The Confession Tapes (2017) s02e03 Episode Script
Deep Down
1 [radio chatter.]
[man.]
You have something to tell me that you're hiding from me.
[woman.]
Okay.
[man.]
And it's upsetting me because you're a beautiful girl, okay? What happened out there I don't believe was an accident.
Deep down in your heart, Angelika, did you want to kill him? - No.
- Deep down? I'm not gonna judge you for anything you tell me.
It's between me and you right now, all right? [Angelika.]
Deep down I wanted him gone.
[phone ringing.]
[dispatcher.]
911, where is your emergency? [Angelika.]
I'm in the Hudson River.
My fiancé flipped over.
He's in the water right now.
- [dispatcher.]
What's your name? - Angelika.
- Stay on the phone with me, okay? - [Angelika.]
I can't get to him.
It's very windy and the waves are coming in and I can't paddle to him.
He's getting further and further away.
He's gonna drown.
- Please call somebody.
- [dispatcher.]
We've got help on the way.
[male dispatcher.]
411, respond down to the Hudson River.
[Angelika.]
Hold on, baby! Oh, my God.
[Angelika yells.]
[dispatcher.]
Try to calm down some, okay? - [Angelika.]
I don't see him anymore.
- All right, Angelika? [Angelika.]
He's lost.
[dispatcher.]
You don't see him? [Angelika.]
Oh, my God.
[distant sirens blaring.]
[man.]
On Sunday evening, April 19th, Angelika Graswald contacted 911, and she reported that her fiancé, Vincent Viafore's kayak capsized due to choppy waters and she could not locate him in the river.
She made statements that implicated herself in this crime.
However, absent his body, there's a lot of work that remains to be done.
[woman.]
The narrative that was coming out was that she kind of planned this whole thing, that she took him out and planned to kill him.
[man 2.]
Prosecutors say Graswald admitted to tampering with Viafore's kayak by pulling his drainage plug, similar to this.
That would cause the kayak to fill with water, causing it to capsize.
[officer.]
By taking that plug out, you killed Vinny.
Correct? [Angelika.]
Correct.
[officer.]
And you wanted that to happen, correct? [Angelika.]
Correct.
She really trusted the New York State Police, and she felt like these men were out to help her.
But they thought that she was here from this poor Eastern Bloc country to marry an American and kill him and inherit his money, and she was like this black widow.
[woman.]
They were trying to paint her as the villain because she didn't seem like a grieving girlfriend.
She didn't seem like a grieving fiancée.
I don't think she could have planned it, but I still have doubts.
Yes, I do.
[thunder rumbles.]
[woman 2.]
The relationship was not perfect.
So I did feel a certain sense of relief after everything happened.
[Angelika.]
We met at a bar.
It was just instant connection.
Just a laid-back, cool, down-to-earth guy.
Very cheerful, very social.
Anything you would want.
We actually both had been married twice and no children.
But he loved children.
He was great with them.
You know how it melts your heart when you see your guy with a kid? It was like that.
But we also had a lot of friction and fighting and misunderstanding.
[Angelika.]
Bannerman's Island reminds me of Europe.
That's why I kind of fell in love with it instantly.
What took my breath away mostly was the view of the Hudson from there.
The southern side, like, the mountains coming in, and then just the river.
It's just stunning.
I can't explain it.
We wanted to get married there.
We wanted to take our wedding pictures by the arsenal.
[woman.]
Angelika was one of our volunteers on the island.
She was always very happy, very friendly, very helpful.
She would always volunteer to do anything that needed to be done.
My husband and I, we have a telescope that happens to be aimed at the island so we can clearly see it from our window.
The day that this happened, Wes happened to be looking out and noticed two people on the dock.
You could see that it was getting rough, and it was cold.
I mean, it was April 19th, so the water was maybe upper 30s? They say five minutes in that temperature would lead to hypothermia, that you could not physically move your hands or your legs.
I don't see how she could have helped him, even if she wanted to.
[man.]
I was actually off that day, honestly, and I got a phone call and asked if I wanted to come in and work overtime.
My dispatcher said, "Don't get too comfortable.
We have an overturned kayak in the river.
" We made our way to the shoreline.
After several minutes, they were able to pick a woman, a female, out of the water, later identified as Angelika Graswald.
Her fiancé, he's missing.
He went under, and that was the last we saw of him.
She sat on a gurney at that point and then started getting attended to medically.
As I'm sitting there looking at her, she seemed just emotionless.
She wasn't crying, she wasn't smiling, she wasn't Didn't seem sad.
She seemed very emotionless to me, which was odd to me.
[interviewer.]
Have you heard the 911 call? Yes.
She seemed awfully calm to me.
For somebody whose boyfriend just went over and, you know, is drowning, she seemed awfully calm.
I don't know.
There was a space of time between the time they left and the time the 911 call was made and I don't know.
It might have been longer than it should have been.
From Bannerman's Island to Plum Point would be about a half hour.
It's only a mile.
Angelika sent me a text message around 7:04.
The 911 call was made at 7:40, and that's 36 minutes, and they weren't all the way across, either, when this happened.
So she's thinking, "Okay, he went in the river and let's just sit here and wait a few minutes before we call for help.
