Police gather at the entrance to Manorville Hills County Park...

Police gather at the entrance to Manorville Hills County Park on Route 111 in Manorville where a body was found by a jogger in a wooded area. (March 22, 2012) Credit: James Carbone

In Manorville Thursday, news of the latest body found nearby -- this time of a woman in a county park -- was met with some unease and curiosity. But in a community where bodies have been discovered in the woods for years, many took it in stride.

"We're used to it," said Carolyn Jolly, 43, owner of Hidden Pond Stables, not far from where the full skeletal remains of a man were discovered in the woods Feb. 17.

Wednesday's discovery by a jogger in Manorville Hills County Park of a female's body was the latest in a string of six gruesome discoveries spanning eight years. Neither the woman's body nor the find last month were connected to the Gilgo Beach investigation, police said.

The four other sets of remains found in Manorville, a rural area where trees line highways and surround horse fields and farms, include those of Jessica Taylor, 20, in 2003; of a woman known only as Jane Doe No. 6 in 2000; and of two unidentified men found in the woods in 2000 and 2003.

Partial remains of Taylor's and Jane Doe No. 6 also were found in the Giglo Beach probe.

Gene O'Brien, 57, said as he entered the Manorville Post Office, "Bodies have been found here for years, even going back to the '80s and the '90s." He recalled the discovery of a child buried in a shallow grave near the Long Island Expressway in Manorville in 1996.

The discovery of bodies was unsettling to Vickie Deignan, 45.

"It's pretty disturbing. It's too close," she said outside the King Kullen grocery.

She said she'd make sure her doors and windows are locked. "I'm going to keep my children close."

For the most part, Sheila Basata, 45, who lives near where the man's body was found Feb. 17, said there's nothing to be alarmed about.

"It seems unusual," she said, explaining how she took solace in the hope Manorville was simply a dumping ground and not the scene of the killings.

Karen Lee Dunne, president of the Manorville Chamber of Commerce, said, "I think the pulse of the community is that no one is fearful."

For all the beauty of living amid woods and farmland, she said, there's a price.

"Unfortunately, it makes it easy to hide bodies in the woods," she said.

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