{"id":390346,"date":"2026-11-02T01:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T01:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/390346\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T01:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T01:18:09","slug":"karina-vetranos-dad-has-message-for-father-of-stabbed-nyc-jogger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/390346\/","title":{"rendered":"Karina Vetrano’s dad has message for father of stabbed NYC jogger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phil Vetrano, who found tragic daughter Karina\u2019s lifeless body<\/a> on a Queens running path 10 years ago, has a message for the distraught dad grappling with discovering his own daughter stabbed on a jogging route<\/a> Friday: Help nail her attacker.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not stop it \u2014 make it your life mission\u201d to get justice, Vetrano told The Post on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s crazy, it sounds familiar \u2014 son of a bitch,\u201d Vetrano, 70, railed of the fiend who left 28-year-old bank teller Katie Suarez brain-dead <\/a>by stabbing her in the neck as she jogged on a popular Brooklyn waterfront promenade Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Katie Suarez, 28, was found stabbed by her father after she went jogging in Brooklyn last week. Katie Suarez \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

NYPD at the scene where Suarez was stabbed in the neck in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, on Oct. 31, 2026. Kyle Mazza\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Vetrano said he can\u2019t believe the eerie similarities between that case and his family\u2019s own tragedy.<\/p>\n

As with Suarez\u2019s dad, Vetrano, a retired FDNY firefighter, went searching for his daughter when he grew worried because he hadn\u2019t seen her return from a run on Aug. 2, 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking for her immediately,\u201d recalled Vetrano, who normally went running with his vivacious daughter, a world traveler who relished life but sat out that day in Spring Creek Park because of back pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told her, \u2018I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good idea,\u2019\u201d to go alone, Vetrano said. \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, Daddy, I\u2019ll be OK.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Phillip Vetrano\u2019s daughter Karina was stabbed and killed while out jogging in Queens in 2016. Matthew McDermott<\/p>\n

Those were the last words the 30-year-old would ever say to her father.<\/p>\n

After little more than a half hour, Vetrano said he had a \u201cbad feeling\u201d and phoned her over and over, to no avail.<\/p>\n

The father of Friday\u2019s attacked jogger also phoned his daughter <\/a>\u2014 in this case, because she was late getting to their agreed-upon meet-up spot \u2014 and when he got no answer, went looking for her. <\/p>\n

Karina was attacked in Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach, Queens, on Aug. 2, 2016. karina.vee\/Instagram<\/p>\n

A memorial near the spot where Phillip Vetrano found his daughter\u2019s body. Dennis A. Clark<\/p>\n

The fathers both ended up finding their children.<\/p>\n

Karina had been sexually abused and fatally strangled, with her random attacker eventually caught.<\/p>\n

Suarez\u2019s attacker is believed to also have been a stranger, but there is no motive yet. She was not robbed or sexually assaulted, according to preliminary findings, law-enforcement sources told The Post on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Chanel Lewis in court for his sentencing on April 23, 2019, after being convicted of murdering Vetrano. Charles Eckert<\/p>\n

Vetrano said public outrage over Friday\u2019s horror can help fuel the search for Suarez\u2019s killer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to go viral like Karina went viral,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said he stopped his entire life to find Karina\u2019s killer. <\/p>\n

NYPD crime scene unit investigators at the scene of the stabbing in Bath Beach on Oct. 30, 2026. Kyle Mazza\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Blood on the railing of the path where Suarez was stabbed. Kyle Mazza\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a multimillion-dollar business, and I just immediately stopped. I didn\u2019t give a s\u2013t anymore \u2013 my mission was to find this guy,\u201d said Vetrano, who recalled blanketing the community with reward posters every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Katie\u2019s dad, he pleaded: \u201cYou gotta get public outcry. You have to get people standing up, not forgetting about it, because once it gets swept under the rug, it\u2019s just another little girl that gets killed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Katie Suarez was declared brain dead after the attack. Katie Suarez \/ Linkedin<\/p>\n

Vetrano offered to speak with Suarez\u2019s father to offer support.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say, \u2018Yeah, I understand.\u2019 No, you don\u2019t understand. Only I understand, and he understands. And if he needs somebody to talk to, to help him get through his life, I am willing to speak to him,\u201d Vetrano said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn one instant, you don\u2019t believe what you\u2019re seeing \u2014 you think, \u2018This is not real.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

Vetrano said he takes some solace in knowing that Karina lived life to the fullest in her all-too-short 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cKarina lived her life as if she was dying,\u201d said the dad of the St. John\u2019s University grad with a master\u2019s degree in speech pathology, who worked as a tutor and speech pathologist and was an aspiring writer and actress.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe did everything she possibly wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil Vetrano, who found tragic daughter Karina\u2019s lifeless body on a Queens running path 10 years ago, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5357,98,68,141418,57,238,9,56,63,65,64,122,5161,2442,58],"class_list":["post-390346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-attacks","tag-brooklyn","tag-exclusive","tag-karina-vetrano","tag-metro","tag-murders","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-queens","tag-sexual-assaults","tag-stabbings","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}