Estate of Shannan Gilbert — associated with Gilgo Beach homicide investigation — can move ahead with lawsuit, court records show

A Suffolk judge has ruled the estate of Shannan Gilbert — a woman long associated with the Gilgo Beach killings investigation — can move forward with a lawsuit against the Oak Beach doctor she allegedly encountered on the last night she was seen alive in May 2010 near Ocean Parkway, court records show.

Gilbert's disappearance sparked a massive search that led to the discovery along the parkway of 10 sets of human remains, which came to be known as the Gilgo Beach killings. Massapequa Park architect Rex A. Heuermann was arrested in July 2023 and has since been charged with killing six women whose remains were found along the roadway in 2010 and 2011 and another who was discovered in North Sea in 1993.

Authorities have since said Gilbert died in "a tragic accident."

Last month, State Supreme Court Justice Frank Tinari denied a request by Dr. Charles Hackett to dismiss the 2012 lawsuit, ruling that conflicting accounts of Hackett’s alleged interaction and possible treatment of Gilbert in May 2010 raise triable issues of fact, court papers show.

The judge pointed to deposition testimony from Gilbert’s late mother, Mari, who alleged Hackett called her two days after her daughter disappeared and told her he ran a halfway house for wayward girls and that he gave Shannan medication and tried to help her.

Hackett, an emergency medicine physician, denied in an affidavit that he ever had a practice in his home or held himself as someone who treated wayward girls, and said he never had contact with Shannan Gilbert, the judge noted. His wife and daughter also stated Hackett, who moved to Florida more than a decade ago, never practiced medicine out of his home, according to the decision.

"The deposition testimony of Mari Gilbert ... raises issues of fact as to whether he had any contact with Shannan, whether he rendered medical treatment to her, and/or whether he administered any medication to her," Tinari wrote. "The conflicting evidence in this regard, and the contrasting accounts of the telephone call between Mari Gilbert and [Dr. Hackett] present issues of credibility which must be determined by the trier of fact."

The judge additionally determined an affidavit from Hackett’s former Oak Beach neighbor Bruce Anderson, who said Hackett gave him a similar account of his alleged interaction with Shannan Gilbert and told him she left his house confused, also raises an issue of fact.

"We won this very important decision," said Miller Place attorney John Ray, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Mari Gilbert and her daughter’s estate in November 2012. "We were putting in a case on circumstantial evidence alone, and those are difficult cases to survive summary judgment.'

The lawsuit seeks to recover damages of personal injury for Gilbert, whose remains were discovered near Oak Beach in December 2011. The suit also alleges Hackett thwarted efforts to find Gilbert following her disappearance and claims emotional distress suffered by her mother. It alleges medical malpractice and gross negligence on the part of Hackett. Earlier claims of wrongful death and intentional pain and suffering were dismissed by a previous judge in 2013.

Mari Gilbert was killed by another of her daughters in July 2016. A third daughter, Sherre Gilbert, an administrator of the two women’s estates, is named as plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Hackett was questioned by Suffolk detectives in 2010 in connection with the disappearance of Gilbert, a 24-year-old Jersey City escort who was last seen in May 2010 running from a client's beach house nearby.

The lawsuit has served as a fact-finding mission for Ray, who has vowed to get to the bottom of what happened to Gilbert as police say the investigation remains active. He said his efforts have extended to learning about other Gilgo Beach cases, including the investigation into Heuermann.

"I've become an investigator as well as the attorney on the case, in broad terms," said Ray, who added that his office has put over 30,000 hours into the case dating back to beyond the initial filing 13 years ago.

Ray said he does not necessarily believe Hackett killed Gilbert, but he does aim to prove she was "in his house, he medicated her and then she left."

Attorney James O’Rourke, of Smithtown, who represents Hackett, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ray is now focused on an effort to subpoena Suffolk police for the full homicide investigation records regarding Gilbert’s death. Tinari rejected an initial request for the file in April after police argued it would interfere with their investigation.

"The cause of Ms. Gilbert’s death is presently undetermined," Homicide Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer wrote in a September 2024 affidavit opposing the release of the files. "No arrests have yet been made in this investigation. As such, the SCPD has a critical interest in preserving the confidentiality of this active investigation."

Tinari’s April decision to block the release of the file allows Ray to renew his request, which he intends to do in the coming days. Ray disputes any claim that the investigation is active.

 "The police department held a news conference on May 13, 2022, and [Beyrer and former police commissioner Rodney Harrison] announced that Shannan died of a tragic accident," Ray said. "So we said, ‘If that's the case, then it's no longer a criminal case by definition, and we want your file.’ "

The police department previously released 911 recordings, photographs and notes from the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office that were deemed relevant to the civil case.