Secrets of the Sliding Door

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Speaker 6 Tonight, on dateline.

Speaker 7 I turn on the news and it says high school teacher murdered. I was just distraught.
Just distraught.

Speaker 8 You see them bringing her body out.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, I'm sorry.

Speaker 9 She was laying on the floor. Multiple stab wounds, lots of blood.

Speaker 10 Mattresses were turned upside down, drawers were taken out and turned upside down.

Speaker 9 If it was a burglary, that person took an awfully long time looking for something.

Speaker 12 There was a strange number on her cell phone.

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 15 Who was it?

Speaker 9 Her tag name was Miss Pumpkin.

Speaker 16 We told her we needed to talk to her in regards to an investigation.

Speaker 17 Man, I would like to have been a fly on the wall in that conversation.

Speaker 10 Inside that bag was the laptop.

Speaker 10 There are thousands and thousands of searches to sift through, and my God, Keith, I did it for days.

Speaker 16 There's a pattern of lies that I'm uncovering.

Speaker 14 We were in shock.

Speaker 19 This really can't all be happening.

Speaker 9 Now we were in Bizarro Land.

Speaker 21 A teacher murdered in a case that was a study in secrets. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dadeline.

Speaker 22 Here's Keith Morrison with Secrets of the Sliding Door.

Speaker 4 Manhattan.

Speaker 23 Perhaps the most recognizable cityscape in all the world.

Speaker 26 And yes, this is a New York story.

Speaker 27 But not this New York.

Speaker 24 This one.

Speaker 5 Or kind of what we would call the forgotten borough.

Speaker 30 Staten Island, so close to the great moneyed monuments of the city, but

Speaker 28 really a world away.

Speaker 9 It doesn't have the hustle-bustle like the rest of the city does.

Speaker 17 The difference is night and day.

Speaker 32 These quiet streets seem a haven from the big city and the crime that comes with it.

Speaker 25 But sometimes the very thing you're trying to escape is already there.

Speaker 38 Staten Island is home for many of the city's police and firefighters and teachers, like the remarkable Simonette Mapes Croupie.

Speaker 28 As Simonette's mother Teresa wanted the whole world to know,

Speaker 19 she was just an amazing,

Speaker 19 amazing soul.

Speaker 19 I always consider her my gift.

Speaker 10 from God.

Speaker 33 She was, said just about everybody, a giver, devoted to her students, to her family, to her pets, and she was a dreamer who believed in angels and fairy tales.

Speaker 6 Until a hot July day in 2012.

Speaker 43 I want to offer this was an emergency.

Speaker 43 I just came home. My wife is dead.
Oh my God, I think my house was robbed.

Speaker 34 The man on the 911 call was Jonathan Croupy, Simonette's husband. He'd been running errands and then came home to a nightmare

Speaker 28 and utter chaos.

Speaker 43 I know you're scared, but

Speaker 43 why do you say she's dead? Like, is she. There's blood all over! Oh my god, this is China pumped blood!

Speaker 34 The next-door neighbor, Bob Garberino, heard the commotion.

Speaker 12 I came out, I came about here,

Speaker 45 and I saw Croupy standing over there on the phone.

Speaker 23 And he was just going up and down, going,

Speaker 23 they killed her. They killed her.
She's dead.

Speaker 12 She's dead.

Speaker 45 He was in like a little bit of hysterics.

Speaker 31 Joe Metzopoulos was the first detective to arrive to what was indeed a horror.

Speaker 45 Inside the house, there was a female body laying face down in a pool of blood. There was no shell casings or bullet holes.
I think the assumption was that she might have been stabbed.

Speaker 16 I got a phone call from Detective Metsopoulos telling me that we had a homicide.

Speaker 24 Detective Michael Burdick got over there pretty quickly to witness his turn to take the lead.

Speaker 16 The amount of stab wounds was excessive. I think you got somebody who's very angry and intent on making sure that she is in fact dead.

Speaker 25 It fell to Jonathan to break the news to Simonette's mother, Teresa.

Speaker 22 She rushed to her daughter's house.

Speaker 19 By the time I got there, the place was full of cops and full of helicopters.

Speaker 46 Police are still closely guarding the scene of a brutal stabbing death on Staten Island.

Speaker 19 It was just horrible.

Speaker 46 Neighbors say her family showed up, destroyed and confused.

Speaker 19 I wasn't thinking straight.

Speaker 19 I just wanted to see my daughter. I didn't care where she was, how she looked.
I just wanted to touch her one more time.

Speaker 17 Did you get to?

Speaker 17 No.

