Hand found by dog walker on Staten Island was from woman buried in nearby cemetery

A severed hand found by a Staten Island dog walker belonged to a woman buried at a nearby cemetery more than a decade ago, police said.

The 42-year-old man and his pooch found the hand — which had just an index finger and a thumb — on Thursday in woods near Amboy and Cunningham roads in the area of North Mount Loretto State Forest in Charleston, cops and a police source said.

Fingerprints helped investigators determine that the hand belonged to Belle Miranda, a 63-year-old woman buried in 2011 at Resurrection Cemetery, about a mile away.

The plot next to the woman’s grave was excavated Feb. 27 for a new burial, said police. Authorities believe the excavation equipment damaged her casket and somehow severed her right hand in the process, cops said.

It was not clear how the woman’s hand traveled roughly a mile to the location where it was discovered, police said.

According to Miranda’s obituary in the Staten Island Advance, she died Oct. 29, 2011, after a bout with cancer. Originally from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, she moved to Staten Island in 1976 to raise her three children, two sons and a daughter. Her kids called her “The Wizard,” because she had all the answers, the obituary said. Miranda was a doting grandmother, who loved cooking big meals of lamb chops and latkes and playing board games.

Her family members declined to comment.

Mary Ellen Gerrity, the executive director for the trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, said that they were cooperating with a police investigation into the matter.

“We have been informed that the remains of a person buried here at Resurrection Cemetery were disturbed. Some portions of the deceased were discovered some distance from the cemetery. It’s unclear what transpired. That part is under investigation,” she said Saturday.

“We are fully cooperating with the investigation. We are very upset for the family. We have been in communication with the family. We are hoping to reinter the remains as soon as possible. Our first concern is the privacy and care for the family; this is obviously very upsetting to them,” she added. “There’s a burial here every day of the week.” The cemetery is the final resting place of Colombo underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo, Catholic activist Dorothy Day and Angela “Big Ang” Riaola, star of the VH1 series “Mob Wives.”