New York Post

Jog ma sobs at grisly slay pics

- By LORENA MONGELLI and NATALIE MUSUMECI

The mother of slain Queens jogger Karina Vetrano, clutching a wooden cross, broke down as gruesome photos of her daughter’s body were shown to jurors Wednesday.

Cathy Vetrano sobbed quietly and buried her head in her lap in Queens Supreme Court as graphic autopsy snapshots were displayed. A friend beside her tried to console the devastated mom.

Vetrano’s father, Philip, couldn’t stand to be in the room — and two jurors cringed and wouldn’t look at the 14 photos, either.

A city senior medical examiner used the photos to describe how the 30year-old victim was beaten, strangled and sexually abused, allegedly by Chanel Lewis, 20, who is on trial for her slaying.

The first photo showed Vetrano’s battered and bruised body on a stretcher, with her sports bra pulled below her breasts.

“This is how she arrived to our office,” Dr. Margaret Prial of the Medical Examiner’s Office testified. “You can see she has blood on her face.”

There is “bruising around her clavicle,” Prial added, suggesting that the injury was consistent with the murderer kneeling on her during the attack.

Vetrano’s body arrived in a body bag, along with leaves and sticks, after being found by her father in Spring Creek Park in the Howard Beach neighborho­od, according to Prial.

Another image shown to jurors revealed Vetrano’s battered face and neck.

“You can see the bruising of her ear. You can see she has a black eye,” said Prial, noting that the abra- sions were consistent with the victim’s hands and nails trying to remove the killer’s hands from her neck during the Aug. 2, 2016, fatal assault.

“She had strangulat­ion injuries, and she had blunt impact injuries of her head, including her face, torso upper and lower extremitie­s,” said Prial, who added, “All of the injuries took some time. I wouldn’t put a number on how many minutes it took.”

Also Wednesday, Linda Razzano, an assistant director of the department of forensic biology with the medical examiner, testified that DNA found on Vetrano’s cellphone and neck matched the DNA profile of Lewis.

The suspect allegedly confessed on tape to killing Vetrano because he was mad when she fought back against him as he grabbed her.

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