Speaker 25 Simonette's father, John, a stoic career military man, also raced over, of course.

Speaker 14 He found his wife in front of their daughter's house inconsolable i grabbed her and she said they killed our baby they killed our baby and just

Speaker 33 she collapsed because of course they couldn't see her couldn't go inside not well the detectives scoured the place for evidence for any kind of clue in all the mess there was disarray drawers were taken out of the kitchen Drawers were taken out of dressers.

Speaker 13 Like a burglar who didn't know what the heck he was looking for or didn't know where to find it or something.

Speaker 16 I would agree with that.

Speaker 23 And there was a door open, right?

Speaker 16 Yeah, slide-in door. It was ajar by about two to three inches.
I took notice of that.

Speaker 16 Multiple things were sent for DNA.

Speaker 16 Knives that were discovered inside of the dishwasher. We swabbed the back handle of the door.

Speaker 26 While the crime scene was being processed, Detective Metsopoulos drove a distraught Jonathan to the station.

Speaker 45 The first thing that I did was I offered my condolences to Jonathan. He seemed like he was just more more numb.

Speaker 28 Numb.

Speaker 25 Easy to understand why.

Speaker 28 In the days after she was killed, Simonette's family would be overwhelmed with so many emotions, grief, of course, but also rage.

Speaker 48 Her mother went to the media with a message for the killer, whoever it was.

Speaker 19 I will find you. I will get you.

Speaker 8 You will pay. It's not going to bring my daughter back, but she'll know that her mother will not not leave any stone unturned.

Speaker 33 Turn over enough stones and...

Speaker 6 well, you never know what you will uncover.

Speaker 19 It got worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 50 It's kind of like Jacqueline Hyde.

Speaker 9 Eventually, Hyde's going to dominate.

Speaker 10 He was an animal. He was disgusting.
Disturbing to say the least.

Speaker 9 So now we were in Bizarro land.

Speaker 24 School was out for the summer.

Speaker 32 So Simonette Mapes Croupy's students got the news, like the rest of the city, impersonal and devastating.

Speaker 46 Police say a 29-year-old woman was found dead.

Speaker 7 I turn on the news and it says, like, high school teacher murdered. Drop to the floor and just start crying, blowing my eyes out.

Speaker 31 Simonette was Carmen Sita Majid's teacher and was supportive, understanding, kind.

Speaker 7 It was like, who would kill her? Like, who has a problem with her?

Speaker 38 Certainly not her students.

Speaker 29 They adored her.

Speaker 26 This is von Stephen Duvallier.

Speaker 8 You see them bringing her body out,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 8 you can tell

Speaker 8 the body bag,

Speaker 51 the sheep of her body,

Speaker 51 you know.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, I'm sorry.

Speaker 29 The crime scene here on a busy road in Staten Island was, no better word for it, ransacked.

Speaker 35 This is the NYPD's Mike Cosenza.

Speaker 10 We're conducting canvases to determine if there are any similarities as far as burglaries in the area.

Speaker 38 Detectives considered the burglary angle, but the level of violence suggested passion, rage.

Speaker 53 It just didn't make sense.

Speaker 33 Thing was, everybody seemed to love Simonette, or Sissy, as her family and close friends called her.

Speaker 10 As part of our investigation, we have to dig deep into her life, you know, see if she had any secrets. And you know what, Keith?

Speaker 4 She was an angel.

Speaker 19 Everybody thinks their children are special, but I always said that God sent Simonette to me because I needed Simonette.

Speaker 34 Simonette was so respected, she could have worked anywhere, but she chose a school in a a high crime section of brooklyn there she taught social studies and raised money to help her students from buying them prom dresses to treating them at restaurants where they'd never been couldn't afford to be she explained to him says

Speaker 7 go to school get your degree and this can be yours we called her mommy maps she would always bring up disney And for me, I'm obsessed with Disney.

Speaker 7 I remember we would just be in class bored and she would love to just break out singing The Little Mermaid. I'm Part of Your World.

Speaker 44 Vaughn told us her kindness and encouragement changed his life.

Speaker 44 He was bullied in school, ready to quit, until Mommy Mapes stepped in.

Speaker 8 She's like, Vaughn, please, just please don't. You're special.
You have to get your education, Vaughn. You don't want to become left behind.

Speaker 37 Simonette's devotion to others and her deep faith once led her to consider becoming a nun.

Speaker 28 And then she met him,

Speaker 28 the love of her life, Jonathan Croupy.

Speaker 19 Simonette went on a date with him. She came home that night and she said, Mom, oh my god, he's so nice.
You know, I really like this one.

Speaker 25 This is Simonette's little brother, John.

