The 29-year-old man accused of killing groundbreaking rocker Peter Forrest and leaving his body in the back of an ambulette in a remote section of the Bronx is an ex-con who was released from prison last summer, officials said Saturday.
Sharief Bodden is facing murder charges for beating Forrest, 64, to death inside the back of Forrest’s ambulette Monday morning while Bodden was wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor from a previous attempted-robbery conviction. Cops have also charged Bodden with manslaughter, drug possession and weapons possession. A Bronx Criminal Court judge ordered Bodden held without bail at his arraignment Saturday afternoon.
The accused killer served four years in state prison for a 2017 carjacking in the Bronx, ultimately pleading guilty in the case, according to state prison records and law enforcement sources.
On June 26, 2017, Bodden and two accomplices took a livery cab from 174th St. and Jerome Ave in Morris Heights to another location in the Bronx, where one of the men placed the driver in a chokehold before dragging him out of the car. The trio took off in the vehicle, but cops quickly apprehended them, the sources said.
When Bodden was released in July 2024, he was considered a “violent offender” and a judge ordered that he wear an ankle monitor.
The monitor ultimately led cops to Bodden in connection with Forrest’s death. Once Bodden was identified as the suspect, investigators tracked his ankle monitor to a location on Staten Island where they arrested him. Cops found more than one-eighth of an ounce of crack cocaine on him, according to the criminal complaint.
Bodden’s rap sheet also includes arrests for reckless endangerment, plus turnstile jumping, law enforcement sources said.
Forrest, who was known as P. Fluid as a member the South Bronx-based band 24-7 Spyz, was found face down in a pool of blood in the back of the ambulette, which was found parked at the corner of Castle Hill Ave. and Hart St. on the edge of Westchester Creek and Castle Hill Park, according to police.
He was discovered by a co-worker from Marquis Ambulette, who became concerned when Forrest didn’t make a few scheduled pickups and wasn’t answering his phone.
When the co-worker tracked down the ambulette through the vehicle’s GPS, he found a window broken and Forrest dead in the back.
Video footage obtained by News12 showed a man exiting the driver’s side door of the ambulette at around 8:45 a.m. and entering a waiting car, which then fled the scene.
Forrest was discovered dead about 30 minutes later.
Investigators are working on the theory that Forrest caught Bodden breaking into the ambulette, and believe Bodden then, in a rage, pummeled Forrest to death, and placed his bloodied body in the back of the ambulette, before ditching the ride, law enforcement sources said.
According to the city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Forrest was beaten to death, suffering blunt impact injuries of the head and torso.
Bodden struck Forrest “several times about the head, face and body,” leaving him with, “multiple blunt-force trauma injuries,” according to the criminal complaint.
A motive for the killing was not immediately disclosed.
Forrest first rose to acclaim in the 1980s and ’90s with the band 24-7 Spyz, which mixed metal, hardcore, punk and funk. He was also a founding member of the Black Rock Coalition, according to his former longtime girlfriend Chiedza Makonnen, 55, who called Forrest her “first love.”
“Music was his life and advancing Black rock was his life,” Makonnen previously told the Daily News. “He was passionate about that. He really helped pave that road for a lot of people to understand that Black musicians aren’t just rappers or R&B or soul, we’re rockers, too.”
After leaving 24-7 Spyz, Forrest formed P. Fluid and the P. Fluid Foundation, then later rejoined 24-7 Spyz temporarily before forming a new band, BlkVampires, performing as Forrest Thinner. The band released a song in 2015 called “Eric Garner.”
Forrest’s final musical project, BlkVampiresX, was his first solo act.
Workers at Marquis Ambulette declined to comment on Forrest’s murder.