Well, I just watched the two hours of the People Magazine Investigates shows on the ID network. The first hour was dedicated to the Shannan Gilbert case and covered all the players fairly thoroughly. Although it didn't reveal any new details, I still found it interesting. It would have been better, though, had they interviewed some of those "persons of interest" such as the John that hired her, the Doctor that claimed to have been treating her, the neighbor whose door she knocked on after running away from the John's house, or her driver. Instead, the only interviews were with Shannan's mother and sister. Also, the only mention of the mom's death - allegedly at the hands of another of her daughters two months after these interviews concluded - was only a footnote printed onscreen during the end credits.
The second hour covered all the other suspected serial killer prostitute bodies that were found throughout Long Island. This includes the four burlap bag bodies found in Gilgo Beach as well as other bodeis scattered along Long Island barrier beaches. So, terming these findings the Gilgo Beach murders is a misnomer, since it involves more than just Gilgo Beach. I found the reporting leaving me with new questions rather than even answering any old ones. The only new information I heard was a report about a millionaire that committed suicide after one of the bodies was found and speculation that maybe he was part of some rich guy group that was responsible for these killings. That theory was debunked by one of the announcers though. Other theories include possible police involvement and/or coverup with the killings, including by James Burke, the since jailed SCPD Police Chief. Too much time was wasted on his story, in my opinion.
In fact, a lot of time was wasted over the entire two hours in repeating details and with the show logo. Whenever the show would either fade in or fade out, they played this annoying show ID. Although it was only a few seconds long, if you added it up over the whole two hours, it took up minutes of time that could have been used to provide useful content. Also, whenever the show would return after a commerical break, they would rehash the content that appeared right before the break and repeat it. More wasted time that could have gone to other reporting. Especially when you consider that they devoted one hour to one girl in the first part and then spent one hour on 10 or so victims in the second part. One last thing to note is that not only did they speculate that these LI murders might be connected to ones that occurred in Atlantic City, but there may be other bodies that are linked here. Although they did cover the AC murders in some detail, they offered absolutely no details on those others.
While I dread wasting more time on a rehash of this story, I am going to watch the A&E series simply to be able to compare it to People Mag's coverage. The A&E show airs tomorrow, as I've indicated in the post before this one.