As an avid Disney fan, Simeonette Mapes-Crupi dreamed of a fairytale life.
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It looked like the New York City public school teacher may have gotten her wish when she married her charming and charismatic husband Jonathan Crupi.
Together, the two taught in one of Brooklyn’s toughest schools, where they had a reputation for going above and beyond for the students they adored, according to Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.
“I used to tell people I couldn’t buy a better son-in-law,” Simeonette’s mom Theresa Mapes remembered in the Oct. 29 episode. “That’s how good he was.”
But the teacher who raised money to buy her students prom dresses and told them to dream big would never get the storybook ending she imagined.
Instead, the 29-year-old was found stabbed to death, laying in a pool of blood in the front entryway of her Staten Island home on July 5, 2012, in a case also profiled in Oxygen’s New York Homicide.
Her brutal murder sent shockwaves through the community and ultimately uncovered the sinister secrets someone close to her had been keeping all along.
Who Was Simeonette Mapes Crupi?
To Simeonette’s students she was “Mommy Mapes,” a constant source of support and encouragement, prone to belting out a Disney ballad just to keep social studies class interesting.
When student Von Steven De Valle was getting bullied and thinking of dropping out, he remembered how she told him he was “special” and encouraged him to get his education, adding, “You don’t want to become left behind.”
Her husband Jonathan was equally beloved in the school’s English department.
“He was funny, he would do cartoon voices,” student Carmencita Majeed recalled to Dateline: Secrets Uncovered. “I remember one year he dressed up as Wolverine. He was just like a little big kid.”
What Happened to Simeonette Mapes Crupi?
It seemed like the pair had the perfect life—until the morning of July 5, 2012. Jonathan told investigators that he left the couple’s townhome that day around 7:30 a.m. and spent the morning doing errands, buying theater tickets to celebrate his upcoming anniversary, running by the school to pick up supplies to teach summer school, shopping for sneakers and getting his car inspected.
He told detectives he also stopped by Home Depot to buy paint for a home project, but when he couldn’t get in touch with his wife, he never went inside the store and returned home to find her dead on the floor.
“There’s blood all over,” he screamed in a 911 call. “Oh, my God. She’s in a giant puddle of blood.”
New York City Police arrived a few minutes later to find Simeonette had been stabbed to death.
“The amount of stab wounds was—was excessive,” Detective Michael Burdick explained. “I think you’ve got somebody who was very angry and intent on making sure that she is in fact, dead.”
Burdick noted the home was also in complete “disarray.” Someone had dumped drawers and ransacked the home, then left the sliding glass back door ajar by a few inches. Crime scene investigators swabbed the door, collected knives they discovered in the dishwasher and collected other evidence found at the scene.
While speaking with local media, Simeonette’s distraught mother had a chilling message for her daughter’s killer.
“I will find you. I will get you. You will pay,” she said. “It’s not going to bring my daughter back but she’ll know that her mother will not leave any stone unturned.”
Clues Reveal Secret Relationship
Investigators considered the possibility that Simeonette had been killed in a burglary gone wrong, but valuables like her jewelry, credit cards and Jonathan’s expensive sneaker collection were all left behind.
Detectives also looked into the possibility that someone at the school may have had it out for the teacher. Simeonette and Jonathan had witnessed a drive by shooting near the school just one week before her death, but Simeonette never reported seeing anything that would have identified the shooter and rival gangs in the area even called a truce the day of her funeral in her honor.
But there was one odd clue found at the crime scene. When analyzing the DNA swab taken from the back door, authorities found a mixture of DNA that belonged to Jonathan and an unidentified woman. Yet much of Jonathan’s alibi that morning—except for that supposed Home Depot trip—had been backed up by surveillance footage.
Months went by without answers, until detectives discovered a clue in Simonette’s cell phone that suddenly exposed her husband’s secret double life.
Before her death, Simonette saved a phone number in her phone simply under the name “woman.” Authorities traced the number back to an escort who went by the name “Ms. Pumpkin.” She confirmed that she’d been having relationship with Jonathan for multiple years and even saw him at a motel the day his wife died.
“So normally Jonathan would call her weeks in advance to arrange a date,” Det. Mike Cosenza explained. “On this day, he called her the day of from a different number, demanded ‘I need to see you today.’”
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A DNA test revealed her DNA had been the unknown sample found on the sliding door, yet, she insisted that she wasn’t at the house that day. Her own cell phone records placed her nowhere near the crime scene.
Authorities concluded that Ms. Pumpkin had transferred her DNA to Jonathan during their romantic encounter, which happened to coincide with the time he originally claimed to be at Home Depot, and then he’d left it behind on the door.
A search of his computer also showed that Jonathan frequented porn and escort sites, where he dropped large amounts of cash to fund his extramarital activities.
As Cosenza explained, “Apparently all her money went to the bills and the food and his money went to his sneakers and his extramarital affairs.”
Jonathan Crupi is Arrested for Simeonette’s Murder
Given that Ms. Pumpkin’s phone was programmed into Simeonette’s cell phone, detectives concluded that she had discovered her husband’s secret life before her death.
Investigators also learned it wasn’t the only secret he’d been keeping. In New York City, all public school teachers are required to get their master’s degree. While both Simeonette and Jonathan registered for the master’s program at College of Staten Island, she was the only one to receive a degree, while he’d never attended class.
Jonathan had been given an ultimatum by the school’s principal that put his job in jeopardy not long before her death.
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Theresa said her daughter planned to confront Jonathan about his lies and was making steps to end the relationship.
“She was leaving and she promised me she was gonna leave,” Theresa said. “She was done.”
Given all the evidence stacking up against him, detectives believed Jonathan played a role in his wife’s death, but they couldn’t prove their theory until a finding came back from the medical examiner that placed her death before 7:30 a.m. that morning. That meant that she had been killed when Jonathan was still in the house.
According to Assistant DA Wanda DeOliveira, their case was strengthened even further when a search of his computer found that he had searched how to slit a throat, how to break someone’s neck and how to clean up a crime scene.
“His job, everything was going in the garbage, once she exposed for the final time what a fraud he was and that he was patronizing prostitutes,” she explained of his motive to kill. “His life as he knew it was going to completely end.”
Jonathan was arrested on Nov. 13, 2012. He went on trial nearly three years later and was convicted of second-degree murder, despite his attorney’s claims that Simeonette died in a burglary. He’s currently serving out a sentence of 25 years to life behind bars.
To catch more compelling mysteries, watch Dateline: Secrets Uncovered Wednesdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.