4 People Arrested After Body Parts Found Scattered Around Long Island
Four New Yorkers were charged on Wednesday in connection with strange circumstances involving human remains found scattered across Long Island, the Suffolk County Police Department announced.
Steven Brown, 44, Jeffrey Mackey, 38, Alexis Nieves, 33, and Amanda Wallace, 40, were charged with hindering prosecution, tampering with physical evidence and concealment of a human corpse after more remains were located on Tuesday, according to a press release shared by the police department on Wednesday. None of the four have been charged with murder.
The investigation began on Feb. 29, when a student walking to school discovered a severed left arm in Southards Pond Park in Babylon. The student’s father called 911 to report the limb to police.
Cadaver dogs soon discovered a human leg “in a mound of leaves” in the western part of the park, then a right arm almost 20 feet away from the arm the student found earlier that morning, according to the press release.
In total, police found a severed head, right arm, left leg from the knee down, and a right upper leg on that day. A medical examiner determined that all of the limbs belonged to a 59-year-old woman.
During the course of the investigation, police were able to obtain a search warrant on Brown, Mackey, and Wallace’s home in Amityville (Nieves is homeless) on Monday. No other human body parts were located during the search.
In the following days, homicide detectives continued to find more remains, including some that belonged to a 53-year-old man.
On Tuesday, more body parts were located in a wooded area in West Babylon and Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale. Authorities believe the additional limbs also belonged to the same two victims in their 50s. They were last known to live in Yonkers.
According to court records, the four suspects have pleaded not guilty. Attorneys representing Mackey and Brown spoke with ABC affiliate WABC on Wednesday about their clients.
“We are entering a plea of not guilty. We have not received any discovery at this point. We maintain our innocence,” John Halvorson, Mackey’s attorney, said, while Brown’s attorney, Ira Weissman, said that the 44-year-old “didn’t kill anybody.”
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney confirmed to HuffPost in a statement that the four suspects were released without bail.
