Man Charged With Murder in 31-Year-Old Cold Case Killing Of Queens Teen: DA

A Virginia man was indicted and arraigned Monday on a murder charge for the 1992 death of a 15-year-old girl who was found naked and strangled in her Queens home, the local district attorney’s office announced.

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Jerry Lewis, 58, of Shawsville, Virginia, was arraigned for second-degree murder in connection to the 31-year-old cold case.

The murder charge that Lewis faces are in connection to events that took place on May 7, 1992. According to prosecutors, it was on that day that Lewis strangled Nadine Slade with her own bra.

Slade, a teen, was found by her mother in the bathroom that was shared by two apartments in their multi-family Far Rockaway home.

According to prosecutors Lewis and Slade did not know each other, — however, Lewis and others were in an adjoining apartment, which used the bathroom, the night before the tragic murder.

A break in the unsolved 1990s case came when Katz and the NYPD requested the city’s Medican Examiner’s Office test for DNA under Slade’s preserved fingernail clippings.

The results of that DNA evidence linked Lewis to the murder.

“Any mother’s worst nightmare is to survive a child. To lose a child in such a horrific way causes unimaginable pain. Not knowing who committed the crime compounds the suffering. In the end, we hope to achieve justice for Nadine and bring closure and some measure of solace to her bereaved mother,” Katz said.

Lewis is due back in court on June 7. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison.

Attorney information for Lewis was not immediately known.