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Body of missing Staten Island teacher found at storage facility after divorce request

Christopher Koulouris: About author bio at bottom of article.
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Jeanine Cammarata
Pictured, missing Staten Island teacher, Jeanine Cammarata. Image via social media.
Jeanine Cammarata
Pictured, missing Staten Island teacher, Jeanine Cammarata. Image via social media.

Body of missing Staten Island woman, Jeanine Cammarata found in storage facility after she was last seen alive on Saturday amidst divorce and child custody proceedings. 

A body found at a at a Staten Island storage facility is believed to be that of a missing New York City public school teacher and mother-of-three. 

Jeanine Cammarata, 37, disappeared on Saturday night, less than 48 hours after she told her estranged husband, Michael Cammarata, 42, that she wanted a divorce and had initiated proceedings with a court hearing set for Monday. 

She was last seen at about 9pm when she dropped her boyfriend off at his house and said she was going to visit Michael and their three-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter, who live with him. Jeanine also has an 11-year-old son from another marriage.  

Michael was taken into police custody on Tuesday after allegedly admitting to assaulting his wife after they had sex on the night she went missing.  

Investigators are said to have obtained surveillance footage which allegedly shows Michael carrying a large bag out of his apartment in the Rockaways shortly after Jeanine left on Saturday night. 

Soon after he was seen arriving at a storage facility in Staten Island, where police recovered a body early Thursday.

Jeanine Cammarata fails to turn up for work and child custody hearing:

A police spokesperson told the New York Daily News that authorities are working to make a positive identification of the victim and said: ‘A connection to the missing teacher has not been verified.’

Jeanine’s boyfriend reported her missing on Tuesday after she failed to show up for work at elementary school P.S. 29 in Castleton Corner or her side job at Dollar Tree.  

She had also failed to appear at a child custody hearing on Monday, according to the attorney handling her divorce, Eric Gansberg. 

‘It just doesn’t make sense to me,’ Gansberg told the New York Post. 

‘She was so eager to proceed. She wanted to be with her children. I cannot imagine her just walking away.’

By Tuesday afternoon Michael was questioned by police about Jeanine’s disappearance and allegedly admitted to police that he assaulted her, according to WPIX-TV.

He was charged with stalking, harassment, and assault. Law enforcement sources emphasized those charges being unrelated to Jeanine’s disappearance.

Jeanine Cammarata feared husband, Michael. 

Those who know Jeanine say she was terrified of her husband. They say she described his behavior toward her as abusive.

Her landlord, Jose Perez, claimed that Jeanine was ‘concerned about her safety’ because Michael would harass her and follow her in his car.  

‘She even escalated it because she was concerned about her safety. 

‘And I mentioned it to her, I said to her: “You better get this thing straightened out, because you don’t want any problems”,’ Perez told WABC.

‘She always texted me where she’s at or if something’s happening to her. But she has not.’

Perez said he last saw Jeanine two weeks ago, and that she was determined to win custody of her children.

‘He wasn’t giving her her kids, she wasn’t able to see her kids,’ the landlord said. 

‘That’s when she said okay, I had enough. I’m gonna go get a lawyer, I’m gonna get divorced, and I’m gonna get custody of my kids. And now she’s gone.’ 

Jeanine’s boyfriend and a co-worker at Dollar Tree, Elizabeth Torres, were questioned by police on Tuesday evening.  

‘She let me know Friday she was going to pick up her children Saturday,’ Torres told ABC13.   

Jeanine Cammarata sends bizarre texts not believed to be from her:

‘And that’s the last anybody actually saw her,’ Jeanine’s best friend Jessica Pobega added. 

Pobega said she received strange and mysterious text messages from Jeanine on the day she disappeared. 

When Pobega told Jeanine she was going to call the police out of concern, the mother allegedly replied: ‘I don’t want that. I have the kids…I apologize. I have to do this for the children.’ 

Pobega appeared to be suspicious that it was actually Jeanine who sent her the messages because she never ended up seeing her children over the weekend. 

‘I don’t know who that was and what they were covering for,’ she said, adding: ‘She’s my oldest friend. My mother is distraught. Something happened. Something bad happened. And I don’t know what it is and I really hope I’m wrong.’ 

Pobega took to Facebook to plead for any information on Jeanine’s whereabouts.

She noted that her sudden disappearance was suspicious, saying that Jeanine would always called into work if she couldn’t make it. 

‘She’s never once NOT called into school. She’d never risk her job at the [Department of Education] in NYC. She’s never NOT check in with me or her sister Christine. She didn’t call her mother for her birthday, which was yesterday. There are a lot of people very worried,’ Pobega posted.  

Police revealed that her roommate received a text message from Jeanine on Monday saying she’s ‘okay’, but her roommate doesn’t believe Jeanine sent that text.  

Told Jeanine’s sister Christine Ross via CBS: ‘The last I talked to her was Friday morning. We were talking about her coming to visit me.’ 

Ross added that Jeanine not appearing for her jobs is very irregular and worrisome.  

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