" Could have been ten minutes.
Could have been 15 minutes.
You know, it just makes you wonder.
Talking to the state police investigators, they really believe that it was premeditated.
Even my nephew said, "There's something wrong.
Uh, she I think she did something.
" Vinny brought Angelika to my home.
I wasn't very impressed.
You can tell sometimes when a person is warm.
You know, they have that kind of personality, and, uh, I don't really think she had that.
I found out later that the relationship was very tumultuous, you know.
They would go back and forth.
Being his mother, he doesn't always tell you everything.
So there's a lot of things I didn't know and I found out after everything happened.
On the day that it happened, Vinny sent a text to his sister, letting her know that he was going kayaking with Angelika.
So that was very, very odd because he'd never done that before.
He said what time they were leaving and what time they should be home.
But, um But he never came home.
I don't know what she did, but I believe she did something to cause his death.
[man.]
We have a state police marine unit in the water right now.
They have side-scanning sonar.
When the water is this rough, it's very difficult to operate and keep your grid line searches.
And probably have to call it here in a little bit, and then we'll be back out tomorrow if the weather turns.
[man 2.]
I was completely crushed, along with everybody else 'cause everyone had been looking on the Hudson River, hoping Vinny was, you know, maybe unconscious or just out there.
And you don't know whether or not he's alive or dead 'cause no one knew.
Vinny was probably the greatest human being I've ever met.
He'd walk in a room, something like out of Goodfellas, the movie.
He'd be like Jimmy the Gent.
When he walked into a room, the whole you were just attracted to Vinny.
See, now, this is the strange part.
People grieve differently, but Angelika, the day after he was missing, she posted on social media a photograph of her doing shots.
And that's when I was like, "What is going on here?" And then, like, the third day, she's doing cartwheels.
[woman.]
Woo! Yay! [Angelika.]
Well, I felt like I had to put on a face.
I don't know if it's just my culture, my background, you know, not showing your emotions.
But I felt like I needed to hold it together for others.
I just behaved the way I the best I knew how.
It was wrong, in public's opinion, but that's me.
[woman.]
It was Wednesday.
All the gardeners are together.
Angelika was on the dock, getting ready to come on up.
She seemed down.
She said, "Yes, I'm feeling very bad.
" And to my surprise, there was a bunch of policemen coming up on the island as well.
At this point, it's April 29th, so it's ten days after Vince goes missing.
They do not have a body.
They don't know truly the cause of death.
Waiting for her on the island was a pack of wolves and their names were DaSilva, Moscato and DeQuarto.
They swore up and down that this was a coincidence, and that they weren't there for her, and that they were on the island kind of just like looking for clues.
It was comical.
We have photos that they took on the island, and they were there posing together, like, embracing each other, taking selfies.
In one picture, Investigator Moscato was faking reaching down and collecting a piece of evidence.
He was posing.
He looked like OJ.
Really, he looked like OJ.
[Joyce.]
As I was sitting on the ground doing my gardening, I did hear one gentleman, a very loud voice, strong.
He said, "It's your turn, and get that bitch to tell you the story.
" They were taking turns at questioning her, to the point that she would break down and cry.
So that was kind of scary, knowing the interrogation was happening right in front of our eyes.
[Richard.]
At this point, she's had no grief counseling.
She's had no one to talk to.
Hadn't slept in days.
So Investigator DeQuarto takes up the role of kind of a therapist.
She says, "Well, the plug was out," and it caused her incredible stress.
He's like, "What do you mean?" He has no idea what she's talking about.
Investigator DeQuarto doesn't even know where it was located on the vessel.
He thinks it's at the bottom.
So, in his mind, when she says, "The plug was out," he thinks that she confessed to killing Vince, to taking the plug out with the intention that he'd drown and die.
Well, I knew it wasn't in, and I remember telling Vince about it when we got on the water.
I remember being, like, mad at him for not paying attention that it was missing.
It was his kayak, his equipment.
He should have taken care of it, but he didn't, and I should have done that for him because I knew he was forgetful.
But I didn't, so I felt guilty and conflicted about it.
Well, they asked me to come to barracks with them.
They said, "Would you come down and give us a statement?" I'm like, "Sure.
No problem.
" I didn't think anything of it.
- [DeQuarto.]
So we had a good discussion.
- [Angelika.]
We did.
- [DeQuarto.]
I think you feel a lot better.
- Yeah, I do.
- [DeQuarto.]
It's therapy for you.
- Of course.
- [DeQuarto.]
You'll feel better.
- [Angelika.]
You will too.
- May I sit closer? - Absolutely.
Come on in.
[Angelika.]
I don't know.
He just made me feel comfortable, and I thought that I could open up to him.
I couldn't talk to anybody else about it.
And, you know, you just go through a million things in your mind.
You think and you blame yourself, you blame somebody else, you blame him, you're angry at him, you're angry at yourself.
All of that.
The whole cocktail of feelings and emotions.
I went through it all.
So when he offered, when he said the word "therapy," I was like, "Okay, maybe this is it.
Maybe this is the outlet.
Maybe I could open up and get it off my chest, like they want me to.
" [DeQuarto.]
So we're gonna start from your relationship with Vinny.
[Angelika.]
