Only two things run deeper than the grief Mary Mapes has experienced over the last three weeks: The need to honor her husband’s life and the determination to solve her husband’s death.
Peter D’Agostino was brutally murdered three weeks ago today, just two blocks from home, in broad daylight, apparently by someone wielding a hammer or some other heavy, blunt object.
Like the block where Mapes and D’Agostino settled two years ago this month, the block two streets over where he was murdered features houses tucked tightly together and close to the street. People come and go all the time, with many sitting or playing outside. It’s one of the features that drew the couple to this south side Oak Park neighborhood in the first place.
“Someone must have seen him,” said Mapes sitting in her dining room last Saturday afternoon. “Someone must have seen the car. I’m asking for the community’s help in solving this.”
Mary Mapes accepted our invitation to make a public appeal to her neighbors and the entire Oak Park community, urging anyone who has information to come forward.
It was not an easy thing to do.
Her voice cracking continuously, her face showing the effects of 2 weeks of constant grief, she talked with head bowed, looking down at a photograph?#34;the one positioned at the top of this article?#34;which includes Rita Grace, their 13-month-old daughter.
Whoever did this, she said, “destroyed a family. He destroyed the hopes and dreams of this family. It’s lost beyond anything I could have reasoned before.”
Peter was 41 when Rita was born on May 23, 2004. “He took care of her that first week,” Mary said, “walking her from room to room, showing her things. She was so active and alert.” Peter, a professor at UIC, didn’t teach that summer, so they had the first four months together, sharing the feedings.
“He discovered the love only a father can know,” she recalled, “that only a parent can know for a child. He played music for her all the time. He fell in love with her.”
Smitten immediately
As Mary had fallen in love with him, just 3 years ago. A colleague who had worked with both had been trying to get the two history teachers together for months and finally arranged a blind date in September 2001. They met at her sister’s house in Evanston and took a walk along the lakefront, then went to Boca de la Verita Restaurant for dinner.
Later they traveled to Rome, Peter’s favorite city (he had done considerable research there in several stints), and visited the original Boca de la Verita (Mouth of Truth), an ancient shrine made famous in the film Roman Holiday. Mary put her hand in the mouth. Peter didn’t.
But he was the genuine article. “I knew the first night,” she recalled. “I fell head over heels for him.” She called her mother and said she was “smitten.”
“I’d never used that word before.”
Mary’s twin sister Kathy suggested maybe they ought to go on more than one date. They did?#34;and six months later they were married.
Mary was impressed by “his humor, his generosity. He was genuine and had an amazing sense of humanity. He was very vivacious and had a ton of charisma. He was romantic, though not in an obvious way. Everything was intertwined with wit.”
They met later in life, but Peter said they would still have 40 years. On her last birthday card, he wrote, “37 to go.”
“He always said there wasn’t going to be enough time together,” she recalled. “I always told him, ‘We have the whole future.'”
As history teachers, their careers overlapped. They edited each other’s work and talked at length about their professions. Peter threw her a party when her book was published.
“He was very supportive of me,” she said.
But it was her husband’s sense of humor that she kept coming back to. “He teased me a lot. He was playful and affectionate and could always make me laugh,” she said. His wit was the most frequently cited quality in the many letters and responses she has received from his former students.
They led a simple life in Oak Park. “We felt fortunate to be part of this community,” Mary said. They took a lot of walks. “You’d see people everywhere, kids playing on the street.”
Made you feel safe, like you belonged there.
A random act
Now she no longer feels safe, and she’s counting on her community to come through for her.
The patternlessness of her husband’s murder makes it all the more unsettling.
“It was random,” she said. “That’s one thing we know for sure.” It could have been anyone’s brother or son?#34;or husband. So everyone has a stake in solving this.
“Someone had to see something?#34;looking out the window, working in the yard,” she said. “Every little piece of information adds up.” Puzzle pieces all fit together, she observed, so she’s asking anyone who has one to step forward.
She described the Oak Park police as “hopeful” and “optimistic that people know things,” though she didn’t want to divulge details of the investigation. Police have been professional, yet attentive and sensitive to her situation, she said.
Family members have also been supportive, taking turns staying with her. And her neighbors have been wonderful as well, Mary said, offering everything from pool passes to dinners. The next door neighbors gave her their house while they were away on vacation, so Mary’s family members could stay there. She has three sisters, all of whom have flexible summer schedules, so she’s never been alone.
Several of Peter’s five siblings have also spent time here, as did Peter’s best friend from high school, Patrick Jennings, who sat in on the interview last weekend to offer Mary moral support.
“It’s important to keep the pressure on,” Jennings said. “Keeping this in the community’s consciousness is critical.”
After all, if the killer struck once?#34;and allegedly chased or approached others, according to police reports?#34;there’s no reason to believe it won’t happen again.
“It takes this to another level of impact,” Jennings said, “one that is profound and frightening.”
These investigations can take months, Mapes said. It’s not too late to come forward. She deeply appreciated the turnout for the community meeting at the Oak Park Conservatory last Thursday night and the Crime Stoppers event Friday morning. Crime Stoppers, she emphasized, is a non-profit organization that offers rewards for tips leading to arrests, preserves the anonymity of callers to make it easier for those who feel uncomfortable calling police.
Asking for help
Mary Mapes is reaching out, asking for help from a community that only a few short weeks ago, she felt privileged to be part of. She’s asking someone, anyone, who saw something, knows something, to contact either the Oak Park police or Crime Stoppers (800/535-STOP).
“Peter was my life,” Mary said, “together with my daughter.”
And that life has been forever shattered. But she wants people to know what kind of person the community has lost, a man who has been described as passionate, intense, inspirational, deeply committed, and very funny.
Searching for words, inverting them in her grief, giving them, if anything, even more impact, she says, “To honor his life is to help solve this.”
