Ira Pomerantz - 1957 Senior Class Photo - James Madison High School

Ira was born to Howard L. Pomerantz and Jeane Legon in Brooklyn and according to the 1940s Census lived on 914 Troy Street in New York with his father age 34, mother 31, grandfather Raphel Leyon, uncle Sal Leyon, and brother Joel Pomerantz. He attended James Madison High School while living at 1776 East 13 Street. He was a member of the basketball and track teams, sang, and was a lunchroom and gym guard with ambitions to go to college. In 1962 he married Joan Miller in Manhattan New York and then enlisted in the US Army from April 16th 1963 through April 24th 1964 where he served in Vietnam. He was the victim of murder by his wife Valerie Pape who he married in November of 1995. On January 27th, 2000 witnesses saw 47 year old Valerie Pape dump Ira's torso into a dumpster behind a Mesa Arizona grocery store. Valerie originally said that she found his body on their kitchen floor, and feared that she would be to blame so hid the body. Details of this odd story are included below in a Arizona 15 newspaper article. Ira's life was dramatized on a 2018 episode of Oxygen network's "Snapped" entitled "Valerie Pape". It's described as: “An Arizona socialite makes a gruesome discovery which leads local law enforcement to ask questions about her troubled marriage. She claims she found a man dead, but police have reason to believe otherwise.” Scroll down to read an update article (Jan 12, 2018) about the murder and the subsequent disposition of the case.