# 3 Solved NYC Cold Cases | True Crime | 177

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 9 Feb 2026, 22 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO1849927305.mp3

Join me for 3 New York City cases that were recently solved. This is episode 177 of the Lazy Chill True Crime podcast btw. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, disturbing cases, true crime analysis, hidden clues, infamous crimes, real crime stories, nyc, new york city, new york true crime

## Transcript

[0:01] On February 5th, 1996, inside a modest apartment building at 17
[0:06] O 6 Davidson Ave. in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx, 36
[0:11] year old Jasmine Porter was strangled.
[0:14] She was six months pregnant at the time.
[0:17] Known to friends and family as Jazzy, Porter was described as
[0:21] someone who trusted people easily.
[0:25] That trust, tragically, may have cost her everything.
[0:29] When Porter's body was finally discovered, neighbors found her
[0:32] five year old son, Jeremy still inside the apartment.
[0:36] The little boy had been alone with his mother's lifeless body
[0:40] for approximately 2 days. He'd locked himself inside and
[0:44] had been trying to wipe the blood from her face.
[0:48] According to his uncle, the child later revealed that the
[0:50] attacker had considered strangling him too, but
[0:54] ultimately didn't. The NYPD's initial response
[0:59] brought officers from the 46th Precinct to the scene, where
[1:03] they found Porter unconscious with severe trauma to her neck.
[1:07] The medical examiner quickly ruled her death was intentional.
[1:11] Investigators collected evidence, including clippings
[1:14] and scrapings from underneath Porter's fingernails.
[1:18] However, DNA analysis technology in the mid 1990s wasn't advanced
[1:24] enough to make use of that evidence in the way it can
[1:27] today. Without a clear suspect, and
[1:30] without the forensic tools to process what they had, the case
[1:35] went cold. It would remain that way for
[1:38] over 25 years, a source of unresolved grief for the Porter
[1:42] family and a frustrating open file for the NYPD.
[1:47] During those decades, the family carried on as best they could,
[1:51] and Jeremy grew into adulthood under the care of his
[1:54] grandparents, while Porter's siblings kept her memory alive.
[1:59] But the lack of answers gnawed at them.
[2:02] There was no suspect, no arrest, and seemingly no path forward.
[2:08] The case sat in the files of the Bronx Cold Case Squad, waiting
[2:12] for the right detective and the right moment.
[2:17] That moment came in late 2020, when Detective Robert Klein
[2:21] received a call from A Bronx prosecutor who'd heard jailhouse
[2:24] chatter potentially connected to Porter's case.
[2:28] Klein decided to reopen the investigation and began combing
[2:32] through the original case file. What he found was remarkable in
[2:36] its simplicity. The fingernail clippings
[2:39] collected from Porter's body back in 1996 had been retained
[2:44] but never tested. Klein immediately recognized the
[2:47] potential If Porter had scratched her attacker during
[2:51] the struggle, as was believed, there could be DNA trapped under
[2:55] those nails. By November 2021, at Klein's
[2:59] request, the city's medical examiner had tracked down the
[3:02] preserved clippings and submitted them for testing.
[3:07] When the genetic profile extracted from under Porter's
[3:10] nails was run through state and national databases, it returned
[3:15] a match. The name that came back was
[3:18] Gregory Fleetwood, a 66 year old Bronx man with a deeply
[3:22] disturbing criminal history. Gregory Fleetwood's history of
[3:27] violence against women stretched back decades before Jasmine
[3:30] Porter's slaying. In 1984, a woman living on
[3:35] Davidson Ave., the very same street where Porter would later
[3:39] be killed, accused Fleetwood of a horrific attack against a
[3:43] woman. That case didn't proceed to
[3:45] trial after the victim's family pressured her not to testify,
[3:49] fearing retaliation. 3 years later, on August 7th, 1987,
[3:56] Fleetwood strangled 25 year old Linda Miller, a pregnant woman
[4:00] from Paterson, NJ. The two were using drugs
[4:04] together in a Bronx apartment. After strangling her, Fleetwood
[4:08] called the cops and calmly admitted to what he'd done.
