Transcript

Talking Dateline: "Secrets of the Sliding Door" | Dateline NBC

From Dateline NBC · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 21 min · 3,726 words · 60 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Talking Dateline: "Secrets of the Sliding Door" | Dateline NBC", an episode of Dateline NBC published July 23, 2025 (21 min, about 3,726 words). It mentions 34 people, works and ideas, including Keith Morrison, Keith Greenberg, 911 call, Talking Dine, New York, New York.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Home invasion, Prosecutor, Talking Dine, Burglary
  2. – 10:00: Brooklyn, Burglary, Digital evidence, Home Depot
  3. – 15:00: 911 call, Danielle Dennis, Keith Morrison, Wolverine
  4. – 20:00: 911 call, Comic books, Keith Greenberg, Keith Morrison
  5. – 21:18: Danielle Dennis, Dateline NBC

Notable quotes from "Talking Dateline: "Secrets of the Sliding Door" | Dateline NBC"

  • Hi everybody, it's Josh Bowitz and we're talking dine today with Keith Morrison.
    about Keith Morrison · at
  • Later, we're going to be joined by another Keith. That's Keith Greenberg was one of the producers in this episode. And we'll also have a couple of extra clips from interviews with Simonette's friends and family that did.
    about Keith Greenberg · at
  • Know, the quote hooker with the heart of gold unquote. a person who is engaged in the commercial sex trade but is a solid citizen like everybody else and wants to help out and…
    about Commercial sex trade · at
  • Business, but she also was doing other things with her life. I I was struck by what the prosecutor said about Miss Pumpkin afterwards, which was, what a nice person she was. she said, This that's going to sound.
    about Prosecutor · at
  • All right. back to our story. So, nobody stole Jonathan's sneaker collection, which was clearly pretty marketable. It was the kind of thing a ste a thief would steal.
    about Sneaker collection · at
  • And he'd gone to get the car. I don't know. And then he said he went to the Home Depot for in the afternoon before he came home and that's when he discovered her body. the one problem with the alibi was there was no video at the Home Depot.
    about Home Depot · at
  • Right near her family, but instead she chose to go to a much tougher neighborhood in Brooklyn. And that really kind of tells you a lot about her.
    about Brooklyn · at
  • We play some of the 911 call. and you listen to enough Dayline, you're you're you're going to hear a lot of 911 calls.
    about 911 call · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Keith Morrison — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Keith Greenberg — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Danielle Dennis — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Jenna Leant on Facebook wrote, You can hear the fake in his voice. Danielle Dennis on Facebook said, From the 911 call, he was instantly guilty.
  • Josh Bowitz — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Hi everybody, it's Josh Bowitz and we're talking dine today with Keith Morrison.
  • Jioati / Jivati / Jivvati (Victoria) — Person · 1 mention · first at
    We have an extra clip here of Sissy's cousin Victoria and her childhood friend Eric. Let's let's listen to those.
  • Roddy Piper — Person · 1 mention
  • Tim and Eric — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • Secrets of the Sliding Door — Book · 1 mention · first at
    I'll I'll take Mhm. as great to see you Josh. We're going to be talking about Keith's episode which is called Secrets of the Sliding Door. Now if you haven't seen this yet, you…

Companies & orgs

  • Home Depot — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • Sneakers R Us — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Of interesting things. U first of all Keith Morrison, you have a overdue bill at Sneakers R Us. So that's true.
  • Dateline NBC — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Have any questions for us about DLine, you can always reach us 247 on social media at Dateline NBC or you can leave us a voicemail and we know who answers those voicemails now. That number is 2124135252.
  • NBCUniversal — Company · 1 mention
  • New York City Public Schools — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • Talking Dine — Product · 2 mentions · first at
    Hi everybody, it's Josh Bowitz and we're talking dine today with Keith Morrison.
  • Peacock — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Of the Sliding Door. Now if you haven't seen this yet, you can stream it on Peacock and then you can head back here for the chat. So here's a quick recap.
  • Sneaker collection — Product · 1 mention · first at
  • Dateline NBC (social media) — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

