Jillian Clemenza
Feature Assignment
On August 2nd,
2016 at around 7:30pm it was still light out, a warm summer evening. I was just
returning home from the gym, when my phone rang and an unknown number displayed
on the screen, which I never answer. For some reason I felt inclined to pick
up, not knowing in that moment that it would be a phone call that would forever
change my life. “Hello?”… The events that took place over the next four hours
can never be fully described, they are events that I’ve only seen in horror
films before this night. It feels like I’m still waiting for “the end” to come
across the screen and to fade out, for the actors to take their bow, being that
one of my best friends is the main character.
Karina Vetrano,
30, went missing on August 2nd, 2016 around 6pm in Howard Beach,
Queens. “Jill, Karina’s missing, is she with you!?” said Natasha, Karina’s
friend. Fast-forward about one hour, 8:30pm and I find myself in the weeds,
flashlight in hand, as the last minutes of sunlight fade into darkness. I
didn’t fully comprehend what I was doing in that moment, how I had gotten
there, where I had gotten a flashlight, but reality began to set in and I
realized that something was terribly wrong, I realized that I was looking for
my friend’s potentially dead body. Fast-forward to 11pm sitting on Karina’s
stoop with her mother and other family members on 84th street.
Dozens of fire trucks, ambulances, police cars lining the street and the
surrounding streets, caution-tape blocking off the entrance to the weeds, and
confusion everywhere. Moments later the news broke, they had found Karina’s
body, she was dead, she was murdered. Chaos ensued.
Karina left her
house for the last time around 5pm that Tuesday evening, never to return home
again. She jogged her usual trail, down 161st avenue and into Spring
Creek Park, which Howard Beach natives refer to as “the weeds”. Howard Beach
locals also know that “the weeds” are taboo, you don’t go in there. Karina
usually ran the trail in the weeds with her father, who was nursing an injured
back on August 2nd. He urged her not to go alone and to stay on the
street, she didn’t listen, not knowing she would meet her killer along the way.
It was her father
and a search party made up of police who discovered her lifeless body, beaten,
bruised, and sexually assaulted. Her killer dragged her body off the trail and
about ten feet into the weeds, covering her completely. Although she ultimately
lost the battle, Karina put up a fight, leaving her killers DNA all over her
and his skin cells underneath her fingernails. While police have the DNA, it
did not match anyone in the New York database, nor did it match anyone in the
national database, or the surrounding islands’ databases. It has been a little
over four months, and after countless dead-end leads, still there are no
suspects in the rape and murder of Karina Vetrano. Although the months are
quickly passing and we have little to hold on to, Karina’s friends and family
have not given up hope. “We’re going to get him, its just a matter of time”
said Phil, Karina’s father.
A new investigative
tool has been used in several states to solve cases similar to Karina’s case,
it is called Familial DNA testing. With Familial DNA testing detectives would
be able to single out the male “Y” chromosome. They can then see if there is a
biological match to a family member in the direct bloodline of the killer, who
has been arrested and has DNA in the database. There is currently a petition
with about ten thousand signatures so far in order to get this recognized. As
well as the Queens DA is pushing for this, with the hopes that it will help
bring Karina’s killer to justice. Not only is the petition going around, but
Nancy Grace and Doctor Oz had Karina’s father on the Doctor Oz show, in order
to help promote the Familial DNA testing, the episode will air December 13th.
Along with Queens DA Richard Brown, police commissioner James O’Niell has
joined Karina’s father in the demands that the state commission on Forensic
Sciences allow this DNA test to be approved in New York State. (2)
Familial DNA is not
legal in New York because civil liberties advocates view this as an invasion of
privacy. These advocates say that familial DNA testing “encroaches” on the
privacy of the relatives of those who’s DNA would be tested. This would
technically be a violation of the fourth amendment, which protects people
against unreasonable searches. (3)
Four months later,
Karina’s case remains cold, without a single eye-witness, without a single
surveillance video of anyone else entering or exiting Spring Creek Park on that
ill-fated afternoon. It seems almost impossible that no one saw anything or
heard anything, in broad daylight on an August afternoon. Although there are
those who are against familial DNA testing, there is a force more powerful that
they are up against, and that force is the family and friends of the “raven
haired beauty”, and my friend, Karina Vetrano.
Works Cited
1.
Schram, Jamie. "New DNA Testing Could Crack Slain Jogger
Case." New York Post. N.p., 2016. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
2.
Crane-newman, Molly, and Thomas Tracy. "NYPD, Queens DA
Pushes for Familial DNA Testing." NY Daily News. N.p., 2016. Web.
08 Dec. 2016.
3.
"Familial DNA Searches - FindLaw." Findlaw.
N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
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