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 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 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.
Karina Vetrano was the kind of person who always pushed herself, always trying to go a little farther and a little faster. That day did not 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 is part of East New York in Brooklyn.
Spring Creek is a natural preserve that covers about two square miles. It is 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 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. By then, almost two 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 feet. 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, “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 feet 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. 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, 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 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, 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 was one of the most intense and difficult crime scene searches in recent years. The view from Chopper 2 showed the demanding scope of the task. As one officer noted, “We have a very active crime scene in a very remote area. So, we’re searching this as best we can in very tough conditions. The grass is very high. We’re using machetes to search for additional evidence wherever we go.”
On 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 you working Tuesday? They want this guy, whoever he is,” said one worker. “I hope they got him.”
Tonight, teams of search crews continue to tackle the dense weeds, 300 feet 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 very vast area in the back, adjacent to the crime scene, and we’re conducting a search for evidence,” police noted.
The mother and father were visibly shaken. They wanted closure, justice, and the ability to bury their daughter with dignity. Local residents expressed similar fears: “We all jog, and we all walk out here and enjoy the serenity. And now I’m afraid to go out.”
At his latest briefing, the Chief of Detectives called this case “a severe community threat” and took 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, the possibility that the killer may not have been someone Karina Vetrano knew certainly left residents on edge. “My concern is that if it’s somebody that lives in the area, 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 feet 11 inches 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 a contagious laugh that 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 collecting evidence at the crime scene right now,” police stated. “We will be out there for several days. That is a remote area. We have a crime scene set up there, and we plan to chop down just about every weed in that location until we are satisfied that we have all the evidence.”
“Now, we have 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 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. We’ve got nothing but support from everybody out there, and we hope to have more information.”
“Now, this is a remote area. A young lady was running. Still daylight. So, we’re 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 the Chief Medical Examiner. We’re hoping to get a DNA profile in the next couple of days.”
“We have them, I tell you, we have them often in this city. No one is exempt from murder. They’re usually late at night. If we have them on the street, rape cases where strangers are involved are down in the city. Nonetheless, we still get them. This type of incident, where you have a jogger in a park in a recreational center in broad daylight hours, is extraordinarily 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.”
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 that you will be reckoning with that force. Not only for the rest of your pathetic life, but for the rest of eternity as you burn in hell. My daughter was a big believer of karma. And as you can 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 one 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 Queens 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.
“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 any connection between the two cases. Still, they emphasized that investigators would continue checking every possible lead.
Chief of Detectives Boyce said investigators still believed 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 the Belt Parkway. Police examined every possible escape route, but surveillance cameras did not capture any clear image of a suspect. Every house near the park was checked and residents were interviewed. Investigators even used the phrase “a needle in a haystack,” 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 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.
At a press conference, Chief Boyce noted, “You’ll notice the dark wool hat. Remember the day was August 2nd. It’s a little unusual to be wearing a wool hat in the area there.” And now there was a laser-sharp focus on this bike path, where unfortunately, there are no cameras. Finding this man—who police say is Black, 5’10”, between 35 and 45 years old with a medium build—was paramount. “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 an untold amount of cold cases that will be solved by this,” he argued. The ACLU pushed back, suggesting that such policy could lead to “miscarriages of justice.” Phil responded, “Well, I think they’re just ignorant of the facts that we are just targeting criminals.”
Six months after she was found dead, police had 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.
“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 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 that made me think, ‘This might actually be the one,'” Boyce said. “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 walked along the trails to listen to music and clear his head. While cooperating with detectives, he voluntarily provided a DNA sample.
Officers also visited his former high school 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,” he reportedly said on May 17, 2011, when he was 15 years old. Sources 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 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 at this time. Now that I’ve advised you of your rights, are you willing to answer questions?”
“Yes.”
“Chanel, why don’t we start with… I think it was a Tuesday evening on August 2nd, 2016. Do you remember that date and that evening?”
“Mhm.”
“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 were you in the grass?”
“On the trail.”
“Okay. Now, while you were in the park, 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… and then I, you know, one thing led to another because of another situation.”
“All right. Well, the girl that was jogging, was she by herself or with anybody else?”
“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 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.”
“As she got next to you, as she was running and you were walking, what happened then?”
“And then I… because of a past situation, I got angry and then I hit her and stuff like that.”
“Where did you hit her?”
“Like in the face and like in 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 grab?”
“I was starting hitting her because of the incident that was going on earlier.”
“Right, but 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?”
“No, ’cause her tooth broke.”
“I’m sorry. Her tooth broke?”
“Right.”
“Were you covering her mouth at all?”
“No.”
“How long would you say you were hitting her for? About how long in time?”
“The whole thing was like about 5 minutes.”
“5 minutes, all right. How far off the path did you drag her into the grass? Like, how many feet, about?”
“About probably about 10.”
“What was the status of her clothing? How was her clothing?”
“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.”
“Can you tell me about that anger?”
“Because, you know, I used to live at a different address than I currently live right now. Right. And then sometimes there is a man that comes around there. He plays loud music and carries a lot of friends around there, and I didn’t like it ’cause I feel unsafe and uncomfortable and I like my place private and peaceful.”
“Well, Chanel, I know that last night you didn’t really want to talk about this, right? But today you were okay, you wanted to talk about it, right? I know that you told Detective Brown you want to straighten your life out, right?”
“Yes.”
“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.”
Chanel Lewis, who was 20 years old, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He was held without bail. 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,” said Richard Lewis, the suspect’s father. “He is a wonderful young man. Wonderful young man. My brother is a skinny guy… you saw on the TV. He’s a skinny guy who cannot kill such a strong girl, ’cause she’s a strong person. He is alone, he could never kill a person like that. Today, I would like to thank all those who have reached out and given 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 problems and needs help. He’s not a criminal and needs mental resources. Please respect my family’s privacy in this matter and allow my son to get the help and due process he deserves.”
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 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 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.
