Pool where body was found in East Shoreham is on property owned by detective on task force searching for alleged killer, sources say

A member of the task force that searched for homicide suspect Matthew Zoll last November owns the East Shoreham home where the body of a man police believe could be the alleged killer was discovered in a swimming pool Sunday, law enforcement sources told Newsday.

The Pal Court homeowner, a veteran Suffolk police detective who serves on the U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, was opening his swimming pool for the season with his teenage son when they found the well-preserved body in the water, sources said.

Police said in November that Zoll crashed a black GMC Yukon at the intersection of Route 25A and William Floyd Parkway at 1:35 a.m. Nov. 9 after fleeing the scene of the alleged killing. Members of the task force spent several days in November searching wooded areas along William Floyd Parkway, including the 1,600-acre Brookhaven State Park, attempting to find Zoll, whom police previously said was schizophrenic.

The house on Pal Court where the body was found is about a half-mile from the November crash site. A wooded lot directly behind the backyard swimming pool extends east past four neighboring yards to William Floyd Parkway.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, Suffolk Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said police do not yet have a definitive ID on the body found in the pool and are awaiting the results of DNA testing.

"Based on the location that the body was found, proximity to what we believe was the crash site of Matthew Zoll, the clothing, the fact that there were no shoes on the individual, we are investigating the possibility, the strong possibility, that it would be Matthew Zoll," Catalina said.

The cause of death has not yet been determined, said the commissioner, who also addressed how the man ended up in the in-ground pool.

"It was a Loop-Loc cover but it appears that one portion of the Loop-Loc was undone, and somehow the body became secreted under that portion of the pool cover," said Catalina, who declined to confirm the homeowner was a member of his department.

The commissioner said there was no prior indication something was amiss in the backyard of the well-kept home.

The discovery was made at about 4:20 p.m. Sunday.

The homeowner, who emerged from his house Monday wearing a fugitive task force T-shirt, declined to comment.

Zoll, 23, was wanted in the Nov. 9 stabbing death of his father, Joseph Zoll, 61, at their home on Quail Road in Rocky Point, police said at the time.

Police said in November that Zoll was likely badly injured during that crash.

About three dozen task force members and a police helicopter searched the woods east of William Floyd Parkway near Route 25A in Shoreham in the days following the homicide. Suffolk police also closed a turnaround on William Floyd north of Whiskey Road, where a mobile command unit was set up. Dozens of police vehicles, including marked units from the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department and New York State Police, lined the Route 25A intersection.

The search was mostly concentrated in Brookhaven State Park, a densely wooded 1,600-acre property in the core pine barrens region featuring hiking trails and wetlands. The park extends from Shoreham into Ridge and is about 6 miles from the Zoll home.

The Shoreham-Wading River school district, with its high school campus abutting Brookhaven State Park, advised parents of the search efforts while the search for Matthew Zoll was ongoing, noting the district was adding security "out of an abundance of caution."

A Seventh Precinct officer found Joseph Zoll ins his home in early November after a 911 call reporting a stabbing in the home, police said. The elder Zoll was taken to Stony Brook University Hospital, where police said he was pronounced dead.

There had been no updates about the case until Sunday.