Breakthrough in Brooklyn Teen's 2004 Murder Like 'Opening a Fresh Wound Once Again'

BUSHWICK, NY — After prosectors found a new DNA match for the killer in the haunting murder case of 17-year-old Sharabia Thomas more than a decade after her case had gone cold, friends and family of the young woman have said it's like reopening a fresh wound.

Thomas was found naked, brutalized, and suffocated to death in two laundry bags in an alleyway adjacent to 130 Palmetto St. on the afternoon of Feb. 11, 2004. The young teen had suffered blunt force trauma to her head, face and torso, the DA said, and "had visible ligature marks on her wrists and ankles." Her cause of death: suffocation.

No one was quite sure where she was headed when she was killed on that weekday morning, Thomas' close childhood friend and classmate Jessica Calderon, 30, told Patch. Their high school was holding a women's history month field trip for all the female classmates that day, but the last Calderon had heard, Thomas had decided not to attend.

Prosecutors found no DNA match at the time for her killer, and friends and family had since had to live with a complete mystery as to how their loved one was so violently killed.

"No matter what happened to her, she always had a smile on her face. Her smile would light up the room," Calderon told Patch.

Calderon said Thomas would always remember birthdays and send Christmas cards to everyone. Thomas would cut out magazine clippings of Calderon's favorite rapper and give them to her for a collage she was piecing together.

"I had maybe 140 posters of this guy on my wall, and half of that was her fault," Calderon said.

"It was devastating because I could tell you Sharabia never got into fights… she was the type that if she felt a bad vibe from a crowd she would go the other way," Calderon said. "She's the type of student that being a teenager, you'd call her the 'chicken,' she never wanted to try anything dangerous."

The new DNA results came back with a match: Kwauhuru Govan, 38, a former Bushwick resident serving time in Florida for armed robbery.

Govan has had a handful of court dates in which he has claimed he didn't know the victim.

Calderon said she had given up on knowing who killed Thomas. But ever since she found out about the new evidence, she hasn't slept, and her nerves have made her throw up more than once.

"It's opening a fresh wound once again. It really tugged at me," Calderon said. "I think about, would she have had any children by now? Her sister has a daughter who's 3 or 4 years old now, would Sharabia have had a daughter?"

She said Govan's picture looks somehow familiar to her, although she said she believes his face was much slimmer when he lived in the neighborhood.

"I just hope that this guy can finally fess up or somehow say what he did or why, to give her family and friends enough closure," she said. "This has been going on for way too long."

Friends and family who want to celebrate Thomas' memory are holding a candlelight vigil Nov. 25 at 130 Palmetto St. in Bushwick from 3 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Photo of Sharabia Thomas courtesy of the Brooklyn DA's Office