As an avid Disney fan, Simeonette Mapes-Crupi dreamed of a fairytale life.
It looks like the New York public school teacher may have gotten her wish when she married the charming and charismatic man Jonathan Crupi.
According to them, the two taught together at one of the toughest schools in Brooklyn, where they were known as the students they idolized. Date: Secrets Revealed.
“I told people I couldn’t buy a better son-in-law,” October 29. recalled Simeonette’s mother, Theresa Mapes, in the episode. “That’s how good he was.”
But a teacher who raised money to buy prom dresses for her students and told them to dream will never get the fairytale ending she envisioned.
Instead, in 2012 July 5 A 29-year-old woman was found stabbed to death in a pool of blood on the front porch of her Staten Island home in 2012. July 5 in the case, also described in Oxygen’s. New York Murder.
Her brutal murder sent shockwaves through the community and finally revealed sinister secrets that someone close to her had been keeping all along.
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Who was Simeonette Mapes Crupi?
To Simeonette’s students, she was “Mommy Maps,” a constant source of support and encouragement, prone to belting out a Disney ballad to make social studies class interesting.
When student von Steven De Valle was bullied and considered dropping out, he recalled her telling him he was “special” and encouraging him to get an education, adding, “You don’t want to be left out.”
Her husband, Jonathan, was also beloved in the school’s English department.
“He was funny, doing cartoon voices,” recalled student Carmencita Majeed Date: Secrets Revealed. “I remember some years he dressed up as Wolverine. He was like a little kid.”
Simeonette Mapes-Crupi and Jonathan Crupi appeared in Murder in New York Season 3 Episode 1
What happened to Simeonette Mapes Crupi?
The couple seemed to be living the perfect life, until 2012. July 5 morning Jonathan told investigators that around 7:30 a.m. that day, left the couple’s campus and spent the morning running errands, buying tickets to the theater for upcoming anniversaries, running from school to pick up supplies to teach summer school, looking at cars, and buying cars.
He told detectives he also went to Home Depot to buy paint for a home project, but when he couldn’t reach his wife, he never went inside the store and returned home to find her dead on the floor.
“Blood everywhere,” he yelled as he called 911. “Oh my God, she’s in a huge pool of blood.”
NYPD arrived minutes later and found Simeonette fatally stabbed.
“The number of stab wounds was excessive,” explained Detective Michael Burdick. “I think you have someone who was very angry and was going to make sure she was actually dead.”
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Burdick noted that the home was also a complete “mess.” Someone threw out the drawers and ransacked the house, then left the sliding glass back door a few inches open. Crime scene investigators cleaned the door, collected the knives they found in the dishwasher and collected other evidence found at the scene.
Speaking to local media, Simeonette’s distraught mother wrote a chilling message to her daughter’s killer.
“I’ll find you. I’ll get you. You’ll pay,” she said. “It won’t bring my daughter back, but she will know that her mother will leave no stone unturned.
Clues reveal secret relationships
Investigators considered the possibility that Simeonette was killed in the burglary, but valuables such as her jewelry, credit cards and Jonathan’s expensive sneaker collection were left behind.
Detectives also investigated the possibility that someone at the school may have distributed it to the teacher. Simeonette and Jonathan witnessed a school shooting just a week before her death, but Simeonette never reported seeing anyone who identified the shooter and rival gangs in the area, even calling a truce the day of her funeral.
However, one strange piece of evidence was found at the crime scene. When analyzing a DNA swab taken from the back door, officers found a mixture of DNA belonging to Jonathan and the unidentified woman. Still, most of Jonathan’s alibi that morning, aside from that alleged trip to Home Depot, was backed up by surveillance footage.
Months passed without answers until detectives found a clue on Simonette’s cell phone that suddenly exposed her husband’s secret double life.
Before her death, Simonette had saved the phone number in her phone with the name simply “woman”. Authorities traced the number to an escort who went by the name “Ms. Pumpkin.” She confirmed that she had been in contact with Jonathan for several years and had even seen him at the motel the day his wife died.
“So usually Jonathan would call her a few weeks in advance to set up a date,” the lecturer said. Mike Cosenza explained. “On this day, he called her from another number and demanded, ‘I need to see you today.’
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A DNA test revealed that her DNA was an unknown sample found on the sliding door, but she claimed she was not at home that day. Her own cell phone records did not place her near the crime scene.
Authorities concluded that Ms. Pumpkin passed her DNA to Jonathan during their romantic encounter, which coincided with the time he first claimed to have been to Home Depot and then left him on the doorstep.
A search of his computer also revealed that Jonathan frequented pornography and escort sites where he dropped large sums of cash to fund his extramarital activities.
As Cosenza explained, “Apparently all her money went to bills, food, and his money went to his sneakers and extramarital affairs.”
Jonathan Krupi is arrested for the murder of Simeonette
Given that Ms. Pumpkin’s phone was programmed into Simeonette’s cell phone, detectives concluded that she discovered her husband’s secret life before his death.
Investigators also learned that this wasn’t the only secret he was keeping. In New York, all public school teachers are required to have a master’s degree. Although both Simeonette and Jonathan enrolled in a graduate program at the College of Staten Island, she was the only one to receive a degree, and he never attended classes.
Jonathan was given an ultimatum by the school principal that put his job in jeopardy shortly before her death.
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Theresa said her daughter planned to confront Jonathan about his lies and took steps to end the relationship.
“She left and promised me she would,” Theresa said. “She was finished.”
With all the evidence against him, detectives believed that Jonathan played a role in his wife’s death, but could not prove their theory until the medical examiner received a report that she died before 7:30 a.m. This meant that she was killed while Jonathan was still at home.
According to Assistant DA Wanda DeOliveira, their case was further strengthened when it was found on his computer that he looked up how to cut a throat, how to break someone’s neck and how to clean up a crime scene.
“His work, everything went to the trash when she finally revealed what a fraud he is and that he patronizes prostitutes,” explained his motive for the murder. “His life as he knew it would end completely.”
Jonathan was arrested in 2012. November 13 He went to trial nearly three years later and was convicted of second-degree murder, despite his attorney’s claim that Simeonette died during the burglary. He is currently serving a 25-year-to-life sentence behind bars.
For more compelling secrets, watch Date: Secrets Revealed Wednesdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.