The body of a man in his 40s was discovered near Arthur Kill Road and Ilyssa Way in Arden Heights.
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Crews started their search around noon on Wednesday and it took them a couple hours to find what they were looking for.
NewsCopter 7 was overhead while crews searched a wooded area behind a residential complex known as Aspen Knolls Estates.
Police made the grisly discovery only 30 to 40 yards away from residents' homes.
Neighbors say people don't really go back into the woods.
"It's not lit back there so anybody can walk back there and do anything if they wanted to," one neighbor said.
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Crime scene investigators were there because of a tip from a confidential informant.
They worked in and around a shallow grave and found the badly decomposed body of the man who was murdered and buried about six months ago.
Police have not said who provided the information, or how the informant knew about where the body was buried.
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