A 29-year-old man, who is currently being held on unrelated crimes in the Caribbean, was indicted on Wednesday for the 10-year-old murder of a Brooklyn teen, authorities said.
Veron Primus has been the prime suspect in the 2006 murder since 16-year-old Chanel Petro-Nixon’s body was found in a trash bag on Kingston Avenue in Crown Heights three days after she disappeared, a law enforcement source said.
Now, authorities are trying to extradite Primus from the island of island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, after he was deported there last year.
“In our business — a terrible business investigating homicides — rarely do we witness true evil in anybody,” the NYPD’s Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said. “Here we witnessed it in this case.”
Petro-Nixon was last seen alive on June 18, 2006, after leaving her parents’ home on Father’s Day with a friend, according to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. She apparently planned to meet up with Primus, but was reported missing when she didn’t come home, according to the DA’s office.
A few years later, Primus was arrested for allegedly raping a woman and subsequently convicted of assault, the law enforcement source said. He served around 4 years in prison, and was deported in 2015.
While in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Primus reportedly stabbed a real estate agent to death. He then apparently kidnapped a young woman and kept her for three months in a mountain home before she was rescued, according to published reports.
She reportedly told detectives there that Primus had shown her a 2006 news clip about the murder of Petro-Nixon.
“It’s a bittersweet day today for the family,” said Petro-Nixon’s mother, Lucita Petro-Nixon. “Finally at least we can see a light at the end of the tunnel — it took 10 years.”
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said there will be a rally with the family Saturday at 11 a.m. in front of 212 Kingston Avenue, where Petro-Nixon’s body was found, to call for witnesses to come forward.
“Chanel’s family never stopped searching for answers, this community never stopped searching for the truth,” he said. “It is important for us that we bring Primus back to Brooklyn to face justice.”
