Chilling CCTV shows murdered jogger Karina Vetrano moments before she was strangled to death by sex predator in broad daylight
The 30-year-old was sexually assaulted and strangled to death in a horrific attack
THESE are the chilling last images of a female jogger hours before she was raped and murdered.
Karina Vetrano, 30, was found dead with her jogging pants pulled down to her knees after being reported missing by her father when she didn’t return from her regular 5pm run in the Queens borough of New York on August 2.
Her dad Phil, an ex-fireman raised the alarm that his daughter had gone missing and was with cops when her body was discovered at around 10:30pm later that evening.
The CCTV footage emerges as a hunt is underway for a mystery man who used to jog “four or five days a week” on the same trail as Katrina.
“This is a very important lead,” said Phil in an interview with The Drive at Five with Curtis Sliwa.
“I would see him almost every day and now he’s dropped off the face of the earth,” he said. “It’s very important that we speak to him, because he might have seen something.”
The man is believed to be between 30 and 35 years old, 5-foot-9, and 150 pounds with black hair parted to the side.
“He has a really strange stride,” said Phil. “In the wintertime, he would wear black gloves and a black cap. In the summer, he might run shirtless. He is very, very fit. Not a weightlifter, but extremely fit. Somebody must know who this is.”
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Police said Katrina had been strangled and that her trousers had been pulled down.
They said a used condom was found near where the jogger was attacked.
Her teeth were smashed before she was strangled to death.
Police also found her mobile phone near a bike path and her body nearby.
In , her devastated father said he had a premonition something wasn't right soon after his daughter left that evening.
Phil said: "I said I don't think it's a good idea to go in there and she said 'it's okay daddy, I'll be all right'."
to boost the $20,000 reward offered by police to $100,000.
Karina was a keen poetry fan and writer and said of herself she had a “beautiful” but “chaotic” life.
After news of her death hit social media, tributes poured in for the fitness fanatic from friends as well as those who did not know her personally.
One tweeted: “RIP KARINA. I am heart broken, mortified.
“You were amazing and full of life.”