I hear at home the murder of a jogger in Queens has left a community on edge as the hunt for her killer continues. At around 10:30 at night, police officers were moving slowly through the thick reeds along the running trail in Spring Creek Park in Brooklyn. Then, suddenly, they heard a man scream. When the officers rushed closer, they saw a father standing over his daughter’s body.
Karina Vetrano, a 30-year-old woman, was lying face down on the ground. Her athletic top and shorts had been pulled down. There were bruises on her face. Her teeth were broken, and her legs were covered in scratches. The officers tried to pull the father away from her body, but he wouldn’t let go. He just kept repeating the same words over and over.
“I have to take my daughter home.” Just a few hours earlier, Karina had simply gone out for a run. She was an experienced runner and used to jog along that trail all the time with her father. But that day, he stayed home because of a back injury. Right before she left the house, she told him everything would be fine. Two hours passed, and she never came back.
When detectives began examining the crime scene, one thing became painfully clear. Karina had fought until the very end. At one point, she even bit her attacker so hard that she broke her own teeth. Investigators later found DNA under her fingernails. But when they ran it through the national database, it didn’t match anyone.
Which meant only one thing. Somewhere nearby, there was a man who had brutally attacked [music] a woman in the middle of the day and then disappeared without a trace. But what investigators discovered later turned out to be far more horrifying than just a murder. DNA analysis revealed a terrifying secret, and when police finally found the killer, some of the officers said it was so disturbing that hmm it honestly gave them chills.
A few of them even needed psychological help afterward. So, to really understand how this all happened, we have to go back to the very beginning. All right, friends. Let me pause for just a minute. I’m really curious where my audience is watching from. So, if you don’t mind, tell me what city you’re in and what time it is where you are right now.
Thanks for taking a moment to do that. Drop it in the comments. And now, let’s keep going. Karina Vetrano, a 30-year-old runner, was the kind of person who always pushed herself, always trying to go a little farther and a little faster. That day didn’t seem any different from the others. At around 5:00 in the afternoon, she stepped out of her house to go for a run near Spring Creek, a quiet area that’s part of East New York in Brooklyn.
Spring Creek is a natural preserve that covers about 2 square miles. It’s full of overgrown patches, tall weeds, and thick brush. The place sits just a few blocks from the home where Karina lived with her family. Most of the time, she ran there with her father, Phil, a retired firefighter. But that day, he stayed home because of a back injury.
Phil felt uneasy about her going there alone. The area was pretty isolated, and hmm he told her he didn’t think it was a good idea for her to run there by herself. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” She told him. Just a few minutes before heading out for her run, Karina took a quick selfie.
In the background of the photo, you can actually see her mom, Cathy, walking past behind her. Then Karina left the house. Phil later said that about 45 minutes after she walked out the door, he suddenly had this uneasy feeling, like something just wasn’t right. >> [music] >> By then, almost 2 hours had passed. Karina still hadn’t come home.
Phil tried calling her over and over again, but she never answered. So, he reached out to a childhood friend of his who was working with the New York City Police Department at the time. A patrol car was sent to the area to look for her. When officers couldn’t find Karina, the search quickly expanded.
Units from the 106th Precinct joined in, moving through thick reeds that were as tall as 10 ft. And even as night fell, the search continued. “When we were going along the trail and checking the area, there was this really strong sense of unease,” said NYPD Detective Barry Brown. At one point, someone even said out loud, “Hmm.
This doesn’t feel right.” Phil was also helping police during the search, using the geolocation signals from Karina’s phone. Investigators eventually moved toward a marshy area about 15 ft off the running trail. Local residents had raised concerns about that area before. The tall weeds there had long been considered a safety problem for the community.
At around 10:30 that night, officers suddenly heard a man screaming and immediately ran in that direction. It was Phil. He had found his daughter’s body lying face down on the ground. [music] Officers had to physically pull him away because he just couldn’t let her go. He kept repeating that he needed to take her home.
Detectives, including Barry Brown and Lieutenant John Russo, >> [music] >> determined that Karina had bruises on her face and multiple injuries. Her teeth were broken, and there were abrasions on her legs. Her athletic top and shorts had been pulled down. Police said there was evidence pointing to sexual assault.
Karina had fought her attacker so fiercely [music] that she bit him with such force that she broke her own teeth. Investigators also noticed that one of her hands was tightly gripping grass, [music] which suggested she may have been dragged across the ground. The Chief of Detectives, Boyce, later said it was obvious that she fought until the very end.
The Office of the Medical Examiner later performed an autopsy and determined that her death was a homicide caused by strangulation. While the killer was choking her, he pressed his hand against her neck so hard that police could actually see the imprint of his hand. Phil later said he felt like it was somehow meant to be him who found her.
“She led me to her. She needed her dad to be the one who found her. There’s no doubt about that,” he said. It’s one of the most intense and difficult crime scene searches in recent years. The view from Chopper 2 shows the demanding scope of the task. We have a very active crime scene in a very remote area.
So, we’re we’re searching this as best we can in very tough condition. Uh the grass is very high. We’re using machetes to search for additional evidence wherever we go. >> Thursday, dozens of detectives fanned across Howard Beach interviewing landscapers and home improvement workers. >> They’re just asking us what time we shut up and were were you working Tuesday? They want this guy, whoever he is.
