The man, Chanel Lewis, 22, had confessed to attacking the woman, Karina Vetrano, in Spring Creek Park in August 2016. Traces of his DNA were found on her neck and cellphone, and underneath her fingernails.
Lewis’ first trial, five months ago, had ended with a hung jury. Some jurors then were swayed by defense arguments that Lewis’ confession was coerced and that the DNA evidence was contaminated.
But after only five hours of deliberation Monday, at his second trial, a different jury found Lewis guilty of second-degree murder for the strangling of Vetrano. The jurors also found him guilty of first-degree sexual abuse.
As the foreman read out the guilty verdict, cheers and applause went up from Vetrano’s family members in state Supreme Court in Queens. Lewis did not react.
“Jubilation,” Philip Vetrano, the father of Vetrano, said as he left the courtroom. “Justice has been served.”
The Lewis family will appeal the jury’s decision, Chris Banks, a spokesman, said. “We knew he would be railroaded,” he said. “The evidence was extremely weak and the confession was coerced.”
The killing of Vetrano, 30, was one of the most high-profile cases in the city in recent years, jarring for its apparent randomness and brutality. It set in motion a massive investigation. The prosecution of Lewis had prompted debate over social media, and in the courtroom, as some observers said the confession and DNA evidence were proof enough of Lewis’ guilt, while others argued that prosecutors had the wrong person.
With each witness, prosecutors sought to show that the DNA evidence had not been contaminated and that Lewis had not been pressured into confessing to a crime he did not commit, as the defense argued.
“It’s 376 billion times more probable it’s his DNA under her fingernails than Karina and somebody else’s DNA,” the lead prosecutor, Brad A. Leventhal, said during his closing statement. Leventhal said the argument from defense lawyers that Lewis was coerced “makes no sense.”
Leventhal said evidence from cellphones placed Lewis in the area of the park at the time of the murder. He also stressed that Lewis’ cellphone contained downloaded images of the crime scene and internet searches about “second chances.”
Prosecutors also called Vetrano’s mother, Cathie Vetrano, to testify about her last conversation with her daughter; she had not been called to testify in the first trial. During closing arguments, she held a small cross inside the packed courtroom while Lewis’ mother, Veta Lewis, sat at the opposite side quietly reading a Bible.
Lewis’ lawyers had sought to poke holes in the prosecution’s case, suggesting that the investigation into Vetrano’s murder was “sloppy.” Investigators and the medical examiner, they said, had not checked for DNA evidence at the crime scene or on other parts of Vetrano’s body — aside from her neck and nails.
“This is tunnel vision clouding judgment,” said Robert Moeller, one of Lewis’ lawyers. “You see things that could have been done were not done.”
Moeller told jurors that reasonable doubt exists. He said there was no video of Lewis entering or leaving the park and no fingerprints or hair, or “the kind of DNA that will tell you what happened.” He argued that Lewis’ DNA could have ended up on Vetrano through transference if they touched the same surface at some point.
He also argued that Lewis’ statements to investigators were inconsistent with evidence at the crime scene. He told the police she drowned in a puddle, for instance, yet autopsy results show she was strangled.
Moeller asked the jury to pay close attention to Lewis’ behavior in the video of his confession, noting that he, though an adult, had asked to speak to his mother and to watch cartoons while in police custody.
Lewis lived with his mother and had graduated from a school for students with learning disabilities. He appeared confused at times during the videotaped interview, and mumbled through some of his responses.
During deliberations, the jury requested several key pieces of evidence from the trial, including a viewing of the confession tape in which Lewis admitted to beating Vetrano, after first repeatedly denying any involvement. Jurors also requested a transcript of the testimony from the detective who had obtained the confession.
Shortly before the verdict Monday, the case took an unexpected turn when defense lawyers received an anonymous letter from a person who claimed to be a police officer. That person said that before the police turned their focus toward Lewis, they had collected DNA samples from at least 360 black men who had previously been in custody in parts of Queens and Brooklyn. The letter also said police initially thought two white men had killed Vetrano.
Lewis’ lawyers asked Justice Michael B. Aloise for a hearing to determine if prosecutors had withheld evidence favorable to Lewis, and for a mistrial. Leventhal, the prosecutor, argued that the letter was sent by someone “trying to derail this case on the eve of summations.” Aloise denied both of the defense’s requests.
On Aug. 2, 2016, Vetrano had gone for a late afternoon jog in Spring Creek Park in the Howard Beach section of Queens. Her badly beaten body was found in a weeded path in the park by her father.
Her death set in motion one of the most extensive manhunts in the New York Police Department’s recent history. A task force of 100 detectives was initially assigned to investigate her death, and authorities offered a $35,000 reward for information leading to her killer.
For the first two weeks, the police were searching for two white men, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss parts of the investigation not made public at trial. Then investigators learned that the DNA found at the crime scene had come from a black man, whom investigators called “Male Donor A.”
The person said 384 black men were interviewed and gave saliva samples. The samples were entered into the Local DNA Index System, a database maintained by the city medical examiner’s office.
Still, it was not until detectives obtained a DNA sample from Lewis nearly six months after the killing that they found a match. Detectives spoke to Lewis on the recommendation of a police lieutenant, John Russo, who had seen him on two occasions “acting suspiciously” as he wandered in Howard Beach, a predominantly white neighborhood. He lived roughly 3 miles away in East New York, Brooklyn.
A city medical examiner testified that the DNA matched traces found on Vetrano’s neck and cellphone, and a mixture sample from two of her fingernails. Defense lawyers argued that the DNA evidence was weak, and not enough to prove he was the killer.
At first, Lewis repeatedly denied he had killed Vetrano. But after 11 hours in police custody, including four hours in a windowless interrogation room, he told detectives and a Queens prosecutor in a videotaped interview that he had beaten Vetrano. He said he killed her because he was angry that his neighbor had been playing loud music.
The day after the murder, Lewis had sought treatment for a hand injury that a doctor said was consistent with punching someone, prosecutors said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.