New body part found in Hempstead; sources say detectives probe whether remains belong to missing Brooklyn woman

Long Island and New York City police are investigating whether human remains found in Bay Shore and Hempstead -- including a new discovery Thursday afternoon -- are those of a Brooklyn woman who has been missing since the weekend, sources said.

A severed arm was found in a Hempstead yard, just blocks from where another severed arm was located Wednesday on Webb Avenue. Tuesday, a partially dismembered female body was found about a half-mile from the Fire Island Ferry in Bay Shore.

Police in Suffolk, Nassau and the city were waiting for medical examiners to identify the remains, the sources said Thursday.

The missing woman, Chinelle Latoya Browne, 27, of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, was reported missing to the NYPD, the sources said.

Suffolk, Hempstead and Nassau police Thursday night were investigating the third body part, an arm, which was found in a yard about 4:37 p.m., police said. Residents said the remains were left outside a Cornell Street address.

Suffolk police said Hempstead police were called regarding a body part, and Nassau and Suffolk homicide detectives responded. The body part was transported to the Nassau County medical examiner's office for further assessment, the brief Suffolk statement said.

Dale Browne, Chinelle Browne's husband, said from his home in Guyana that the family is holding out hope she will return.

"My wife is a wonderful, wonderful woman, a beautiful soul and we want her home," he said, adding that the couple's four children range in age from 3 to 7 years old. "That is our desire. That is our hope. We believe God is able and he will deliver so we're trusting him and trusting God she will be safely going home to her family."

On Wednesday, a severed arm was found on the front lawn of the Webb Avenue home and a source said authorities were trying to determine if it was related to the body found Tuesday in Bay Shore.

Steven Rivera, 15, whose uncle, Jose Diaz, owns the Webb Avenue house, said family members don't understand why the arm was dumped there.

"I think somebody might have just dropped it because this is the only house that has like a garden that's . . . sealed," he said Thursday outside the two-story white home with blue trim and a white fence in the front yard.

"There's kids inside, and when they see all of that . . . they get really worried," he said.

No authorities returned to the home for most of the day Thursday.

Diaz, 56, who has lived at the home since 1989, said his wife's brother, Noel Rivera, discovered the arm in their front yard about 2 p.m. Wednesday and called 911.

Suffolk police said the body part was sent to the Nassau medical examiner's office.

With Zachary R. Dowdy, Ellen Yan, Candice Ruud and Nicole Fuller