It took more than 33 years and 8 months for justice to be meted out against a Virginia man in the cold-case murder of a teenage girl in Far Rockaway that shook the borough. In the end, it took a jury in Queens Supreme Court less than three hours of deliberation on Friday, Jan. 23 before convicting 61-year-old Jerry Lewis at trial of murder in the second degree for strangling 15-year-old Nadine Slade to death in May 1992.
The victim was found dead inside the bathroom her family shared with an adjacent unit at a multi-family building on Birdsall Avenue near Beach Channel Drive. Lewis was arrested in May 2023 after preserved DNA evidence was re-tested at the request of the Queens District Attorney’s Cold Case Unit and the NYPD Cold Case Unit. Lewis now faces 25 years to life in prison.
“For nearly 34 years the family of Nadine Slade grieved without answers and without justice,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said following the guilty verdict.
According to the charges and trial testimony, on the morning of May 7, 1992, at approximately 9:30 a.m., the victim’s mother returned to their Far Rockaway apartment from her job as a school bus driver and discovered her 15-year-old daughter lying unconscious and naked in the bathroom. The teenager had a bra tied tightly around her neck. A can opener, which was found in the bathroom sink, was used to twist the bra strap tighter around the victim’s neck.
At the time of the murder, investigators determined that the night before she was strangled, Lewis was present with several other people inside the apartment directly adjacent to the one occupied by the victim and her mother. The bathroom was shared between the two units, and the defendant had no known affiliation with the victim or her mother.
An autopsy by the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) determined that the teenager died of asphyxia due to ligature strangulation. Other injuries that were present indicated a struggle took place at the crime scene and DNA evidence was collected from underneath the victim’s fingernails.
Three decades after the homicide, DA Katz’s Cold Case Unit and the NYPD Cold Case Squad requested additional DNA testing of the victim’s preserved fingernail clippings. A DNA profile was developed in 2022 and linked to Lewis, who is a convicted sex offender after pleading guilty to sodomizing an 88-year-old Queens woman at knifepoint in 2015. He was interviewed by detectives in March 2023 when he appeared for a scheduled parole visit. The investigation also included multiple witness interviews and extensive record searches, and Lewis was arrested on the murder charge on May 1, 2023, after he was indicted by a Queens grand jury.
“Through the relentless work of my Cold Case Unit and our partners in the NYPD Cold Case Squad, new DNA testing led to the apprehension of the man responsible for brutally strangling the young victim in 1992.” Katz said. “He has now been convicted of murder.”
Trial openings took place on Jan. 12 and closing arguments took place on Friday, Jan. 23 and Lewis was convicted hours later by the jury of murder in the second degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder. The defendant is due back in court for sentencing on Feb. 17 and faces 25 years to life in prison.
“The passage of time will not shield those who commit violent crimes,” Katz said. “And we will never stop pursuing justice — no matter how long it takes.”
