Irish filmmaker and cinematographer Ross McDonnell stays lacking after police discovered a dismembered physique on a New York seaside.
New York police have been referred to as to Breezy Level Seashore round midday Friday after somebody noticed the human torso, with legs connected and head and arms lacking, mendacity on the sand, an NYPD spokesperson instructed The Instances. Police described the physique as having “connected legs.”
It’s believed that McDonnell went for a swim a few weeks in the past on the subsequent seaside over from the place the physique turned up Friday; he has not been seen since. Authorities, who haven’t but recognized the physique, are awaiting DNA check outcomes, the New York Submit reported.
Police stated that the Medical Examiner’s workplace would decide a reason for loss of life however that the id of the individual wouldn’t be launched till household had been notified.
Nonetheless, a WNBC report citing regulation enforcement sources stated police consider the physique could also be that of McDonnell. Foul play and suicide usually are not suspected, they added — he probably went swimming, acquired caught in a present and drowned. Injury to the physique was probably brought on by ocean hazards akin to sharp rocks.
McDonnell, 44, was final seen Nov. 4 leaving his condominium on his bike in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, based on a number of information studies. A number of days later, his bike was found at Fort Tilden Seashore in Queens, based on a lacking poster shared by the Dublin-based manufacturing firm Wild Atlantic Photos.
Representatives for the manufacturing home didn’t instantly reply to The Instances’ requests for remark.
Certainly one of McDonnell’s shut associates, Gene Gallerano, instructed the Irish Instances final week that it was believed McDonnell had been on the seaside and had gone “out into the ocean.”
“He was final seen final Saturday night time, the alarm was sounded on Sunday, we don’t know far more than that,” Gallerano instructed the publication. “It’s been a really, very emotionally heavy week.”
McDonnell, a Dublin native, was lately primarily based in New York and traveled typically for his work. He’s finest identified for his documentary movie work, having co-directed 2009‘s “Colony,” which charts the mass disappearance of bee colonies throughout the U.S. The film premiered that yr on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition and received a prime award on the Worldwide Documentary Movie Competition in Amsterdam.
McDonnell additionally obtained information and documentary Emmys for his cinematography on the Showtime documentary sequence “The Commerce” and a 2021 COVID-19 documentary “The First Wave.” He’s a 2024 Cinema Eye Honors nominee as a cinematographer on the Jimmy Chin-hosted Nationwide Geographic sequence, “Fringe of the Unknown,” which is streaming on Disney+.
McDonnell’s work as a photographer and photojournalist will be present in the New York Instances, the New Yorker and Fader. In 2021, he revealed a photograph sequence that spanned practically a decade, throughout which he documented Irish youth who skilled one among Europe’s largest city renewal tasks, centered in Dublin. He centered on the Ballymun suburb and hoped to do additional tasks within the neighborhood.
“After a few years photographing in Ballymun, I nonetheless really feel very near these guys, and we’re nonetheless associates as we speak,” he instructed Photograph Museum Eire final yr. “Wanting ahead, I feel it’s time to contemplate what I can do with and for the neighborhood in Ballymun, when it comes to reciprocity by way of my images.”