Speaker 15 As a match, how did this look?

Speaker 54 It looked great. And every time they were together, they always had a good time.
As long as my sister was happy, I was a happy, a happy brother.

Speaker 19 I used to tell people I couldn't buy a better side on more.

Speaker 19 That's how how good he was.

Speaker 42 Wonderful woman.

Speaker 29 Great marriage.

Speaker 42 Still, of course, they had to look at everything, including the husband.

Speaker 25 Standard procedure.

Speaker 10 But, you know, you got to treat him with some compassion, to say the least. You hung up, mama.

Speaker 38 Detectives learned Simonet helped Jonathan get a job teaching English at the same school where she worked.

Speaker 26 And he was good, too.

Speaker 16 Both teachers were known to be charismatic, able to relate to the students on, you know, a deeper level than most. Sup, Sally!

Speaker 7 he was funny he would do cartoon voices i remember one year he dressed up as wolverine he was just like a little big kid like you can just his class was a joy

Speaker 36 but did he have an alibi

Speaker 6 yes he did

Speaker 38 Jonathan told the police he last saw Simonette when he left their condo at 7.30 in the morning.

Speaker 48 Assistant DA Wanda Di Oliveira was there as Jonathan recounted his day. A busy one.

Speaker 9 He said, it's our wedding anniversary this weekend. I'm going to get cheap tickets for a Broadway play for my wife and I to attend.

Speaker 16 He then went to his school to pick up books for a summer school because they had both opted to teach summer school in order to earn some extra income.

Speaker 16 Upon leaving the school, he had went to get his car inspected.

Speaker 29 Jonathan also dropped by a sneaker sneaker store and then one final stop before heading home.

Speaker 9 He tells his wife via at least two texts, I'm going to stop at Home Depot and get paint for that painting project that you wanted to do in the bathroom.

Speaker 9 So he pulls into the Home Depot but decides not to go in because he hadn't heard back from her and comes home.

Speaker 36 Detectives checked out his story and found video of Jonathan at the school and at the sneaker store, as well as a time-stamped receipt from his car inspection.

Speaker 10 The times that he gave us were consistent with the times he was at the locations that he had visited that day.

Speaker 23 In other words, they looked like a good alibi.

Speaker 4 It did.

Speaker 48 Jonathan and Simonette were not wealthy, but if this was a burglary, well, there was something that might have attracted the intruder.

Speaker 38 Jonathan had a side hustle, selling pricey sneakers.

Speaker 48 He stored them in the condo.

Speaker 9 On the top floor, they were very, very expensive designer, and I mean three, four, $500 sneakers, dozens of those. So there were sneakers upon sneakers.

Speaker 19 The first thing we thought was, oh no, he was selling sneakers and some guy came in to rob the sneakers while Simonette was at home.

Speaker 2 A burglary turned violent.

Speaker 53 Or did someone set out to kill Simonette because of something she witnessed?

Speaker 52 Something she wasn't supposed to see.

Speaker 29 Just one week earlier, as Simonette and her husband walked from school to their car in one of Brooklyn's most dangerous neighborhoods.

Speaker 54 There was a shooting and they ducked down behind the car once they heard the gunshots go off.

Speaker 8 It was scary. It was dangerous.

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Speaker 1 Here's a question. How can you keep from getting sick with a respiratory illness this season? The good news is, everyday actions can help you stay well and stop the spread.

Speaker 1 Wash your hands, take steps for cleaner air, and try to avoid close contact with people who are sick.

Speaker 1 And talk to your doctor about what vaccines may be right for you so you can help keep yourself and your loved ones healthy. Learn more at cdc.gov slash respiratory dash illnesses.
A message from CDC.

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Speaker 34 Five days after her murder, a funeral mass was held for Siminette at Our Lady of Pity Roman Catholic Church on Staten Island. An overflow crowd turned out to show their respects.

Speaker 14 The amount of love that was shown by the school and the students and our family and friends, obviously, it took me aback.

Speaker 36 Some of the parents

Speaker 14 came to Teresa and I said, You don't know what impact your daughter had

Speaker 4 on

Speaker 14 my daughter's life. I never knew.

Speaker 4 Never.

Speaker 25 On her way to the funeral, student Carmen Sita Majid messaged Simonette's husband and fellow teacher, Jonathan.

Speaker 7 And the message that I had got back was like, your fairy godmother got her wings.

Speaker 7 And it just broke me.

Speaker 8 I remember going up to the casket

Speaker 4 and looking at her.

Speaker 8 And you can tell that her body went through something traumatic. That even hurt me even more.

