A teenage runner’s unsettling discovery in a quiet Long Island park could help authorities resolve a missing-person case that has remained open for nearly a year.
The student was part of a local high school track team training on the trails at Plandome Pond Park in Manhasset at about 5:45 p.m. Thursday when he noticed what appeared to be skeletal remains in the nearby brush, Nassau County police and NBC New York reported. The teen is also an Eagle Scout.
“They were running adjacent to the train tracks, and they were coming through to the park. He discovered the remains,” Plandome Heights Mayor Kenneth Riscica told the station.
Investigators are examining whether the remains could be those of Shi Hua Xu, a 79-year-old woman with dementia who disappeared from her home in nearby Great Neck in December 2025.
Xu was known to take regular walks around her neighborhood and had been seen in Great Neck before she vanished without explanation.
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She was not wearing her tracking device when she went missing, leaving her family to conduct a painstaking search for her in the months that followed.
Authorities said the remains are those of a woman, but a formal identification is still pending. “We are looking to positively identify the body by the end of the day. We don’t believe it to be criminal in nature,” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder told NBC New York.
According to the report, Xu’s relatives have identified an item of clothing found near the remains as belonging to her.
The Nassau County medical examiner’s office is waiting for DNA test results to determine whether the remains are those of Xu.
Although the discovery was disturbing, the teen told detectives he was “doing fine” and said he hoped the find would provide answers and comfort to the missing woman’s family.
Riscica recalled the teen’s response when detectives checked on him: “I’m doing fine. I only hope this brings closure to a family that lost someone.”