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October 18, 2005
Woman Found Slain In Affluent Community
SANDS POINT, N.Y. -- Amid the mansions and millionaires of this exclusive Long Island enclave, homicide detectives searched Tuesday for answers in the slaying of a young woman whose battered body was dumped in a neighborhood unaccustomed to such brutality.
"Everyone here, we leave our front doors unlocked during the day," said Larissa Klug, who moved into the tony area in 1997. "We're scared. We're just scared."
Klug left a candle and some flowers at the spot where the still-unidentified victim's body was discovered Saturday morning in thick underbrush just steps from where Sloanes Beach Road ends at Hoffstot Lane. "I know she's dead and everything. I just want her to feel someone cares about her," Klug said.
Police were busy chasing down leads called in after a sketch of the victim was released Monday.
"We're going in a good direction right now," said Detective Lt. Dennis Farrell, commander of Nassau County's police homicide squad. "We feel there are a number of credible calls, and in fact we're getting calls concerning the same person from multiple sources."
The lack of a definitive answer remained unnerving for local residents, a group which over the years has included members of the Vanderbilt, Guggenheim and Hearst families. Only 2,800 people live in the Gold Coast village where multimillion-dollar homes overlook the Long Island Sound, where the Manhattan skyline glistens in the distance.
The community, which features some of the most expensive real estate in the country, was the model for East Egg, the setting for F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel "The Great Gatsby."
In this village, crime fighting for the 21-member police force typically means handing out speeding tickets. Now it's the center of a homicide investigation.
"Someone has to know who this woman is," Farrell said about the freckle-faced victim with gray-blue eyes.
Although there were many unanswered questions, police released what details they had: She was between 17 and 24, her hair was light brown, possibly blond. She was dressed in pink sweat pants, a pink zippered jacket with a hood, and a pink sleeveless cut-off shirt.
The shirt had a cartoon picture of a couple clutching a mended broken heart along with the words, "love is ... patching things up."
She wore two rings; a gold Irish Claddagh ring with a heart held by two hands was on her left middle finger. The other was a signet worn on her left pinky, featuring twin hearts alongside a bigger heart inscribed with the letter "E."
She had a simple tattoo on her hip of a flower with purple petals surrounding a yellow happy face.
Farrell has said the victim was viciously beaten on the left side of her head with a blunt instrument.
There was no indication she had been sexually abused. Farrell also said investigators believe the mystery woman was murdered elsewhere and dumped in Sands Point.
"She was killed somewhere else," he said Tuesday. "Whether it was a block away or 100 miles, we don't know that yet."
Posted by Nealus at October 18, 2005 04:05 PM
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