[4:12] For reasons which remain somewhat unclear, the charge was
[4:15] eventually reduced to manslaughter.
[4:18] He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison, ultimately
[4:21] serving roughly 7 years at Cape Vincent Correctional Facility
[4:25] before he was granted his release in August 19, 9418.
[4:31] Months after walking out of prison, Fleetwood struck again,
[4:35] this time eliminating Jasmine Porter, according to
[4:38] investigators and prosecutors. He lived across the street from
[4:42] her on Davidson Ave. However, it remains unclear to
[4:46] what extent, if any, the two were actually acquainted with
[4:49] each other, and some reports suggest the two may have crossed
[4:53] paths. At a party on that February day
[4:56] in 1996, Fleetwood entered Porter's apartment and brutally
[5:01] attacked her. Court records and investigative
[5:05] accounts describe Fleetwood as having pushed her down and sat
[5:08] on top of her while strangling her.
[5:11] Perhaps even more disturbingly, her young son tried desperately
[5:15] to push the man off his mother, putting up a truly fearless
[5:18] attempt to save her. Fleetwood's violence didn't end
[5:22] there either, and he was later linked to further violence
[5:26] against women. However, since he's stuck to
[5:29] targeting marginalized women who were addicted to drugs and
[5:33] living on the outskirts of life, no charges ever stuck.
[5:38] For nearly three decades after killing Porter, Fleetwood lived
[5:41] freely in the Bronx, most recently on Laconia Ave. just 5
[5:46] miles from the scene of the crime.
[5:49] Chillingly, neighbors there described him as a quiet,
[5:52] helpful man who always volunteered to shovel snow and
[5:56] kept to himself. On August 8th, 2022, Gregory
[6:02] Fleetwood was arrested and charged in the death of Jasmine
[6:05] Porter. At Fleetwood's initial court
[6:08] appearance, prosecutors painted him as an extreme flight risk
[6:12] and requested he be held without bail.
[6:15] He was remanded and subsequently indicted on the charge.
[6:20] The case moved slowly through the courts over the following
[6:22] years. Then on December 10th, 2025,
[6:27] Fleetwood pleaded guilty to 1st degree manslaughter, where he
[6:31] admitted to the details of the crime.
[6:34] On January 29th, 2026, Fleetwood was sentenced to 12 years in
[6:39] prison, which to me seems absolutely absurd given the
[6:43] crime and given his history. Disturbingly, there's a
[6:48] relatively high chance that this sick puppy will one day prowl
[6:51] the streets of New York City. Perhaps the only solace is that
[6:55] he will likely be too old and infirm to hunt for further
[6:58] victims. On the morning of May 7th, 1992,
[7:06] a school bus driver returned home to her apartment in Far
[7:09] Rockaway, Queens after finishing her shift.
[7:13] What she found inside the bathroom of her multi family
[7:16] home would shatter her world forever.
[7:20] Her 15 year old daughter, Nadine Slade, was lying in the bathtub
[7:24] unresponsive. A bra had been tied tightly
[7:28] around the teenager's neck, and a can opener found in the
[7:31] bathroom sink had been used to twist the strap even tighter.
[7:36] Emergency responders arrived, but it was far too late.
[7:39] Nadine was dead. The New York City Office of the
[7:43] Chief Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy and determined that
[7:47] Nadine had died from asphyxia caused by ligature
[7:50] strangulation. But the examination revealed
[7:54] something else, something crucial.
[7:58] There were defensive injuries on the girl's body, clear evidence
[8:02] she hadn't gone quietly. Nadine had fought back, and in
[8:06] that struggle, she'd scratched whoever had done this to her.
[8:10] Investigators collected DNA from underneath her fingernails and
[8:13] preserved it, not knowing it would take 30 years for science
[8:17] and determination to catch up with the perp.