Hm-mm.
[Angelika.]
Just like any couple, we had our issues.
- [DeQuarto.]
And what issues would that be? - [Angelika.]
Um He kept pushing me.
[DeQuarto.]
What do you mean he was pushing? [Angelika.]
He pushed for everything.
He pushed for sex, for sexual stuff.
- [DeQuarto.]
Okay.
He always wanted sex? - Yeah.
[DeQuarto.]
Sexual things? [Angelika.]
Well, yeah.
He wanted threesomes, porno, everything.
- [DeQuarto.]
Okay.
- And I was not ready.
Well, kind of very early into the relationship, he just had certain requests.
And I was willing to do some things, but other things made me very uncomfortable, and I didn't want to do them.
He was obsessed.
He would text me daily.
Things like a certain pornographic image or something, and he would be thinking of me in that form, and I would be, like, disgusted by it.
So, yeah, I felt like there was a battle going on within me.
I wanted to please him and make him happy, and at the same time, I didn't want to do what he asked me to do.
[interviewer.]
Did he ever force himself on you? Yeah, he did.
[rain tapping on roof.]
[sighs.]
[whispers.]
Excuse me.
[sighs.]
[switch clicks.]
He pushed you past your breaking point, didn't he? Yeah.
How did it make you feel? I was angry.
- Very angry? - Yeah.
[DeQuarto.]
So why didn't you just break up with him? 'Cause I loved him.
I wanted a kid.
I wanted a family.
I wanted all of it.
[DeQuarto.]
And you love him a lot.
I see that.
But when you watched him in the water [static.]
was a part of you saying, "My worries are gone away now"? - Yeah.
- "And I'm free"? - Yeah.
- And were you almost - [Angelika.]
Euphoric? - Euphoric that he was gonna be gone? I do.
I did.
- You felt that way? - Yeah.
I still do.
[Richard.]
This was Investigator DeQuarto's first homicide.
He was absolutely fixated on her as having been a killer.
To me, he wanted to make a murder out of this.
You know exactly what took place, and that's all I'm trying to get at so I can say, "Listen, this girl felt like a trapped person.
She" [Angelika.]
Dealt with a lot of anger issues.
[DeQuarto.]
"She was forced to do things that she did not want to do, and this is why this took place," and I can explain that.
[DeQuarto.]
You need to be honest with me.
Did you intentionally take that plug out because you wanted to set yourself free? [Angelika.]
Could be.
[DeQuarto.]
Could be or yes? [Angelika.]
Well, it's psychological.
I'm just trying to understand myself, like how and why would I do that.
[DeQuarto.]
Right.
[static.]
I didn't want anybody hurt.
I never would want anybody hurt.
[DeQuarto.]
Right.
So why do you feel guilt? Because of that thought that I had.
[DeQuarto.]
That you [Angelika.]
That I wanted to be free, - that I wanted him to be gone.
- Okay.
So I feel guilty about that.
[DeQuarto.]
That's understandable.
[Richard.]
Investigator DeQuarto, his ultimate goal was to convince her that, subconsciously, she had taken the plug out to kill Vince.
[birds chirping.]
[man.]
Most of the headlines alluded to "killing fiancé with kayak," and that's really what caught my attention.
I was like, "Hm, how do you kill someone with a kayak?" I started working with Richard Portale and the defense team, specifically around the mechanics of paddle sport, boat design and how boats work in complex environments like the Hudson River.
In the Graswald case, if we're hinging on intentionally removing the drain plug so that water would come in through this part of the boat, that would be a really complex way to kill someone.
To build a plan around something that is about a half-inch in diameter, that's like a James Bond villain plan, like sharks with laser beams on their head-type plan.
Um, because so many things have to be constructively aligned in order to achieve an outcome.
So, as I'm paddling, just look at the distance of the drain plug to the water.
The prosecution, they were really sticking to the drain plug as their primary angle.
And so there's a lot of video footage.
They were trying to show that you could sink a boat by removing the drain plug.
[man 1.]
Camera's recording.
- [whistle blows.]
- [man 2.]
Go! One video was a variety of different-sized people really aggressively paddling in order to get the stern to submerge.
[man.]
Start.
[man.]
No, no, no.
No, we didn't I'm gonna say, "Ready, set, go.
" [Todd.]
Looking at that footage, my gut response was, "Wow, they're trying really hard to get the stern to go underwater.
" You can get anything to happen if you try hard enough.
[engine roars.]
I went on the Hudson, and they had the powerboat go around, and they said, "Let's swamp the boat.
" The cockpit is relatively close to the water.
With a little bit of wave action and a bit of wind, waves are gonna come over the deck of that boat and enter through the cockpit.
The boat, essentially, is a bathtub.
There really isn't a bulkhead.
And if we look sideways, we can see very clearly a small wave lapping is gonna cause water to go into this giant hole.
[Richard.]
Vince is not respectful of the river, so he doesn't have any of the safety precautions that an experienced, vigilant kayaker would have.
So the water is 44.
5 degrees that day, but Vince doesn't take that into consideration.
He doesn't think it's important to wear a wet suit.
His kayak, we know, is designed for a pond.
This is a recreational kayak.
