A city teacher who recently survived a shootout near her school was found fatally stabbed yesterday in her Staten Island home, police sources said.
The body of Simeonette Mapes, 29, was discovered by her husband at 1:48 p.m. in their New Springville apartment on Forest Hill Road, near LaTourette Golf Course, the sources added.
Mapes had 12 knife wounds to her back and was lying face-down in a pool of blood in the apartment’s entryway.
The home had been ransacked, but investigators were unsure whether anything had been taken.
Detectives were looking into whether the murder stemmed from a home invasion, although there were no obvious signs of forced entry, the sources said.
Mapes’ husband, Jonathan Crupi, was being interviewed last night at the 122nd Precinct station house, the sources said.
Mapes, a social-studies instructor, had been with the Department of Education since 2006.
Since 2009, she had taught at the School for Classics HS in Brooklyn, opposite the gritty Cypress Hills Houses. She was slated to begin teaching summer school there on Monday.
Her husband teaches English at the same school.
Last week, on June 28, they had to duck for cover when gunfire broke out in the projects.
“Crupi and I survived a shoot-out today . . . Thank God we are ok, I’m sure over summer school we’ll find out what the fighting was about. The Cypress Hill Projects are no joke,” Mapes posted on her Facebook page.
When friends expressed concern, Mapes replied, “Crupi and I are fine, no worries. I didn’t mean to scare anyone.”
“It’s just a hazard of working in East NY, Brooklyn. Things like this makes you appreciate all the blessings you have.”
After pals warned her and Crupi to be safe, Mapes remarked, “We just duck and keep it movin.”
News of Mapes’ murder rocked her tight-knit Staten Island community.
“John came out screaming, ‘My wife was murdered.’ They said she was stabbed like 40 times,” a neighbor, Rachel Havia, 43, recalled, adding that the couple had no children but had two small dogs.
As of July 2, the borough has seen three homicides this year, compared with eight at the same time last year.
Additional reporting by