20-year-old Christian Ferdinand, of Limestone, Maine, was arrested on Tuesday for the second degree murder of Shaniesha Forbes, dumping her body on Gerritsen Beach and lighting her on fire, according to police. Forbes’ naked body was found on January 6, 2013.
Ferdinand admitted to killing her because he thought she was pregnant! He was dating the 14-year-old girl when he suffocated her in his Brooklyn apartment. Ferdinand kept the body for one to three days before putting it in a suitcase and dumping it on a beach near Gerritsen and Louis avenues.
He set the suitcase on fire to get rid of the evidence but he was spotted by a witness. Ferdinand then fled to Maine where he was arrested, driven back to Brooklyn by the police and brought to the 63rd Precinct, where he reportedly made statements implicating himself. Evidence was also found in his home, police said.
An investigation is being held to determine the cause of death, an autopsy was inconclusive but the medical examiner had determined that Forbes died of ‘homicidal asphyxiation’ which can include suffocation and smothering, allegedly after a fight over a possible pregnancy. Ferdinand had no prior record in New York, according to authorities.
Police say Forbes and Ferdinand knew each other, but they did not say for how long they had been dating.
Forbes’ family held a press conference at 9 a.m. Thursday at their Flatlands home. They said that they believed she met Ferdinand online but they were not aware she was in a relationship, let alone someone six years older than her.
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“Her last Facebook said she went to the movies, went with ‘him’ and we don’t know who ‘him’ is,” her cousin Kerri-Ann Thomas said.