Speaker 10 I love this woman.

Speaker 8 She didn't deserve that.

Speaker 47 Police were there, a sharp eye out the whole time.

Speaker 16 Maybe you might get information from a student that is not looking to come forward initially, but might find an opportunity to approach you and see if there's information that could be had.

Speaker 35 What information?

Speaker 29 Maybe about the scary things that have been happening around Simonut School in that high-crime neighborhood.

Speaker 7 Our school was right across from Cypress Projects, so there was, you know, gangs,

Speaker 7 fights, shootings.

Speaker 8 When you stepped out of that building, it was scary. It was dangerous.

Speaker 23 Were you afraid for her working at such a tough school?

Speaker 19 Oh, yes.

Speaker 19 I used to beg her all the time, please, Siminette, quit.

Speaker 19 Please come to Staten Island to work and

Speaker 19 but she wouldn't do it.

Speaker 10 The school where Siminette worked is uh

Speaker 10 it could be considered a high crime area and it wouldn't be unusual to hear gunshots in the distance well

Speaker 10 yeah gangs and so on around there yeah there were gangs everywhere unfortunately

Speaker 54 just a week before the murder siminet witnessed something frightening as she and Jonathan were walking to their car There was a shooting nearby and they ducked down behind the car once they heard the gunshots go off.

Speaker 54 I was concerned because I know the reality of where she works. I was always afraid for her working in that area.
Always.

Speaker 35 Police didn't think Jonathan and Simonette were targets, but she posted about the incident on Facebook.

Speaker 29 She didn't say anything describing the shooter, but if it was a gang member and they learned she was there, they sure wouldn't want her talking about it.

Speaker 28 I assume they went and looked into it, right?

Speaker 2 Absolutely, yes.

Speaker 9 They went to check out, you know, well, maybe this was in retaliation for, you know, being present for the drive-by shooting.

Speaker 10 Maybe what she saw was enough to get her killed.

Speaker 44 But then at the funeral, Simonet's brother John looked around and was amazed.

Speaker 54 My sister taught several Bloods and Crips. These two organizations do not like each other.
I do remember a high-ranking member of the Bloods gang.

Speaker 54 telling my mother that for today, they made a truce to say goodbye to my sister.

Speaker 36 They respect her that much. That is something.

Speaker 54 There was roughly

Speaker 54 50 of them.

Speaker 25 That's amazing, really.

Speaker 25 They never did find out who was shooting whom near the school.

Speaker 9 She hadn't identified anybody. Neither one of them did.
So there would be nobody out there that would even know that they were connected to that drive-by.

Speaker 8 These gang members, they're too busy killing each other. They're not worried about any outsiders.
They're not hurting any outsiders.

Speaker 32 So, was the shooting a motive for murdering Simonet?

Speaker 28 No.

Speaker 32 But a promising lead emerged when the DNA lab came back with a result from the sample taken from the condo's sliding door.

Speaker 9 They swapped it, comes back, a mixture of DNA.

Speaker 25 Some of it would be Jonathan's, right?

Speaker 9 There was Jonathan's DNA and a unknown female.

Speaker 9 In other words, it was not Simonette's DNA.

Speaker 10 It was shocking because the DNA didn't belong to his wife. So, you know, you say to yourself, well, if it's not Simonette's DNA, then whose DNA is it?

Speaker 32 And when investigators searched Simonette's phone, they discovered another unknown female.

Speaker 9 The contact came up as woman

Speaker 2 in her cell phone.

Speaker 4 Woman?

Speaker 30 Well, that's intriguing.

Speaker 33 An unknown female's DNA on the door. A phone contact marked only woman.

Speaker 32 What could it possibly mean?

Speaker 15 Who was it?

Speaker 9 So her tag name was Miss Pumpkin.

Speaker 35 For a mother in mourning who'd pledged to find her daughter's killer, each passing day without an arrest was torture.

Speaker 51 It was very, very hard

Speaker 51 having to put up with

Speaker 28 what was going on.

Speaker 51 I mean, it's not like we've ever been through anything like this before. We didn't know.

Speaker 11 Yeah, of course not.

Speaker 25 And months dragged on, right? Months.

Speaker 19 Yes, months.

Speaker 27 The detectives had conducted a lot of interviews during that time, trying to find out everything they could about Simonette and her relationships.

Speaker 52 They also explored electronic devices, both hers and those closest to her.

Speaker 9 The detectives started looking at all the information. Who are they calling? Who are they looking up? Who are they emailing? Who are they texting?

Speaker 25 Secrets are harder to maintain these days.

Speaker 9 No such thing anymore.

