A 29-year-old man in custody in the Caribbean has been indicted on a murder charge in connection with the disappearance of a Brooklyn honor student who was found strangled to death in a garbage bag in 2006, authorities said Wednesday.
Suspect Veron Primus is being detained in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and will be extradited to New York to face charges in the death of Chanel Petro-Nixon, the 16-year-old who went missing after leaving her Bedford-Stuyvesant home on Father's Day in June 2006.
Petro-Nixon was supposed to visit a friend. The investigation revealed she had said she would be meeting Primus, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson. She didn't come home, and she was reported missing a day later.
Four days after Petro-Nixon was last seen, her body was found in a garbage bag in Crown Heights. A local resident found her remains after Department of Sanitation workers declined to take the bag because it was too large.
Primus, formerly of Crown Heights, was deported to the Caribbean in 2015 for crimes unrelated to the Petro-Nixon investigation. Investigators did not say what developments prompted the indictment in the 10-year-old case.
It wasn't immediately clear when Primus would be extradited to New York to face charges, nor was it known if he had an attorney.
He faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of the second-degree murder charge against him.
"Ten years ago a promising young woman’s life was tragically taken, leaving her family and the community searching for answers," Thompson said in a statement. "My office remained steadfast in our search for justice and with this indictment, we will ensure that the defendant is brought back to Brooklyn and held accountable for the death of Chanel Petro-Nixon."
"This indictment is a testament to the fact that neither time nor distance will stop our investigators and prosecutors from the pursuit of justice," Police Commissioner Bill Bratton added.