  • 911 call — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • Home invasion — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Her place had been ransacked. Detectives started with a couple of theories. Was this a home invasion? Was it a gang shooting? But it was only when they found the mysterious phone number of a woman who identified herself only as M. pumpkin.
  • Prosecutor — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • Burglary — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Theories of what happened to and you know sort of home invasion/burglary is sort of one of the first things that people's minds go to except you know the biggest danger when you surprise a burglar in your home is that.
  • Gang shooting — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Her place had been ransacked. Detectives started with a couple of theories. Was this a home invasion? Was it a gang shooting? But it was only when they found the mysterious phone number of a woman who identified herself only as M. pumpkin.
  • Commercial sex trade — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • Law Enforcement — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Fact the suspect in this case she it sounds like she pretty much did everything she could to help out law enforcement. Well, yes, she, I'm not sure she was falling head over…
  • Digital evidence — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    He had a great alibi. In fact, he had a an alibi that was proven all day long by digital evidence. U that he'd gone to the school. He had talked to an administrator there. He…
  • Wolverine — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Class in cartoon voices and came to school once dressed as the character Wolverine. and I remember the brother telling me a story when we were just chatting that one time he…
  • Comic books — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Though he thought he was. you know he was a he lived in a bit of a fantasy and I think he read too many comic books.
  • alibi — Concept · 1 mention
  • DNA Evidence — Concept · 1 mention
  • Hooker with a heart of gold — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • New York, New York — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    After a high school teacher named Simonet Mapes Krooppy was found stabbed to death inside her Staten Island, New York home, one of the five burrows. her place had been…
  • Staten Island — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    After a high school teacher named Simonet Mapes Krooppy was found stabbed to death inside her Staten Island, New York home, one of the five burrows. her place had been…
  • Brooklyn — Place · 1 mention · first at

Sponsors

Full transcript with timestamps

Hi everybody, it's Josh Bowitz and we're talking dine today with Keith Morrison. Hi Keith.

Hello Josh. I'll I'll take Mhm. as great to see you Josh. We're going to be talking about Keith's episode which is called Secrets of the Sliding Door. Now if you haven't seen this yet, you can stream it on Peacock and then you can head back here for the chat. So here's a quick recap. after a high school teacher named Simonet Mapes Krooppy was found stabbed to death inside her Staten Island, New York home, one of the five burrows. Um, her place had been ransacked. Detectives started with a couple of theories. Was this a home invasion? Was it a gang shooting? But it was only when they found the mysterious phone number of a woman who identified herself uh only as M. pumpkin

on Simonette's phone. The detectives uncovered a killer that was much closer to home. And of course, because this is dine, it was her husband, Jonathan Krooppy.

Hey, hey, hey, hey. Now, what? Well, you know, you put the spoiler alert right out there just for fun.

Have you ever listened to Talking Dine before? They already have seen the episode.

No, only if they follow your inane directions, Josh. I never do. I mean, seriously.

Yeah. Come on. Are we having technical difficulties here? No, you never knew. Okay. Well, um, spoiler alert. I knew and all the people watching and listening knew.

Sure. Later, we're going to be joined by another Keith. That's Keith Greenberg was one of the producers in this episode. And we'll also have a couple of extra clips from interviews with Simonette's friends and family that did not make it into the show. Simonette, known as right?

Yep. Yes. the lovely She was a just a delightful person and somebody who cared a great deal about other people. So, you know, she is she is deeply missed even now.

And I think that really emerged from your episode. We're also going to be listening to and answering some of the questions that you sent into us on social media and other ways like that phone line that rings on Keith's desk.

Yeah. So stick around for that. Yeah. Uh all right, Keith, let's talk to So um the question that I had again and again and again while I was watching this episode is about Ms. Pumpkin.

Ah yes, of course. Yeah. the intriguing character in the story. I'm pretty sure Ms. Pumpkin is not the name she was born with.

I think you're probably accurately correct about that. You know, this is a pretty familiar trope in both journalism and in, you know, movie making and TV, which is, you know, the quote hooker with the heart of gold unquote. a person who is engaged in the commercial sex trade but is a solid citizen like everybody else and wants to help out and sort of once she realized Miss Pumpkin that uh that the guy that she knew uh by a different name was in fact uh the suspect in this case she it sounds like she pretty much did everything she could to help out law enforcement. Well, yes, she, you know, I'm not sure she was falling head over heels to do so, but um at the same time, well, let me say this about Miss Pumpkin. As far as I can tell, she was a kind of a a modern person in the sense that she u she was not in any way she did not feel diminished by what she did. It was a business. She ran it as a

business, but she also was doing other things with her life. Uh, you know, I I I I was struck by what the prosecutor said about Miss Pumpkin afterwards, which was, you know, sort of, you know, what a nice person she was. You know, she said, "This that's going to sound this is going to sound strange coming from me, but when you step up when you are needed, when it is time to do the right thing, and then you do the right thing, it doesn't make any difference how you're making your money."

