Exclusive | Karina Vetranos dad, who found missing NYC runners body, has heart-wrenching message for father of jogger stabbed in neck
Phil Vetrano, who found tragic daughter Karina’s lifeless body on a Queens running path 10 years ago, has a message for the distraught dad grappling with discovering his own daughter stabbed on a jogging route Friday: Help nail her attacker.“Do not stop it — make it your life mission” to get justice,’’ Vetrano told The Post on Sunday.“It’s crazy, it sounds familiar — son of a bitch,” Vetrano, 70, railed of the fiend who left 28-year-old bank teller Katie Suarez brain-dead by stabbing her in the neck as she jogged on a popular Brooklyn waterfront promenade Friday evening.Vetrano said he can’t believe the eerie similarities between that case and his family’s own tragedy.As with Suarez’s dad, Vetrano, a retired FDNY firefighter, went searching for his daughter when he grew worried because he hadn’t seen her return from a run on Aug.2, 2016.“I was looking for her immediately,” recalled Vetrano, who normally went running with his vivacious daughter, a world traveler who relished life but sat out that day in Spring Creek Park because of back pain.“I told her, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea,’” to go alone, Vetrano said.
“And she said, ‘Don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll be OK.’ ”Those were the last words the 30-year-old would ever say to her father.After little more than a half hour, Vetrano said he had a “bad feeling” and phoned her over and over, to no avail.The father of Friday’s attacked jogger also phoned his daughter — in this case, because she was late getting to their agreed-upon meet-up spot — and when he got no answer, went looking for her.The fathers both ended up finding their children.Karina had been sexually abused and fatally strangled, with her random attacker eventually caught.Suarez’s attacker is believed to also have been a stranger, but there is no motive yet.
She was not robbed or sexually assaulted, according to preliminary findings, law-enforcement sources told The Post on Sunday.Vetrano sa...