Workers digging up old gas tanks at a Massapequa Shell station on Merrick Road discovered approximately 25 human bones last Thursday, Feb. 10 and then discovered additional bones about 25 feet away on Tuesday.

According to Detective/Sergeant William Cocks of the Nassau County Homicide Squad, who is heading up the investigation of this find, the Shell station was closed in mid-January and the old gas tanks are currently being excavated. It was in the process of the excavation that what appear to be human bones were discovered.

The first set of bones discovered were sent to the Nassau County Morgue to be analyzed by the medical examiner, but that analysis has not yet been completed. "From the preliminary appearances, they seem to be historical in nature, which means the teeth are ground pretty severely, there are no fillings that we can detect and so the medical examiner will do an analysis and then probably bring in a forensic anthropologist and they'll make a determination but for right now it doesn't look like it's anything of recent nature," said Detective/Sergeant Cocks.

The gas station has occupied the Merrick Road site for at least 25 years and the homicide squad is currently going through the Town of Oyster Bay files to discover what the land had been used for prior to that. Cocks noted that although they don't recover human bones every day, in some parts of the county they do come across some Indian bones or an old cemetery is uncovered. "It doesn't happen often, but it's not unheard of," said Detective/Sergeant Cocks.

Cocks concluded, "It doesn't look like a homicide at this point but the investigation is continuing."