A Long Island, New York, homeowner and his son discovered a body this May while opening their backyard swimming pool for the season.

The body is believed to be 23-yearold homicide suspect Matthew Zoll, who disappeared shortly after police say he stabbed his father to death on November 9, 2024.

Police had been searching for Zoll for several months and had found the man’s crashed car near the homeowner’s swimming pool. He had apparently abandoned the car while fleeing the murder scene.

And in a bizarre twist, the homeowner who discovered the body is a veteran Suffolk County Police Department detective and member of the same task force that was assigned to search for Zoll, according to law enforcement sources who did not identify the detective.

Police said that Matthew Zoll, who was schizophrenic, stabbed his 61-year-old father, Joseph Zoll, to death in their home in Rocky Point last November. He then took an SUV and crashed it about a half mile from the pool where the body was found. A wooded lot extends from

A Suffolk County, New York veteran police department detective assigned to search for 23-year-old Matthew Zoll discovered a body in his swimming pool. The body found floating in the pool may be Matthew Zoll. See story page 1. Credit: SuffolkCountyNY.gov.

By Marcelle Dibrell the backyard where the body was found to the parkway where the car crash occurred. After the crash, Zoll allegedly fled on foot.

Zoll had been badly injured in the crash, and the Suffolk County Police Department had been searching for him for months, combing a nearby 1,600-acre state park.

Suffolk County Police Department Commissioner Kevin Catalina said that the evidence suggests that the body, which was found in the swimming pool on May 25, belongs to Matthew Zoll.

“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,” Catalina said.

The detective who discovered the body had been opening his pool with his teenage son on the Sunday before Memorial Day.

Catalina speculated on how the body ended up in the swimming pool.

“It was a Loop-Loc cover, but it appears that one of the portions of the Loop-Loc was undone, and somehow the body became secreted under that portion of the pool cover,” Catalina said, adding that there was no evidence of foul play in the backyard of the pool where the body was found.

Police said it appeared the body had been in the water for a long time.

A neighbor familiar with the Zoll family said that Joseph Zoll was a “nice, quiet, soft-spoken guy” who had been living in his home with his two sons ever since his wife moved away after their divorce.

“It was just him and his two sons,” said Gavan Israel. “His older son … He was okay. Matthew, you could see immediately something was off because he was always looking down. He never really talked.”

Israel explained that Matthew Zoll had also been reported missing in April prior to Joseph Zoll’s murder.

“He had a problem a few months ago where he went missing because he went off of his medication,” Israel said. “The local news did a story about it when [police were] looking for him. I’m guessing that’s probably what this started with – a lack of meds.”

After Joseph Zoll’s murder and Matthew Zoll’s disappearance, neighbors assumed Matthew had once again run off.

“It was very strange, said neighbor Sharon Healey. “We all thought he just left town. Got on a train or a bus.”

With a body found, Suffolk County Police are awaiting DNA test results to identify the body as belonging to Matthew Zoll.

The exact cause of death has not been reported.