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Patterson residents unnerved by gruesome find

By Alex Taylor
artaylor@lohud.com
Site of the discovery of remains  in a wooded area off Maple Avenue in Patterson.
  • State police said a hiker saw the bones Saturday in woods
  • The Putnam County medical examiner will test the remains
  • Investigators are reviewing missing-persons cases

PATTERSON – The discovery of an apparent set of human remains in woods off Maple Avenue has sent a chill through the town.

State police said the badly decomposed bones were uncovered around 9:15 a.m. Saturday by a man walking in the woods about 500 feet east of Maple Avenue, a narrow and winding country road about a mile from the center of Patterson.

Police K-9 units were called to the scene and found additional remains and evidence during a 12-hour search of the site. The Putnam County medical examiner will perform a pathological examination and DNA test to positively identify the bone fragments as human.

"From our experience they certainly look like (human remains)," said Peter Ciacci, an investigator with the Brewster barracks. "It will be up to the pathology exam to determine how long they've been there."

While officials haven't said whether they found evidence of foul play, Ciacci confirmed that investigators have begun reviewing local missing-persons cases.

People in the usually quiet area said they were unnerved by the gruesome find.

"It's scary to think somebody died over there," said Amy McCarthy, 43, who lives on Maple Avenue. "I live right here. I want to know for my safety if everything is OK."

McCarthy added that she'd spoken to investigators who told her she was safe and that the body had likely "been there for years."

Maple Avenue runs through a thickly wooded and hilly terrain behind the quarry at Peckham Industries off Route 311. The woods are threaded by a rough dirt trail used by all-terrain vehicle riders.

On Sunday, the entrance to one of the dirt trails remained sealed off by police tape.

Another resident, Joe Hyatt, 23, compared the find to the plot of a Hollywood gangster movie and commented, somewhat facetiously: "Somebody got rid of somebody and needed a spot to dump him.

"You never know," he added, more seriously. "It's a needle in a haystack what happened to him."

A missing-person case out of Patterson involves Gabriel Lopez Duarte, 39, who was last seen on Sept. 29, 2010, leaving the home he shared with his brother at 17 Locust St., according to missingin.org, a website that tracks unsolved disappearances.

Robin Frances Murphy, a 17-year-old Lake Carmel resident, was last seen on April 9, 1995, in the Carmel Plaza on Route 52.

It is not known whether police believe either missing-person case is linked to the set of remains found Sunday.

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