I don’t know. I hope they got him. Tonight, teams of search crews continue to tackle the dense weeds 300 ft at a time. First, hacking away by hand with machetes. They don’t want to damage any possible clues as they clear the area. We’re clearing a a a very vast area uh in the back uh adjacent to the crime scene, and we’re uh we’re conducting a search for evidence.
The mother and father are just visibly shaken. Uh they want closure. They want justice. Uh they want to be able to bury their daughter with dignity. We all jog, and we all walk out here and enjoy, you know, the serenity. And now I’m I’m afraid to go out. >> At his latest briefing, the Chief of Detectives calling this case, quote, “a severe community threat” and taking the following steps: a 6-month review of all parks police activity in the area, collecting information from the Police Department’s Sex Offender Monitoring Unit, and continuing with their cell
phone tower investigation. But so far, just the possibility that the killer may not have been someone Karina Vetrano knew, well, it certainly leaves residents on edge. My concerns is that you know, that that it’s if it’s somebody that lives in the in the area that he might do it again. Karina’s father described Karina Vetrano as cheerful, driven, and successful, the kind of daughter every parent dreams about.
Even though she was only 4 ft 11 in tall, her personality was incredibly strong. She was very intelligent and had earned a master’s degree from St. John’s University. While still living with her parents, she worked as a speech therapist in Manhattan, helping children with disabilities. According to her friend Erica, Karina was like a spark, a tiny firework of energy with this contagious laugh that hmm could fill an entire room.
Besides her job as a speech therapist, she also worked part-time as a promoter at a club in Astoria, where she invited guests and earned a percentage from the revenue generated by VIP services. Friends also told investigators about a man named Paul, an employee at the nightclub where Karina worked.
They said he had made unwanted advances toward her and would become aggressive when she rejected him. At one point, they believed he might even have been stalking her. However, police later ruled him out as a suspect after confirming that he was at work at the time of the murder. And the more investigators looked into the case, the more it started to seem like this might have been a random killing carried out by a stranger.
We are still in the process of crime scene collecting evidence right now. We will be out there for several days. That is a remote area. Uh we have crime scene set up there, and we plan to chop down just about every weed in that location until we satisfied that we got all the evidence.
Now, we have a lot of uh a lot of forensic evidence acquired so far. But we’re not getting a lot of Crime Stopper tips. We have three, and they’re all pretty generic. So, we have since raised the um the reward up to $10,000 for any information. That is a very strong community. I’ll be out there as soon as I leave here.
Uh we’ve got nothing but uh but support from everybody uh out there, and we hope to have more information. Now, this is a remote area. Young lady was running. Still daylight. So, hoping somebody saw something going into the park. Thus far, we don’t have a lot of leads on this right now, but we’re still collecting evidence. The evidence that we’ve collected thus far is in the Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
We’re hoping to get it up on a uh on a DNA profile in the next couple days. We have them I tell you we have them often in this city. No one is this subject of murder. Uh they’re usually late at night. Uh if we have them on the street, uh rape one where uh uh extra stranger rapes are down in the city. Nonetheless, we still get them. >> [music] >> This type of incident where you have a jogger in a park in a recreational center in in broad in daylight hours is extraordinarily uh unusual.
About 400 people came to Karina Vetrano’s funeral. Among them were several members of the New York City Fire Department. “She was full of life,” Phil said during his farewell speech. “She lived every single day like it was her last, putting as much life as she could into every minute.” “In just 30 short years, she accomplished more than some people do in an entire lifetime.
And we weren’t just father and daughter. We were like one in the same.” She was a beautiful girl, a young Andrea Vetrano. But it’s it’s sad. I’m going to address the coward. Whoever killed her daughter, Karina, for the first time since the brutal murder, the Vetranos spoke with reporters outside of their home.
You know that my daughter was a force to be reckoned with. And I guarantee you >> [music] >> that you will be reckoning with that force. Not only [music] for the rest of your pathetic life, but for the rest of eternity as you burn in hell. My [music] daughter was a big believer of karma. And as you could see, she’s magical.
The whole world knows she’s magical. And I guarantee you you will pay forever. Justice will be served. Okay? That’s why we have the PD. That’s why we have God. Justice will be served. Investigators were not able to recover usable DNA from the sexual assault evidence kit. However, they did manage to build a DNA profile using material found under Karina’s fingernails, as well as on her cell phone, which was discovered just a few feet from her body.
Her murder deeply shook the tight-knit community, and many people were living in fear, trying to understand what had happened. Thousands of people also donated money to a reward fund for information that could help identify the killer. Police contributed $25,000. The mayor’s office added another 10,000, and the remaining funds were raised through GoFundMe.
They’re tracking everything down. But what we need, we need for someone to say, “Hello, I know the guy.” That’s what we’re looking for. If I wake up and there’s nothing for me to do, that’s when the bottom’s going to drop out. So I have to stay involved every day in every way. Today it’s this. This is keeping me alive today. A tractor with an industrial mower was brought to the crime scene, along with dozens of police officers from different units.
Because the land where Karina’s body was found was under federal ownership, the New York City Police Department asked the FBI for assistance. Federal agents supported the investigation by providing additional resources. They even used drones to survey the area from above. Police also said they checked a homeless encampment located more than 1 mile from the crime scene, but investigators eventually concluded it was likely not connected to the murder.
