Staten Island Man Pushes Wife Down Stairs, Stabs Her To Death, Then Visits Sex Worker
After Jonathan Crupi called 911 to say he arrived home to find his wife dead, authorities discovered that Simeonette Mapes-Crupi had been pushed down a flight of stairs and stabbed 15 times.
On July 5, 2012, a chilling 911 was placed from the Staten Island borough of New York City.
“I just came home, my wife is dead,” Jonathan Crupi, 30 at the time, said in the recorded call. “Oh my God. I think my house was robbed.”
Officers rushed to the home and found Simeonette Mapes-Crupi, 29, dead. She’d been pushed down a flight of stairs and stabbed 15 times, NBC 4 New York reported.
“It was violent. It was a violent death,” said Michael Cosenza, a detective with the New York City Police Department's homicide squad that was investigating the case.
The residence, located in the New Springville neighborhood of Staten Island, had been ransacked.
“It was completely trashed,” Cosenza said in the “Deadly Lesson” episode of New York Homicide, airing Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen. “To me, it looked staged.”
Investigators found no sign of forced entry, but a rear sliding glass door was ajar. The handle was processed for DNA as detectives dug in to try to catch the brutal killer.
Who was Simeonette Mapes-Crupi?
A beloved daughter and sister, Mapes-Crupi had an infectious laugh and adored dancing. “She loved life. She loved to have fun,” her father, John Mapes Jr., told New York Homicide.
Mapes-Crupi, like her husband, taught at the School for Classics, a high school in Brooklyn. They had both worked on getting a master’s degree at the College of Staten Island in order to advance their careers.
They were just two days away from their fifth wedding anniversary at the time of Mapes-Crupi's murder, NBC 4 New York reported.
Investigators look at Jonathan Crupi
“In domestic situations, the spouse is the first person that’s looked at,” said Assistant District Attorney Wanda DeOliveira, of the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office.
Crupi gave police a detailed account of his movements before he called 911. He said that after leaving home at 7:30 a.m. the morning his wife was killed, he had his car inspected, went to the school he worked at to pick up supplies, shopped for sneakers, and, finally, went to Home Depot.
Crupi had mentioned a robbery when he called 911. But investigators doubted that claim. “Credit cards, blank checks were out on the counter,” DeOliveira told New York Homicide. “An engagement ring in the bathroom was still sitting there.”
Jonathan Crupi's alibi raises red flags
Two days after the homicide, Cosenza and Michael Burdick, then a detective with the NYPD’s 122nd precinct, retraced Crupi’s timeline and whereabouts on July 5.
Crupi's arrival at the school he worked at was confirmed by surveillance cameras. A receipt showed that Crupi’s car had been inspected, and noted the mileage at the time of the check-up.
Crupi had said that he’d gone to Home Depot in the Charleston area of Staten Island. But a review of security cameras showed that Crupi had never arrived there.
“His story wasn’t adding up,” said Burdick. “Why do I have the husband of a homicide victim lying?”
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Mystery DNA found at crime scene
Crupi had told detectives that the open sliding glass door at the crime scene was locked when he left home on the morning of July 5.
“The DNA came back to Jonathan Crupi and a female that was not Simeonette,” DeOliveira said.
No match for the unknown female was found in a DNA database. As investigators sought to identify the mystery woman, Mapes-Crupi was laid to rest. “There were several hundreds of people that were there,” said her father, Mapes Jr.
It was during this somber occasion that family members learned that Mapes-Crupi had developed a program for students who couldn't afford to go to prom.
“She wasn't looking for recognition, and that's the epitome of what a good person should be,” said her brother, John Mapes III.
Investigators dig deeper into Simeonette Mapes-Crupi’s marriage
On July 11, detectives learned that Mapes-Crupi “had begged” the School for Classics to hire her husband, said DeOliveira.
They also discovered that Crupi’s claim that he’d gone to school to pick up supplies that his wife needed to teach summer school didn’t square. According to the school's principal, all the necessary materials had already been moved over to another site where summer school would be taught.
School security footage showed Crupi entering a computer room. In August, investigators subpoenaed Crupi’s and Mapes-Crupi’s school-issued laptops. Detectives found their recent search histories to be revealing.
Crupi had searched about reselling sneakers and hip-hop music. She had searched about in vitro fertilization and marriage counselors.
One of Mapes-Crupi’s Google searches stood out. It was for a phone number matching one that was saved in her cell phone contacts simply as “Woman.”
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Sex worker becomes key witness
Detectives determined that the phone number belonged to a sex worker known as "Miss Pumpkin." They interviewed her on August 15.
“We showed her a photograph of Jonathan Crupi. She knew him as Mike,” said Cosenza, adding that Miss Pumpkin said she’d had sexual encounters with him for two years.
The escort told police that on July 5, the day of the murder, Crupi called to arrange an encounter at 12:45 p.m., the time that Crupi had told authorities that he'd gone to Home Depot.
Miss Pumpkin agreed to a DNA swab. Hers matched the evidence found on the door at the couple's home.
Mapes-Crupi’s phone contact list and computer searches convinced detectives that she knew about her husband and Miss Pumpkin.
According to Theresa Mapes, the mother of Mapes-Crupi, on around July 2, Mapes-Crupi discovered that Crupi didn’t get his master’s degree and hadn’t attended classes that she’d paid for.
“We had found out that he was a horrible husband and a horrible person,” said DeOliveira. “But we didn’t have an eyewitness, we didn’t have a murder weapon.”
Shocking evidence found at crime scene and on laptop
Investigators searched the couple's home again. In a closet that originally had been blocked by the victim’s dead body, they found a throwaway cell phone in Crupi’s coat. It verified Crupi’s calls to Miss Pumpkin.
Detectives also recovered Crupi’s laptop. While investigators waited on a search warrant for the device, they dug deeper into Miss Pumpkin’s possible role in the crime.
Autopsy results showed that Mapes-Crupi had been killed in the early morning hours of July 5.
A thorough search into Miss Pumpkin and her whereabouts at the time of the murder cleared her as a suspect, said DeOliveira.
Police concluded that her DNA was on the crime-scene door handle because of touch DNA. “He had his hands all over her and then used the door handle,” said DeOliveira.
Suspicions surrounding Crupi mounted. His laptop search history “was disturbing to say the least,” said Cosenza. Crupi had searched for how to clean up a crime scene, how to suffocate someone, and how to cut a throat.
These queries dated several months back. “He’s been planning this for some time,” Cosenza said. “This is a sick individual.”
Jonathan Crupi charged and tried for murder
In November of 2012, Crupi was arrested at his parents’ house in Brooklyn. As DeOliveira built the case, she briefed Mapes-Crupi’s family about what detectives had learned about Crupi.
“We found out there was a strip joint right next door to school. That’s where Jonathan spent most of his day,” said Theresa Mapes. “We found out that Jonathan had visited a hooker right after he murdered my daughter.”
The prosecution’s theory was that Mapes-Crupi confronted her husband about not attending school and his philandering with sex workers. They believe he pushed her down the stairs, stabbed her 15 times, and tried to make it look like a home intruder killed her.
In June of 2015, a five-week trial began. In July of that year, Crupi was found guilty of second-degree murder. He later received the maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
To learn more about the case, watch the “Deadly Lesson” episode of New York Homicide, which airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.