No, it it doesn't. It doesn't at all. And um and and that particular prosecutor was an astute judge of character. Uh right away there were theories of what happened um uh to and you know sort of home invasion/burglary is sort of one of the first things that uh that that people's minds go to except you know the biggest danger when you surprise a burglar in your home is that you're between them and the door. I mean burglars do not come into your home to kill you. burglars come into your home to steal your stuff and what they really want is for you to not be there at any part. So

yes, the fact that she was in fact killed by whoever this was and that uh that she was stabbed so many times that does not feel like a burglary

and and in addition to that that the house was so completely ransacked from top to bottom and yet nothing significant appeared to have been taken. Uh so somebody wanted to make it look like a total mess. Somebody wanted to make it look like a robbery without actually robbing. Um, upstairs in one of the bedrooms was a purportedly valuable collection of sneakers um which um Krooppy collected over the years and and traded and paid you know it was a kind of a secondary income for him and picked up

and those could have brought somebody some money and those were not stolen and they were not taken. Yeah. This uh this kind of begs another question because I'm sure

talking to someone right now who is famous for wearing sneakers. Um so um uh I think our listeners would like to know how many pairs of sneakers do you have, Keith? You know what? I don't know. But I'll tell you what I have is a closet with uh a bunch of I I don't know probably a dozen pairs of those kind of sneakers. Those particular sneakers with uh

Are you afraid to say the brand? Because you don't have a marketing agreement with

you mean Conserv these guys right here. Come on. Here we go. Here we go. I'm talking gay. We got a shot of Keith's feet.

Trying to make it Trying to make it over there. Come on. There we go. All right. Never mind. I never made it there. Uh, gentle listener, Keith has just knocked over the microphone by attempting to show us his sneakers.

All right. Uh, back to um, back to our story. So, um, uh, nobody stole Jonathan's sneaker collection, which was clearly pretty marketable. It was the kind of thing a ste a thief would steal.

Yes. So, then they look at the alibi because, you know, the husband's always the first one you look at. Well, he lives there. Yeah. And

you know, he had a great alibi. In fact, he had a an alibi that was proven all day long by digital evidence. U that he'd gone to the school. He had talked to an administrator there. He had picked up some supplies. Uh he had gone here. He'd gone there. He'd gone the other place. And he'd gone to get the car. I don't know. And then he said he went to the Home Depot for in the afternoon before he came home and that's when he discovered her body. Uh the one problem with the alibi was there was no video at the Home Depot.

So you know if Jonathan had not mentioned the trip to Home Depot on which he could not be found? Um would that have been

had to be somewhere? Yeah. I was going to say that might have been made his alibi a little bit stronger but on the other hand then it would have left a gap.

Exactly. Um, yeah, but the gap would have been at a time when they knew she was already dead.

That's true. You know, it's a good call. It's hard to know. Um, it's hard to know whether it would have been better or not, but that was the choice he made.

When we get back, we've got two interview clips to play that did not make it into the broadcast from Sissy's friends and family. So, now we're joined by Keith Greenberg, one of the producers uh of this episode and also um my favorite Keith. I'm going to say

that's not a hard call, Josh. You know, we haven't talked quite enough about I mean, she absolutely could have gotten a job teaching on Staten Island right near her family, but instead she chose to go to a much tougher neighborhood in Brooklyn. And that really kind of tells you a lot about her.

Sure. And I'm sure you you spoke to some of her students too, didn't you, Keith?

I did. Yes. Um, you know, I think that she truly believed she had at one point, um, contemplated becoming a nun. And I do think she was dedicated to a life of service. She was very good to animals and very kind to animals. She would pick up strays and she felt her life was to serve these children and in some ways she's still doing it because they all have taken something of her with them. She would take the her her her underprivileged kids out uh for dinner together uh to celebrate various things places that they would never otherwise have been able to go. Uh but she wanted them to see what life could be if they continued with their studies. Um, she was a very popular teacher.

So, we spoke with some of her friends and family obviously for this episode, but not everything made it into the episode. We have an extra clip here of uh Sissy's cousin Victoria and her childhood friend Eric. Let's let's listen to those.

So, was about 10 years older than I am. And I looked at her like a big sister. Growing up, I had a difficult home life. and she helped my brother and I have a sense of family and guidance. laid down the blueprint for how I wanted to be as a woman.