They also questioned registered sex offenders who lived nearby, along with several people known to spend time living inside the park itself. To increase the resources dedicated to the investigation, the NYPD created a special task force. It included two detectives from each of the eight units of Queen’s South.
At the same time, officials had to address safety concerns inside the park. A federal officer explained that the large area where Karina was killed was only monitored around the perimeter, and even those checks were irregular throughout the day. The same officers were responsible for patrolling parts of Gateway National Park in Brooklyn and Queens, which also includes Spring Creek.
“This is a serious challenge for us. We’ve talked about it with the community before, and honestly, it’s no secret,” said the commander of the US Park Police District. Investigators said that with no eyewitnesses, their most important lead was the DNA profile. That profile had already been checked, but at that moment it still hadn’t produced a match in the national database.
[music] The CODIS database that we use for DNA was only created in 1998. So this person could have been in prison before that,” explained Chief of Detectives Boyce. “But it could also be someone younger, someone who’s never been in prison at all. In a case like this, it was crucial to check whether anything similar had happened before.
” Early in the investigation, detectives in New York said they had been contacted by the Massachusetts State Police to see if there might be a connection between Karina’s murder and the killing of Vanessa Marcotte, a 27-year-old Google account manager who was found dead in Princeton on August 7th. At the time, Vanessa lived in New York City, but she had traveled to Princeton to visit her mother.
On August 7th, she went out for a run and never came back home. Later, her body was discovered in a wooded area about half a mile from her mother’s house. Authorities in New York said they could not confirm [music] any connection between the two cases. Still, they emphasized that investigators would continue checking every possible lead.
Chief of Detectives Boyce said investigators still believe Karina’s murder was random. Their main theory hadn’t changed. They believed the suspect escaped through the dense brush surrounding the crime scene and eventually made his way toward Belt Parkway. Police examined every possible escape route, [music] but surveillance cameras did not capture any clear image of a suspect.
Every house near the park was checked [music] and residents were interviewed. Investigators even used the phrase “a needle in a haystack,” [music] and honestly, that’s exactly what the search felt like. As the high-profile case continued to draw more public attention, a Verizon employee who had been working in Spring Creek Park on the day Karina was killed [music] contacted the police.
He told detectives that he had seen a man who seemed suspicious. The man was wearing a wool cap and was in the area around the same time investigators believed the attack had happened. Based on that description, a composite sketch was created and released to the public on August 31st. [music] At a press conference, Chief Boyce says one particular thing stands out.
>> you’ll notice [music] the dark wool hat, remember the day was August uh 2nd. Little unusually wearing a wool hat in the area there. And now a laser-sharp focus on this bike path, where unfortunately, there are no cameras. And finding this man who police say is black, 5’10”, between 35 and 45 years old with a medium build.
We have to speak to this person. So that’s the only reason we’re putting it out. After the composite sketch was released, a former NYPD supervisor contacted Robert Boyce. At the time, he was working as the head of security at a residential building in Brooklyn, and he said that one of the residents looked a lot like the man in the sketch.
Police went to the apartment. The man, whose name was Kevin, refused to open the door at first. Officers stayed outside the building until he eventually came out. Kevin admitted that, “Yeah, there was some resemblance to the sketch.” So he was taken to the station for questioning. Once there, he refused to provide a DNA sample.
Detective Barry Brown later said that decision immediately caught everyone’s attention in the room. Police eventually obtained his DNA using a discarded water bottle he had thrown away. But when the results came back, the analysis showed that Kevin’s DNA did not match the profile connected to the crime scene.
After that lead was ruled out, investigators were basically back at square one. Hoping to generate new information, Crime Watch Daily released surveillance footage showing Karina just a few hours before her murder. The video was recorded during what police described as her usual running route.
Her family and investigators were both hoping it might reveal some kind of clue. Authorities said it was the last known image of Karina. Karina’s loved ones also came together to retrace some of the last routes she was known to have taken. When the DNA still didn’t match anyone in the database, Phil urged investigators to use a method called familial searching, basically checking whether any relatives of the possible killer might already be in the database.
“You could find the killer,” he said. “You might be able to trace a direct connection, and that would narrow the search down a lot.” At the time, that kind of testing method was being used in nine states, but not in New York. So Phil started a petition, hoping to change that. Familial DNA searching goes deeper, using special software to look for a similar, not exact, match, indicating the suspect could be related to someone in the system.
There’s untold amount of cold cases that’ll be solved by this. But the ACLU is pushing back, saying that such policy could lead to, quote, “miscarriages of justice.” Well, I think they’re just ignorant ignorant of the the facts that we are just targeting criminals. Six months after she was found dead, police now have a person of interest in the case of murdered jogger Karina Vetrano.
One man was taken into custody. The next day he was officially arrested, and he said, “Please tell my mom I’m sorry. Could I speak with someone from the victim’s family? I’m sorry for what I did.” The events that led to that moment actually began about a month earlier. After weeks and months had passed without any major breakthroughs in the investigation, in January 2017, Lieutenant John Russo took another look at the case.
He was one of the officers who had been at the scene when Karina was found, and he also lived in Howard Beach. While reviewing the case files, Russo suddenly remembered an incident from May 2016, just a few months before Karina’s murder. And um he started to wonder if it might actually be connected to the investigation.
