There are new details in the investigation into the stabbing of a 28-year-old woman jogging along the Shore Parkway greenway on Friday night.
Police are offering a $10,000 reward for anyone with information on the attack. No arrests have been made, and the victim remains in the hospital in critical condition.
A digital billboard with a photo of victim Katie Suarez was visible all day Monday as police look to speak with anyone who may have seen her on the popular Brooklyn waterfront path.
Katie Suarez
CBS News New York
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny also shared a clearer timeline of what happened leading up to the attack.
He said Suarez closed up the TD Bank at Caesar’s Bay in Bath Beach, where she worked until around 6:30 p.m., and then met her mother at the Wendy’s fast-food restaurant next door about 20 minutes later. There, the two met her father, she changed into her running clothes, and left.
About an hour later, police say her father called to see where she was, and she said she was a half mile away. However, when she failed to return after 10 minutes, police say her father went to the path and found Suarez under a tree on Shore Parkway at Bay 17th Street, adjacent to the eastbound lanes of the Belt Parkway, with a stab wound to the neck.
Police added she could not communicate verbally.
“We have a license plate reader located on the Belt Parkway,” Kenny said. “As of right now, we’ve identified 1,700 cars that drove by the location at that particular time. We’re tracking all those cars down to see if anybody had dash cams or anything that might help us in that area there. We’re also deploying drones into the area.”
The NYPD said it is possible to travel along the path and not be caught on surveillance cameras from Caesar’s Bay to Sunset Park. As a result, local leaders are demanding more cameras and better lighting along the path.
Kenny said there are about a dozen signs on the Belt Parkway asking anyone with information to contact CrimeStoppers.
Police said foot patrols have been stepped up in the area out of an abundance of caution.
Phil Vetrano, the father of Karina Vetrano, who was killed in a jogging attack in Howard Beach more than a decade ago, said the details are eerily similar.
“It has happened again to someone else, and I knew exactly what the father was going through because the similarities are uncanny,” Phil Vetrano said.
Karina Vetrano’s killer was caught. Her father said the key to finding Suarez’s attacker is to keep the case in the public eye.
“There has to be a public outcry like there was for Karina, because we had such pressure on this case, because I would not stop, and we need to have the kind of outcry,” Phil Vetrano said. “The people have to get up and demand justice.”
Anyone with any information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). You can also submit a tip via their website or via DM on Twitter, @NYPDTips. All calls are kept confidential.
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