Long Island police made arrests days after body parts of a man and woman were found in a park frequented by children, joggers and dog walkers.
The body parts – a head, two legs and three tattooed arms – were found at different locations in Southards Pond Park in Babylon, not far from where the Gilgo Beach murders took place between 1996 and 2011.
The original gruesome discovery was found by a group of children on Thursday on their way to school.
Multiple arrests were made Tuesday after investigators served a warrant at a home in nearby Amityville, reports News day.
The head, legs and one arm belong to a woman, while the other two arms belong to a man and the agents have also located another piece of the woman’s leg.
Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer of Suffolk Police declined to comment on whether or not authorities believe the feared prison gang MS-13, known for dismembering its victims, could be behind the discovery.
MS-13 members plagued Long Island for years, but have remained silent in the region since 2017.
The park where the body parts were found is popular with children, joggers and people walking their dogs.
The deaths have been ruled homicides and detectives were seen at the scene throughout the day last Thursday and into the weekend.
The third part of the body, a right arm, was not found until the evening in the park.
Beyrer said the body parts were not thought to have been exposed to the elements for a long time before they were found.
The man’s arms had tattoos, the woman’s did not. Authorities hope to use body art to determine his identity.
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine described the incident as “isolated” during a news conference Monday. News12 Long Island.
“We’re going to keep them safe and this didn’t really happen in that park; I think it was an isolated incident where people chose a park to put the bodies, not the place where it happened, and I think anyone watching that” I’ll say it, so it didn’t happen in the park,” Romaine said.
He added that he felt “very good” about how the investigation was progressing. It is unclear if other agencies are involved in the search.
A resident who returned to the park Saturday morning, Tom Stroppel, said news day that he did not suspect that a local was the culprit.
‘It’s a beautiful place, a beautiful neighborhood. Someone must have come from another town and shot here.
Stroppel explained that he was there on Thursday around the time the discovery was made.
‘It felt weird. When I walked in, there was no one here except the people I see every day. And then, as I leave, I see police cars. I said, “Holy shit!”
Beyrer told media on Friday that one of the teens, a high school student, alerted her father shortly before 9 a.m., who went to the park, confirmed it was an arm, and then called police.
In a subsequent search of the area, a police dog recovered a human leg about a mile away in the same park at 1:30 p.m., near an elementary school. Then, as night fell, he found a right arm about 20 feet away in a wooded area.
‘There are a lot of leaves. We don’t know what will be under the mound. “Once we clear the mound we may or may not find the rest of the body,” Beyrer said.
Officials at nearby schools kept students inside while the investigation unfolded.
“It’s a little unsettling because the school is right here, so I was a little worried,” Salma Lakhaney, a local parent, told ABC New York.
Another local told the station that she no longer walks her dog in the park in question.
“There’s definitely a bad vibe here. Like the last two weeks, for sure. I stopped walking alone because there are weird bugs,” she said.
“It’s terrible and very scary to hear that something like this is happening so close to home,” said Josephine Roche, a Babylon local. News day.
‘I think we’re safe. There is a good police presence and I think it was not necessarily related to this area. I told my kids, “Close the doors, always, in any area.”
The area is also close to where accused killer Rex Heuermann searched for victims over a 15-year period.
The area is also near where accused killer Rex Heuermann, shown here in February, searched for victims over a 15-year period.
Several arrests were made Tuesday, days after the discovery, following a search of a home in Amityville, about a 15-minute drive from where the body parts were discovered.
Earlier this month, Heuermann was formally charged with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, months after being labeled the prime suspect in her death when he was arrested in July along with the deaths of three other women.
Additionally, gang violence had been a problem in some Long Island communities for more than a decade, but local police and the FBI began pouring resources into a crackdown sparked by the murders of high school students Nisa Mickens, of 15 years old, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, in 2016.
The most active violent gang has been the feared MS-13.
The murders in Brentwood, about 30 miles east of New York City, shook parents and local officials and shed light on the deepening problem of gang violence in the suburbs.
Police also began discovering the bodies of other young people, mostly Hispanic, who had disappeared months earlier, but whose disappearances had not initially been reported by civic leaders or the media.
Some parents of the missing complained that police had not done enough to search for their missing children sooner.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Suffolk County Police Department at 631-852-6392 or call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-220-Tips.