Speaker 30 No such thing indeed.

Speaker 26 The search of Simonette's phone is what led to that odd contact listed only as woman.

Speaker 16 So part of

Speaker 16 our normal investigation would be to Google the numbers. if they're an unknown number and see if there's any information that we can uncover.

Speaker 6 That led to a classified ad on Backpage.com in the Adult Services section.

Speaker 33 The number on Simonette's phone was for an escort.

Speaker 15 Who was it?

Speaker 9 So her tag name was Miss Pumpkin.

Speaker 33 A phone number for an escort named Ms.

Speaker 42 Pumpkin on Simonet's phone?

Speaker 38 Which seemed to make no sense at all.

Speaker 6 Of course, they had to talk to Ms. Pumpkin.

Speaker 42 But how?

Speaker 33 Without scaring her off.

Speaker 6 Their solution?

Speaker 25 You won't find in any police manual.

Speaker 16 I was tasked with calling her up and ordering her up as a John in order to get her to show up at a local motel on Staten Island.

Speaker 13 Say that again?

Speaker 16 Detective Cassenza and I had

Speaker 16 made a plan. that we would call up Miss Pumpkin and I would order her up as a John in order for her to produce herself at the local motel and think that she was, you know, about to turn a trick.

Speaker 52 Detectives Burdick and Casenza headed to the motel.

Speaker 32 Mrs.

Speaker 44 Pumpkin was there, expecting to meet a new client.

Speaker 16 We identified ourselves, told her that we needed to talk to her in regards to an investigation.

Speaker 13 Man, I would like to have been a fly on the wall in that conversation.

Speaker 17 How'd she take it?

Speaker 16 She knew what she was there for,

Speaker 16 which had to do with prostitution, and she

Speaker 16 didn't want any trouble to come her way no the alternative would not be very pleasant for her no sir

Speaker 25 that is when they told her they were investigating the murder of simonette mapes croupie

Speaker 48 never heard of her said miss pumpkin and then they asked about simonette's husband jonathan did she know him

Speaker 28 again a hard no

Speaker 16 but then detectives started describing him she only had one school teacher that she was dating at the time well well well

Speaker 10 we showed her a picture she knew jonathan croupi as mike that was the name that he gave her

Speaker 44 and suddenly she knew a whole lot jonathan mike to ms pumpkin was a regular client

Speaker 16 He was having, in fact, a relationship for multiple years with her.

Speaker 17 Multiple years with her?

Speaker 16 Multiple years.

Speaker 20 Really?

Speaker 40 The man's so in love with his wife, the devoted husband have been keeping a sex secret from everyone for years.

Speaker 32 After that shocker, the detectives figured it best to invite Ms.

Speaker 23 Pumpkin to the station, get the whole story that way.

Speaker 9 She showed up and

Speaker 9 provided them with a wealth of information. When asked when she last saw him, she said

Speaker 9 the date that his wife was found murdered.

Speaker 38 The very day Simonet was killed, he was having sex with another woman.

Speaker 39 Oh my.

Speaker 28 But there was more.

Speaker 10 So normally, Jonathan would call her weeks in advance to arrange a date. On this day, he called her the day of, from a different number, demanded, I need to see you today.

Speaker 25 Very unusual.

Speaker 10 Very unusual. So she agreed, and she met him at the local motel.

Speaker 37 But hadn't Jonathan provided alibis for the whole day?

Speaker 25 Alibis that certainly did not include a dalliance with Ms.

Speaker 33 Pumpkin.

Speaker 6 Well, yes, he did.

Speaker 35 And his story was mostly backed up by video.

Speaker 40 Mostly.

Speaker 34 Investigators were never able to confirm one part of it. The visit to Home Depot.

Speaker 33 And now they knew why.

Speaker 53 Miss Pumpkin was his Home Depot.

Speaker 41 You got it.

Speaker 9 Pit stop.

Speaker 34 With Miss Pumpkin in the picture, that unknown female DNA recovered from the crime scene suddenly became much more interesting.

Speaker 36 So detectives collected her DNA.

Speaker 9 And when the DNA swab was compared to the mixture of DNA on the sliding glass living room door, it came back to Miss Pumpkin.

Speaker 49 So did you think she could have been involved somehow, that she was just hiding it from you?

Speaker 16 So we knew at that time that they were intimate. It's a telltale sign of a good detective to make sure that you let the evidence speak to you and tell you the story.

Speaker 20 And oh, what a story they were about to hear.

Speaker 9 So now we were in bizarro land.

Speaker 6 Wow.

Speaker 6 Here's a question.

