Seeking link between remains, missing Hicksville woman

Detectives are investigating whether a woman's remains found decomposing in a plastic bag in New Cassel are connected to a months-old missing person case involving a Hicksville woman and her husband, Nassau County police said Tuesday.

Workers found the plastic bag on Monday at Express Steel Supply Company at 110 Hopper St. - the same site police had repeatedly and unsuccessfully searched since 45-year-old Winsome Angela Perez was reported missing by her bank co-workers in July. She was reported last seen alive at the bank on July 28.

Since Perez's disappearance, investigators have been unable to locate her husband, whose name they would not release. He worked as a welder at Express Steel around the time last summer she went missing, said Nassau's chief police spokesman, Det. Lt. Kevin Smith.

Police were called to Express Steel because the plastic bag was found emitting a foul-smelling odor. Authorities X-rayed the bag after it was found wedged between a 40-foot steel storage container and a chain-link fence in the rear of Express Steel.

At the time of the initial discovery Monday, police weren't sure whether the remains were human or animal - only that "there was some type of organism . . . that was decaying and decomposing," Smith said.

"The body was in various stages of decomposition," Smith said, adding, "We haven't been able to say that the person who is missing and the person that was found in the bag is one and the same at this time."

Perez had been reported missing by worried co-workers at the Wantagh Chase bank at 1201 Wantagh Ave., police said.

With Gary Dymski