On the other side of the street, near the house next door, I saw someone walking away from me. The person was wearing a tracksuit with long sleeves and a hood pulled over their head, even though it was about 80° outside. And I remember thinking, like, that’s strange. Russo said the man seemed to be looking over the houses nearby and that made him call the police.
But by the time officers arrived, the person was already gone. The very next day, neighbors reported similar suspicious behavior. They said a man wearing a black and white tracksuit had walked onto several private properties. Later, Russo ran into the same man again and asked for his name. His name was Chanel Lewis. At the time, Russo figured that was probably the end of it and that their paths would never cross again.
But in January, the memory came back to him. He had this strong feeling about it, like something just didn’t sit right. So, he started digging deeper into Chanel Lewis. He discovered that Lewis didn’t have a criminal record, but he had received several summonses connected to the Brooklyn side of Spring [music] Creek Park, across from the section of the preserve located in Queens.
After that, Chief Boyce received a call from Russo. “There was something in Lieutenant Russo’s voice [music] that made me think, um this might actually be the one,” Boyce said. >> [music] >> “So, we jumped on it right away.” When investigators began speaking with Chanel Lewis, he told officers he knew the area very well.
According to him, he was mostly a loner with very few friends and he often [music] walked along the trails to listen to music and like clear his head. While cooperating with detectives, [music] he voluntarily provided a DNA sample. Officers also visited his former high school [music] and discovered that his past appeared to be troubled and complicated.
According to news reports, while he was still in school, he once told a teacher’s aide that he wanted to stab his female classmates. “I want to stab all the girls.” According to reports, he said that on May 17th, 2011, when he was 15 years old sources [music] also said that at one point he allegedly asked, “What would happen if I brought a knife to school?” Sources said the school notified the police and he was taken into custody as a person with emotional disturbances.
He was transported to Kings County Hospital Center for evaluation and later released. The following month, according to reports, school staff contacted law enforcement again after he allegedly cursed at a female student and threatened her and her family. He was once again taken to the hospital and later released. One tabloid article also claimed that he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but that information appears never to have been independently confirmed.
During research into the case, that claim only appeared in an article from the New York Post. In September 2011, he was reportedly transferred to a private school for students with emotional and behavioral difficulties. Former classmates later said he was known as a loner and was often bullied at school. “They used to beat him all the time,” one student said.
“Even girls would pick on him and hit him. He didn’t have any friends.” Another former student said that sometimes he tried to fight back, but that didn’t happen very often. One classmate who rode the school bus with him said many people made fun of him because of the way he dressed and the way he looked. At the same time, several former students said they never knew him as an aggressive or confrontational person.
“He always walked around school with his hood pulled over his head,” one of them said. The executive director of Martin De Porres Schools later said that Chanel Lewis graduated in August 2015 and during his time there, there were no reports that he had threatened anyone. While he was at the school, there were no disciplinary records connected to him and there were no other reports of threatening statements directed at other students, the director said in a statement.
Chanel’s father stood up for his son, but at the same time he pointed investigators to one important detail. He told detectives that his son couldn’t have committed the crime because the day after the murder, he had taken him to the hospital. Chanel was treated there for a hand injury. He said he had gotten it during a fight. After checking local hospitals, detectives managed to find the doctor who had treated him.
According to Detective Barry Brown, the doctor said he had removed a foreign object from Chanel’s hand. The DNA sample taken from Chanel’s voluntary swab was then run through the system and it matched the DNA found at the scene of Karina’s murder. That foreign object removed from Chanel’s hand was now believed to be a fragment of Karina’s broken tooth, which had snapped off when she [music] bit him.
I’m Detective Deal. You’re located at the 107 precinct, second floor, detective squad area. Today’s date is February 5th, 2017. Time is approximately 10:33 a.m. And I’m activating the tape this time. Now that I’ve advised you of your rights, are you willing to answer questions? Okay. Yes. Okay. All right. All right.
Chanel, why don’t we start with uh I think it was a Tuesday evening on August 2nd, um 2016. Do you remember that that date and that evening? Mhm. [clears throat] All right. And where were you at that time? I was at I was in the at Gateway and Spring Creek Mall. Okay, by Gateway and Spring Creek Mall? Spring Creek Park. Park? Yeah. All right.
Were you inside the park? Yeah. Okay. And was anyone with you or were you by yourself? By myself. All right. About what time did you get to the park? About 5:00. And were you on a trail or you in the grass? On the trail. Okay. Now, while you were in the park, um did something happen? Yes. What happened while you were in the park? I was in the park.
I seen this girl jogging and then I >> [music] >> and then I, you know one thing led to another because because of another situation. All right. Well, the girl that was jogging, was she by herself or with anybody else? >> [music] >> By herself. And when you first saw her, where were you? Were you in the grass or were you on the trail? On the trail.
All right. And were you moving or you were you standing still? I was moving listening to music. You were you were walking or jogging? Walking. Walking? And you were walking towards her? I was walking towards her and then I tried to slide and then one thing led to another. Uh as you said as she got next to you when she got next to you as you as she was running and you were walking, what happened then? And then I was cuz of a past situation, I got angry and then I hit her and stuff like that. Okay.