If you're expecting whitecaps or waves or any kind of turbulence, it doesn't belong there.
That's in the manual.
Vince's kayak has beers and a six-pack of water.
He's got chairs.
They've got these kayaks weighted down.
Vince's BAC was 0.
066, which in New York State is legally impaired.
When they set out at four o'clock, the weather wasn't bad.
But around seven, the weather kicks up and it really kicks up.
And at some point, Vince swamps.
So now he's going very fast, being pulled south in the water.
She's fighting the wind, dead into the wind, and she's being pulled north, and so they're being pulled apart.
Our experts So Todd Wright, who is one of the best kayakers in the world currently, said that he would love that.
Like, he would But he wouldn't use that kayak.
He wouldn't be caught in that kayak.
But for an inexperienced kayaker and someone who is not prepared with the proper safety equipment, it can be deadly, and it was deadly.
[static.]
Because of the waves which started to pick up, I couldn't He started to come in and out of my vision.
I started losing sight of him, so I kept paddling.
[DeQuarto.]
Okay.
And then when he yells to you, "I don't think I'm gonna make it," did you call 911 then or No, I called 911 when he told me to call 911.
[Richard.]
It's a creep.
You know, it's a slow grind, kind of like a Komodo dragon, you know, hunts a deer, like miles and miles and days and days.
He just kept at her.
[DeQuarto.]
Is that all that happened at that point? - [Angelika.]
Yeah.
- Nothing else? [Angelika.]
Nothing else.
[DeQuarto.]
And you watched him drown? [static.]
- [DeQuarto.]
I know it's difficult.
- No, I didn't just watch him drown.
I tried to do something about it.
[Richard.]
So eventually, I think he realizes that he wasn't getting what he wanted, and he tagged out.
You know, he tagged out to Investigator Skarkas, who comes in even more aggressively, and they were relentless.
[rustling.]
[man.]
All right.
- Angelika - Hi.
How you doing? I'm Matt.
- [Angelika.]
Nice to meet you.
- He works with me.
[Angelika.]
Okay.
That's your partner? One of them.
He's one of them.
[Skarkas.]
Some of the time frames that we've talked about don't match up.
[Angelika.]
Okay.
Which ones? [Skarkas sighs.]
From the time you leave Bannerman Island - to the time that you make the 911 call.
- Okay.
[Skarkas.]
All right? For that duration of time which is, like, about 40 minutes - [Angelika.]
Oh, it's 40? - Yeah, it's right around there.
It's long enough for you to be back at Plum Point.
Did anything happen out there, aside from what you're telling me, that there's a delay? Did he go under and you wait ten minutes, and then you call 911? No, I called 911 when he was still holding on.
[Richard.]
They thought she killed him.
They just didn't know how.
The theory was that she let him drown, and she didn't do anything to save him, and she just watched him go, but if that's the case, she would have been recovered well north of Plum Point.
[Skarkas.]
Did you pull the oar away? Did you pull the kayak away? [Angelika.]
No.
I didn't pull the kayak or oar away.
[Skarkas.]
But there's nothing else? - No.
- There's not gonna be any type of a drug, anything that you would have put into a drink, food, anything like that that we're gonna find in there? I have sleeping pills that my doctor prescribed, but I haven't touched them.
Okay.
You didn't crush any up and put them inside any of his drinks, - nothing like - That was after.
- They gave me those sleeping pills.
- Okay.
I just picked them up yesterday, actually.
[mechanical whirring.]
[Angelika.]
When you are in a room like that and you have no windows, no sense of time, they take everything from you, plus not sleeping for several days prior to that, I was exhausted.
I was stressed out.
I was not in a right state of mind.
I was lost.
Just the setting of, "Oh, you can't leave the room by yourself.
You can't go to the bathroom by yourself.
You'll be escorted.
" And I had my period happening at that time, so I kind of needed a bathroom.
And they didn't care.
[chuckles.]
They just kept pushing and pressuring and trying to get out of me and squeeze out of me everything they could.
- Angelika? - Yes? [Richard.]
So, at that point, they have executed search warrants of the apartment.
They have her in the interrogation room.
They do not have a body.
They don't know truly the cause of death, and they now come to realize that there's a gun missing.
[DeQuarto.]
In the house, Vinny had guns, right? [Angelika.]
Yes.
[DeQuarto.]
Do you know specifically what type of guns they were? [Angelika.]
No.
[DeQuarto.]
Okay, 'cause there's one gun that's missing.
There's magazines for it and bullets for it, but the gun's not there.
- [Angelika.]
What do you mean? - [DeQuarto.]
IÂ don't know.
I'm asking, did you know where that one gun might be? Have you seen all of his guns? - [Angelika.]
No, IÂ haven't.
- [DeQuarto.]
No? They really thought that she shot him, and they believed that when they did find Vince's body, he was going to have a gunshot wound somewhere on his body.
[Skarkas.]
Okay, you're lying to me, and you're lying to yourself because you still will not come out and say what we know to be true.
[Angelika.]
IÂ don't want to admit that I killed him.
[Skarkas.]
Okay.
I understand that.
- [Angelika.]
Okay.
- But you did.
When you say, "I want to be free," you're not going to be free of any of this until you admit you killed Vinny.