[8:22] But before going on any further, it's important to understand
[8:25] what sort of neighborhood Nadine was living in at the time she
[8:29] was slain. Far Rockaway sits at the eastern
[8:32] tip of the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, bordered by the Atlantic
[8:36] Ocean to the South and Jamaica Bay to the north.
[8:40] By the early 1990's, the neighborhood was deep in
[8:43] decline. What had once been a glamorous
[8:47] beachside resort destination in the early 20th century had
[8:51] deteriorated significantly. The area became home to one of
[8:56] the largest concentrations of public housing in New York City,
[9:00] and by the early 1990s it was struggling with poverty,
[9:04] unemployment and drugs. It was a neighborhood where
[9:08] violence wasn't unusual and where cases could slip through
[9:11] the cracks. Nadine's family lived in one
[9:15] unit of a multi family home on Birdsall Ave.
[9:19] The layout of the house was significant because the bathroom
[9:22] where Nadine was found was shared between two separate
[9:25] apartments. Simply put, if someone had
[9:28] access to 1 unit, they could quite easily gain access to the
[9:31] shared bathroom at any time. Investigators established that
[9:37] on the night before Nadine's body was discovered, a man named
[9:41] Jerry Lewis had been present in the adjoining apartment, along
[9:45] with several other people. Lewis and Nadine didn't know
[9:49] each other. He wasn't a family friend or an
[9:52] acquaintance. He was simply someone who had
[9:55] been staying in the next unit over with direct access to that
[9:59] shared bathroom. Despite this, early lead
[10:03] detectives couldn't build a strong enough case at the time.
[10:07] The investigation stalled and Nadine's slaying went cold.
[10:13] For Nadine's family, the years that followed were defined by
[10:17] grief compounded with the agonizing absence of answers.
[10:22] Meanwhile, Jerry Lewis continued living his life, and it was a
[10:27] life marked by significant additional violence which could
[10:30] have been prevented if he was clapped in cuffs.
[10:33] Earlier in the years after Nadine's death, he served time
[10:38] in state prison for a brutal assault, robbery and drug
[10:42] possession. Then in 2001, he committed in a
[10:47] horrific assault on an 88 year old woman in Queens, an attack
[10:52] for which he was convicted in 2015.
[10:55] As part of that investigation, his DNA was collected and
[10:58] entered into the system. He eventually registered as an
[11:02] offender with the Virginia State Police in 2021.
[11:06] After relocating to Shawsville, Virginia, in 2022, the Queen's
[11:12] District Attorney Cold Case Unit, working alongside the Cold
[11:16] Case Squad, decided to take another look at Nadine's
[11:19] slaying. Advances in DNA technology had
[11:23] made it possible to extract and analyze genetic material that
[11:27] would have been insufficient for testing.
[11:28] Back in 1992, the team requested that the New York City Medical
[11:33] Examiner's office perform new testing on the trace evidence
[11:36] that had been preserved from underneath Nadine's fingernail
[11:39] clippings. The results were the
[11:42] breakthrough the case had been waiting for.
[11:45] A profile was successfully developed, and when it was run
[11:48] through the nationwide database, it produced a hit.
[11:52] The profile matched Jerry Lewis. The very act of Nadine fighting
[11:56] back, scratching him as he strangled her, had preserved the
[12:00] evidence that would ultimately identify him.
[12:03] It was a grim but powerful testament to Nadine's final
[12:06] moments of resistance. In March 2023, cold case
[12:12] detectives from New York City traveled to Montgomery County,
[12:15] Virginia, where Lewis was brought to the local Sheriff's
[12:19] Office. This was done under the pretense
[12:21] of a scheduled parole visit and detectives interviewed him
[12:25] there. On May 1st, 2023.
[12:29] He was formally arrested and extradited to New York and
[12:33] arraigned, during which he pled not guilty to all the offenses.
[12:38] Given the overwhelming nature of the forensic evidence against
[12:41] him, it was believed that he would change his plea at some
[12:44] point, but that never happened and a trial date was set.
[12:50] Notably, given the court backlog that accumulated since 2020,
[12:54] there was significant delays in reaching the trial.
