The man who allegedly raped and strangled a Queens jogger and then left her body in a park two years ago researched forgiveness on his cell phone after the crime, a police detective testified on Tuesday.
Chanel Lewis, 22, faces life in prison for the rape and murder of Karina Vetrano.
Prosecutors at his trial on Tuesday introduced evidence taken from his black ZTE cell phone which they found at his Brooklyn home on February 5, 2017 – six months after the murder, according to the New York Daily News.
Josue Rivera, a detective with the NYPD’s Computer Crimes Squad, testified in Queens Supreme Court on Tuesday that investigators recovered the device from Lewis’ dresser in his bedroom.
The phone contained two photos of the victim, Vetrano, 30, as well as a photo of the crime scene, Rivera testified.
Chanel Lewis, 22, faces life in prison for the rape and murder of Karina Vetrano. Lewis is seen after his arrest last year
Lewis is charged with sexually assaulting and strangling Vetrano as she ran on a secluded park trail in Howard Beach, Queens in August 2016
The pictures were taken from online news articles about the crime.
Prosecutors said that the phone contained a search history of 137 searches, among them the Wikipedia page for the Catholic Sacrament of Penance.
It is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church in which adherents obtain absolution for sins committed against others.
Rivera was asked by Lewis’ defense attorney, Julia Burke, whether the name ‘Karina Vetrano’ was ever searched by Lewis on his cell phone.
‘You can’t testify that the name Karina Vetrano was ever search by the user, is that correct?’ she asked.
‘That is correct,’ the detective said.
Lewis is charged with sexually assaulting and strangling Vetrano as she ran on a secluded park trail in Howard Beach, Queens in August 2016.
Josue Rivera, a detective with the NYPD, testified in Queens Supreme Court on Tuesday that investigators recovered Lewis’ cell phone from his bedroom
The prosecutor told the court in his opening statement last Monday that the 30-year-old runner was accosted and grabbed as she jogged along Spring Creek Park on August 2, 2016.
Vetrano was punched in the face, thrown to the ground, violently raped and then strangled in a marsh, about a block away from her house, where her father, Philip Vetrano, would later find her body.
Authorities previously said that the victim desperately fought for her life until the very end.
Despite making a videotaped confession, in which he allegedly admitted to killing Vetrano, saying he was mad at his neighbor when he spotted her at random and snapped, Lewis has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and aggravated sex abuse.
In February, a judge decided to let DNA evidence and a videotaped confession be used at trial.
Lewis’ attorneys previously questioned the validity of his DNA sample from a consensual cheek swab, which was compared to DNA evidence recovered from under the victim’s fingernails, and the manner in which his confession was gained.