HOWARD BEACH — The jogger who was murdered while out for a run in the marshland near her home fought against her attacker before she was brutally beaten, raped and strangled, police officials and sources said.
Karina Vetrano, 30, left her home on 84th Street Tuesday night to go running through the trails in Gateway National Recreation Center just blocks from her home, officials said.
Her body was found hours later face-down and just feet from a trail, with severe bruising and cuts, an NYPD source said. She was missing a sneaker and her underwear was pulled down, showing signs of rape, the source said.
She was physically and sexually assaulted and may have been dragged from the trail — but the woman put up a fight against her killer, according to Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
Now NYPD officials are chopping down much of the tall weeds throughout the vast marshland to make sure they have as much evidence as possible, he said.
And the NYPD also increased a reward for tips leading to her murderer from $2,500 to $10,000 after initially only receiving three "pretty generic" calls.
"This is a situation where anybody has any information, even the possibility something might help the police," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a briefing Thursday.
"All of us have to help this family. Anyone who knows something needs to call into the police right away.”
Vetrano's father, retired firefighter Philip Vetrano, found her body while searching with police after she didn't come home from her run. The family has not spoken publicly since.
Friends described Vetrano, who recently graduated with a master's degree from St. John's University, as someone who "always saw the best in things." Running — which she started to do at Archbishop Molloy High School — was a way for her to "escape," a friend said Wednesday.
Mourners embrace outside the James Romanelli Funeral Home in Ozone Park before a wake for Karina Vetrano. (DNAinfo/Katie Honan)
Phil Vetrano (Center) arrives at the wake for his daughter on Aug. 5, 2016. (DNAinfo/Katie Honan)
Mourners began filing into the James Romanelli-Stephen Funeral Home at 89-01 Rockaway Blvd. in Ozone Park Friday afternoon for Vetrano's wake, with friends, family and neighbors coming to pay their respects.
At the wake, people were given a prayer card that featured a photo of a sunset and a poem asking that her memory be "a happy one."
"I'd like to leave an afterglow of smiles when day is done," it said, in part. "I'd like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways, of happy times and laughing times and bright and sunny days."
Susan Marchetti, from Howard Beach, said the murder left her shaken and afraid for her own children, including her youngest daughter who was friends with Vetrano.
"I have three daughters and I'm always concerned when they go out for a walk, that they don't go alone, that they're with someone," she said.
The funeral will be held Saturday at St. Helen's 83-01 157th Ave. in Howard Beach at noon.
Flowers arrived Friday at the James Romanelli-Stephen Funeral Home in Ozone Park. (DNAinfo/Katie Honan)
