Slain pregnant mom’s little boy thought he’d be strangled: family
THE BRONX, N.Y. (PIX11) -- Now that NYPD detectives have made an arrest in the 1996 murder of Jasmine Porter, who was six months pregnant when she was strangled, her family is sharing details of what her little boy went through inside their Davidson Avenue apartment.
"I picked him up, and he talked to me," Dereke Porter, the child's uncle, recalled. "The person actually was going to strangle him, and he didn't."
On Monday, Gregory Fleetwood, 66, was arrested for Porter's 1996 murder, and PIX11 News learned he had fatally strangled a woman at least once before. He was arrested in 1987 and went to prison for manslaughter before getting paroled in 1994. Even though DNA tied Fleetwood to Porter's murder scene, he denied wrongdoing.
Jasmine Porter's son, Jeremy, was just days from his 5th birthday when he witnessed his mom's murder. They shared the same birthday. Jasmine Porter would have turned 37.
An autopsy report revealed the child was probably in the apartment with his dead mother for two to three days.
"You know the bond between mother and son is huge," Dereke Porter observed. "He didn't leave her side."
When a neighbor arrived at the house to do a wellness check, she discovered the little boy trying to wipe blood from his mother's nose.
"We sheltered him." Dereke Porter told PIX11 News about the boy. "My mother took care of him, and we didn't allow anybody to know where he was."
The child was raised upstate, and he's now 31 years old. The Porter family said they helped him move beyond the tragedy and become a productive citizen.
"He's a great young man and that's a testament to my mom raising him," Dereke Porter said. Sadly, Jeremy's grandmother died earlier this year.
Jeremy's uncle said his nephew was happy to learn of the arrest.
Jasmine Porter's sister, Shaunna Porter-White, grew emotional when she gave thanks to Detective Robert Klein and his colleagues from the Bronx Homicide Squad, who reopened the cold case early last year.
"That detective, I have tears in my eyes when I think of Detective Klein," Porter-White told PIX11 News. "What he did for our family. He treated Jasmine like she was his own sister."
Porter-White wanted people to know that her older sister was special.
"She was a phenomenal singer, a professional singer," Porter-White said. "She was very outgoing and she trusted a lot of people. Everyone was her friend. I told her everyone's not your friend."
Jasmine's brother and sister said they never heard of Gregory Fleetwood until his arrest Monday.
In recent years, Fleetwood was living on Laconia Avenue in the Bronx, just about five miles from where Porter was killed.
Al Sorano, a businessman who owns a driving school next door to Fleetwood's building, was stunned by the arrest.
"He was a quiet guy," Sorano said, "and he was very helpful. Anytime you needed something. If we had to shovel snow in the front."
Sorano said he never saw Fleetwood with anybody. "He walked by himself," Sorano said.
Dereke Porter said when he watched Fleetwood being walked out of the Bronx Homicide division, "What went through my mind was 'Finally. He going to atone for his actions.'"