Um Before you did Where did you hit her? Like in the face and like in the mouth. In the face and the mouth. Before you hit her, did you grab her or did you just hit her right away? I kind of grabbed her first. Grabbed her? And like how did you grab her? What part of her body did you did you grab? I was starting hitting her because of the incident that was going on earlier.
Right, um but did you did you grab her before you started hitting her or was the first thing you did was to hit her? What was the first thing you did? I grabbed her. Okay. And how did you grab her? Like this. Okay, with both hands? Mhm. Okay. And what part of her body did you grab? Do you remember her shoulders, her waist, her neck? Do you remember? Like around here.
Okay, you were on the shoulders. Did she say anything at all? No. Did she scream? >> [cough] >> No, cuz her tooth broke. I’m sorry. Her tooth broke? Right. Were you covering her mouth at all? No. Okay. Um How long would you say you were hitting her for? About how how long in time? The whole thing was like about 5 minutes.
5 minutes, all right. How far off the path did you would you think would you say you dragged her into the grass? Like how how many feet about? About probably about 10. Okay. What what was the sta- status of her clothing? How was how was her clothing like? >> off. Pulled off? Yeah. Okay, what was pulled off? Like her clothes.
Now, you said you did this because you had some anger, is that right? >> Mhm. All right. Um Can you tell me about that anger? Cuz you know, I used to live at a different address than I currently live right now. Right. And then there’s sometimes there is man that comes around there. He play like loud music and carry a lot of friends around there and didn’t like it cuz I feel unsafe and comfortable and I like my place private and peaceful.
I usually I just Well, I know um Well, Chanel, I know that uh Like last night you didn’t you didn’t you really didn’t want to talk about this, right? Last night. But today you it was okay, you wanted to talk about it, right? I know that you told um Detective Brown you want to straighten your life out, right? >> Yes. >> Okay.
And Detective Brown said to wait until you came in the room to talk about it, that’s right? And that’s what you did, right? Yes. Okay. Chanel Lewis, who was 20 years old, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He was held without bail. Chanel! You’re held now FOR 6 MONTHS. AFTER HIS ARREST, KARINA’S family reached out to the public and asked for opinions on how the remaining money from the GoFundMe fund should be used.
“You all made donations, so you all deserve to have a voice,” Phil wrote on the fundraising page. Later, Phil said he distributed nearly $300,000, including making a contribution to Archbishop Molloy High School to create a scholarship in Karina’s honor. After that, Chanel Lewis was formally indicted by a grand jury on multiple charges.
In total, there were 13 counts related to murder and sexual assault connected to the death of Karina Vetrano. He was facing the possibility of life in prison without parole. Lewis pleaded not guilty. Tonight, Lewis’s relatives say it’s not possible. To the family, I’m sorry for their loss, but they have the wrong person.
>> Richard Lewis is the suspect’s father. He is a wonderful young man. Wonderful young man. My brother is a skinny you saw on the TV. He’s a skinny guy who cannot kill such a strong girl cuz she’s a strong person. He is alone, can never kill a person like that. Today, I would like to thanks all those who have reached out and give their support for me and my family.
I love my son. I support my son. I raised my son to be a God-fearing man and to respect life. My son is friendly, God-fearing, and would not hurt anybody. My son has mental health [music] problem and needs help. He’s not a criminal and need mental resources. >> [music] >> Please respect my family privacy. Please respect my family privacy in this matter and allow my son to get to get do to get help in due process.
Karina’s family spent a long time pushing for investigators to start using familial DNA searching in criminal cases. Then, in June 2017, the New York [music] State Commission on Forensic Science agreed to allow that method to be used in investigations involving murder, rape, and certain other serious crimes. The decision was made despite objections from civil rights organizations, which argued that the practice could pull law-abiding people into criminal investigations simply because of their family [music] connections.
By the time the commission approved the policy, Chanel Lewis had already been arrested. So, the decision didn’t change anything for Karina’s case, but it could affect future investigations. As mentioned earlier, investigators had also looked into a possible [music] connection between Karina’s murder and the killing of Vanessa Marcotte.
Later, authorities determined that the two cases were not related. On April 15th, 2017, officials announced that Angelo Colon Ortiz, who was 31 years old, had been arrested after DNA evidence linked him to Vanessa’s case. He later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and unarmed robbery. And on November [music] 2nd, 2022, he was sentenced to life in prison.
He will not be eligible for parole until 2067, when he will be 81 years old. November 2018. It was packed inside of the courtroom, filled with family and friends on both sides. As you mentioned, it was also very emotional. Karina Vetrano’s mother was inside of that courtroom. She held onto a cross most of the time, crying.
Uh Karina Vetrano’s accused killer, Chanel Lewis, obviously in the courtroom. His mother was there as well, and she held onto a Bible, also in tears most of the time. Now, opening statements got underway. Defense attorneys with the Legal Aid Society representing Lewis told jurors today, Lewis is innocent.
They have serious doubts about the evidence, adding there are no witnesses, and Lewis was coerced into confessing, and people are rushing to judgment. In his opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Brad Leventhal said, they crossed paths by chance. She didn’t provoke him. He saw her, and he killed her.
Prosecutors said that Chanel didn’t have a girlfriend, had very few social connections, and didn’t have a job. They described him as someone who often carried a lot of anger. According to their theory, it was that anger that led to the attack, which they described as random. That day, he took out his anger on a beautiful young woman, a girl wearing a top, the prosecutor said.