Speaker 1 How can you keep from getting sick with a respiratory illness this season? The good news is everyday actions can help you stay well and stop the spread.

Speaker 1 Wash your hands, take steps for cleaner air, and try to avoid close contact with people who are sick.

Speaker 1 and talk to your doctor about what vaccines may be right for you so you can help keep yourself and your loved ones healthy. Learn more at cdc.gov slash respiratory dash illnesses.
A message from CDC.

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Speaker 28 Detectives learned that Simonette's sneaker-collecting, comic book-loving teacher husband was in a secret long-term relationship with an escort named Ms.

Speaker 42 Pumpkin.

Speaker 29 Clearly, a very bad look for Jonathan.

Speaker 38 And when Ms.

Speaker 42 Pumpkin's DNA was a match to a sample found at the crime scene,

Speaker 29 well, that wasn't a good look for her either.

Speaker 16 It made me think that she could have been involved or not been involved.

Speaker 38 Ms.

Speaker 27 Pumpkin admitted she had met Jonathan at his house before, but denied that she was there the day of the murder.

Speaker 38 So, to see if she was telling the truth, detectives checked her cell phone.

Speaker 25 And sure enough, it did not ping near the house that day.

Speaker 36 So, what was her DNA doing there?

Speaker 38 The answer, said Prosecutor de Oliveira, was pretty simple.

Speaker 29 Jonathan put it there, unwittingly.

Speaker 17 Are you suggesting that, you know, he picked up her DNA when they were intimate together during that meeting that day, went home,

Speaker 13 put his hands on that sliding glass door, and got her DNA on the door in addition to his.

Speaker 9 No, I'm not suggesting. I know that's what happened.

Speaker 48 Ms. Pumpkin was cleared.

Speaker 33 But Jonathan?

Speaker 28 Not at all.

Speaker 23 Detectives were learning that behind the happy facade, his marriage was in crisis, and for reasons other than his secret sex life.

Speaker 48 One issue was this.

Speaker 38 Teachers in New York City public schools are required to have a master's degree.

Speaker 33 Jonathan and Simonette decided to earn theirs at the College of Staten Island, and she graduated with flying colors, but then discovered Jonathan had registered, but never attended classes.

Speaker 16 This was a big point of contention in the marriage because the gravity of not having your master's degree to paint the picture means you don't have a job.

Speaker 28 With a deadline approaching, the high school principal gave him an ultimatum.

Speaker 19 She was to the point where either you get your master's or you're out of here. You're not coming back.

Speaker 29 Simonette was ready with an ultimatum of her own.

Speaker 9 She had shared with her mom that she was going to confront him.

Speaker 42 As far as Simonette's family knew, that meant confronting him about work and what happened to the money he was spending, supposedly on school.

Speaker 25 Well, investigators knew now where a lot of it was going.

Speaker 42 To Ms. Pumpkin.

Speaker 53 How much money did he spend on this stuff?

Speaker 10 He spent a lot of money. Her fee was $300 for an hour.
Apparently all her money went to the bills and the food and his money went to

Speaker 10 his sneakers and his extramarital affairs.

Speaker 6 Might be a good time to search the house again, go deep this time.

Speaker 38 It was still a declared crime scene and Jonathan hadn't set foot in the place since just after the murder.

Speaker 44 So had they missed anything?

Speaker 28 Well, yes, they had.

Speaker 58 Shoved out of sight in a downstairs closet was a green shoulder bag.

Speaker 47 Here's Jonathan at his school with that very green bag the day of the murder.

Speaker 25 He told detectives when he returned home, Simonet was already dead, lying on the floor right in front of that closet door.

Speaker 10 Meaning that when he stashed the bag In order to get to that closet, he had to step over his wife's dead body to pull that door open, which is disturbing to say the least.

Speaker 23 That is pretty disturbing.

Speaker 10 And inside that bag was the laptop.

Speaker 28 The laptop.

Speaker 29 On which more of Jonathan's secret life was revealed in lurid detail.

Speaker 9 Porn sight, escort sight, porn sight, escort sight, porn sight, escort sight. So now we were in Bizarro land.

Speaker 53 Strange, strange existence.

Speaker 25 Living with an angel and behaving like a devil secretly.

Speaker 39 Yep.

Speaker 10 It said it really is.

Speaker 38 From the looks of it, everything came to a head after Simonette discovered Jonathan didn't get his master's degree.

Speaker 17 She was finally going to do something about it.

Speaker 19 Yes, she was leaving. And she promised me she was going to leave.
She was done. I said, just come home.
That's all you have to do. Bring the dogs and come home.

