A Virginia man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the cold case murder of a Far Rockaway teenager in May 1992.
Jerry Lewis, 60, of Shawsville, VA, was convicted at trial last month for the murder of 15-year-old Nadine Slade, who was strangled to death inside a bathroom her family shared with an adjacent unit at a multi-family home on Birdsall Avenue near Beach Channel Drive. Lewis was arrested in May 2023 after preserved DNA evidence was re-tested. He was convicted of murder in the second degree after a two-week trial in January before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder who sentenced Lewis on Tuesday to 25 years to life in prison.
“Justice has finally been achieved for Nadine Slade, who was brutally killed 34 years ago at the hands of this defendant,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.
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 had taken 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.
“New DNA testing, done at the request of my Cold Case Unit and the NYPD Cold Case Squad, provided the long-awaited break in the case and led to the apprehension of Jerry Lewis,” Katz said. “Now convicted of murder, the defendant will serve 25 years to life in prison. We will not give up on our victims, and we hope today’s sentencing brings a measure of comfort to Nadine’s loved ones.”