You took that plug out to kill him.
- [Angelika.]
Can you lower your voice? - I just have a big mouth, sorry.
[Angelika.]
IÂ do too.
[Skarkas.]
I come from a Mediterranean family.
[Angelika mumbles.]
[static.]
[Angelika.]
Well, go ahead.
[Skarkas.]
IÂ want to hear it from you.
To me, personally, it was just the constant repetition of questions and going over it and over it and over it and just, again, pressure.
I don't deal well with pressure.
[laughs.]
I guess.
[Skarkas.]
You killed Vinny.
Right? [inaudible.]
- No, I'm asking you the question - You want me to admit it.
[Skarkas.]
IÂ want you to tell me the truth.
- I am telling you the truth.
- What is the answer to that question? I didn't I didn't want him Angelika, what is the true answer to that question? [Angelika.]
You need your fucking statement.
[Skarkas.]
What is it? [Angelika.]
I wanted him dead, and now he's gone.
And I'm okay with that.
[Angelika clears throat.]
[Angelika.]
I'm okay with that.
[knocking, door opens.]
Stand up.
[Angelika.]
You don't expect anything like that happening.
I didn't know I was a suspect.
That was never in my mind.
Not until they put the cuffs on me.
I didn't know that.
[keys jangling.]
Oddly enough, I got a phone call.
The exact words were, "They arrested your kayak chick for murder," and I'm like, "Shut up.
" And they're like, "Yeah.
" And I'm like, "Really?" [reporter 1.]
A love story that police say ended in murder.
[reporter 2.]
Tonight, the fiancée of a missing kayaker is charged in his death.
This case took on a life of its own in the media.
Because this was a murder charge, it was very unusual.
Like, pulling a plug from a kayak.
No one had really seen this before.
It turned into a media circus.
Well, prosecutors maintain that Angelika Graswald pulled the plug Pulled the plug on the drain hole in the rear, allowing water to enter more easily [reporter.]
They did say she made statements she was relieved Viafore died.
The so-called Kayak Killer, Angelika Graswald, admitted to killing her fiancé, but a legal loophole still makes her eligible to cash out on his life insurance policy.
[Mary Ann.]
She knew about the insurance policy, so maybe she thought that, you know, "I can get some money and be on my own.
" My daughter and myself, the three of us were on it.
It was a big chunk of money that she would have gotten.
You're engaged to be married.
You're starting to set up your life together.
And if anyone was going to murder somebody, you would do it for millions.
Millions! [laughs.]
If you're gonna get murdered Oh, God.
She didn't murder him at all.
It was an accident on the river.
[phone ringing.]
[dispatcher.]
911, where is the emergency? [man.]
I'm not sure it's an emergency, but I'm just south of Newburgh in my boat and there's a body floating in the water.
[dispatcher.]
Do you have a buoy number? [man.]
Let me see.
It's just south of what's called Bannerman's Island.
I think the state police found five people in the water looking for my son.
So every time they found somebody, you know, we would "Is it Vinny?" And it wasn't until May 23rd.
Evidently, a fisherman saw a body near Bannerman's Island.
[dispatcher.]
And it's a body, correct? [man.]
It's a body, yeah.
It's floating in the water.
It's - [dispatcher.]
Is it a male or a female? - [man.]
It looks like it's a male.
[dispatcher.]
Can you give me a clothing description, if there's any? [man.]
Kind of tan pants and, like, a dark shirt.
A lot of algae on 'em.
Because of what he was wearing, they thought it was him.
But they had to use the dental records, and they took my DNA just to make sure.
And it was.
It was him.
[reporter.]
The state police were patrolling the waters off West Point on Saturday when they discovered Viafore's body.
By that time, he had been inside the Hudson River for more than a month.
The Orange County DA won't comment on the condition of the body.
Toxicology tests are underway to determine the cause of death.
This is Jennifer Roman, dictating case OC-15.
Also present, senior investigator with the New York State Police.
[camera shutter clicking.]
[camera shutter clicking.]
I hereby certify that I, Jennifer Roman, Orange County Acting Medical Examiner, performed an autopsy on the body of Vincent Viafore.
Final diagnosis: numeral one drowning.
Letter A: body recovered from water.
Letter B: pulmonary congestion and edema with hyperinflation.
[Richard.]
They fully examined him, inside and out, and they did not find any foul play.
[man.]
The coroner's report says that the cause of death was drowning due to plug being removed by some other person.
The medical examiner relied on speculation from police.
Does that wash? [woman.]
This is absolutely ridiculous.
There's no way for this coroner to be able to determine whether or not, medically, this was a homicide.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I remember seeing it and going, "Oh, my God.
You've got to be kidding me.
" [reporter.]
Accused kayak killer Angelika Graswald isn't talking much these days.
Graswald, meanwhile, who is a foreign national holding a Latvian passport, remains behind bars on a crushing bail of $3 million cash, $9 million bond.
Her lawyer says she'll likely stay in jail until the trial.
[Angelika.]
When they put me in jail, I was so tired.
Like, I think the first two days in jail, I just slept.
I even passed out in a peanut butter sandwich in a waiting room.
For the longest time, I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna be out of here.
There's no way they're gonna put me away.
