A felon freed two years ago on an attempted murder rap has now been arrested for a seven-year-old gang killing at a Manhattan housing project, police said Wednesday.
Suspect Tyrell Lewis, 25, was taken into custody on the murder charge Tuesday after he was identified as one of two men allegedly responsible for the June 6, 2015 killing of Anthony Fries. Lewis’ parole in the prior criminal case expired just three months ago, court records show.
“I really thought there was never going to be someone,” Jennifer Cosico, Fries’ mother, said Wednesday. “I’ve been praying every day, all day.”
Fries, 19, was fatally shot in the stomach at a parking lot at the East River Houses on E. 105th St. near First Ave. in East Harlem, with two other men wounded in the 4:30 a.m. shooting, according to police.
Officials did not immediately provide details on how investigators linked Lewis to the 2015 homicide and it was unclear if he is accused of being the shooter or accomplice. Lewis lives in East Harlem about 10 blocks from the East River Houses, cops said, and was arrested three times between May and October this year.
Fries and the two other victims were together in the parking lot when two men approached them. One of the pair opened fire, hitting Fries in the stomach, and he died at Harlem Hospital.
The 36-year-old survivor was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside in critical condition after he was blasted in the right shoulder and midsection, cops said. The 30-year-old survivor was taken to the same hospital in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the right shoulder.
Lewis’ arraignment for the murder charge in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending Wednesday.
“It’s heavy and at the same time I feel relief,” Cosico said of the arrest.
Within a year of Fries’ death, Lewis was arrested on attempted murder charges in a separate case, according to court records. The details of the case were not immediately disclosed.
Lewis was convicted of the charge on May 1, 2017, and served two-and-a-half years in prison before his release on Jan. 14, 2020. His arrests in 2021 included a May bust for selling drugs, a September assault arrest for hitting a 24-year-old woman and an October robbery in which he punched a 53-year-old woman in the face, authorities said.
He was released after all three alleged crimes, including two where the charges were not bail eligible.
Fries lived in Briarwood, Queens, according to cops. His murder was one of six killings at NYCHA complexes during a bloody 11-day span.
A few days after Fries’ death, a shooting broke out at a memorial service for the slain teen. No one was hit, but 20 rounds were fired, police said.
Additional shootings have occurred at the East River Houses over the last few years, including one in March 2022 in which two 15-year-old boys were shot by a woman as they left a community center in the housing project, police said.
Both teens were hit in the legs and survived.
