Tears flow for crowbar beat victim

Mourners packed a funeral home Tuesday for the wake of a gentle and beloved Harlem school secretary beaten with a crowbar by her possessive husband.

About 200 people attended the closed-casket viewing at Riverdale-on-Hudson Funeral Home for Maria Kelly, 49, who died Friday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia.

Kelly (photo) died four days after her husband, Julio Aponte, 63, repeatedly bashed her in the head at W. 163rd St. and Fort Washington Ave., authorities say.

“How dare you cheat on me?” Aponte screamed at Kelly as he attacked her in front of shocked bystanders, video of the gruesome June 14 attack showed.

Manhattan prosecutors charged Aponte with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault at his arraignment two days after the attack. A judge ordered him held at Rikers Island without bail, and he remained there Tuesday.

Kelly’s son, Enmanuel Aponte, 19, said Julio Aponte was wrong to think his mother was unfaithful in any way.

“Jealous husband? My mother was always faithful,” Enmanuel Aponte told the Daily News. “That was only in his mind. My mother was a wonderful woman. She was a school secretary. That’s why all these people are here.”

The teen said his mom worked at Public School/Middle School 161 in Harlem.

Kelly is also survived by her daughter, Elizabeth, 24, an NYPD transit police officer, who was too distraught to speak to a reporter.

“Please keep praying for my mother,” Enmanuel Aponte said.