Speaker 38 And since Miss Pumpkin's number was in Simonette's phone, Detectives figured she knew about Jonathan's secret relationship, so the confrontation she promised must have been about that too.

Speaker 35 And they had reason to think it happened the night before she was found murdered.

Speaker 29 That's when Teresa had an emotional conversation with her daughter.

Speaker 19 She answered the phone crying. She goes, I don't feel good.
I said, please promise me you're going to go to the doctor tomorrow. She said, I promise you, mom.

Speaker 19 And that was the last words I ever said to my

Speaker 10 daughter.

Speaker 9 She would never be hysterical crying like that because she was ill. That just wasn't her.
Something was going on in that house that night.

Speaker 48 A story of the crime was coming into focus, but it was still just a theory.

Speaker 4 I don't have a murder weapon. I don't have an eyewitness.

Speaker 10 I don't have a video. I can just keep stacking and putting the pieces together.

Speaker 26 One of the biggest pieces came from the medical examiner.

Speaker 38 Simonet's time of death was sometime before 7.30 in the morning.

Speaker 9 If Jonathan left when he claimed claimed to have left, she had to have been murdered during the hours that he was present in the home.

Speaker 17 Before 7.30 a.m.

Speaker 9 Absolutely before 7.30 a.m.

Speaker 26 The prosecutor was convinced that only one person had the motive, the means, and the opportunity to kill Simonette.

Speaker 26 On November 13th, 2012, Jonathan Kruppi was arrested. and charged with murder.

Speaker 52 Can you tell me about the arrest and what what that was like for you?

Speaker 14 We were in shock.

Speaker 19 Like, how could he have done this to us? Why did he do this to my baby?

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 26 Nobody who knew him wanted to believe it, especially the students who loved him.

Speaker 43 It was just unbelievable that this person who showed one side in school was a totally different person to his wife.

Speaker 29 But there was no avoiding the other Jonathan Croupi now.

Speaker 58 His dark secrets were about to be put on public display at his murder trial.

Speaker 50 It's kind of like Jekyll and Hyde.

Speaker 9 Eventually, Hyde's gonna dominate.

Speaker 34 Forget the secrets, said Cruppy's defense.

Speaker 36 Start looking for the real killer.

Speaker 59 Why are you not out trying to find who it is?

Speaker 38 For those convinced they knew him, Jonathan Kruppi's arrest for murder was hard to believe.

Speaker 7 I told my friends, and they were like, nah, nah, he didn't do that, he didn't do that.

Speaker 36 The trial got underway in June 2015.

Speaker 29 Wanda de Oliveira took the lead for the prosecution.

Speaker 12 The job of defending Kruppi fell to Mario Gallucci, one of Staten Island's most experienced defense defense attorneys and no stranger to the prosecutor.

Speaker 59 I've probably tried

Speaker 59 at least five or six homicides against Wanda, and it's a war.

Speaker 49 It's war.

Speaker 6 Prosecutor D'Oliveira made a preemptive strike on what figured to be a theme for the defense, that Simonette was killed during a botched burglary.

Speaker 12 Not likely, D'Oliveira said, since jewelry and credit cards and even Jonathan's high-end sneakers were not stolen.

Speaker 9 If this was a burglar who went to the trouble of literally trashing this house, they left everything of obvious value behind.

Speaker 37 The jury heard about Krupi's sexual obsessions from his computer searches and also from Mrs.

Speaker 25 Pumpkin, who testified using a pseudonym.

Speaker 9 We brought her in.

Speaker 49 Dramatically, I gather.

Speaker 9 So, this is going to sound odd, maybe, coming out of my mouth, but what a lovely woman. Very pleasant, very well put together, educated.

Speaker 38 The centerpiece of the prosecution's case was to give jurors a look at a deeply troubled marriage and get inside Croupi's head to offer a motive to the jurors for such an atrocious crime.

Speaker 9 The strategy was to place them literally in the lives. of Simonette and Jonathan.

Speaker 9 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. His life as he knew it was going to completely end.

Speaker 6 Prosecutor showed the jury other searches from Kruppy's computer.

Speaker 28 Look like a manual on how to kill your wife.

Speaker 9 There are searches for

Speaker 9 how to slit a throat,

Speaker 9 how to break a person's neck, does a fall actually break someone's back?

Speaker 9 How to clean up a crime scene?

Speaker 17 Defense Attorney Gallucci challenged virtually every piece of the state's case and suggested, no surprise, that the murder was in fact a result of a bungled burglary.

Speaker 47 He gave the jury evidence to back that up.

Speaker 29 DNA of an unknown person found on a jewelry box in the condo.