However, the defense pushed back against those claims. There won’t be any eyewitnesses. No one is going to walk into this courtroom and say, he did it, said defense attorney Jenny Chung. She also argued that the prosecution was trying to, like, force a square peg into a round hole. Chung questioned the police interrogation of her client as well, which lasted more than 10 hours.
Procedures were shortened. The prosecution’s evidence is incomplete, she said. The defense also claimed that the DNA evidence linking Chanel Lewis to the crime scene was unreliable. Attorney Robert Muller argued that the crime scene had been compromised by multiple people, including Karina’s father, and therefore could not be considered a fully reliable source of evidence.
Lewis’s lawyers also said the confession had been obtained improperly and should not have been used in court. According to them, he confessed only because he wanted to leave after waiting for hours. But the prosecution focused heavily on what he actually told police. He was angry, and he took that anger out on Karina Vetrano.
Those are his own words. He is the man who strangled Karina Vetrano, the prosecutor said. The prosecution also emphasized what they described as strong DNA evidence. An expert witness testified that the DNA profile taken from material found under Karina’s fingernails, on her neck, [music] and on her cell phone, matched Chanel’s DNA profile.
Two NYPD detectives also testified about the detailed and extensive process used to collect evidence in the case. Some of the images shown during testimony were so disturbing that Karina’s parents were visibly shaken. At times, they couldn’t hold back their tears, and at one point, they even had to leave the courtroom.
Closing arguments in the emotional trial over the death of 30-year-old Karina Vetrano have now wrapped up. The prosecution painting the suspect, 22-year-old Chanel Lewis, as a frustrated, angry, and lonely young man who spotted Vetrano on an after-work jog at a park in Howard Beach and took out all his anger by taking her life.
He was mad, and he took out his anger, and he took out his frustrations on Karina, grabbing her, throwing her to the ground, beating her, and strangling her until she was dead. But the defense argued that it was the police department that was frustrated with their 6-month-long investigation that had yet to find a suspect, that Lewis was singled out, and that detectives worked endlessly to fit evidence they had to build a case against him.
They never allowed him to develop allowed the evidence to develop a theory. Rather, they just wanted his evidence to fit the narrative. The exhausting trial lasted 7 days. [music] Soon, it was time for the jury to decide the fate of the case. After a long day of deliberations, the jurors spent more than an hour reviewing the second of the [music] defendant’s two recorded confessions.
They also asked to have 74 pages of testimony [music] from the prosecution’s DNA expert read back to them. On top of that, >> [music] >> the jury requested to look again at the autopsy photographs of Karina. After a day and a half of deliberations, five jurors said they could not return a guilty verdict beyond [music] a reasonable doubt.
That created what’s known as a hung jury. The jurors sent a letter to the judge explaining that they could not overcome their disagreements >> [music] >> and had already exhausted every option to reach a unanimous decision. After a full day of deliberations, we remain divided. It seems like we can’t move forward anymore. We believe we’ve exhausted all possible options.
Because of that deadlock, the judge declared a mistrial. The parents of Karina Vetrano looking somber and stunned leaving the courtroom. Relatives in tears after the judge declared a mistrial, a ruling which sent shock through the courtrooms. Mr. Mr. Vetrano. Mr. Vetrano, just a moment. No comment.
Stunned silence from the family of Karina Vetrano moments after learning justice would be delayed. >> The Vetrano’s family did not speak after the ruling. Lewis’s legal team, however, did. Jury is understanding that DNA is not all of it. Confession is not all of it. There are issues in the case that you all see. It’s much more complex.
Is this a win for you? Yeah. Well, it’s not a conviction, so I guess that’s a good thing, but um closure would be a good thing, too. That decision meant the case would have to be tried all over again, which made the legal process drag on even longer. For Karina’s family and loved ones, it meant continuing a painful ordeal.
They would have to relive the details of the tragedy once again and go through another trial in their search for justice. Prosecutors didn’t want to take any chances during the second trial, so they prepared new evidence. One of the key pieces was a detailed record of Chanel’s internet searches leading up to his arrest.
Among those searches were queries about indictments, plea deals, criminal prosecution, and news reports about Karina’s murder. Then, in March 2019, the retrial began. Karina Vetrano’s father returned to the stand today in the retrial of the man accused of strangling her back in 2016. At one point, Vetrano’s father dropped to his knees in front of the jurors as he emotionally described finding his daughter’s stiff, cold body in a nearby trail.
The defense once again insisted that their client was innocent, arguing that his earlier recorded confession had been obtained under pressure. His attorneys also claimed that if he had truly been the killer, his DNA would have been found all over the crime scene in much larger quantities. But the prosecution remained firm. Prosecutors emphasized that the defendant’s DNA matched the evidence, and they also pointed to the recorded confessions in which he admitted that he killed her.
Then, just 1 day before the jury was supposed to begin deliberations in the retrial, the defense attorneys received an anonymous letter. It was supposedly written by an NYPD officer who expressed concerns about the investigation. The letter included several allegations about the early stages of the case. Among other things, it claimed that during the first strategy meetings, NYPD Chief Michael Kemper repeatedly said police were looking for two strong white men from Howard Beach.
