Award-winning investigative reporter Robert Kolker delivers a humanizing account of the true-life search for a serial killer still at large on Long Island and presents the first detailed look at the shadow world of online escorts, where making a living is easier than ever, and the dangers remain all too real. Lost Girls is a portrait of unsolved murders in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery Book Review
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 28, 2014
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Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker, delves into the biased way the people we look up to as authority, that keep us safe and in peace, ignore the disappearance of many young women due to their occupation; prostitution. Lost Girls is a non-fiction journey through the search of the serial killer who was, specifically, murdering young prostitutes in the Long Island-New York area. Kolker goes farther than just investigating the crimes, but actually digs deeper into the stories of some of these girls to further understand the lives of the murdered women and for the audience to see inside the world of prostitution.
Kolker looks into the lives of five of the girls, Maureen, Shannan, Melissa, Megan, and Amber, that were murdered by the unknown serial killer. All of these women were escorts advertising on Craigslists, young moms, had a troubled childhood, and had some kind of substance abuse. Maureen, an aspiring model, became a mom at age sixteen, and eventually slip up from her baby’s dad. Melissa, who acted like she was black, whose mother worked too much to pay any attention to her. Shannan was a girl who had the talent of singing. She had other sister, but she was the only one that grew up is fosters homes. Her mother seemed not to care, or if she did she was too busy worrying about her boyfriend. Megan was born with a mother who seemed to love her, but her grandmother found good enough excuses to take custody away from her and get her welfare check to pay for her living expenses. Megan rarely saw her mother.
The most aggravated story is Shannon’s. She was last seen in Oak Beach running out of a house screaming and pounding on doors, screaming that someone was trying to kills her. She ran off into the darkness and was never seen again. She called the police and it’s like they didn’t bother to listen to her and never went to look for her. Many people saw her running hysterically, and no one cared to help her. When the police found out she was an escort, they did not bother to search for her. That was the problem with all of these girls, they were prostitutes, and police said they were probably off with a client, or thought that that’s the risk they put themselves into.
Kolker describes events in so much detail that some time while reading the book I felt frightened. It’s haunting how so many people, all with very similar lives, could be missing and for the police not to think that there is something wrong.
Kolker describes in detail a couple of phone calls Melissa’s little sister would get, after her disappearance. It was a man who would ask and make comments about Melissa. It was creepy and haunting. The last call she received he said, “I’m watching your sister’s body rot” (214). Just that gives your body chills.
These missing girls were paid no attention to until their remains were unearthed, and even after, the police were in no hurry to find their cause of death or their murderer. As Kolker claims,
“Shannan and all the others were failed by the criminal justice system not once but three times. The police had failed to help them when they were at risk. They’d fail again when they didn’t take the disappearances seriously, severely hobbling the chances of making an arrest. And they’d failed a third time by not going after the johns and drivers” (364).
Lost Girls is divided into two section or books. The first goes into detail about the missing girls’ lives, how they started escorting, and the last time they were seen. He makes the picture for us of how their families were and how they were. These girls lived with drug abuse, parental neglect, and poverty. And that is what led them into prostitution. The second part goes into the police investigation and the lives of their families after their disappearance, and how the police dropped the ball. They let go of valuable clues and suspects that could have led to the murderer, but instead they put the blame on these girls, who no matter what their occupation was were the victims.
This book is not a book you read to enjoy. It’s a book you read to inform yourself. To be aware that our criminal justice system isn’t so fair, like they claim, and that obviously they are not here to keep us ALL safe, or bring justice because they have failed to do so in this case, and I would say it was negligence. Kolker puts us right in the middle of his investigation and opens our eyes to how our country might not be as fair and brings “justice for all” as our “Pledge of Allegiance” claims.
5.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking of this case
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 30, 2021
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Reading this was an emotional roller coaster ride. The most important part of this book, in my opinion, is the first part where we actually meet the girls when they were still with us, and where their lives as escorts are detailed extensively. Being a true/unsolved crime hobbyist and follower of the LISK investigation, I noticed not much was said about their lives, just that they were all targeted because they were “prostitutes/escorts/sex workers.” The heartbreaking revelation that I came to was that all the girls came from troubled, broken homes. Their paths that lead them into the company of a serial killer are strikingly similar.
I appreciate Kolker’s objective approach to telling the stories of those involved with the case. He doesn’t ever directly or indirectly accuse anyone of being the LISK. Probably because, personally, I believe he’s still out there lying dormant somewhere, or maybe is deceased. The circumstances surrounding Shannan’s death are creepy and confusing, but it’s harder for me, after falling down the rabbit hole of the LISK story, to tie Shannan to the others directly. Although, she is inevitably connected to them forever, it’s a tough call whether she was one of the LISK’s victims.
This book took me only a couple of days to read. It was hard to put it down and even harder to accept how quickly I’d finished it. A lot of insights are provided. Primarily, as I said before, an expounding on the routines and habits of the girls: how they worked and when, who were their friends and enemies, where they lived and what their families thought of their profession. Also, the timeline of events is clearly explained (it can get confusing with bodies being found over a span of decades in various different areas), and even broken down further at the book’s conclusion. I also never heard the side of the story from people like Michael Pak, Joseph Brewer, and the girl’s boyfriends. It’s sensational to think they might’ve had something to do with the disappearance and death of Shannan. However, the way they explain it, again just my personal thoughts, seems to make more sense and is not as insidious as the media portrayed it.
A definite read if you love mysteries, unsolved crimes/cold cases, stories set in NYC and along the East Coast, or are “into” stories about serial killers. If you like the book, and are interested in more LISK-related material, the podcast with Alexis Linkletter is also great.
Robert Kolker is the author of Hidden Valley Road, an instant #1 New York Times best-seller and selection of Oprah’s Book Club that was named a Top Ten Book of the Year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Slate; one of the year’s best by NPR, the Boston Globe, the New York Post, and Amazon; the #1 book of the year by People; and one of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2020. His previous work includes Lost Girls, also a New York Times best-seller and New York Times Notable Book, and one of Slate’s best nonfiction books of the quarter century. He is a National Magazine Award finalist whose journalism has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, Wired, O, the Oprah Magazine, and The Marshall Project.
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