UPDATE: On Sunday morning the NYPD held a press conference to identify the man in custody in connection with Karina Vetrano's August 2016 murder. NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said his name is Chanel Lewis, 20, from East New York. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Lewis will be arriagned tonight or early Monday morning.
Police said Saturday night they are questioning a man taken into custody in connection with the murder of Karina Vetrano.
Charges are pending against the man in custody, the city police department said.
Vetrano, 30, was found dead in a marshy area in Howard Beach on August 2, several hours after she left for a jog near her home.
Karina Vetrano's father — Phil Vetrano, a retired firefighter and 9/11 first responder — had become worried when she did not return home, so he went looking for her and found her body inside Spring Creek Park near the Belt Parkway.
The medical examiner said Vetrano was sexually assaulted, beaten, and then strangled.
Investigators did find DNA at the crime scene but no matches in the system.
Thursday marked 6 months since Vetrano's death, and her family called on the state to allow familial DNA testing in an effort to find her killer.
Neighbors of the Vetrano family say they are relieved.
NY1: You said have three kids?
Neighbor: I have three boys, yeah.
NY1: What has it been like for them in the months since Karina was killed?
Neighbor: It's been tough. I have my daughter-in-law, who lives upstairs. She leaves 6 in the morning; she's a school teacher. And I make sure I go out with her until she gets to the car and leaves.
"It hit home, let's put it that way. It's like somebody that was part of my family," one woman said Saturday night about Karina Vetrano's death. "And we're all very heartbroken. It should've never been, but it happened."
Almost $300,000 had been raised to reward anyone with information leading to an arrest.
News media outside the home of Vetrano's parents have been kept across the street, as the family had instructed officers to not let anyone knock on their door.
One man personally thanked police stationed outside the family home for their hard work in the investigation.