MAMARONECK, N.Y. – DNA has confirmed that a leg found off the shore of Long Island matches a female torso that washed ashore in Westchester County last month, police said Wednesday.
Results from DNA testing on a second leg also was expected to be a match, said Mamaroneck Detective Sgt. Robert Holland.
He said, however, that authorities still do not know the victim's identity.
The headless, armless, legless body was found on March 3 inside a suitcase that washed ashore at Harbor Island Park.
Since the torso floated onto the beach as storm-fed floods hit the region, authorities have said it could have come from almost anywhere.
Mamaroneck Deputy Mayor William Paonessa said at the time that the village had no active missing-person cases.
About three weeks later, the legs were found a day apart — on March 21 off Cold Spring Harbor and March 22 off Cove Neck, along Nassau County's Gold Coast. Both legs had pink toenail polish.
Police have said that the torso had a stab wound and belonged to a large woman with a tiny tattoo of two red cherries on a green stem above her right breast.
Police believe the parts belong to a Hispanic or light-skinned black woman about 35 to 50 years old, no more than 5-foot-6 and 180 to 200 pounds.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox