Two men and a woman have been arrested for the murder of Gene “Gino” Lewis in what was apparently a internet prostitution scam.
Lewis was found dead in the doorway of a two-family Bronx home located at 2825 Wellman Avenue around 10:50 a.m. on Monday February 27, police said.
The Pelham Bay man, who is said to be 40-years old, was found beaten and strangled in his home after someone called 9-1-1 to report a commotion in an apartment on Wellman Avenue.
Police said Lewis was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner’s office determined that the cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head.
According to a police source, Lewis contacted Carrie Schmidtka, 24, on the internet. The police source said she agreed to perform sexual services in his apartment, and brought along Derrick Gordon, 31, who has 10 prior arrests for robbery and other crimes, and another accomplice who has not been named by police. The threesome allegedly attempted a robbery instead.
The third suspect fled the state on a Greyhound bus bound for Florida, and was nabbed by police in Baltimore, Maryland, where he is awaiting extradition and positive identification a police source said, as of press time.
Schmidtka was arrested on Thursday, March 1 and Gordon on Friday, March 2 and charged with murder, but the arrests were kept under wraps until the third suspect, a man, was detained, the police source said.
Waterbury-LaSalle Community Association member Mary Jane Musano said she feels it is unfortunate that something like this has happened, and that the man had been a resident in the area for several years.
Musano said she feels in times like these when the economy is bad and crime seems to be more prevalent, the community must be more vigilant and aware of their surroundings.
Musano said she has lived in the neighborhood her whole life, and has never seen a police captain as dedicated as Captain Russell Green.
“We need to take advantage of the fact that we have someone who cares about the community so much, and let him know when we see things,” Musano said.
While Lewis may have been known around the Pelham Bay and Waterbury-LaSalle communities, he was new to Wellman Avenue, said neighbor Charles Bailey.
“He was a new tenant, and I don’t think he was here more than a couple of months,” Bailey said. “It is a sin what happened to him. No one would like to see this happen to anyone.”
A visit to the home did not yield a response from the homeowner, who Bailey said is an elderly woman.
This kind of violent crime is pretty rare in the community, though in 2011, there was another murder up the block and around the corner at a taxi dispatcher’s office, Bailey said.
The homicide was the first recorded in the 45th Precinct in 2012, according to a police source.
