Police officers and staff from the New York City chief medical examiner’s office flocked to the scene of an Extra Space Storage location in Staten Island on Thursday morning to investigate human remains that were found in a bag there, burned and charred beyond recognition.
While the medical examiner was still working to identify the body, the police believed the remains they found in the storage space are those of Jeanine Cammarata, 37, a mother of three who had not been seen in public since Saturday night, Assistant Chief William F. Aubry of the Detective Bureau said Thursday.
The police were investigating the possibility that Cammarata was murdered, and her estranged husband, Michael Cammarata, 42, was the primary suspect, Aubry said.
“With the discovery of these human remains, the investigation has taken a turn into a murder investigation,” Aubry said. “We are working with the Staten Island district attorney to establish probable cause and to charge him with murder.”
Cammarata was reported missing Tuesday. She was last seen Saturday night at her boyfriend’s home in Staten Island, about 6 miles from her own residence. When she left his address, she was on her way to the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, where her husband lives with their children, police said.
Friends and family became alarmed when Cammarata, a first-grade teacher at a Staten Island public school who also had a part-time job at a Dollar Tree, did not show up for work. She also did not attend a court appearance Monday for the divorce proceedings that she had initiated against Michael Cammarata.
Michael Cammarata has been in police custody on charges that he assaulted and stalked his wife in earlier incidents unrelated to her disappearance, Aubry said.
Cammarata was still being questioned at the 120th Precinct in Staten Island on Thursday morning when investigators discovered a body in a unit at the storage facility.
Jeanine Cammarata filed for divorce from her husband in February, court records show. They had separated nearly two years ago, according to Jeanine Cammarata’s attorney, Eric M. Gansberg.
Cammarata left the home she shared with her husband because of domestic violence, Gansberg said.
The couple have two children together, a 7-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. She also has a third child from her first husband.
After the separation, the couple had worked out a visitation agreement. Jeanine Cammarata agreed to allow the children to remain with Michael Cammarata in the family’s home, because it was a house that they were familiar with, Gansberg said.
After her husband relocated to Far Rockaway in Queens, however, she became upset about the arrangement, Gansberg said.
“She came to me and said she had to take action,” Gansberg said. “Her husband was being dictatorial about when she could see the children.”
Jeanine Cammarata’s landlord, Jose Perez, also said that she had complained that her husband had made it difficult for her to spend time with the children.
“She was very angry about not being able to see her kids,” Perez said. “He didn’t follow his end of the agreement. She said, ‘I can’t see my kids; that’s unacceptable.’ ”
Perez also said Jeanine Cammarata had said that her husband mistreated and harassed her. She told Perez, who lived above her, that Michael Cammarata would follow her in his car and send her menacing text messages.
“It was not good,” he said. “It was all sexual and inappropriate.”
Perez said Jeanine Cammarata’s reports alarmed him enough that he told her to watch out for her physical safety.
“I told her, ‘You better be careful,’” he said. “She said, ‘Oh, he’s harmless, he would never do anything to me.’”
Gansberg said that he last spoke to Jeanine Cammarata on Friday, confirming her court appearance. When she didn’t show up, he initially thought that it may be because she was afraid of her husband.
Then, when he saw reports that she had been missing, he was shocked.
Jeanine Cammarata was last seen at the home of her boyfriend, Aaron Suchecki.
On Thursday, a man who identified himself as Suchecki’s landlord said that he had seen Jeanine Cammarata at the house several times in the past and that there was never any sign of trouble between them.
He also said that Suchecki was distraught by Cammarata’s disappearance.
“He’s going through something right now, and it’s very difficult for him,” the landlord said.
Family members of Jeanine Cammarata, who has a younger brother and sister, have also spent the past few days anxious about her whereabouts.
Her mother, AnnMarie Ross, said Wednesday that she was struggling to make sense of her daughter’s absence.
“She’s very assertive, she’s strong-willed, she’s a workaholic, she’s determined, she’s smart, witty and for her to become missing is very puzzling to me, because she’s a fighter,” Ross said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.