Man Charged With 2006 Murder of Brooklyn Teen Chanel Petro-Nixon

• Pictured: Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson announces the indictment of Veron Primus on Wednesday. A picture of Chanel Petro-Nixon is at right. Photos by John V. Santore

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Ten years after her death, an indictment has been brought against the alleged killer of Bed-Stuy teenager Chanel Petro-Nixon. 

On Wednesday, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson announced that former Crown Heights resident Veron Primus has been charged with Petro-Nixon's murder. 

"Chanel had her whole life ahead of her," Thompson said at a packed Bed-Stuy press conference. "This community never stopped searching for the truth." 

"It's a bitter-sweet day today," said Lucita Petro-Nixon, Chanel's mother. "Finally we can see a light at the end of the tunnel. We have hope Chanel will get justice very soon." 

Petro-Nixon, 16 at the time of her death, was last seen leaving her home on June 18, 2006, according to authorities. 

She told her family that she was meeting a friend — later revealed to be Primus, who attended middle school with her — at the  Applebee's restaurant near New York Avenue and Fulton Street. 

But the teenager never returned home. She was found four days later in a garbage bag outside 212 Kingston Ave., dead from strangulation, according to authorities. 

Pictured: the sidewalk outside 212 Kingston Ave. 

Primus was always a suspect in the case, but police said they lacked sufficient evidence to charge him.  

He would up spending several years in prison after violating a restraining order, the New York Daily News reported, after which he was deported last year to the island of St. Vincent. 

But once there, Primus allegedly committed two more shocking crimes. This spring, the 29-year-old suspect was charged with the November, 2015 murder of local real-estate agent Sharleen Greaves, as reported by Pix11. 

Local authorities said the evidence behind that charge was turned up while Primus was being investigated for another crime — the four-month abduction of a 24-year-old woman named Mewanah Hadaway in early 2016, according to the St. Vincent news site iWitness News.

On Wednesday, Thompson, who praised community activists like the Rev. W. Taharka Robinson for keeping interest in the case alive, said he reassigned Petro-Nixon's murder to a cold case squad last year in the hope of finding new leads. 

After Primus' April arrest, authorities in St. Vincent contacted New York investigators about the suspect, Thompson said, and two prosecutors with the Brooklyn D.A.'s office were dispatched to the island. 

"It's not 'til we got that call from St. Vincent [that] we were able to get the key piece of evidence," said Robert Boyce, the NYPD's Chief of Detectives, on Wednesday. 

Thompson said the evidence needed for the indictment was collected "from different places," but wouldn't go into further details. 

Boyce also noted that investigators are currently examining if Primus could be linked to other unsolved crimes. 

Primus is currently being held in St. Vincent awaiting his trial over the murder of Greaves, but Thompson said he wants the suspect returned to the United States to stand trial in Brooklyn. 

That process, however, is lengthy, and must run through the U.S. Department of Justice, the District Attorney said.  

Thompson said he thinks his office has enough evidence against Primus to secure a conviction for Petro-Nixon's murder, but added that he wants more. 

He said a rally will be held on Saturday, June 18 at 11 a.m. outside 212 Kingston Ave. to encourage anyone with knowledge of the case to step forward and share it. 

"There is somebody here in Brooklyn that knows something," said Lucinda Petro-Nixon. "No justice, no peace."