Bodies Found in Murder Inc. Graveyard

The swath of marshland beside the Belt Parkway along Jamaica Bay's northern edge is a wasteland, a place I have driven through my whole life. I remember staring at those drab-colored reeds as a child, sitting in the backseat on the way to or from my grandparents' house for Sunday dinner.

I refer here to the moldering woods stretching for miles along Jamaica Bay’s northern edges, near where Brooklyn dissolves into Queens. It is a place well out of sight for most New Yorkers, and therefore out of mind.

Two bodies were found in the marshland beside the Belt Parkway on Wednesday, March 6, 2013
A law enforcement officer walks through an old mob dumping ground.


Having the imagination that I have, that desolate expanse sparked all kinds of dark fantasies in my brain, most of which centered on monsters rising up out of the tall reeds while dead bodies decomposed beneath them.

I was right about the bodies being there (not to mention a mere letter "b" away from actually hitting the nail on the head). Mobsters, for decades, left the victims of countless hits there, beginning as early as the 1930s, with Murder Incorporated, the mob's infamous hit squad. Probably the most high-profile mobster would be Gambino mobster Roy DeMeo, who also dumped bodies there.




Turns out only yesterday two bodies were found there (meaning Wednesday, March 6, 2013). Both had been set on fire in an attempt to hide the crime.

Law enforcement officials believe the men -- who the article names but does not identify as mobsters -- were killed somewhere else, then dumped there.

This is an important consideration: not only the bodies of mobsters have been found in that marshland. One notable example, as you'll see below, happened in 2006, when the body of 24-year-old graduate student Imette St. Guillen was found there, near Fountain Avenue, "beaten, bruised and wrapped in a floral blanket."


Murder Inc. hit men line up for the camera.


On Wednesday, a predawn fire cast a yellow glow visible for miles. And any denizens who didn't see it would've heard the sirens of dozens of emergency vehicles speeding toward that marshland beside the Belt Parkway.

And as has been the case so many times in the past, in the wasteland were the first clues of a grisly crime.

The bodies of two men were discovered after firefighters extinguished the large brush fire, according to the police, and one of the city’s most notorious dumping grounds gave up its latest victims.

The body of Imette St. Guillen, 24, was found here din 2006. 
(The next day it was revealed that the two victims were Rudy Superville, 22, and Gary Lopez, 25, both of whom lived in Brooklyn.)

“We do have an idea of a motive, but I’m not disclosing it,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

At first, cops thought the victims were bound, “but it turned out to be plastic material that melted on their bodies,” Browne said.

“There’s some kinds of indication they had been in plastic or plastic bags. The theory is that they may have been killed elsewhere and dumped there. First responders said there appeared to be binding. Since then, we believe it was just residue plastic left over.” 

The Queens fire broke out at around 4:15 a.m. near 159th Avenue and 78th Street and was elevated to two alarms an hour later, FDNY officials said.

Once the brush fire was under control, firefighters found the two fully clothed victims lying face down in a marshy area of Spring Creek Park, off the Belt Parkway, officials said.

“My guess is that they weren’t there very long because the fire was started, apparently, to cover up the crime,” Queens DA Richard Brown said.

Cops believe the victims were from Bushwick and were shot in East New York before their bodies were dumped in the marshland, sources said.

The police also released photos of three vehicles that they said might be connected with the case and asked for the public’s assistance in tracking them down.

The Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, said it was quite likely that the fire had been set deliberately not long after the bodies were dumped.

“My guess is they weren’t there very long,” Mr. Brown said. “The fire was started apparently to cover up the crime.”

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, at a news conference later in the day, said the men had been placed inside plastic bags that melted in the fire.

(A week after the discovery of the bodies, a Brooklyn drug dealer was arraigned for torturing and killing both men. The charge was that the two had tried to rob the dealer, Rogelio Rodriguez, 34. He killed the two, then dumped their bodies by the Belt Parkway and set them on fire. Rodriguez was charged for both murders and faced 25 years. I can't find what happened since; the case may not have gone to trial yet.)

The shallow marshes where the bodies were found have long been infamous dumping sites.

In the 1930s, the organized crime syndicate known as Murder Incorporated used the largely unpopulated area to dispose of its victims.

Decades later, a soldier in the Gambino crime family, Roy DeMeo, is said to have taken more than 200 of his victims to the area. If you believe he killed that many people, that's the FBI's data, I gotta bridge I wanna sell ya....


Not all of the bodies found in the area have been victims of organized crime.

In 2006, the body of a 24-year-old graduate student, Imette St. Guillen, was found near Fountain Avenue, beaten, bruised and wrapped in a floral blanket.

Darryl Littlejohn, a bouncer at a now-closed bar in SoHo called the Falls, where Ms. St. Guillen was last seen alive, was convicted of her murder.


Comments

  1. Would be interesting if they dug up this place to reveal what ever is buried deep below the surface?Just saying.

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    Replies
    1. I am sure they have partially dig it up in various spots over the decades; a major renovation is planned for the area, I believe, so god knows what else we will read about them finding there!

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