NYPD divers Sunday continued to search the Central Park Boathouse pond for potential clues including the gun used in the slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as cops were still hunting the killer.
Investigators believe the on-the-law suspect may have tossed evidence into the lake in the middle of the sprawling park, sources said. The murder weapon has yet to be recovered, sources noted.
Video footage showed two divers prepping to hit the water Sunday for the second straight day at the popular landmark, five days after Thompson’s shocking caught-on-video shooting death outside a high-end Manhattan hotel.
Cops have released photos of the alleged killer inside a Big Apple taxi cab and recovered what investigators believe was the his backpack in the park, which contained a jacket and fake Monopoly money.
New surveillance images reviewed by The Post on Sunday suggest that the gunman got out of the cab in front of 2372 Amsterdam Avenue between West 177th and West 178th streets, next to an MTA bus stop known as the “East Village M101” bus line, before disappearing again. The location is near the George Washington Bridge bus terminal.
“The detectives search through all of our video on Friday,” the manager of an apartment building at the Amsterdam Avenue site said Sunday. “They didn’t have any luck. They never saw him.”
The footage does not show the suspect leaving the area on foot, she added.
Thompson, 50, was on his way to a business meeting Wednesday when he was shot dead outside the New York Hilton Midtown with a type of veterinarian gun, authorities said.
Cops said the bullet casings had bizarre scribblings on them, including the words “depose,” “delay” and “deny,” seemingly drawn from a 2010 book titled “Delay, Deny, Defend” that criticizes the health industry.
Surveillance footage shows that after the shooting, the suspect hopped on a bicycle and peddled up Sixth Avenue to Central Park, where he allegedly grabbed the cab.
On Saturday, Mayor Eric Adams told reporters “the net is tightening” on the killer, but police have not closed in on the suspect entering the fifth day of the manhunt.