Sunny Hostin, a senior legal correspondent ABC News, reported that if the letter turned out to be genuine and the concerns described in it were accurate, it could potentially become grounds for an appeal. One of Lewis’s attorneys said, “We received disturbing incredible information suggesting that the police withheld critically important details about other potential suspects, >> [music] >> and that information was never shared with the defense.
” The defense also said it had become known that police approached Lewis to obtain a DNA sample as part of a large-scale that, according to them, showed racial bias. During that operation, DNA samples were collected from more than 360 African-American men in Howard Beach and nearby areas of Brooklyn and Queens.
In light of this new information, we plan to file a motion on Monday requesting a hearing regarding the prosecution’s failure to disclose exculpatory evidence, as well as a separate hearing concerning unconstitutional racial profiling during this investigation, the attorneys said. In response, Sergeant Brendan Ryan said that the NYPD had conducted a [music] thorough investigation into the murder.
And as the prosecution presented by the Queens District Attorney shows, the evidence clearly demonstrates that Chanel Lewis is responsible for her death. He also noted that numerous court hearings and two criminal trials, which took place over more than 2 years, [music] had already carefully examined the issues raised in the anonymous letter.
According to him, the letter contained many false claims and inaccuracies. Assistant District Attorney Leventhal also said, “This anonymous letter contains no verifiable information. The person who wrote it is clearly trying to disrupt the trial.” This morning, the judge denied a request from the defense asking for a hearing on this.
After that, the case was handed over to the jury for deliberation. The importance of that moment was obvious. The first trial had already ended in a deadlock with the jury unable to reach a verdict and the court declaring a mistrial. Neither side was treating the outcome with too much confidence or complacency.
There was a lot at stake, not just for the prosecution [music] and the defense, but also for Karina’s family, who had already endured years of uncertainty. On April 1st, 2019, the verdict [music] was finally announced. Inside the courtroom, everyone held their breath. We, the jury, find the defendant guilty. Chanel Lewis was found guilty.
A very different response this time around from Vetrano’s parents leaving the courtroom. I’m thanking those jurors for listening to the overwhelming evidence. All the anger, all the years of pain, but mostly the anger was lifted and gone. >> Lewis lifted his handcuffed hands in a farewell wave to his family and supporters as he was led off to jail.
Some of those supporters today say they’ve followed the case very closely, and a family spokesperson says they question the verdict. >> How does a young man walk into Howard Beach, murder a young lady that was physically fit and walk out of Howard Beach without being seen on any camera from the Gateway Mall, any camera in Howard Beach at all? After the guilty verdict was finally delivered, the case once again slipped into a state of uncertainty.
Now, there was a stunning development in the Karina Vetrano murder case. Sentencing for her convicted killer has been postponed because of new claims of juror misconduct. >> family, it was another painful blow and a reminder that even a guilty verdict doesn’t always bring an immediate or final sense of closure.
It was claimed that one of the jurors accused three others of ignoring the judge’s instructions about when and how the case was allowed to be discussed. The judge agreed to delay sentencing in order to hold a hearing with the jurors. Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown later responded to the defense’s accusations, presenting a different version of what had happened inside the jury room.
In a sworn written statement referenced in the motion, juror A claimed that juror B had started expressing conclusions about the case from the very beginning of the trial and continued doing so throughout the proceedings. According to the statement, juror B told juror A, “I’ve already made up my mind, and I hope you have, too.
” After the victim’s parents testified on the second day of the trial, District Attorney Brown wrote that those comments from juror B, identified in the motion as the fourth juror, did not show prior bias. Instead, he said they reflected an emotional reaction to the shocking testimony about the condition of the victim’s body.
During deliberations, jurors are required to rely only on the evidence presented in court. However, according to a sworn statement, some jurors began bringing up information that had never been introduced as evidence, [music] and some of that information may not have been accurate. Juror D told the others that the absence of the defendant’s DNA in samples from the victim’s intimate area could be explained by the idea that the body might have absorbed the male DNA.
She allegedly told juror A, “I know this better than you. You’re just a man. I was raped.” argued that by saying this, the juror had improperly supplemented the evidence presented in court with her own personal experience. Because of that, other jurors may have felt they couldn’t question her statement and were forced [music] to accept it as fact.
That kind of communication was described as juror misconduct since she had essentially become an unsworn expert supporting the prosecution. In other words, the jury had stepped beyond the evidence that was officially presented in court. Attorneys from the Legal Aid Society representing Chanel Lewis, Robert Julia L.
Burke, and Jenny [music] Chung submitted these arguments to the court. However, juror D denied ever telling the other jurors that she had been a victim of rape. In a sworn statement submitted along with the prosecution’s response, she wrote, “I’ve never been raped, and I have never told anyone that I was raped. As far as I know, during the deliberations, no other juror said that she had been raped, either.
” In another example mentioned in the motion, defense attorneys said that one of the jurors had drawn conclusions based on information that was never part of the evidence presented in court. Juror C compared injuries from a completely unrelated rape case with the injuries suffered by Karina Vetrano and claimed that sexual assault had been proven because the injuries in both cases were the same.
The motion argued that the information juror C shared with the other jurors was improper because it essentially introduced facts that had never been presented during the trial >> [music] >> and went beyond a juror’s ordinary life experience, knowledge, or common sense. Juror C admitted that he had [music] mentioned his experience serving on a jury in a previous rape case.
