NEW YORK (CMC) – New York police say a man accused of smothering a 14-year-old Jamaican girl to death in Brooklyn, New York, shoving her body in a suitcase and setting it aflame on a Brooklyn beach, murdered the teen because she said she was pregnant with his child and refused to get an abortion.

New York City Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that Shaniesha Forbes wasn’t pregnant.

Police said Christian Ferdinand, 20, was arrested in Maine and charged with killing Shaniesha and dumping her remains near an extinguished bonfire at Gerritsen Beach, nearly three miles from the girl’s home in the predominantly Caribbean Flatlands section of Brooklyn.

Law enforcement officials said he then tried unsuccessfully to set Forbes’ body on fire.

Police said Ferdinand told them that he met Shaniesha on the social media network, Facebook, and began a sexual relationship with her.

When she told him she was pregnant but wouldn’t get an abortion, police said Ferdinand smothered her with a pillow in his cousin’s Brooklyn apartment.

Shaniesha’s Jamaican-born mother, Sandra Price, 40, said she knew her daughter was dating but didn’t know she was involved with a 20-year-old man.

“They even showed me his picture,” she told reporters, adding “I had never seen him”.

Police said Ferdinand kept Shaniesha’s body in a suitcase on the rooftop of his cousin’s home for two days before dumping it on the beach.

“The victim in this case was found naked and burned on the beach,” Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Wilfredo Cotto told a judge at Ferdinand’s indictment on murder charges.

Relatives said Shaniesha disappeared in January after leaving her Brooklyn home, saying she was going to school.

Police said The Academy for Young Writers freshman was found dead on the beach on January 6.

Police ruled her death a homicide by asphyxiation in April after the medical examiner’s office found that the girl’s lungs did not contain soot, proving that she was killed before being dumped.