Cops Suspect Jogger’s Killing May Have Been Racially Motivated

The confessed killer of Queens jogger Karina Vetrano told detectives he hated the victim’s predominantly white neighborhood of Howard Beach, leading cops to believe race played a role in the murder, sources told The Post.

“I don’t like those people over there,” said Chanel Lewis, 20, who is black and split time between homes in the largely impoverished neighborhoods of East New York and Brownsville, according to sources.

Lewis made the statement to a black detective when asked why he killed Vetrano, whose body was found strangled in Spring Creek Park.

His comment caused cops to believe that race was a factor in Vetrano’s slaying, sources said.

A white detective initially tried twice to get Lewis to talk and he refused, sources said.

But when the black detective, Barry Brown, interviewed him, Lewis waived his Miranda rights and gave two videotaped statements, confessing that he’d “hit” and “choked” the beautiful jogger on Aug. 2.

{snip}

Vetrano’s neighborhood, Howard Beach, is largely white and middle class.

{snip}

Lewis had a history of threatening female students in high school, telling a teacher’s aide at the HS for Medical Professions in Brooklyn in 2011 that he wanted to “stab all the girls.”

That same year he “cursed at a female student and threatened both her and her family,” law enforcement sources said.

{snip}