However, he said another juror immediately told him not to do that, and after that, he stopped discussing any details from his earlier jury service. According to a sworn statement from one [music] of the jurors, the District Attorney defended the jury’s actions. It was stated that none of the jurors presented themselves as professional experts.
Instead, each person simply relied on their own life experience >> [music] >> and expressed their personal opinion as an ordinary citizen. That wasn’t misconduct. After the verdict, CBS 2 spoke to the jury foreman who called it a slam dunk case. When asked what the most damning evidence was, two things. The confession and it wasn’t coerced.
DNA DNA was like so overwhelming. He said the jury was unanimous on the murder charges, but there were at least two holdouts on the sex abuse charges. However, [music] in another interview after the verdict, one of the jurors who agreed to speak with reporters anonymously [music] said he had felt pressure from other jurors to vote for a guilty verdict.
In the end, the judge rejected the claims of juror misconduct. After that decision, the sentencing could finally move forward. April 23rd, 2019. With respect to murder in the first degree, sentence of this court is that you spend the next the rest of your natural life in jail without any possibility of parole.
It’s the moment the family of Karina Vetrano has been waiting more than 2 and 1/2 years for, giving passionate testimonies in the courtroom ahead of sentencing for Chanel Lewis, the man who will now serve life in prison for her death. There were no more Merry Christmases. No more Happy New Years. No more happy birthdays. There is no more pleasure in life.
No more smiles. No more happiness. Those were all taken by that convicted murdering rapist. Only my faith in God and my belief in heaven keeps me from killing myself for fear of not being allowed into heaven to see my baby again. Describing his family walking the earth as zombies just waiting to see Karina, Phil Vetrano told 22-year-old Chanel Lewis his daughter had a message for him.
She told me that if you stand up here today in court and ask for her forgiveness. Tell her you’re sorry. She will forgive you, but remember, those are not my words, and I will never forgive you. Her mother brought a piece of Karina into the courtroom. These are Karina’s shoes. These are the shoes that she put on the morning of August 2nd as she prepared to work and walked throughout the work day.
As tiny as they are, your honor, these are the shoes of a giant, a valiant warrior and a queen. At times, you could see Lewis over her shoulder. The vacant expression you show is merely a reflection of your detached and empty soul. Suffering died a million deaths every second of every day you breathe, you ate, you searched your phone for pornography and forcible rape.
But God was watching you all the time, Chanel Lewis. The judge added 32 years in prison to the life sentence for second-degree murder and sexual assault. This is a situation where both families have lost, he said. The worst nightmare any parent could imagine, your child goes out for a run and never [music] comes back.
One day you’ll see that the people who followed this case will move on with their lives and you’ll be left alone. But I’ll tell you this, when that day comes, you’ll be behind bars. The defense spoke on behalf of Lewis and then he said just a few words. >> I’m innocent. [clears throat] I’m sorry for the family’s loss, but I didn’t do this.
Those who believe in his innocence argued that the NYPD was under intense pressure to quickly find a suspect and close the case and that investigators focused on him because of that pressure. Around 40,000 people signed a petition calling for the case to be reviewed by the conviction integrity unit.
Despite the calls for his release and the ongoing public debate, the legal outcome did not change. After two trials, one mistrial and years of reviews and disputes, the jury found him guilty and the court issued its final sentence. For the justice system, that verdict marked the formal end of the legal process. In a case filled with complexity and controversy, the conviction brought a legal conclusion, even if it didn’t bring emotional closure to a story that had consumed a family, a community, and public attention for years.
Karina Vetrano’s family says they want her to be remembered for more than just the circumstances of her death. Through scholarships, memorial initiatives, and community efforts, they are trying to keep her name and her story alive in the community she loved. Something so tragic and despicable, we have something good coming out of this.
We have a a scholarship. Amid all the legal battles, appeals, and public debates, one person often faded [music] into the background, Karina Vetrano. Her life, not the legal fight that unfolded after her death, remained the true center of this story. And in the end, that’s where this story returns. Karina Vetrano was a daughter, a friend, a young woman building her future, someone who worked with children and filled her days with routine, purpose, and plans.
On an ordinary summer evening, she stepped out of her home to do something she had done countless times [music] before. She went for a run and she never came back. That simple, devastating reality became the heart of this case. How an ordinary moment can suddenly become irreversible and how the loss of one life can leave a silence that a family, a community, and everyone who followed her story can feel for years.
A memorial as beautiful as Karina Vetrano tucked away in Spring Creek Park where a butterfly made of stones, an angel, and candles sit. But perhaps the most important fixture of all, her father who returns here every morning to remember his daughter. It’s the only place I could go to get peace. And it might seem strange because like where I’m sitting is where I found her, but I think because it’s the only place where I have any control.
>> If she could be here today or you could speak to her today, what would you say to her? I speak to her every day. Every single day I speak to her. And she speaks to us in volumes. Karina’s father says her voice will always be heard from the sound of the birds here to the writings on her blog and they plan to find a way to get her work put into a book.
>> you think Karina would want to be remembered? Just that she is. Just as everybody sees her. She’s special, she’s smart, she was beautiful, and she was destined for a greater things. And she has achieved that. We don’t know what what the rest of the rest of our life is going to be like, but it it’s it’s a good feeling to know that now we could move forward.
