Video anguish for Karina’s family
The family of tragic Queens jogger Karina Vetrano broke down in court Monday as they watched, for the first time, her accused killer detail to cops the tortured final minutes of their daughter’s life.
Cathie Vetrano let out an anguished moan and sobbed as she heard Chanel Lewis calmly confess to the August 2016 attack, in which he beat her daughter until she lost consciousness and strangled her.
At one point, the mom brought to her face the foot-long, golden crucifix she routinely totes to court.
Karina’s sister, Tana Vetrano, sat frozen, her teeth bared at Lewis as she cried.
“I was mad, I saw red,” the accused killer tells cops in the video, which was played during a pretrial hearing Monday to determine whether it’s admissible as evidence.
Lewis, 21, says he grabbed Karina, 30, as she ran past him, adding she clawed at his face as he hit her.
“I finished her off, I strangled her. She fell into the puddle and drowned,” he says coolly. “I got up and wiped off the blood.”
But he insisted he didn’t molest her, even though her jogging shorts had been pulled down.
When asked why he attacked Karina, Lewis con- fusingly replied, “Because a guy moved into my house and the neighborhood.”
Incredibly, he seemed to think he could pay his way out of murder charges.
“Is there a restitution program or something?” Lewis asks during the Feb. 2017 interview.
Karina’s father, Philip, lashed into Lewis’ relatives before leaving court.
“His family left the room,” he said. “They couldn’t listen to his confession.
“We know where the coward got his cowardliness from.”