Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson today announced that a 22-year-old former Brooklyn resident has been sentenced to up to life in prison for the murder of a 14-year-old girl who he met on Facebook. The defendant smothered the girl to death and burned her body because he believed she was pregnant.
District Attorney Thompson said, “This defendant callously and heartlessly killed this young teenager who had her whole life ahead of her simply because he thought she was pregnant. He showed her no mercy and now must suffer the consequences of his actions.”
The District Attorney said that the defendant, Christian Ferdinand, 22 of Limestone, Maine, formerly of Brooklyn, was today sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for second-degree murder and 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison for tampering with physical evidence by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Neil Firetog, who ordered the sentences to run consecutively. The defendant was convicted last month following a jury trial before Justice Firetog.
The District Attorney said that, according to trial testimony, on the morning of January 4, 2013, in an apartment on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, which belonged to the defendant’s cousin, the defendant and the victim, Shaniesha Forbes, who he met on Facebook, had an argument over whether to terminate her alleged pregnancy. The defendant was angered that the victim refused to have an abortion.
The District Attorney said that, according to trial testimony, the defendant demanded she “kill it” and the victim refused. The defendant then placed a pillow over her face and kept it down until the victim stopped moving. He then burned her clothing and her body and dumped her remains into Plumb Beach Channel in Gerritsen Beach. Her burned body was found by authorities on January 6, 2013.
An autopsy by the Office of the New York City Medical Examiner determined that the victim died of asphyxia and that she was in fact not pregnant.
The defendant was arrested May 15, 2013, in Maine, where he was employed through Job Corp., following a police investigation.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Robert Walsh, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, under the supervision of Deputy District Attorney Kenneth Taub, Bureau Chief.