I literally lived next to Sim Mees. My room was right next to her room. So, she she knock um and then we kind of talk a little bit through the wall. I mean, the walls are kind of paper thin back then. Oh, man. Simonette, I I tell you, she she had a a heart of gold to be honest with you. She was extremely nice, extremely um kind um and just a very loving heart.

Yeah, that gives you an idea. It really does. I mean, it really gives you a sense of who of who she was and what a loss this was. So, uh, Sissy's mom, who really, I thought was kind of the emotional heart of this story. Um, and you really got a great sense in this episode of sort of the anguish that she went through and is still going through because this doesn't go away. Uh, uh, you know, they had that conversation the night before she was murdered. And that's the kind of thing if you're a parent, you just end up replaying again and again and again and again looking for, you know, you know, what did I what did I not hear? What should I have asked? I mean, I that that has to be miserable for her to go through. I mean, I don't I I think maybe they had a sense, her family and and also had a sense that, you know, Jonathan was maybe not the right guy for her, but that he was a threat to her life. I don't think they sense that

at all. No. No one ever sensed that. The students never sensed that. He was loved at his school. He was uh someone uh one of his former students called him quote a big little kid. He would talk to the class in cartoon voices and uh came to school once dressed as uh the character Wolverine. Uh, and I remember the brother telling me a story when we were just chatting that one time he brought Jonathan Krooppy to a bachelor party and Jonathan Krooppy uh didn't seem to know how to behave properly in a strip club. He seemed embarrassed and so uh her family thought he was the last person who could be involved in something like this. Uh here's uh here's something that uh that wasn't in the episode, which is that uh we know that Jonathan Krooppy was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but after he was incarc incarcerated, um apparently he created an online dating profile.

Yeah. Uh and on his profile, this it sounds like a a Macob joke, but it's not. Um he wrote, "I'm not married and I don't have any kids. No baby mama drama here." I'm guessing that his uh that Simonette's family is uh not thrilled

about that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and he's a bright guy, so he's also uh from what I understand teaching in prison. And so, you know, he's he's you know, he's doing time, but uh it might be considered easy time by the standards of her family.

I'm sure to her family it's easy time. Yeah, it probably is. Now, uh, up next, we are finally going to answer some of the questions you've been leaving for us on Keith's voicemail. Uh, let's, uh, let's go to viewer mail. Viewer mail.

All right. Fine. Yes. That's always Keith Morrison's favorite part of talking. Absolutely.

Yeah. We play some of the 911 call. Um, and you know, uh, you know, you listen to enough Dayline, you're you're you're going to hear a lot of 911 calls.

Um, some of them frantic, some of them anguished, some of them phony. Um, I will say that again, I didn't know anything about this story when I when I watched the episode a couple of days ago and my first thought was, okay, well, this is the guy because

yeah, this sounds utterly phony. I just came home. My wife is dead. Oh my god, I think my house was robbed.

Jenna Leant on Facebook wrote, "You can hear the fake in his voice." Uh, Danielle Dennis on Facebook said, "From the 911 call, he was instantly guilty." That's exactly what I thought. I was like, "Wow." Uh um you're you're incriminating yourself just by your tone of voice,

just by talking. Yeah. Uh it's uh it was true and it it really came through on that 911 call. And the the prosecution was able to use that. But the um the thing about 911 calls though is that they can be very tricky. You know, you can make a judgment about them right away. And quite frequently in some investigations, judgments are made and it often will lead the police in the wrong direction. Sometimes tragically uh so you know they take it with a grain of salt. But, uh,

I mean, look, look, it's I mean, I I I I did a uh I I I did a story several years ago in uh in in New York State in which a woman um called 911 and she said, "I've just found my mom and uh she's been stabbed and I think she was walking downstairs and she was holding a knife and the cat must have tripped her and then so she fell down the stairs and she stabbed herself and the cops are like writing all this. They're like, "Wait, wait, just a second." Right?

And she says, "And by the way, I pulled out the knife. Uh, so you're going to find my fingerprints and DNA on the knife and my my mom is worth quite a bit of money, but this is not how I wanted to get the inheritance."

