The Long Island homeowner who found a dead body, believed to be fugitive murder suspect Matthew Zoll, floating in his backyard pool is a Suffolk County detective who helped lead the search for the accused killer, property records reveal.
The East Shoreham home where a man and his teen son made the grisly discovery is owned by Detective Thomas Corso, according to property records obtained by The Post.
The veteran Suffolk cop on the US Marshals New York/New Jersey Fugitive Task Force was lifting the cover on his backyard pool for the summer with his son when they spotted a well-preserved body floating in the water.
Corso’s home borders a wooded lot that leads straight to William Floyd Parkway, which is only about half a mile from where police said Zoll, 23, crashed his car and took off on foot after allegedly stabbing his father to death.
“Based on the location that the body was found, proximity to what we believe was the crash site of Matthew Zoll, the clothing, the fact that there were no shoes on the individual, we are investigating the possibility, the strong possibility, that it would be Matthew Zoll,” Suffolk Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said at a news conference Tuesday, confirming what sources had speculated following the shocking weekend discovery.
Catalina declined to confirm whether the residence is owned by a member of the force and Corso declined to comment.
Zoll, who is reportedly schizophrenic, is the main suspect of a November murder where he allegedly stabbed his 61-year-old dad, postal worker Joseph Zoll, to death inside their home in Rocky Point.
US Marshals, including Corso, had spent several days scouring the wooded areas off the parkway, including the 1,600-acre Brookhaven State Park, in an intense manhunt for the murder suspect — but ultimately came up short.
Cops now believe Zoll may have bolted into the backyard and tried to hide underneath the winter pool cover, where he died.
“It was a Loop-Loc cover but it appears that one portion of the Loop-Loc was undone, and somehow the body became secreted under that portion of the pool cover,” Catalina said.
Police have not yet confirmed the body is Zoll’s and are still waiting on the results of DNA testing and an autopsy to determine the cause of death, which could include drowning, hypothermia and suffocation.
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