Virginia man charged with murder of Queens teenager 31 years after her death

Prosecutors have indicted a Virginia man on charges that he murdered a teenaged girl in Far Rockaway three decades ago.

Jerry Lewis, 58, pleaded not guilty to charges that he strangled 15-year old Nadine Slade with her bra in a shared bathroom in her multi family home in 1992, a spokesman for the Queens district attorney and Lewis’s lawyer said. He is being held without bail and is due back in court June 7, prosecutors said. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years-to-life in prison.

His lawyer, Russell Rothberg, declined comment on the charges.

Police and prosecutors hoping to solve the case last year sent material from Slade’s fingernail clippings to the city medical examiner for DNA testing, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. The DNA test results linked Lewis to the crime, the release said. Prosecutors also did numerous records searches and witness interviews, the release said.

Lewis and others had been in the apartment that connected to Sloan’s through a bathroom the night before the murder, the press release said.

“To lose a child in such a horrific way causes unimaginable pain,” Katz said. “Not knowing who committed the crime compounds the suffering. In the end, we hope to achieve justice for Nadine and bring closure and some measure of solace to her bereaved mother.”