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May 22, 2008 10:35 am US/Eastern
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Cops End Search Of Queens Home Empty Handed
Convicted Murderer Told Authorities He Buried Another Victim Outside Queens House, But Nothing Is Found
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Police wrapped up their dig late Wednesday night without finding any human remains after the confession of a convicted murderer led them to the backyard of a Queens home earlier in the day.
Gregory Wynder, who is serving a life sentence for killing a Harlem woman back in 2001, used to live in the home at 105-17 170th Street in Jamaica, Queens.
Investigators say Wynder claims when he lived there he killed two other women and buried one in this yard.
So on Wednesday police started digging. Using shovels and backhoes, they searched all day for human remains.
Neighbor Rosie Medrano could not believe the search for a murdered woman would lead investigators to her neighborhood.
"It's shocking because we live here and we didn't know that something like this was going on right in our backyard," Medrano said.
Celeste Smith told CBS 2 HD off camera that Wynder dated her sister.
Smith says Wynder lived with her family in the home in the late 1990s, but was kicked out after he began stealing and making threats against her family.
Right around that time in 1997, a young woman's body was discovered in a lot right down the street from Smith's home on 170th Street. A recent tip to police led them to Wynder whom they say confessed to killing that woman, and strangling another woman in her 40s burying her in this yard. Neighbors are stunned.
"Frustrated, stressed out, worried … not just for myself but for the neighbors around here, too," Winston Weston said. "You know it could have happened to anybody."
Police took away several bags of evidence, but said they found no human remains. Investigators said if the woman's body was here, it may have been dug up when this home was built in 2003.
"This was kind of scary thinking someone could be right in your backyard," another neighbor said.
Investigators have no plans to return to the house in Jamaica.
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