned in 2007, and in 2009, something like 30 different attorneys general got together and called Craigslist the new Times Square," he says. 

 Click below for audio from the segment.

"The Economics of Sex Work," THE TAKEAWAY

Sex, love and commerce

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Readers of Lost Girls who are interested in learning more about the debate over sex work and its place in society may be interested in this well-written and very thoughtful article by Benjamin J. Dueholm in The Christian Century.  The article does an excellent job of analyzing the arguments for and against legalization, giving lots of attention to all sides of the debate (and including some excellent observations about Lost Girls). 

- "Sex, Love and Commerce," by Benjamin J. Dueholm, THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY.

Year-end praise

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As the year comes to a close, I wanted to express gratitude for all the praise Lost Girls has received, and to note a few new places beyond the New York Times and Publisher's Weekly where the book has gained attention. Thanks to all.

• Jacquelyn Mitchard, the Oprah-celebrated author of The Deep End of the Ocean, was kind enough to recommend Lost Girls to readers of the Miami Herald.

• Reporter Stephanie Mencimer singled out Lost Girls as one of the year's best books in Mother Jones.

• In Canada's National Post, Lost Girls made critic Philip Marchand's list of favorite (er, favourite) books of 2013.  

• Also in Canada, Lost Girls made the Globe & Mail's list of the year's best books: "Kolker’s investigation into a still-at-large serial killer on New York State’s Long Island is a riveting piece of true crime writing. But more than that, it’s an indictment of a society that turns its back on women in danger."

• Columnist Diane LaRue of the Auburn Citizen was also kind enough to mention Lost Girls in her year-end list of "most compelling" books.

• Garth Risk Hallberg, writing in The Millions, called Lost Girls one of the "great works of narrative journalism" he read in 2013, noting how the author's "patient unfolding of his story gives the reader room to become outraged."

 

'Lost Girls' on the road

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Over the next several months, I'll be appearing on the air and in person around the country to discuss Lost Girls, the details of this case, and the issues surrounding the mystery. Keep watching this space for updates.

 

Sunday, Oct. 6, 8-10pm: Websleuths Radio (online). **Click HERE for archived audio.**

Wednesday, Oct. 9: MIXER reading/performance series, Manhattan. 

Saturday, Oct. 19, 2:30pm: Queens Public Library, Jamaica, NY. 

Monday-Tuesday Oct. 21-22: Texas State University. **Click HERE for archived video.**

Wednesday, Dec. 11: Enoch Pratt Free Library's "Writers LIVE" series, Baltimore, MD. ** Click HERE for archived audio.**

Sunday, Dec. 15: Sunday Salon reading series, Manhattan.

Saturday, Mar. 22, 2014: Newport (RI) Public Library's "March Mystery Month" series. 

Saturday, Apr. 5, 2014: Annapolis Book Festival.

 

 

Christian Science Monitor Q&A

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By Randy Dotinga / September 13, 2013

The serial killings on Long Island have become a national media sensation. But the cameras and microphones miss a larger story that unfolds in "Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery," one of the best true-crime books of this young century.

Robert Kolker, a writer with New York Magazine, wants to know who killed five young women and why they died. But the murders are only part of his focus. Kolker seeks to understand the lives they lived, the struggles they endured and the motives that drove these working-class women to become prostitutes in the Internet era.The serial killings on Long Island have become a national media sensation. But the cameras and microphones miss a larger story that unfolds in "Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery," one of the best true-crime books of this young century.

The result is a grim but revealing inside look under the surface of American society. The murderer or murderers remain free, but Kolker captures other culprits – personal failures, callousness, incompetence – in the intricate web of his narrative.

Click here for more.

The Crime Report: Inside the Shadow World of Internet Prostitution

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I was interviewed by The Crime Report, a national website about crime trends published by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

"Class played a part. When most people think of a Craigslist escort they don’t think of someone whose story is going to be followed on CNN day after day or week after week. It became a widespread assumption among people covering the case that if the victims had been a little richer (and) more educated, their disappearances would have been all over the media before they even became part of a serial killer case. Instead they were stigmatized; and that stigma made it harder for a lot of people to take their disappearances seriously.

"My goal here was to take an unflinching look at all these women’s lives and to try to be non-judgmental and present things at face value. These are people who are written off and still widely blamed for being murdered. It’s quite astonishing. You can blame them for putting themselves in harm’s way; but you should also blame their drivers or pimps or johns, [who] don’t seem to get the blame the way these women do."

- THE CRIME REPORT