A registered sex offender from Virginia was found guilty at trial in the cold case murder of 15-year-old Nadine Slade decades ago in Queens.
It took a jury less than three hours of deliberations to find 58-year-old Jerry Lewis guilty of murder for the 1992 slaying of Slade. He now faces 25 years to life in prison at his sentencing on Feb. 17.
Lewis, who hails from Shawsville, Va., strangled Slade with her own bra in the bathroom of a multi-family home in Far Rockaway on May 7, 1992. The bathroom was connected to two apartments in the house, including the victim’s family home and another unit where Lewis stayed the night before.
The girl’s body was found naked and lifeless by her mother.
It wasn’t until 30 years later that investigators hit upon the key evidence connecting Lewis to the murder — a swab of DNA found under the victim’s preserved fingernail clippings that the city’s medical examiner tested in 2022 at the request of Queens District Attorney Malinda Katz and the NYPD.
The tested DNA proved a positive match for Lewis, officials said.
His arrest came as welcome and long-overdue news to Nadine’s relatives after decades of unresolved grief
“We’re just glad he got caught,” the victim’s brother told the Daily News
Lewis was previously convicted in 2015 of forcible sodomy in an attack on an 88-year-old Queens woman in 2001, according to a source, and the predator registered as a sex offender with the Virginia State Police in 2021.
His DNA was collected as part of the investigation into the 2001 sex attack.
Lewis also served time in state prison for attempted murder, robbery and drug possession in the years after the teen’s slaying in Queens while her killing remained an open homicide case.
