Two construction workers heading to a ferry terminal in the Bay Shore area of Long Island on July 8, 2014 found a woman’s mutilated torso in a wooded lot and called 911.

“The body doesn’t have a head,” NBC 4 New York reporter Checkey Beckford told Snapped, as seen in preview for a new episode airing September 7 at 6/5c p.m. on Oxygen. “It doesn’t have arms. And the legs have been removed from below the knee.”

Homicide detectives rushed to the scene, where the victim was almost face-down, leaning slightly towards her right site, and wearing a bra and shorts, said Michael Mahan, a now-retired Suffolk County Police Department homicide detective. 

“I’ve never seen anything as gruesome as this, the way the body was hacked up,” said Ronald Tavares, also a former Suffolk County homicide detective. 

“My first impressions when I saw the body was, ‘What type of monster would do this?’” Tavares added.

Tip from 2,600 miles away leads to victim’s identity

Police noted the lack of blood at the scene. “It looks like this body was dumped here,” said John Becker, a now-retired Suffolk County detective. 

The condition of the torso in the summer heat indicated that it had been left at the scene recently. 

Determining the identity of the victim without a head or hands for fingerprints proved challenging. Severed legs, which bore tattoos, along with bungee cords, were recovered nearby.

Investigators photographed the tattoos, one of which read “Angel,” and enlisted the aid of the media to find who they belonged to. “Every media outlet was covering this story,” Beckford said.

The next day, a tip from 2,600 miles away came in. Police got a call from Dale Browne, who lived in Guyana, and believed that the body parts may have belonged to his wife, Chinelle Latoya Browne.

She was living and working in the U.S. while the couple made plans for him to join her there with their four children. Dale told police that he’d last spoken with Chinelle on the morning of July 5.  

After that, as Dale told Snapped, his calls and texts “were unanswered.” 

When detectives asked Dale if his wife had any distinguishing marks, he described tattoos on his wife’s legs. They matched the evidence at the crime scene, and the victim was eventually confirmed to be Chinelle.

“The sadness, it was so thick,” Dale said. “It’s like the air just changed.” 

Find out who so brutally killed Chinelle by watching Snapped on Sunday, September 7 at 6/5c p.m. on Oxygen.