Probe continues into Ross Reisner slaying; service set for Sunday

Suffolk County police are still searching for who fatally shot Long Island horseman Ross Reisner inside his Setauket home on Tuesday.

A police spokeswoman said Saturday morning that there were no updates on the search for the suspected shooter or shooters behind Reisner's death.

A service for Reisner is scheduled for Sunday at 3:30 p.m. at Sinai Chapels, 162-05 Horace Harding Expy., in Fresh Meadows, Queens.

Reisner, 50, a horse trainer and riding instructor for more than two decades, was shot inside his home about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. Several shots were fired through a first-floor window, striking Reisner once in the chest, police said. He died at the hospital. His domestic partner, Kevin Murray, was grazed by a bullet in the arm, but refused medical attention, police said.

About four months before Reisner was fatally shot, a box had arrived at his stately residence containing a dead bird.

That delivery and a complaint that Murray, filed against a former tenant are among the pieces of information that police are examining in the slaying, sources said Thursday. It is not known who sent the bird or how it reached the home.

In court papers filed Aug. 30, Murray alleged he had been harassed by the former tenant, Brett C. Knight of Manhattan, who had rented a basement apartment in the Setauket home, according to court papers and Reisner's family.

Knight, 45, was charged with second-degree harassment, a misdemeanor, but failed to appear before a judge in First District Court in Central Islip on Sept. 4 to answer the charge. There is a warrant for Knight's arrest.

With Nicole Fuller and Chau Lam