New York police have again searched a Central Park lake for evidence – including the murder weapon – connected to the Midtown shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
As the search for the executive’s killer entered its sixth day Monday, officials have said they are widening their search.
Law enforcement sources told CBS News that the New York police department and the US marshals had sent investigators to Atlanta to make inquiries and review surveillance footage from Greyhound bus stops on the route from Georgia.
Police have not named a suspect. But Eric Adams, New York’s mayor, hinted on Sunday that authorities may be getting closer to publicly identifying the man in photographs released to the public.
“The net is tightening and we’re going to bring this person to justice,” Adams said Saturday.
“We don’t want to release that now. If you do, you are basically giving a tip to the person we are find … we’re seeking, and we do not want to give him an upper hand at all. Let him continue to believe he can hide behind the mask.”
Two additional images were also released of a masked man in the back and outside a taxi he used to soon after Thompson was gunned down outside a midtown hotel the morning of 4 December.
Only one photograph of the suspect without a mask has been made public – an image taken at a hostel soon before the murder when he apparently dropped the mask at the request of a front desk employee.
According to CBS, NYPD divers searched Central Park’s lake on Sunday after failing to recover anything from a similar underwater drag a day earlier. That came after a backpack containing a jacket and monopoly money that is believed to be the Thompson murder suspect’s was found in the park.
Retired NYPD officer Tom Walsh told the outlet it made sense that police would continue searching the park for clues – and especially for the murder weapon – in the absence of concrete evidence.
“They found the backpack here in Central Park, so it only makes sense that that’s a good dumping ground for a gun,” Walsh said.