They can't 'cause I didn't do anything.
" But as the time went by, and I was there for so long, I just started to think that "Well, they can actually put me away.
" [Richard.]
Imagine an entire defense team.
Three lawyers, two investigators, four experts are funneling towards this moment.
- Good afternoon, everyone.
- Good afternoon, Judge.
[Angelika.]
The trial, I dreaded.
I didn't want to put Vince's family through that, or my family through that.
I wanted nothing to do with that.
I just wanted to be done.
[Richard.]
The prosecution starts to pressure us to resolve it without a trial.
So we were able to craft a plea, you know, and the plea would be to criminally negligent homicide.
He told me "It's either this or we go to trial.
" I talked to my family.
I prayed about it.
Twenty-five to life.
Imagine that being told to you.
What do you do? You take the least out of both evils.
Angelika Graswald has been here in Orange County Jail for more than two years and now that plea deal could get her released on time served.
[man.]
You have removed the plug from his kayak at some point prior to April 19th.
Correct? Yes.
[man.]
As Vincent attempted to kayak back across the Hudson River, he struggled in his kayak.
Correct? Yes.
[man.]
His kayak took on water and began to sink.
Correct? Yes.
[man.]
His kayak took on water because of the plug being out and the conditions of the river.
Correct? Yes.
[man.]
As his kayak continued to take on water, he entered the river and was out of his kayak.
Correct? [Richard.]
Can we have a second? Can we have a second, please? [judge.]
You pled to something, not necessarily an intentional act that you committed, but you certainly knew how to end unsatisfactory relationships in a manner that would be socially and legally acceptable.
You could have walked out on Vinny if you were unhappy.
It just shows that you are the kind of person You certainly have a lack of understanding of other people's feelings.
It appears to me you have an excessive need for admiration and Mr.
Viafore was the unnecessary victim of that.
[Angelika.]
Judge Freehill.
I don't like to speak bad about anyone, but he was very mean to me that day.
He just put me down, and I was, like, "Wow.
That's what you really think of me?" I never stood a chance.
If I went to trial with him in the judge seat, I would have been put away.
Judge laid into Angelika Graswald before sentencing her to four years in prison.
Four years for taking someone's life? No way.
My son was a good man, and everybody loved him, and we miss him very much.
[Angelika.]
We are in a Christian camp where I live.
This is one of the cabins that is called a hideout, and I come out here to just be alone, be with God.
Having faith is what got me through this.
Thinking back when the interrogation was happening, just the thought that I could have gotten up and left at any point never crossed my mind.
I never thought that I could just leave.
I thought that by speaking and telling them everything that I knew or I could tell them, that I would just clear it up, I wouldn't need a lawyer, and I would just be free.
But [laughs.]
Boy, was I naive!
[man.]
You have something to tell me that you're hiding from me.
[woman.]
Okay.
[man.]
And it's upsetting me because you're a beautiful girl, okay? What happened out there I don't believe was an accident.
Deep down in your heart, Angelika, did you want to kill him? - No.
- Deep down? I'm not gonna judge you for anything you tell me.
It's between me and you right now, all right? [Angelika.]
Deep down I wanted him gone.
[phone ringing.]
[dispatcher.]
911, where is your emergency? [Angelika.]
I'm in the Hudson River.
My fiancé flipped over.
He's in the water right now.
- [dispatcher.]
What's your name? - Angelika.
- Stay on the phone with me, okay? - [Angelika.]
I can't get to him.
It's very windy and the waves are coming in and I can't paddle to him.
He's getting further and further away.
He's gonna drown.
- Please call somebody.
- [dispatcher.]
We've got help on the way.
[male dispatcher.]
411, respond down to the Hudson River.
[Angelika.]
Hold on, baby! Oh, my God.
[Angelika yells.]
[dispatcher.]
Try to calm down some, okay? - [Angelika.]
I don't see him anymore.
- All right, Angelika? [Angelika.]
He's lost.
[dispatcher.]
You don't see him? [Angelika.]
Oh, my God.
[distant sirens blaring.]
[man.]
On Sunday evening, April 19th, Angelika Graswald contacted 911, and she reported that her fiancé, Vincent Viafore's kayak capsized due to choppy waters and she could not locate him in the river.
She made statements that implicated herself in this crime.
However, absent his body, there's a lot of work that remains to be done.
[woman.]
The narrative that was coming out was that she kind of planned this whole thing, that she took him out and planned to kill him.
[man 2.]
Prosecutors say Graswald admitted to tampering with Viafore's kayak by pulling his drainage plug, similar to this.
That would cause the kayak to fill with water, causing it to capsize.
[officer.]
By taking that plug out, you killed Vinny.
Correct? [Angelika.]
Correct.
[officer.]
And you wanted that to happen, correct? [Angelika.]
Correct.
She really trusted the New York State Police, and she felt like these men were out to help her.
But they thought that she was here from this poor Eastern Bloc country to marry an American and kill him and inherit his money, and she was like this black widow.
[woman.]
They were trying to paint her as the villain because she didn't seem like a grieving girlfriend.
She didn't seem like a grieving fiancée.
I don't think she could have planned it, but I still have doubts.
Yes, I do.
[thunder rumbles.]
