NYPD: Body in car trunk may be linked to Elmont slayings

A relative of the father and son found shot to death in their Elmont home last month - and the family matriarch who went missing at the same time - said last night police have told her a body found in the family's missing car in Brooklyn was that of the 65-year-old woman.

Cassandra Cean Owens, of Valley Stream, a niece of the missing woman, said her family heard from detectives that the body was that of Rose Ormejuste and that the car was the Lexus sedan that went missing at the time of last month's shooting.

An NYPD spokesman said police have not definitively identified the woman in the trunk. Nassau homicide detectives were at the scene in Brooklyn Tuesday night where the gray or silver 1998 Lexus sedan containing the body was found, Nassau police said.

The sedan was discovered at about 3 p.m. on East 48th Street and Avenue J Tuesday, said Lt. Mike Wysokowski, the NYPD spokesman. Police were alerted to the car after receiving a call reporting a foul odor.

Ormejuste's son, Dario Ormejuste, 24, has been charged with the fatal shootings of Rose Ormejuste's husband, Bob Ormejuste, 65, and their oldest son, Guerby Ormejuste, 30, a New York City correction officer assigned to Rikers Island.

Nassau police say Ormejuste shot his father and brother on June 21 but wasn't arrested until June 23, when an uncle went to the home to check on the whereabouts of the missing family members, and Dario Ormejuste later emerged to smoke a cigarette.

Dario Ormejuste, on his way to arraignment last month, told reporters: "I didn't do it."

His court-appointed attorney, Richard Barbuto of Mineola, said Tuesday night he would visit his client in jail Wednesday. "I'll sit with him and see if we can make any sense of this," Barbuto said. "It's always troubling when somebody dies under these kinds of circumstances. However, my client has steadfastly maintained that he had nothing to do with her disappearance."

With Bill Mason