Mystery remains
Tip turns up body in L.I. woods
LONG ISLAND POLICE on Friday recovered human remains from a thatch of woods they’ve spent the last two days searching, authorities said.
The body of an unidentified man was found in a wooded area of Roosevelt stretching alongside the Southern State Parkway and cops are currently searching for more, said Detective Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick of the Nassau County Police Department.
Cops were informed that the woods, located about 29 miles from Manhattan, were a possible dump site by the Department of Homeland Security, which received the tip during one of its investigations.
Police began searching the 27-acre wooded area near W. Greenwich Ave. and Wilber Lane about 6 p.m. Wednesday.
“While we were in there searching, we identified the location that we were interested in that looked like a gravesite,” Fitzpatrick said. “We did an extensive slow search at that site and we found human remains.”
Fitzpatrick said that the remains haven’t been identified. An autopsy will be performed to help identify the victim and determine the cause of death.
“We don’t know who this person is right now,” Fitzpatrick said. “We don’t know anything about his past or who he’s associated with.”
Homeland Security as been investigating the notorious street gang MS-13, which has besieged Long Island over the last year, but it was not immediately disclosed if the gang is tied into the search.
MS-13 has been linked to six murders in Nassau County and 20 killings in Suffolk County, authorities said.
Federal officials charged three gang members with a vicious quadruple murder at a Central Islip park early this year. Another three men have been charged with the September 2016 killing of two Brentwood High School students.
Weeks after the Central Islip murders, Attorney General Jeff Sessions came to Long Island to double-down on a pledge to destroy the gang.
President Trump also took a few shots at MS-13 in July and encouraged a group of police cadets in Brentwood to rough up suspects when they are in custody.
“Please don’t be too nice,” Trump said.
Cops will continue searching the woods with the help of cadaver dogs, said Fitzpatrick, who called the search area “treacherous.”
“We’ve identified a couple of other locations we’re interested in,” he said. “The process is slow due to the terrain and the growth.”
Residents of W. Greenwich Ave. said some locals like to fish in a nearby lake, but over the last year an increasing number of people have been driving onto the dead-end street and going into the woods.
“When you start seeing strange cars down there, you wonder what’s going on,” resident Olayinka Phillips, 55, said Thursday. “When you know there’s no housing back there, I gotta ask, ‘What are they doing back there?’
“I don’t go back there,” he added. “It’s wooded, it’s dangerous. I don’t know what’s there.”