By Alison Gender and John Lauinger, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS, April 13, 2011

Bodies of man, tot found at Long Island beach add twist to call girl serial-murder case

One of the skeletons found in a serial killer's Long Island dumping ground is a man, police sources said Tuesday.

The unidentified remains were near those of a woman and a child under age 4. Also close-by were a skull and some bones wrapped in milky-white plastic, sources said.

They have not been definitively linked to the burlap-wrapped bodies of four craigslist hookers found on the same remote coastal island in December - or bones found this week on the Nassau County side of the beach.

The presence of a male victim raises two scenarios: The hookers' murderer didn't confine his killing to adult women or someone else is using the barrier island as a graveyard.

Vernon Geberth, a retired NYPD homicide lieutenant and a textbook author, agreed the man's body "breaks the pattern" - but that didn't change his hunch that one psychopath is preying on call girls.

"Maybe, just maybe, the prostitute brought along her husband, boyfriend, etc., for protection," said Geberth, who is not involved in the investigation.

"Now this guy shows up, and there's a baby there in the other room, and he decides: 'I don't like this. I gotta take them all out.'"

Geberth believes two killers dumping bodies in the same place is unlikely.

Police have still not found Shannan Gilbert, the missing prostitute they were looking for when they came upon the first bodies.

Suffolk Police said their scuba-diving unit will search the shallow coves of the Great South Bay, along the island's north shore, today.

The bodies of Maureen Brainard Barnes (top left), Melissa Barthelemy (top right), Amber Lynn Costello (bottom right) and Megan Waterman (bottom left) were found in December. (Yaphank Police)