File Photo
Victim Karina Vetrano
By Michael V. Cusenza
Jury selection for the trial of the man accused of murdering Howard Beach jogger Karina Vetrano is set to commence this Monday, Oct. 29.
Chanel Lewis, 22, sexually abused and strangled Vetrano, 30, on the night of Aug. 2, 2016, as she jogged in Spring Creek Park near her home, according to prosecutors. The East New York man was arrested in February 2017 and formally indicted two months later.
Lewis appeared in court on Thursday to hear Judge Michael Aloise’s ruling that the record of Lewis’s trip to a Brooklyn emergency room the day after the murder could be presented as evidence to the jury, according to the New York Daily News. On Aug. 3, 2016, Lewis’s father, Richard, accompanied his son to the SUNY Downstate Medical Center ER “for injuries he claimed he suffered at the hands of a gang of muggers,” his dad told the News.
Lewis’s DNA was found in skin cells under Vetrano’s fingernails. Police and prosecutors have said that the jogger, who was also savagely beaten, fought ferociously for her life prior to being strangled to death.
In another ruling on Thursday, Aloise denied the Queens District Attorney’s request for Lewis’s cell phone records for Aug. 3, 2016.
Vetrano was an avid jogger and fitness enthusiast who often ran with her father, Philip, in Howard Beach. However, on the night of her death she jogged alone. Vetrano’s body was discovered by her father and the police lying in a marshy area approximately 15 feet from a trail near 161st Avenue and 78th Street in the park.
