Police have arrested a suspect in the murder of groundbreaking rocker Peter Forrest of 24-7 Spyz, who was found beaten to death in the back of an ambulette parked in a remote area of the Bronx, cops announced Friday.
Cops arrested Sharief Bodden, 29, of the Bronx, just before 5 p.m. Friday. He was charged with murder, manslaughter, criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a weapon.
According to the city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Forrest, 64, was beaten to death, suffering blunt impact injuries of the head and torso.
The motive was still being investigated Friday, police said.
Forrest, who was known as P. Fluid as a member the South Bronx-based band 24-7 Spyz, was found face down in a pool of blood in the back of an ambulette parked at the corner of Castle Hill Ave. and Hart St. on the edge of Westchester Creek and Castle Hill Park on Monday, according to police.
Video footage obtained by News12 showed a man exiting the driver’s side door of the ambulette and entering a waiting car, which then fled the scene. About 30 minutes later, Forrest was discovered dead in the back of the ambulette by a worried co-worker who tracked the location of the vehicle, which Forrest drove for Marquis Ambulette.
Forrest first rose to acclaim in the 1980s and ’90s with the band 24-7 Spyz, which mixed metal, hardcore, punk and funk. He was also a founding member of the Black Rock Coalition, according to his former longtime girlfriend Chiedza Makonnen, 55, who called Forrest her “first love.”
“Music was his life and advancing Black rock was his life,” Makonnen previously told the Daily News. “He was passionate about that. He really helped pave that road for a lot of people to understand that Black musicians aren’t just rappers or R&B or soul, we’re rockers, too.”
After leaving 24-7 Spyz, Forrest formed P. Fluid and the P. Fluid Foundation, then later rejoined 24-7 Spyz temporarily before forming a new band, BlkVampires, performing as Forrest Thinner. The band released a song in 2015 called “Eric Garner.”
Forrest’s final musical project, BlkVampiresX, was his first solo act.
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