Authorities are looking into whether body parts found at a trash transfer station in New Jersey are linked to the grisly discoveries of a woman's torso, leg and handless arms at a garbage site in the Bronx, law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 New York.
It's not clear what parts investigators found at the site in Kearny, which had received some of the trash containers distributed from the Metropolitan Transfer Station in Hunts Point early Tuesday.
No arrests have been made in the case of the dismembered woman, who has yet to be identified. Her torso and leg were found by workers at the Bronx trash site shortly before 5 a.m. Tuesday. Crews in hazmat suits sifted through 250 tons of garbage over the course of the day and recovered a right and left arm, both without hands, later in the evening, police sources said.
Elias Rodriguez, a worker at the transfer station and a former medic, said he has seen gruesome sights before, but his co-workers were traumatized.
"I only went in as far as where the pit is," Rodriguez said. "I didn't want to disturb what is now a crime scene. And I saw the body, the body parts laying there."
One of his colleagues, he said, "looked a little flustered. This is something completely new to him. Obviously, he's in shock."
The medical examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine how the woman died.