[woman 2.]
The relationship was not perfect.
So I did feel a certain sense of relief after everything happened.
[Angelika.]
We met at a bar.
It was just instant connection.
Just a laid-back, cool, down-to-earth guy.
Very cheerful, very social.
Anything you would want.
We actually both had been married twice and no children.
But he loved children.
He was great with them.
You know how it melts your heart when you see your guy with a kid? It was like that.
But we also had a lot of friction and fighting and misunderstanding.
[Angelika.]
Bannerman's Island reminds me of Europe.
That's why I kind of fell in love with it instantly.
What took my breath away mostly was the view of the Hudson from there.
The southern side, like, the mountains coming in, and then just the river.
It's just stunning.
I can't explain it.
We wanted to get married there.
We wanted to take our wedding pictures by the arsenal.
[woman.]
Angelika was one of our volunteers on the island.
She was always very happy, very friendly, very helpful.
She would always volunteer to do anything that needed to be done.
My husband and I, we have a telescope that happens to be aimed at the island so we can clearly see it from our window.
The day that this happened, Wes happened to be looking out and noticed two people on the dock.
You could see that it was getting rough, and it was cold.
I mean, it was April 19th, so the water was maybe upper 30s? They say five minutes in that temperature would lead to hypothermia, that you could not physically move your hands or your legs.
I don't see how she could have helped him, even if she wanted to.
[man.]
I was actually off that day, honestly, and I got a phone call and asked if I wanted to come in and work overtime.
My dispatcher said, "Don't get too comfortable.
We have an overturned kayak in the river.
" We made our way to the shoreline.
After several minutes, they were able to pick a woman, a female, out of the water, later identified as Angelika Graswald.
Her fiancé, he's missing.
He went under, and that was the last we saw of him.
She sat on a gurney at that point and then started getting attended to medically.
As I'm sitting there looking at her, she seemed just emotionless.
She wasn't crying, she wasn't smiling, she wasn't Didn't seem sad.
She seemed very emotionless to me, which was odd to me.
[interviewer.]
Have you heard the 911 call? Yes.
She seemed awfully calm to me.
For somebody whose boyfriend just went over and, you know, is drowning, she seemed awfully calm.
I don't know.
There was a space of time between the time they left and the time the 911 call was made and I don't know.
It might have been longer than it should have been.
From Bannerman's Island to Plum Point would be about a half hour.
It's only a mile.
Angelika sent me a text message around 7:04.
The 911 call was made at 7:40, and that's 36 minutes, and they weren't all the way across, either, when this happened.
So she's thinking, "Okay, he went in the river and let's just sit here and wait a few minutes before we call for help.
" Could have been ten minutes.
Could have been 15 minutes.
You know, it just makes you wonder.
Talking to the state police investigators, they really believe that it was premeditated.
Even my nephew said, "There's something wrong.
Uh, she I think she did something.
" Vinny brought Angelika to my home.
I wasn't very impressed.
You can tell sometimes when a person is warm.
You know, they have that kind of personality, and, uh, I don't really think she had that.
I found out later that the relationship was very tumultuous, you know.
They would go back and forth.
Being his mother, he doesn't always tell you everything.
So there's a lot of things I didn't know and I found out after everything happened.
On the day that it happened, Vinny sent a text to his sister, letting her know that he was going kayaking with Angelika.
So that was very, very odd because he'd never done that before.
He said what time they were leaving and what time they should be home.
But, um But he never came home.
I don't know what she did, but I believe she did something to cause his death.
[man.]
We have a state police marine unit in the water right now.
They have side-scanning sonar.
When the water is this rough, it's very difficult to operate and keep your grid line searches.
And probably have to call it here in a little bit, and then we'll be back out tomorrow if the weather turns.
[man 2.]
I was completely crushed, along with everybody else 'cause everyone had been looking on the Hudson River, hoping Vinny was, you know, maybe unconscious or just out there.
And you don't know whether or not he's alive or dead 'cause no one knew.
Vinny was probably the greatest human being I've ever met.
He'd walk in a room, something like out of Goodfellas, the movie.
He'd be like Jimmy the Gent.
When he walked into a room, the whole you were just attracted to Vinny.
See, now, this is the strange part.
People grieve differently, but Angelika, the day after he was missing, she posted on social media a photograph of her doing shots.
And that's when I was like, "What is going on here?" And then, like, the third day, she's doing cartwheels.
[woman.]
Woo! Yay! [Angelika.]
Well, I felt like I had to put on a face.
I don't know if it's just my culture, my background, you know, not showing your emotions.
But I felt like I needed to hold it together for others.
I just behaved the way I the best I knew how.
It was wrong, in public's opinion, but that's me.
[woman.]
It was Wednesday.
All the gardeners are together.
Angelika was on the dock, getting ready to come on up.
She seemed down.
She said, "Yes, I'm feeling very bad.
" And to my surprise, there was a bunch of policemen coming up on the island as well.
At this point, it's April 29th, so it's ten days after Vince goes missing.
They do not have a body.
They don't know truly the cause of death.
Waiting for her on the island was a pack of wolves and their names were DaSilva, Moscato and DeQuarto.
