A group of middle and high school students in New York made a grisly discovery on their way to school on Thursday morning, a human left arm. 

The group were walking through Southards Park Pond in Babylon Village, Long Island, just 15 miles from Gilgo Beach the burial ground of accused serial killer Rex Heuermann, who was active between 1996 and 2011. 

The fingertips were removed and a tattoo was visible, reports ABC New York. The arm belonged to a biological male. Authorities have not commented on a cause of death as its believed the tattoo will form part of the investigation. 

Suffolk County Police Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer told the media that one of the teens, a high school student, alerted her father just before 9am, who went to the park, confirmed it was an arm and then called the police.

A subsequent search of the area saw a police dog recover a human leg around a mile way in the same park at 1:30pm, close to an elementary school. A right arm was then found after night fall around 20 feet into a wooded area.

The park where the body parts were found is popular with children, joggers and people walking their dogs 

After the initial gruesome discovery, another body part, a leg this time, was located by a cadaver dog

Officials at nearby schools held students inside as the investigation unfolded

The death has been declared a homicide with detectives being spotted on the scene throughout the day 

The third body part, a right arm, wasn’t found until night fall in the park

‘There’s a mound of leaves. We don’t know what’s going to be under the mound. Once we clear the mound we may find the remainder of the body or we may not,’ Beyrer said. 

Officials at nearby schools held students inside as the investigation unfolded. According to NBC New York, the area is frequented by joggers, children and dog walkers. 

Homicide detectives were reportedly on the scene. The affiliate reports that the body parts were left at the scene recently. 

‘It is a little disturbing because the school is right here so I was kind of worried,’ local parent Salma Lakhaney told ABC New York.

Another local told the station that she no longer walks her dog in the park in question.

‘There’s definitely a bad vibe right here. Like the last two weeks for sure. I stopped walking here by myself because there’s just weirdos,’ she said. 

‘That it is terrible and very scary to hear something like that happen so close to home,’ Babylon local Josephine Roche told Newsday. 

‘I think we are safe. There is a good police presence and I think that it wasn’t necessarily related to this area. I told my kids, “Lock the doors, always, in any area.’ 

The area is also close to where accused killer Rex Heuermann, shown here in February, prowled for victims over a 15 years period

The area is also close to where accused killer Rex Heuermann prowled for victims over a 15 years period. 

Earlier this month, Heuermann was formally charged in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, months after having been labeled the prime suspect in her death when he was arrested in July with the deaths of three other women. 

In addition, gang violence had been a problem in some Long Island communities for more than a decade, but local police and the FBI began pouring resources into a crackdown sparked by the killings of high school students Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, in 2016.

The most active violent gang has been the feared MS-13.  

The murders in Brentwood, about 30 miles east of New York City, shook parents and local officials and cast a spotlight on the deepening problem of gang violence in the suburbs. 

Police also began discovering the bodies of other young people — mostly Hispanic — who had vanished months earlier, but whose disappearances had initially gone unmarked by civic leaders and the news media. 

Some parents of the missing complained that police hadn’t done enough to search for their missing children earlier.

Anyone with information in the case is asked to contact the Suffolk County Police Department at 631-852-6392 or call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-220-Tips.