Investigators wrapped up their search for human remains in the Massapequa Preserve Wednesday evening, hours after the FBI's Long Island Gang Task Force confirmed it found a body in a Freeport park.
The discovery of the Freeport body in Cow Meadow Park comes less than a week after investigators found the body of 16-year-old Angel Soler in a wooded area of Roosevelt. Sources say investigators suspect the MS-13 gang in Soler's death.
Two of Soler's friends, Joshua Aguilar and Kiren Pineda, remain missing, and as News 12 has previously reported, their families fear they were also killed. Authorities say they will need to use DNA testing to identify the body they found Wednesday.
Kiren's mother, Lilian Oliva, says he was supposed to meet someone in a park before his disappearance. And she thinks whoever arranged the meeting had bad intentions.
"We were just hoping he would come back alive, but after all these hints we are seeing we lost hope," says Karen Pineda, Kiren's sister. "We want him back, even alive or not."
The Massapequa Preserve search is in the same area where police in March found the body of Julio Cesar Gonzales-Espantzay, of Valley Stream. Police arrested several members of MS-13 in connection with his killing.