NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Police on Tuesday said they found a body believed to be that of missing Craigslist prostitute Shannan Gilbert in a marsh on Long Island where she likely got stuck while fleeing a client's home and died.
"We went in with the idea we were going in one last time to see if we could find anything and we did," said Suffolk County, New York Police Commissioner Richard Dormer of the body discovered on Tuesday morning.
Gilbert had advertised her services on the online classified service, Craigslist.
Police believe she was fleeing the home of a male customer in the seaside neighborhood of Oak Beach on Long Island when she became mired in a marsh overgrown with thick brambles.
Suffolk County Police have been searching Long Island beaches for Gilbert, 23, of Jersey City, New Jersey since she went missing in May 2010.
In the process of searching for Gilbert, they turned up 10 bodies they believe are the victims of a single serial killer.
Dormer's announcement comes one year after the first bodies were found on a remote Long Island beach.
Police have said they do not think Gilbert's death is connected to the suspected serial killer.
Dormer did not elaborate on why police believe she was on the run but said they think she was headed for the lights of a nearby highway when she became entangled in the brush and stuck in the mud.
"We are not changing our theory," Dormer said.
"She traveled at least a half mile, three quarters of a mile on foot though that muck," he added. "It would be very easy to get exhausted and fall down and not be able to move any further."
A forensic team and the Medical Examiner will officially identify the body and determine the cause of death, he said.
"We haven't in any way touched the body, turned it over," he said.
Oak Beach resident Gus Colletti, 75, has said a terrified woman ran to his house screaming for help around the time Gilbert disappeared. When he called police, Colletti said, she fled.
Outside Colletti then encountered a man who said he was searching for Gilbert who claimed she was upset and left a party he was hosting.
The skeletal remains were found in an area so dense and waterlogged that officers with search dogs could not enter it previously, he said. The area was drained by investigators who also cut down the vegetation as part of the search, he said.
"It's very easy to miss the skeletal remains in that area," Dormer said.
"It's a very, very tough, tangled desolate mess. There's no way Shannan Gilbert could have gotten through that brush to make it to the parkway," he said.
Last week, the search turned up Gilbert's purse, containing her ID, cell phone and lip gloss, as well as her jeans and shoes about a quarter mile from where the body was found.
(Editing by Greg McCune)
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