[12:59] Lewis's trial began on January 12th, 2026 in Queen's Supreme
[13:04] Court, with the prosecution's case relying heavily on the
[13:07] genetic forensic evidence. The defense raised no real
[13:11] counter arguments, as is their right to do since the onus is
[13:16] entirely on the prosecution to prove their case.
[13:19] However, it probably won't come as a surprise to say that when
[13:23] there's effectively no defense, the chances of securing an
[13:27] acquittal go down sharply. Closing arguments were delivered
[13:33] on January 23rd, 2026. The jury deliberated for less
[13:39] than three hours before returning a verdict of guilty on
[13:43] all charges. Lewis, now 61 years old, is
[13:48] expected to receive the maximum sentence of 25 years to life in
[13:52] prison. There's something deeply
[13:56] important about what Nadine did in her final moments.
[13:59] She fought, she scratched. She left a piece of her attacker
[14:03] behind, embedded under her fingernails.
[14:07] It wasn't a conscious decision to preserve evidence for future
[14:10] investigators. It was a young girl's desperate,
[14:14] instinctive attempt to survive an unimaginable attack.
[14:18] But in the end, it was that fight, that refusal to go
[14:22] without resistance, that brought her killer to justice.
[14:30] Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here with a reminder to share this
[14:33] video with your friends and family.
[14:35] Also, don't forget to check out the YouTube membership or the
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[14:42] Also, don't forget that you can get this channel in podcast form
[14:46] wherever you listen, so just click the link in the
[14:49] description or search up Lazy Chill True Crime there.
[14:56] On the afternoon of February 10th, 2009, a neighbor called
[15:00] 911 after hearing a violent commotion coming from inside a
[15:04] home on Green Ave. in Ridgewood, Queens.
[15:08] When officers from the 104th Precinct arrived at the scene,
[15:12] they found the front door locked.
[15:14] They had to climb through a first floor window to get
[15:17] inside. What they encountered was a
[15:19] nightmare. Blood streaked the walls and
[15:22] pooled across the hallway floor in smears.
[15:25] Lying face down in the middle of it all was 64 year old Rosario
[15:29] Prestigiacomo, a long time homeowner and landlord in the
[15:34] neighborhood. He'd been stabbed 16 times in
[15:37] the face, neck, torso and limbs, with puncture wounds reaching
[15:41] his lungs, esophagus, chest, and lower abdomen.
[15:46] He'd also been beaten with a shovel, sustaining blunt force
[15:50] injuries to his head, torso, and extremities.
[15:55] Prestigiacomo was pronounced dead at the scene.
[15:59] His killer had vanished, and for the next 15 years, no one would
[16:03] be held accountable for his death.
[16:07] Rosario Prestigiacomo was born on February 1st, 1945, and it
[16:13] spent much of his life in Ridgewood, a working class
[16:16] neighborhood straddling the border of Queens in Brooklyn.
[16:20] He owned the home on Green Ave., where he was found dead, and
[16:24] neighbors remembered him as a familiar presence in the
[16:27] community. He liked to grow tomatoes in his
[16:30] yard and distribute them to his neighbors, a small detail from a
[16:34] life that was otherwise not well documented.
[16:38] Early reporting suggested the attack might have been connected
[16:41] to a property dispute, but authorities declined to confirm
[16:45] that theory. What they did know was that
[16:48] whoever killed Prestigiacomo had done so with extraordinary
[16:52] violence and then disappeared without a trace.
[16:56] And keep that property dispute theory in mind as we go forward
[16:59] here because trust me, it will come up again and it will be
[17:03] important. Despite the caution taken not to
[17:08] leave behind evidence during the brutal attack, the perpetrator
[17:11] had made one critical mistake. Crime scene detectives collected
[17:15] several blood swabs from throughout the home, as is
[17:19] standard procedure in these sorts of cases.
[17:22] When the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
[17:25] analyzed the samples, they found something significant.
[17:29] In addition to adna profile matching the victim, there was a
[17:33] second DNA profile belonging to an unknown male.
