Severed Legs And Headless Torso Wash Up On Shore Weeks Apart
 

Severed Legs Had Pink Toenail Polish

New York - Both of the legs that washed ashore on the North Shore in recent days had pink polish on some of the toes, police said Thursday.

But it may be a week or 10 days before there is more scientific evidence about whether the legs came from the same person, said Detective Sgt. Robert Holland, of the Village of Mamaroneck police in Westchester.

The legs were found washed up in two locations, including on a private beach belonging to Cablevision Systems chief James Dolan, and police believe they may match a headless torso found almost a month ago across Long Island Sound.

Holland, of the Village of Mamaroneck department, where officers are still trying to identify the remains discovered there on March 3, said his department was in contact Wednesday with Suffolk and Nassau police.

"It does appear similarities are present indicating the lower extremities recovered in Nassau and Suffolk are that of the torso," Lt. James Gaffney, a Mamaroneck police spokesman, told the Associated Press.

Police believe the torso was from a Hispanic or light-skinned black woman no more than 5-foot-6 and 180 to 200 pounds. The victim had a tattoo of two red cherries on a green stem above her right breast.

Lloyd Harbor police said Wednesday that a fisherman found a human leg at 7 p.m. Tuesday on the shore in Lloyd Harbor and notified authorities.

A second leg was discovered Wednesday at about 8:50 a.m., reportedly by a caretaker, at Dolan's Cove Neck estate, Nassau police said.

Lloyd Harbor Lt. Dennis Dooley said a fisherman discovered a right leg on the west side of a narrow strip of ground off West Neck Road.

A Nassau police source said a left leg contained in a black plastic garbage bag was discovered at the Dolan compound, although a Nassau police spokesman would not confirm that. The beach near the end of a private driveway off Cove Neck Road borders Oyster Bay Harbor.

"The condition of the leg found in the bag indicates to us that it could be a possible homicide," said Det. Sgt. Richard Laursen of Nassau's Homicide Squad.

A report by the Westchester County medical examiner said the torso was of a Hispanic or light-skinned African-American woman between 35 and 50 years old. The torso was in a suitcase found by two people walking on a public shore, and showed several stab wounds.

The Suffolk and Nassau medical examiner's offices will perform DNA and other forensic tests on the limbs and compare them with the findings of the Westchester medical examiner, Holland said.

Both Lloyd Harbor and Nassau police said the conditions of the legs prevented easy identification. "It looked like it had been in the water a little while," Dooley said.

Holland said the Nassau and Suffolk county police departments had informed Mamaroneck that DNA tests by their medical examiners would take a week to 10 days.

"First they'll see if the two legs match and then they'll be compared to the torso," he said.

Gaffney said detectives from Nassau, Suffolk and Mamaroneck met Thursday in Mineola to discuss the case.