A woman being grilled by cops in the suspected slaying of a Staten Island dad told detectives that her boyfriend “killed somebody — and he made me go with him to get rid of the body in New Jersey,” a source told The Post on Monday.
The chilling alleged admission came as cops questioned the woman and man about the disappearance of Michael Stewart, 40, who has not been heard from since he texted his mother, “Please help me Mom,” early Dec. 21.
Law enforcement sources said Stewart had “a relationship” with the couple, although what type was not immediately clear — and that probers now believe he was somehow knifed to death.
Police have no body but are already calling their investigation a homicide case.
NYPD detectives believe that “it was a relationship between the three of them that ended with [Stewart] stabbed up,” a police source said.
The couple has not been arrested, but the source said detectives believe that they have the right suspects.
“They’re going to be charged eventually,” the law enforcement source said of the pair.
Investigators are “trying to flip the girl on the guy so they get one of them to admit to stabbing the victim to death. They’re trying to get them to admit where they dumped the body,” the source said.
Cops on Sunday took the woman “down to the Jersey Shore to search locations” for the body, said the first source, a retired NYPD sergeant with knowledge of the case.
NYPD officials would only officially say they have two people in custody in Stewart’s disappearance.
“We have some people that we’re talking to and questioning in regards to this investigation. They have not been allowed to leave,” a spokesman said.
Stewart went missing more than a week ago. He was seen leaving O’Neill’s Irish Pub on Forest Avenue at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 20 and then appeared on surveillance video at a nearby barbershop a short time later.
Stewart, an unemployed carpenter, was hard up for money, the first source said. He called his mom that night and also phoned a work acquaintance named Caesar looking for help finding a job.
The last anyone heard of him was around 2 a.m. Dec. 21, when he texted his mother, “Please help me Mom.”
Stewart is dad to an 11-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, but the daughter does not know that he’s presumed dead, a family friend said.
“She doesn’t know anything yet, but she was asking for him, like any normal 4-year-old,” said longtime friend Jaclyn Tantao.
The daughter has “been crying every night for him. She’s starting to see that something’s wrong,” according to Stewart’s aunt Roxanne, who asked that her last name be withheld.
The missing man struggled with drugs and alcohol and has previously been arrested for criminal mischief, menacing and domestic violence in addition to 17 other sealed arrests, cops said.