Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer

As a former Australian police officer I found this documentary very well worth watching.

While not going into all the forensic aspects (the trial will give us that information in 2026), it covered the human, political and community issues well.

Others reviewers say "the victims were sex workers, they got themselves into the situation " just doesn't cut it.

They didn't want to be sex workers, they had their own issues which left them with little choice, and, they are human beings, they don't deserve to be treated any less than anyone else.

The corruption episode was not a surprise, but answered a lot of questions I had from the first episode, and finally, in episode 3 we find out who the offender is (in Australia anyhow).

Well done Netflix.

While in the beginning looks like lost case , after 2 episodes starts adding more caracteres and police heads . Surely the end will surprise you . Excellent investigation for more than 30 years . I would say the third episode is the best , so it's worth it the wait !

Police , FBI, relatives , tv news from the past, a very well documented series . If you saw another one in the past about the same killings , this one has new information that will blow your mind . Even the smartest psicopats are getting caught at some point .

I'm sure there is room for a second season , wait and see . Enjoy the series .

The pointless, unhelpful commentary by the two journalists in the first episode made me want to just stop watching this series. Robert Kolker was especially annoying, using the purple prose from his silly articles, such as "A gigantic meteorite hit Long Island." I would suppose he was referring to the impact of the discovery of skeletons. He also had nothing to contribute in the way of factual information about the case.

The other journalist, reporter Jaclyn Gallucci, wasn't much better, making her comments center on herself: what she was thinking, etc. Maybe this was an attempt to avoid a narrator, but narration may have been better than having two self-important journalists making comment.

True crime documentaries are not really my cup of tea. They are often sensationalist and voyeurist, concentrating on the gruesome nature of murder to provide entertainment. Gone Girls offers a victim-focus that is a welcome perspective.

Since I knew nothing of this case I may be an outlier, however this limited-episode series was, to me at least, an interesting and engaging overview of these events. It would be disingenuous to claim that Gone Girls is enjoyable, however this is not to criticise the documentary's creators. It certainly stands above other entries in the genre that I have seen.

The facts of what happened are shocking enough on their own merits that sensationalism is not required; the conclusion (thus far) of the case raises many concerns, not least the manner in which authorities appear to have reinforced the wider presumption that there are members of society that they consider not deserving of justice. That these human beings are often amongst the most vulnerable is a damning irony.

It is clear that there remains much still to be uncovered; if a follow-up series was to maintain a victim-focussed narrative it would be worthwhile viewing.

Shannan Gilbert had been working as an escort, she vanishes, the eventual search unearths a series of bodies, it becomes apparent that a serial killer has been getting away with multiple murders without the alarm being raised.

Reading some of the reviews, I'll take one point on board, it is a story that has been explored multiple times, and there comes a point where you think, enough now, but for someone unaware of the ins and outs, it's a good documentary.

Episode one was pretty factual, it felt quite informative, procedural so to speak, I appreciated the way they told the story of the poor victims, the same couldn't be said of episodes two and three, they really did go for the gotcha moments, but the stork itself is so unbelievably shocking, it does actually work.

There were some really eye opening moments, including various interviews and some interesting footage.

The final episode felt a little ambiguous at times, but that's the nature of the story itself.

It's terrifying to think now many crimes Rex Heuermann got away with, The Police and Authorities really did fail the victims and their families in spectacular fashion.

7/10.