A suspect has been arrested in the death of a 29-year-old pregnant woman from Long Island who was found face down on the sidewalk off Horace Harding Expressway in Queens last week, NYPD officials said Tuesday. NBC New York’s Checkey Beckford reports.
A 30-year-old Long Island man has been indicted on charges of second-degree murder for allegedly killing his 29-year-old pregnant girlfriend in the backseat of her own car and dumping her body on a sidewalk, where a horrified passerby found her hours later with gray sweatpants wrapped around her neck.
Goey Charles was arrested last month in the death of Vanessa Pierre, a Long Island woman who was found face down on the sidewalk off Horace Harding Expressway in Queens on October 23. At the time of his arrest, NYPD officials shared chilling surveillance video they say showed Charles drag Pierre's lifeless body from the car, put it on the ground next to the highway and drive away.
In announcing the grand jury indictment Thursday, prosecutors shared even more disturbing details. An earlier segment of that surveillance video shows Charles pull over on the highway around 2:50 a.m. that October morning, prosecutors say. He gets out of the vehicle and then moves into the back, where Pierre is seen seated and moving.
A short time later, Charles gets back out from the rear seat and closes the door behind him; Pierre appeared motionless at that point, stretched out across the length of the backseat. Just before 4:40 a.m., video allegedly shows Charles get out of the vehicle again, drag her body out of the car and leave her.
She was discovered dead less than two hours later. Her unborn baby also died.
"The defendant is accused of committing a despicable, irreparable act of
domestic violence – killing the young woman who was to be the mother of his child, dragging her limp body from a car and then abandoning her body alongside a road," Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. "He will be held accountable for his alleged actions."
At the time of his initial arrest, Pierre's family questioned why Charles had not been charged with first-degree murder.
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"She fell in love with the wrong man. She got killed for that," said a family member. "We need the system to work for her. To give that guy what he deserves."
Friends of Pierre put up memorials for the 29-year-old nurse on a nearby overpass. Those who knew her said they had a feeling something was wrong with Charles, who controlled every part of Pierre's life, they said.
"She has 10-15 best friends, and didn't talk to not one of them before she passed away because this man did want her to communicate with anybody," one friend said. "He slept in his car. He wanted her, a 6-month-pregant woman to sleep in a car. Like, what kind of person does that?"
Charles was remanded to jail after his arraignment late Wednesday and is due back in court in February. He faces up to life in prison if convicted. An email seeking comment with the attorney's office listed on record wasn't immediately returned Thursday.
