A woman’s severed head, leg and arm were found by police in New York late Thursday as they searched the outskirts of a Long Island park for the missing body parts of a man.
Police made the grisly find as they combed the perimeter of the popular Southards Pond Park in Babylon after the arms and a leg were discovered earlier in the day, Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer of the Suffolk County Homicide Squad said at a Friday press conference.
The search was prompted after a young girl on her way to school came across a severed arm on the side of a road on the east side of the park on Thursday morning.
The left arm was found just before 9 a.m. on Siegel Boulevard in Babylon and it led to a police search where more body parts were found, including a right arm and a leg belonging to a male.
Several body parts were discovered in Long Island New York on Thursday. (Fox 5 NY)
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Beyrer said police and its canine unit found the woman’s dismembered body parts late last night before they stopped searching due to poor light.
He said investigators are trying to identify who the body parts belong to and what age they are. Based on preliminary investigations, the body parts are those of an adult male and an adult female, he said.
Beyrer said that the body parts may have been there for a number of days, if not hours, and that a search of the outskirts of the park is continuing.
The man’s arms had tattoos while the female’s did not, he said.
“One of the students who discovered it, called her father who determined it was an arm on the side of the road, and he called 911,” Beyrer told Fox 5 NY on Thursday after the initial discovery.
The left arm also had missing fingertips, police said.
Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer of the Suffolk County Homicide Squad (Fox 5 NY)
“[It] doesn’t appear to be there a long time,” Beyrer said. “Students do come down this block, we will check to see if it was seen [Wednesday] but it appears to be recent.”
A canine unit located a leg sticking out of a pile of leaves in a wooded area not far from the original scene as police searched the area.
On Thursday night, the second arm was found by a canine cadaver dog, Beyrer said. The right arm was found about 20 feet further into the woods from where the left arm was, almost in a direct line, police said.
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Nearby elementary and grade school recesses were moved indoors Thursday, Fox 5 reports. The school district noted that mental health resources for students were being made available.
“This is an extremely unsettling incident to occur in any community let alone so close to our schools,” a school district spokesperson said in a statement.
“The safety and mental health of our students is our number one priority, and we know this incident may be causing some extreme anxiety among our students, particularly the high school students who were directly affected by this situation on their way to school this morning.”
A map pinpoints Siegel Blvd. in Long Island where the discovery was made. (Google Maps)
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The grisly discovery comes after a severed human leg was found in the Bronx last month. It was suspected to be the partial remains of a man dragged for miles by the subway.
Meanwhile, 31 members and associates of a subset of the notorious Bloods street gang were charged last month in a 103-count indictment for terrorizing residents of Long Island, with robberies and shootings, including the death of a schoolteacher who was shot when her car was mistaken for a rival gang member’s.
However, it is unclear if Thursday’s discovery is linked to gang violence in the area.
