JEANINE’S LEGACY OF LOVE
PALS, KIN REMEMBER S.I. SLAY VICTIM
Jeanine Cammarata stood only 4-feet-11 inches tall, but her heart and funny bone were enormous, friends and family told the Daily News.
The Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, native allegedly killed by her estranged husband and dumped in a storage locker was a mother of three and first-grade teacher on Staten Island who loved coffee, singing in cars and helping others, they said.
“She found ways to make us laugh no matter what,” her brother-in-law Luis Melendez, 43, told The News. “She fought hard in life and always put a smile on her face.”
The Army vet who is married to Cammarata’s sister Christine Ross said he last saw his sister-in-law when she visited his family in Alabama last year.
“She came with the kids. She was so happy and excited,” he said.
“She told us, ‘I’m here now, and you two deserve a night out alone.’ She baby- sat all the kids and told us to go out,” he recalled. “That’s the type of person she was. If she thought you needed something, she found a way to be there and help you, even if she didn’t have much herself.”
Jessica Pobega, her roommate and longtime pal who attended Edward R. Murrow High School and St. Francis College with Cammarata, said memories of her dead friend’s generosity were helping her cope.
“She was saving money for her divorce lawyer, but she was worried about me driving my 16-year-old PT Cruiser. She’d constantly ask if I needed new brakes. She would always offer,” Pobega explained.
She said Cammarata had worked for the nonprofit United Cerebral Palsy while pursuing her master’s degree and dutifully helped raise her younger brother Anthony, now 26, after her parents broke up.
“Jeanine and her sister made sure he was taken care of, made sure he was fed and in school. They supported that house,” Pobega said.
“The girls and their younger brother Anthony did not have an easy upbringing. They both worked very hard from young ages to support themselves, their mother and Anthony,” family friend Carolanne Mahoney confirmed to The News.
Cammarata, 37, was the subject of an intense manhunt last week after she went missing following a planned March 30 meeting with estranged husband Michael Cammarata, 42.
Jeanine filed for divorce in February and was seeking sole physical custody of the couple’s two kids after Michael moved them from their home on Staten Island to Far Rockaway, Queens, her lawyer Eric Gansberg said.
Gansberg said his client told him that Michael physically abused her during the marriage.
“She told me on numerous occasions how terribly afraid she was of him. There had been a history of domestic violence. That’s what caused the separation,” Gansberg said.
The couple was due in a Staten Island courtroom last Monday morning for the first hearing in the divorce case, but Jeanine never made it. On Tuesday, she failed to report to Public School 29 in Castleton Corners.
On Thursday, police found Cammarata’s charred remains inside a Staten Island storage facility surrounded by air fresheners. She was positively identified Friday through dental records. Prosecutors have charged Michael Cammarata and his pregnant girlfriend, Ayisha Egea, 41, with murder, concealing a corpse and tampering with evidence.
“It’s a great loss,” Melendez told The News late Friday as a light rain fell in New York. He and Ross had traveled to the city during the search.
“I think the reason it’s raining today, on the day everything is finally done, is because the angels are crying over her,” he said.
“She will be missed,” he continued. “She really loved the children she taught in school, and they all loved her. She never missed a day knowing she was helping kids. She was good to her nieces and nephews, too. She always called to make sure they were OK”
Beyond her two kids with Michael, Jeanine had a son with her first husband. When that marriage ended, her older son remained with his father on Long Island for consistency, Pobega said.
“They had joint custody, but [the son] stayed mostly with his dad, who had more family out there. She wanted him to not be uprooted when she left. She’d drive to go see him,” Pobega said. “They all got along wonderfully.”
Jeanine’s lawyer said Friday that his client only agreed to leave her two younger kids in Michael’s care when she first moved out in 2016 because she needed time to find suitable living arrangements and was intimidated by him.
“She believed the separation was traumatic enough and did not wish to compound it by uprooting them from their home right away. Since they lived in close proximity at first, she had frequent time with her young daughter and son. When the husband moved to Queens and started placing barriers to her parenting of the children, that’s when she found it necessary to take action,” Gansberg explained.
“Jeanine, in my dealings with her, was an extraordinarily dedicated parent to her children,” he said. “I’ve never heard an unkind word about her. She always had the utmost integrity. Her only concern was the best interest of her children.” Pobega said her friend eventually moved two-bedroom residence win custody. into and She a was said eager Michael to used keeping the them kids from as their weapons, mom for two Christmases.
“She was so excited to get them back. She was fighting for them. I believe (Michael) used them to lure her to that last meeting,” she said.
“He’s a monster,” she said of Michael. “I knew Monday that something was wrong. I got a message supposedly from her that said, ‘I’m OK.’ But I said, ‘Call me right now,’ and she didn’t. I know she would have called if she was alive.”
Pobega said Jeanine had a boyfriend who died alone in his home while they were dating, and after that, she was always quick to respond when people reached out. “I know my friend. I knew she would have called me immediately if she knew I was nervous,” Pobega said. “After that, I said, ‘We’re going to be looking for a body.’ She always checked in.” Pobega vows to get justice for Jeanine. “She always saw the good in people, even when they didn’t deserve it,” she said of her friend. “And she was a good sport. We teased her about always saying ‘sorry, sorry sorry.’ We said her blood type was coffee. She always laughed. She was always smiling.”