The parents of the Queens jogger Karina Vetrano, pictured, wept in court as her accused killer went into details about the final moments of her life
The parents of the Queens jogger who was murdered in August 2016 wept in court as her accused killer went into details about the final moments of her life.
Cathie and Philip Vetrano sat in court as Chanel Lewis calmly confessed to the brutal beating and strangulation of their daughter, Karina Vetrano.
At one point the distraught mother brought a foot-long golden crucifix she keeps with her in court to her tear-stained face as she watched the footage of his confession, according to the New York Post.
‘I was mad, I saw red,’ Lewis told cops in the video. The tape was recorded in February and played for the family on Monday during a pre-trial hearing to determine if it is admissible as evidence.
Police claim the 21-year-old murdered Vetrano, 30, on August 2, 2016, while she was on a run in Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach, Queens.
Cathie and Philip Vetrano, pictured in April, sat in court as Chanel Lewis calmly confessed to the brutal beating and strangulation of their daughter, Karina Vetrano
Police claim the 21-year-old murdered Vetrano, 30, on August 2, 2016, while she was on a run in Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach, Queens
Lewis told them he grabbed Vetrano as she was jogging past him in a marsh-swamp area of queens.
He said she clawed at his face as he beat her five times, knocking her unconscious.
‘She didn’t yell,’ the accused killer said in the video, with not even a flicker of emotion on his cold face.
‘She was finished. I finished her off, I strangled her. She fell into the puddle and drowned. I got up and wiped off the blood. And she was calm, she was in the pool of water.’
He then gestured at his face and explained that her head was completely submerged in the water.
Shockingly, as he finished telling cops how he ended her life he asked if there was a ‘restitution program.’ He seemed to think he could pay his way out of murder charges.
‘I can straighten out my stuff?,’ he asked the prosecutor. ‘Well you’re the DA right? Where do we go from here? Is there a restitution program or something?’
In the tape he also insisted he didn’t molest her – as was suggested by cops, who found her with her jogging shorts around her ankles.
‘I didn’t do any of the stuff they said, sexual assault and stuff like that,’ he said in the tape.
Lewis told them he grabbed Vetrano as she was jogging past him in a marsh-swamp area of queens. He is pictured being taken into the 107th Precinct when he was arrested February 5
He said she clawed at his face as he beat her five times, knocking her unconscious. He then said that he strangled her and then watched as she fell into a puddle and drowned
Philip Vetrano told the Post that he lashed out at Lewis’ family when he saw them at the courthouse on Monday. He is pictured with his daughter before her death
He that after hurting her he was ‘shaken up,’ and started to walk home to get some napkins to stop the bleeding from where she’d scratched his face.
Lewis told the police in the interview that he killed Vetrano because ‘a guy moved into my house and neighborhood.’
Police weren’t sure what that meant.
Lewis confessed to the crime after watching cartoons in a precinct all night. He was arrested on February 4, and initially refused to speak to police, asking instead to watch TV, a detective said in court on Monday, according to the New York Daily News.
‘He said he wanted to see cartoons, so we put cartoons on him through the night. He said he couldn’t sleep,’ Detective Barry Brown explained.
Philip Vetrano told the Post that he lashed out at Lewis’ family when he saw them at the courthouse on Monday.
‘His family left the courtroom,’ he said, explaining why he became so angry.
‘They couldn’t listen to his confession. We know where the coward got his cowardliness from.
‘The truth hurts. It’s pathetic. It’s just so tomorrow they can say their offspring is not guilty.’