[17:37] This meant that the attacker had been injured during the assault,
[17:41] likely cut by his own weapon, or wounded by Prestigia Como
[17:45] himself during a struggle. It was a major piece of
[17:49] evidence, and investigators immediately ran the unknown
[17:53] male's DNA through local, state, and national databases.
[17:58] Every search came back negative. The unknown male wasn't in any
[18:03] law enforcement database. Without a match, detectives had
[18:07] no suspect, no name, and no direction.
[18:11] The trail went cold. For over a decade, the Rosario's
[18:15] case sat unresolved, just one of thousands of cold cases sitting
[18:19] across New York City, waiting for the kind of break that
[18:22] doesn't always come. That break finally arrived in
[18:27] March 2022, when the Queen's District Attorney's office and
[18:31] the cold Case squad decided to take another run at the case.
[18:35] This time, they had a tool that hadn't existed in 2009, and it
[18:39] would be a massive game changer. Working in collaboration with
[18:43] the Department of Homeland Security, investigators
[18:46] submitted the forensic evidence to a private lab located in
[18:50] Texas. These scientists developed a
[18:53] comprehensive genetic profile for the unknown male suspect.
[18:58] What makes this technology so powerful is what happens next.
[19:02] Instead of simply searching law enforcement databases, the
[19:06] profile was uploaded to public genealogy databases.
[19:11] After the lab completed its analysis, the profile was handed
[19:15] over to the Forensic Investigations Division.
[19:19] This work LED them to a man named Anthony Scalici, who was
[19:22] then 41 years old and living in Boynton Beach in Florida.
[19:27] Scalici was Prestigiacomo's nephew through marriage,
[19:31] specifically the son of the victim's ex wife's brother.
[19:35] He'd been living in Florida for years, well over 1000 miles away
[19:39] from the scene of the crime. Identifying Scalici as a suspect
[19:44] wasn't enough. Investigators needed physical
[19:47] evidence tying him directly to the crime scene.
[19:51] On various dates in January and February 2024, detectives from
[19:56] the Cold Case Squad travelled to Florida.
[19:59] There, working alongside the Boynton Beach Police Department,
[20:03] they began conducting surveillance on Scalici.
[20:06] Their goal was to obtain a discarded DNA sample, something
[20:10] Scalici had touched or used and then thrown away, so that his
[20:14] DNA could be tested without requiring a warrant.
[20:18] On February 17th, 2024, almost exactly 15 years after
[20:23] Prestigiacomo's slaying, Boynton Beach detective succeeded.
[20:28] They recovered a fork that Scalise had used and discarded.
[20:32] The fork was sent to the New York City Office of the Chief
[20:35] Medical Examiner. The genetic profile produced
[20:39] from the fork was an exact match.
[20:42] It matched the unknown male DNA profile developed from the blood
[20:46] evidence found at the crime scene in 2009.
[20:49] It also matched genetic material that had been recovered from
[20:52] underneath Prestigiacomo's fingernails.
[20:57] On May 14th, 2024, Anthony Scalichi was arrested in Boynton
[21:01] Beach by United States Marshals, the NYPD's Regional Fugitive
[21:06] Task Force, and the Boynton Beach Police Department. 15 days
[21:10] later, on May 29th, he was extradited to New York City.
[21:15] He was escorted out of the 105th Precinct station house the
[21:18] following morning, bowing his head before news cameras and
[21:22] refusing to answer questions. At his arraignment, he was
[21:26] ordered held without bail, and he entered a plea of not guilty.
[21:30] If convicted, Scalici faces up to 25 years to life in prison.
[21:36] Importantly, the authorities haven't publicly established a
[21:40] motive for the attack, and some have speculated that it may have
[21:43] been a property dispute, as initially reported.
[21:47] Some have suggested that he may have been a tenant of the slain
[21:50] man, though the police haven't officially confirmed this
[21:53] publicly yet. For now, though, the wheels of
[21:56] justice continue to turn, and Scalichi has no scheduled date
[22:00] for his trial at present.

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