‘New York Homicide’ Explores the Torture and Murder of Beloved Teacher Jonathan Levin [Exclusive Clip]
The shocking murder of New York public school teacher Jonathan Levin is re-examined during the latest episode of Oxygen’s true crime series, New York Homicide.
Levin, who taught English at William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx, was found in his apartment, bound and shot dead. At the time, he was dating Cleo Tejada, also a teacher, who hoped to marry Levin someday.
Levin’s backstory goes deeper than being a beloved teacher. He was also the son of Time Warner chairman Gerald M. Levin, which made this case even more high profile.
The suspect list grows and, in an exclusive clip shared with Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Tejada revealed she had a jealous ex-husband who was not happy she was dating Levin.
Cleo Tejada had an altercation with her ex
Tejada and Levin had gone to the Dominican Republic to meet her family and had talked about marriage. However, Tejada’s estranged husband showed up at her home unannounced. He was angry when he saw Levin there, especially when he learned Tejada was in a relationship with him.
“Jonathan and I were spending a lot of time together,” Tejada recalled in the clip. “And my ex-husband didn’t have access to me like he used to. We had been separated for over three years. But he was used to seeing me just single.”
“Around April 1997, probably like a month before, my husband came to the house uninvited,” she said. Tejada recalled that she asked her ex-husband to leave, but he didn’t want to listen to her. “When I saw his face, he was completely transformed,” she recalled of her ex. “He was in a very jealous rage. He started to make trouble with Jonathan. Calling him names.”
“And Jonathan could run his mouth when someone made him angry,” she added. “I was trying to be calm, not to cause trouble between the two of them.” Tejada talked to her ex outside the house for an hour and he finally left.
Did Cleo Tejada’s ex-husband murder Jonathan Levin?
When Levin went missing Tejada called the police. Officers entered Levin’s apartment and found him dead, hands and feet bound with duct tape. He had been shot in the head but also stabbed in the chest after he was dead, The New York Times reports.
Tejada, Levin’s family, and the community were devastated by the loss. Investigators ultimately learned that one of Levin’s former students Corey Arthur murdered him. Arthur and his accomplice, Montoun Hart, were after money. They tortured the teacher in an effort to force him to give them his debit card PIN. They muffled his screams by turning up the volume on the stereo and running a vacuum cleaner.
Arthur and Hart ultimately stole $800 from Levin’s account. Arthur was arrested a week after Levin was murdered and initially claimed he was smoking crack at Levin’s apartment when two men broke in and killed him. But Arthur’s story fell apart when investigators found his fingerprints on the duct tape used to bind the teacher.
In the end, Arthur, who claimed he did not shoot Levin, received 25 years to life in prison. Hart, who had signed a document, confessing his involvement, was acquitted. He convinced the jury that he signed the confessional under duress when he was drunk.
Oxygen’s New York Homicide airs on Saturday at 9 pm ET/PT.
