Suffolk County police returned to Manorville Saturday morning to investigate the discovery of skeletal remains believed to be human nearby where remains were found a decade prior with possible links to the Long Island Serial Killer case.
Police were more confident that the new remains were human upon taking first glance at them in the daylight after a man walking his dog reported the discovery Friday evening in a wooded area about 300 feet off North Street near Wading River Road. Investigators believe the remains have been in the area for about five years, based on the surrounding foliage.
“It’s going to be a very long, slow removal” process, a police spokeswoman told reporters at the scene shortly after Homicide Squad detectives made their initial assessment. The remains will be brought to the Office of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner and an anthropologist will join investigators, police said.
Police declined to comment on any possible connection to the mutilated remains of two women found on the other side of town or their speculated connection to the serial killer case. Officers had guarded overnight the roped-off crime scene, which they believe to be on Brookhaven National Lab property in the rural Pine Barrens region.
The area is less than five miles down the road from where the partial remains of an unidentified woman dubbed Jane Doe No. 6 were found in 2000. Her head was found in the brush on the side of Ocean Parkway last year.
In 2003, the partial remains of Jessica Taylor were found a half mile away from the unidentified woman’s body in Manorville. Taylor’s head was also found on Ocean Parkway in 2011.
The heads of those women were among 11 sets of human remains that have been found on the barrier beach east of Jones Beach since December 2010. Half of them have been identified as protitutes, although investigators have publicly disagreed over whether all are victims of a serial killer.
There is a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case, the highest sum offered in Suffolk history. Those with information can call Homicide Squad detectives at 631-852-6396, call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-220-8477, text tips anonymously by texting “SCPD” to “CRIMES” (274637) or email information via www.tipsubmit.com