Then the cops are just like, the cops are just like, "Okay, please continue cuz we're eating this up." And it's not her. She was not guilty in any way. years ago, years ago did a story about this poor sad sack of a fellow whose daughter was murdered in the middle of the night in a bedroom just down the hall from his um by somebody a stranger came into the house. He didn't know what had happened. He woke up in the morning. He found her dead and he assumed that she had strangled on a blanket that was wrapped around her neck. Um, so he called the police and he was very but his he was just a low very shy low-key person and his 911 call sounded fake. It sounded like he didn't care. It was just one of those tragic cases that started with a 911 call that sounded fake but wasn't. Roxan Deza from uh also I think on Facebook has a theory about the DNA on the door. She says maybe rather than accidentally putting Miss Pumpkin's DNA

on the doororknob, Jonathan did it on purpose to throw off investigators so that they would look for a female killer. Possible. I'm going to say that shows a higher degree of planning on Jonathan's part than I think he was capable of at the time.

I think I'd have to agree. Keith Greenberg is nodding. Yes, I would have to concur with that. Uh he was not a criminal mastermind even though he thought he was. uh you know he was a a he lived in a bit of a fantasy and I think he read too many comic books.

We uh we checked the talking date line voicemail uh and came across um a bunch of uh interesting things. U first of all um uh Keith Morrison, you have a overdue bill at Sneakers R Us. So that's true.

You want to get in there and I'm always behind on that one. Um uh here's one for both of us. Hi, my name is Piper and I have a question for I guess the whole team. Do you ever finish an interview with someone, specifically the person who perpetrated a crime, and just wonder um how they can dead pan lie to you? Or do you ever just get so angry that people are so clearly lying? And have you ever moused off to any of them to just tell them that you think they're horrible people? Thanks.

Keith, you want to answer? Well, you know, you you know when you're talking to somebody who's accused of committing murder and probably did, um that they're they've got a story that has been very carefully rehearsed over and over again. They're going to tell you that story and they're going to tell it with a straight face and they're going to put them they're going to be on their absolute best behavior even if they've been convicted of the crime and they're been sitting in jail for a while. They're coming off the whole thing is that's not this is all this is all, you know, my my ex-wife's family and the cops, they're all in league together to make me look like a terrible person. But there have been a couple of occasions where um somebody has their their excuse was so egregious and so took advantage of people so horribly that I did get somewhat cross with them.

I have to confess. Yeah. Here's my answer to this, which is if you're a reporter, you got to get used to people lying to you because it's not just murderers that lie to us. It's a huge number of people that I've covered in what's now nearly a 50-year career. And instead of getting angry, your obligation as a journalist to the audience and to the you or your readers if you're a newspaper reporter or print is to expose those lies, not yell at them.

So there have been times when I I you know, you can say a lot more with a look on television than than you know, with a with a uh with any particular comment. But sir, yeah, Keith and I and Andrea and Blaine and Lester and Dennis, we've all said, "Yeah, come on. Come on. Come on. Try something else." Yeah. They're pitching a story and and you know that there's an old rule when you're interviewing people in involved in something like this is that everybody lies. Everybody lies all the time. So, you just adjust your behavior accordingly.

That's it for talking date line this week. Keith, thank you. other Keith. My absolute pleasure. Oh, you're talking to the other Keith. Of course you are.

I'm always talking to the other Keith. Well, I must say, Other Keith, it's been a delight having you on the program. Somebody who actually uh is astute and remembers all the details. I appreciate it very much.

Well, thank you very much and and I I enjoyed being here. And remember, if you have any questions for us about DLine, you can always reach us 247 on social media at Dateline NBC or you can leave us a voicemail and we know who answers those voicemails now. That number is 2124135252. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dayline on NBC.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Talking Dateline: "Secrets of the Sliding Door" | Dateline NBC"?

Josh Bowitz (Host), Keith Morrison (Guest), Keith Greenberg (Guest), Victoria (Sissy's cousin) (Guest), Eric (childhood friend of Simonette) (Guest), Piper (Guest).

What is discussed in "Talking Dateline: "Secrets of the Sliding Door" | Dateline NBC"?

In order: 0:00 Home invasion, Prosecutor, Talking Dine, Burglary; 5:00 Brooklyn, Burglary, Digital evidence, Home Depot; 10:00 911 call, Danielle Dennis, Keith Morrison, Wolverine; 15:00 911 call, Comic books, Keith Greenberg, Keith Morrison; 20:00 Danielle Dennis, Dateline NBC.

What is mentioned in this Dateline NBC episode?

34 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Keith Morrison, Keith Greenberg, 911 call, Talking Dine, New York, New York, Staten Island. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Talking Dateline: "Secrets of the Sliding Door" | Dateline NBC"?

The episode runs 21 min; the transcript is about 3,726 words in 60 timestamped sections.

More from Dateline NBC

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 17, 2025.