Speaker 59 To me, there was the person that did it, and why are you not out trying to find who it is? I I don't think they ever took this home invasion seriously, ever.

Speaker 29 Prosecutors have taken great care to pick apart the timeline of Croupi's day to show how it didn't hold up as an alibi, because the ME said the murder happened before 7.30 that morning.

Speaker 47 Not so, said the defense.

Speaker 12 Did you argue that the timeline of the murder was inaccurate?

Speaker 59 I argued that the timeline of the death was inaccurate.

Speaker 59 Time of death was inaccurate.

Speaker 17 They put it too early?

Speaker 27 Is that the idea?

Speaker 59 Too early. They made it so it didn't fit into his alibi.
We had our own expert that put the time of death in line with his alibi.

Speaker 38 Gallucci's expert put the time of death later when Coopy was out running errands.

Speaker 25 An alibi is supported by time-stamped video and receipts.

Speaker 33 With one exception.

Speaker 59 The only bit of the alibi that's not corroborated is this embarrassing act that this man was with a prostitute. No married man is going to admit that, you know, that he was with a prostitute.

Speaker 59 So he came up with the Home Depot argument. I actually remember trying to pick more men than women on this jury.

Speaker 12 Why did you want to do that?

Speaker 59 Because a man could understand

Speaker 59 that that would be an embarrassing thing to have to disclose. And I'd rather say I was buying a hammer at Home Depot than

Speaker 59 having activities with a prostitute.

Speaker 22 Gallucci even had an explanation for those how-to-kill searches on Kruppy's computer.

Speaker 20 Nothing unusual, he said, for an English teacher.

Speaker 59 He was teaching Shakespeare, and I think he was teaching Macbeth, and he was trying to develop his knowledge of how somebody, you know, would stab somebody, slit somebody's throat.

Speaker 12 Did anybody roll their eyes in the jury box as you went down that road?

Speaker 59 I don't recall that, but I have to answer it. I can't just let it sit out there and dangle.

Speaker 38 Gallucci told the jury to focus on evidence about the murder and not get distracted by his client's behavior.

Speaker 25 All those issues about Miss Pumpkin, did that not make you think that, huh, here's a guy you have to look at pretty seriously for the murder case?

Speaker 59 So that's troubling, but that doesn't make him a killer. It makes him a bad husband.
It doesn't mean I'm going to kill my wife.

Speaker 22 In the end, Gallucci felt pretty good about his chances with the jury.

Speaker 59 I sat down in that chair and I said, you got this. He's going home.

Speaker 6 I really was that confident.

Speaker 20 Prosecutor to Oliveira would have the last word with the jury.

Speaker 38 She had a very different take on Jonathan Kruppy.

Speaker 50 It's kind of like Jacqueline Hyde.

Speaker 9 Eventually, Hyde's going to dominate. And that's kind of what I would say happened that day.

Speaker 26 The jurors deliberated for less than two hours before returning a verdict.

Speaker 38 Jonathan Croupy

Speaker 28 guilty

Speaker 25 of second-degree murder.

Speaker 19 The jury met us outside and hugged us and

Speaker 19 said how sorry they were.

Speaker 17 I heard you had a big hug for the prosecutor, too.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 9 She was falling down to her knees, and I had to hold her up and grasp her. It was literally just this sobbing, you know, just

Speaker 9 like really

Speaker 9 grief-stricken. It was not joy.
She was really overcome.

Speaker 25 Kruppy was given a sentence of 25 years to life.

Speaker 20 Case closed.

Speaker 19 Remember that Christmas Eve?

Speaker 42 But for Simonet's family, the grief is still very raw.

Speaker 32 They still think about her every day.

Speaker 4 Their beautiful sissy.

Speaker 27 and they wonder what might have been.

Speaker 13 Sissy always wanted her happily ever after.

Speaker 49 Her Disney life, right? Yeah.

Speaker 13 And he took that from her.

Speaker 58 Took it away.

Speaker 4 He did.

Speaker 4 He did.

Speaker 54 So I hope she's having her Cinderella life now in peace.

Speaker 19 There's a reason for everything.

Speaker 19 And I still haven't found the reason for this.

Speaker 19 I'll never find the reason for this.

Speaker 15 Maybe there isn't a reason for everything.

Speaker 37 I don't know.

Speaker 2 We don't know.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 59 We don't know.

Speaker 19 But I'm so grateful she was my daughter.

Speaker 51 God gives the mobs this gift of loving them so unconditionally.

Speaker 19 And when it came to Siminette, that's how I feel.

Speaker 21 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Friday at 9, 8 Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 21 Good night.

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