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FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com THE COURIER SUN  •  FEBRUARY 9, 2017  5 A TIMELINE OF A HOWARD BEACH TRAGEDY The following is a timeline of events regarding the Karina Vetrano murder investigation. 5 p.m., Aug. 2, 2016: Karina Vetrano, 30, leaves her 84th Street home to go on her nightly run. She usually jogs with her father, but he opts to stay home this time due to his ailing back. 6:30 p.m., Aug. 2: Karina has not come home after 90 minutes, and her father contacts police. The 106th Precinct commences a search for her. 11 p.m., Aug. 2: Her father, now part of the search party, discovers Karina dead in a marshy area of Spring Creek Park off the intersection of 161st Avenue and 78th Street. Aug. 3: The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner declares Karina’s death a homicide. NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce announces that she was sexually assaulted prior to being strangled to death. That evening, some 200 people attend a vigil for Karina at Vetro’s, where she had worked as a caterer. Aug. 5: Members of the FBI join the NYPD in combing the area of Gateway National Recreational Area and Spring Creek Park for any evidence connected with the homicide. One of Karina’s running shoes and a pair of earphones are recovered; pieces of skin are also found under Karina’s fingernails. The evidence is sent to a laboratory for DNA testing, but four days later, Boyce reports the DNA recovered does not match anyone in the state or national DNA criminal databanks. Aug. 6: Family and friends gather at St. Helen’s Church for a funeral Mass for Karina Vetrano prior to her burial. Aug. 8: A community meeting is held at St. Helen’s Church among local lawmakers and residents regarding the Vetrano homicide. Cameras are later installed near Spring Creek Park to help increase a sense of security in the community. Aug. 10: The family of Karina Vetrano and Howard Beach residents launch a reward fund to supplement a reward offered by Crime Stoppers for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Karina’s killer. That fund eventually swells to more than $250,000 provided by donors nationwide. Aug. 31: The NYPD releases a sketch of a man wanted for questioning as a possible witness to Vetrano’s murder. Boyce said the mystery man may have seen the suspect leaving Spring Creek Park just after the murder occurred. The sketch yields no immediate results in helping police close the investigation. Sept. 12: Crime Watch Daily, a television tabloid, airs security camera footage of Karina Vetrano running through the area moments before her death; it is the last known image of her alive. Dec. 8: Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown, with the support of Police Commissioner James O’Neill, asks the State Commission on Forensic Science to permit the use of familial DNA testing to help solve the Vetrano case. Familial DNA testing permits detectives to consider even partial matches of genetic evidence to a profile in the state DNA databank, allowing for relatives of individuals in the databank to be questioned. Dec. 14: Still in search of a suspect and possible witnesses, the NYPD releases a profile of the unidentified man whom they believed killed Karina Vetrano. Police said that “the person who committed the assault is likely familiar with” Spring Creek Park and “may have spent time there for any of a variety of reasons.” Feb. 2, 2017: The Vetrano family and Howard Beach lawmakers gather at Spring Creek Park to announce support of familial DNA testing. That same day, NYPD detectives make contact with Chanel Lewis of East New York. Over the last week, police determined that Lewis had spent time in the Howard Beach area prior to Vetrano’s murder. A 911 call in May of 2016 placed Lewis in the neighborhood, and police determined that he received several summonses in the past while in the community. Feb. 4: Lewis is taken into custody at his East New York home. After providing detailed statements about the Vetrano murder, and after a DNA sample he provided matched the DNA profile recovered from the crime scene, he is charged with second-degree murder. Compiled by Robert Pozarycki Karina Vetrano Police guard Spring Creek Park near where Vetrano was murdered Howard Beach residents at a candlelight vigil for Vetrano JUSTICE FOR KARINA A sketch of the mystery witness who never surfaced


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