Top cop: Gilgo Beach murders likely the work of one Long Islander

Investigators comb the Long Island beach where several sets of human remains were found last December.

Police have changed some major assumptions in the Gilgo Beach serial killer case, a Long Island police chief announced this week.

Investigators now believe that only one killer dumped all 10 victims on the barrier beaches, as opposed to an earlier guess that it might be multiple murderers hiding bodies on the same beach, police commissioner Richard Dormer told Newsday. He also said he thinks the killer lives on Long Island.

Dormer said cops now think that Shannan Gilbert, a prostitute whose disappearance led police to the area where 10 bodies were eventually found, is not connected to the serial killer pattern.

“We believe that it’s just a coincidence,” Dormer said, of Gilbert’s bizarre disappearance.

Cops first found remains in 2010 while they were looking for Gilbert, 24. The bodies were dumped in several places in Nassau and Suffolk counties. One of the bodies may have been killed and buried as far back as 1996 — and the last as recently as April.

Gilbert’s family is holding a vigil for her on Dec. 11, a year after the first bodies were found.

Follow Alison Bowen on Twitter @AlisonatMetro.