Share and Follow
In the spring of 2019, Jeanine Cammarata, a 37-year-old Staten Island teacher and mother of three, vanished without a trace.
“I spoke with [her] principal, and she told me that Jeanine was a no-call no-show,” Michele Mazza, a detective with the New York City Police Department’s 120th Precinct in Staten Island, said in the “A Mother Missing” episode of New York Homicide, which airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
Jeanine’s boyfriend, Aaron Suchecki, told police that he’d last seen and spoken to her on Saturday, March 30, 2019. On Monday, April 1, “He reported her missing,” Mazza said.
Who was Jeanine Cammarata?
Beloved by her family and inner circle, Jeanine was “a relationship kind of girl,” her best friend, Jessica Pobega, told New York Homicide.
Jeanine had one child from her first marriage, which ended in divorce. She had two children with her second husband, postal worker Michael Cammarata.
When she disappeared, she and Michael “weren’t together as a couple,” Mazza explained. “He had the children in his custody full time.”
Days before Jeanine disappeared, she had served Michael with divorce papers and sued for the custody of their children, according to New York Homicide.
Aaron Suchecki interviewed by police
Detectives learned that Suchecki had been arrested for violating a protection order filed by a previous girlfriend before he met Jeanine.
His past record sent up a red flag. When questioned by police, he said that he and Jeanine were in a “happy relationship,” said Mazza. “He said he loved her.”
Suchecki told investigators that when Jeanine left his home on Saturday, she was going to see Michael. He didn’t receive any communication from her after that until April 1, when he received a text from her phone that included the words, “Don’t contact me.”
“He just thought that their relationship was over without any sort of conversation,” Mazza said, adding that Suchecki acknowledged that he responded to the odd messages with angry texts.
Jeanine Cammarata’s disappearance makes news
Thanks to efforts by Jeanine’s friends, the media reported that she had gone missing. Police considered that Jeanine may have just needed a break from her routine.
But as the days passed, something more unsettling seemed to be going on. “I alerted the bosses,” said Mazza. “Then they reached out to the homicide unit.”
At Jeanine’s apartment, detectives found nothing out of order. She had two vehicles registered in her name — a car that she used and a minivan that Michael drove because it accommodated the kids.
Neither vehicle was at her residence. Detectives used license plate technology to track the travel timeline and whereabouts of the cars.
Michael Cammarata’s girlfriend interviewed
Detectives learned that Michael lived in Queens with his girlfriend, Ayisha Egea. Egea watched his two children while he worked.
“Ayisha explained that Jeanine was her children’s teacher at P.S. 18 [on Staten Island],” said now-retired NYPD Det. Eric Torres, who worked in the Staten Island Homicide Squad. “Ayisha and Jeanine had developed a friendship.”
“Ayisha said that Michael was a little upset because he had been served with alimony and child-support papers,” Torres said. “They decided that Jeanine would meet them in Queens to discuss the court papers being served.”
While detectives interviewed Egea, social workers spoke with Jeanine’s children. After confirming the minors hadn’t seen their mom and were unharmed, the kids were returned to Egea’s custody.
Michael Cammarata interviewed
Egea’s statement to Torres revealed that she and Cammarata were the last known people to have seen Jeanine.
“[Michael] told us he did meet up with Jeanine on Saturday night with Ayisha. He said that they had gotten into an argument, but that it was late,” Mazza said. “They left each other at that parking lot.”
The more Michael talked, the more suspicious detectives became. “He said that they did have an argument in regard to the custody and divorce papers, where it got physical,” said Mazza. “He put his hands on her, and he pushed her.”
Michael Cammarata arrested for assault
When Michael asked to speak with a lawyer, the interview ended. Detectives were unable to question him as a suspect, but because he admitted to assaulting Jeanine, they were able to detain him.
“We arrested Michael Cammarata for a misdemeanor assault,” Mazza said. “This way, we could keep him in our custody while we figured out where Jeanine was and what happened to her.”
Detectives learned that domestic reports had been filed between Michael and Jeanine. “Jeanine knew that Mike would never leave her alone,” Pobega said. “He would change her passwords on Facebook and try to break into her emails.”
Michael Cammarata’s Queens residence searched
Staten Island detectives reached out to NYPD counterparts in Queens, where Jeanine was last seen.
Detectives went to Michael’s apartment building in Queens and viewed surveillance cameras there. Video footage showed Michael struggling to maneuver a shopping cart that held a large, heavy-looking black plastic bag.
“You see Ayisha holding the door open for Michael and assisting him, helping to bring the cart into the building,” said Lt. Kevin Goodspeed, now retired from the NYPD’s Queens South Homicide Squad.
Footage from the following morning shows them walking toward the parking lot with the same bag, which had been stuffed into a big blue plastic bin.
“We know that they did something to Jeanine,” said Torres.
Ayisha Egea changes her story
After the Administration for Children’s Services placed Jeanine’s kids with a family, Egea was brought in for further questioning. Detectives showed her photos from the surveillance video.
Egea then told them a different story than her initial account. She said that Jeanine and Michael had a shouting match that turned physical. “She hit him first. So, then he hit her,” Egea’s heard saying in the taped interview.
According to Egea, Michael knocked Jeanine out and got the shopping cart and the bags. She said they then dragged Jeanine’s body into his apartment, where Jeanine awoke, and that Michael punched her and knocked her out again.
Detectives arrested Egea and charged her as a co-conspirator in the assault on Jeanine. Five days into the case, Mazza got a Crime Stoppers tip directing her to Michael’s storage unit on Staten Island.
What happened to Jeanine Cammarata?
Inside Michael’s storage unit, detectives found the black bag and blue tub surrounded by air fresheners. “You know what the smell of death smells like. When you smell it once, you’ll always remember,” Torres said.
Charred human remains inside the bag were determined through dental records to be Jeanine’s. Her cause of death was blunt force injuries to the head and asphyxiation.
Security footage from the storage facility showed Michael dragging the bag into the unit. He was accompanied by Egea, along with her children and Jeanine’s children.
“It was sick to see the kids in that situation running around next to the body of their mother,” Mazza said.
Suspects charged with killing Jeanine Cammarata
Michael and Egea were charged with second-degree murder. “The prosecutor said the motive was really money,” said Frank Donnelly, a former Staten Island Advance reporter.
Micheal’s attorney asserted the theory that Egea would lose out if Michael had to pay out alimony and child support to Jeanine. Egea’s attorney claimed that she was a victim of Michael’s domestic abuse, according to New York Homicide.
On October 18, 2021, Michael was convicted of second-degree murder and other charges relating to the disposal of Jeanine’s body and child endangerment. He was sentenced to 23 years to life for the murder.
Egea pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree. She was sentenced to seven to nine years.
Jeanine’s loved ones still grieve. “I just want people to remember Jeanine for always wanting to do better for herself and wanting to do better for her kids,” said her sister Christine Ross.
To learn more about the case, watch the “A Mother Missing” episode of New York Homicide, which airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on .
