Posted: September 7th, 2024

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery
Robert Kolker’s book, “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery” is based on the discovery of four bodies women by the police in December 2010. According to the actual event, the Suffolk County police discovered the bodies shrouded in burlap sacks along the remote and bramble-covered sand Gilgo Beach in Long Island. The discovery of the four bodies was made during the search of Shannan Gilbert, whose body was not discovered until one year later when they recovered her skeleton. The investigation conducted by the police did not provide anything fruitful as they consider the murders to have been conducted by a serial killer. Kolker’s book follows the case in-depth through a narrative that highlights facts about the crimes and the lives of the victims and their families after their disappearance and discovery.
Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery was developed to show two parts, with the “Lost Girls” subtitle confronting the book’s central issue that is based on the “unsolved American mystery.” As much as the book aims to bring to light a series of murders that occur in society without being solved or known, the book also highlights today’s prostitution practice, its dangers, and its causes. Kolker tries to bring out how prostitution is considered a victimless crime and the wrongful perspective within the society towards individuals practicing prostitution. In its first half, the book traces the paths of five girls that end up meeting their deaths in Long Island on Oak Beach. The book provides how women faced a life of poverty, lack of education, early children, and lack or few resources to make their decisions for survival. Kolker highlights that today’s partial cause of prostitution is not based on the collapse of families but the economic collapse. By analyzing the five women’s path, there is a repeated pattern, where their single mothers could not support their daughters economically, emotionally, or control their behavioral disorder. Daughters raised in such hardships identify the fast way to find money, which is through signing as independent sex contractors.
The book distinguishes the main characters, but their background ends up in one chronicle characterized by childhood abuse, wrong choices, and neglect. The first character discussed is Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who was brought up by a single mother that was working as a motel maid slot attendant. Maureen becomes pregnant at the age of 16, forcing her to drop out of high school. Maureen’s ambition of becoming a songwriter was impossible as she faced economic hardship, which made her into prostitution (Kolker, 2013). Kolker writes that Maureen saw women earning a living easily by posting ads in Groton, which she considered an option that would rescue her from the economic constrain she was facing. Another character, Melissa Barthelemy, was born to a teenage mother and had to be cared for by her grandparents. Melissa faced a hard life full of wrong choices, including dropping out of school. Despite her struggling to go back and finish her high school, there was no employment, which resulted in her taking the chance of living with a strange man who had assured her a job of cutting hair in Manhattan.
Like Barthelemy, Megan Waterman was brought up by her grandmother after her mother lost her custody when she was a baby. Her development was not easy as she made bad choices, including practicing shoplifting, heavy drinking during her teenage and faced various times in juvenile and rehab (Kolker, 2013). Another character, Amber Overstreet, was born in a family full of addicts, she was raped during her childhood, and by the time she was 16, she was already selling herself to neighborhood boys. Amber was deeply led into prostitution life and drug addiction by her older sister. Shannan Gilbert, the fifth character emphasized in the book, was born to a mother that was not lucky with men and jobs. Shannan was labeled by her mother as a difficult child and sent her to foster care, leaving her sisters at home. Shannan felt neglected and locked out of her family. As Barthelemy, Shannan was also lured to Manhattan by a man she met, where she found herself trapped in prostitution. The disappearance of Shannan is what resulted in a search that led the police to locate the bodies of four other women.
The second half of the book mostly focuses on Shannan’s disappearance, the investigation, and how families reacted after the discovery of the bodies. Through Kolker’s narrative in the second half of the book, various factors are highlighted regarding the society and law enforcement authorities when handling such cases where the victims were engaged in an activity considered inappropriate by society. Despite the victims having been considered nobodies in society, they were intelligent and ambitious women who cared for their safety in their work (Swartz, 2013). The safety system used by victims included drivers, companions, or call-in times, which they use as protection but failed when the time they disappeared. However, there are other systems that failed the victims even before they were involved in prostitution, such as unemployment, parenting, foster care, and psychiatric assistance.
Law enforcement has developed lack of agency and negligence when it comes to outer margins to which women engaged in prostitution find themselves. For instance, on the night of Shannan’s disappearance, she made a 911 call and knocked on several doors f neighbors, but nothing could keep her safe. Simply because life has left women in situations to opt for prostitution to gain livelihood does not mean that they should not be considered human beings and offered assistance when in danger. Society has created ways of devaluating sex workers of all kinds, without considering that most people in the society engage in it one way or another, yet they are the ones judging and blaming those who actively engage in the practice. The help that could be given to a sex worker when she reports violence against her is at the lowest level in law enforcement. For instance, if any of the women would have survived the abuse they faced and reported to the police, would they have been offered any more help that could have enhanced their protection (Mack, 2013). Kolker, in his book, starts a conversation that should be taken seriously. The book provides a clear picture of how families of those involved in prostitution consider them forgetting that they are part of the problem that resulted in one turning to prostitution. The government, its systems and society are highlighted in the book as the aspects that failed the women.
References
Kolker, R. (2013). Lost girls: an unsolved American mystery. 1st edn. New York, NY: Harper.
Mack, J. (2013). Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery’ is a tribute to five prostitutes. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/06/robert-kolker-lost-girls-prostitute-deaths
Swartz, M. (2013). Gone Girls. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/books/review/lost-girls-by-robert-kolker.html

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