They swore up and down that this was a coincidence, and that they weren't there for her, and that they were on the island kind of just like looking for clues.
It was comical.
We have photos that they took on the island, and they were there posing together, like, embracing each other, taking selfies.
In one picture, Investigator Moscato was faking reaching down and collecting a piece of evidence.
He was posing.
He looked like OJ.
Really, he looked like OJ.
[Joyce.]
As I was sitting on the ground doing my gardening, I did hear one gentleman, a very loud voice, strong.
He said, "It's your turn, and get that bitch to tell you the story.
" They were taking turns at questioning her, to the point that she would break down and cry.
So that was kind of scary, knowing the interrogation was happening right in front of our eyes.
[Richard.]
At this point, she's had no grief counseling.
She's had no one to talk to.
Hadn't slept in days.
So Investigator DeQuarto takes up the role of kind of a therapist.
She says, "Well, the plug was out," and it caused her incredible stress.
He's like, "What do you mean?" He has no idea what she's talking about.
Investigator DeQuarto doesn't even know where it was located on the vessel.
He thinks it's at the bottom.
So, in his mind, when she says, "The plug was out," he thinks that she confessed to killing Vince, to taking the plug out with the intention that he'd drown and die.
Well, I knew it wasn't in, and I remember telling Vince about it when we got on the water.
I remember being, like, mad at him for not paying attention that it was missing.
It was his kayak, his equipment.
He should have taken care of it, but he didn't, and I should have done that for him because I knew he was forgetful.
But I didn't, so I felt guilty and conflicted about it.
Well, they asked me to come to barracks with them.
They said, "Would you come down and give us a statement?" I'm like, "Sure.
No problem.
" I didn't think anything of it.
- [DeQuarto.]
So we had a good discussion.
- [Angelika.]
We did.
- [DeQuarto.]
I think you feel a lot better.
- Yeah, I do.
- [DeQuarto.]
It's therapy for you.
- Of course.
- [DeQuarto.]
You'll feel better.
- [Angelika.]
You will too.
- May I sit closer? - Absolutely.
Come on in.
[Angelika.]
I don't know.
He just made me feel comfortable, and I thought that I could open up to him.
I couldn't talk to anybody else about it.
And, you know, you just go through a million things in your mind.
You think and you blame yourself, you blame somebody else, you blame him, you're angry at him, you're angry at yourself.
All of that.
The whole cocktail of feelings and emotions.
I went through it all.
So when he offered, when he said the word "therapy," I was like, "Okay, maybe this is it.
Maybe this is the outlet.
Maybe I could open up and get it off my chest, like they want me to.
" [DeQuarto.]
So we're gonna start from your relationship with Vinny.
[Angelika.]
Hm-mm.
[Angelika.]
Just like any couple, we had our issues.
- [DeQuarto.]
And what issues would that be? - [Angelika.]
Um He kept pushing me.
[DeQuarto.]
What do you mean he was pushing? [Angelika.]
He pushed for everything.
He pushed for sex, for sexual stuff.
- [DeQuarto.]
Okay.
He always wanted sex? - Yeah.
[DeQuarto.]
Sexual things? [Angelika.]
Well, yeah.
He wanted threesomes, porno, everything.
- [DeQuarto.]
Okay.
- And I was not ready.
Well, kind of very early into the relationship, he just had certain requests.
And I was willing to do some things, but other things made me very uncomfortable, and I didn't want to do them.
He was obsessed.
He would text me daily.
Things like a certain pornographic image or something, and he would be thinking of me in that form, and I would be, like, disgusted by it.
So, yeah, I felt like there was a battle going on within me.
I wanted to please him and make him happy, and at the same time, I didn't want to do what he asked me to do.
[interviewer.]
Did he ever force himself on you? Yeah, he did.
[rain tapping on roof.]
[sighs.]
[whispers.]
Excuse me.
[sighs.]
[switch clicks.]
He pushed you past your breaking point, didn't he? Yeah.
How did it make you feel? I was angry.
- Very angry? - Yeah.
[DeQuarto.]
So why didn't you just break up with him? 'Cause I loved him.
I wanted a kid.
I wanted a family.
I wanted all of it.
[DeQuarto.]
And you love him a lot.
I see that.
But when you watched him in the water [static.]
was a part of you saying, "My worries are gone away now"? - Yeah.
- "And I'm free"? - Yeah.
- And were you almost - [Angelika.]
Euphoric? - Euphoric that he was gonna be gone? I do.
I did.
- You felt that way? - Yeah.
I still do.
[Richard.]
This was Investigator DeQuarto's first homicide.
He was absolutely fixated on her as having been a killer.
To me, he wanted to make a murder out of this.
You know exactly what took place, and that's all I'm trying to get at so I can say, "Listen, this girl felt like a trapped person.
She" [Angelika.]
Dealt with a lot of anger issues.
[DeQuarto.]
"She was forced to do things that she did not want to do, and this is why this took place," and I can explain that.
[DeQuarto.]
You need to be honest with me.
Did you intentionally take that plug out because you wanted to set yourself free? [Angelika.]
Could be.
[DeQuarto.]
Could be or yes? [Angelika.]
Well, it's psychological.
I'm just trying to understand myself, like how and why would I do that.
[DeQuarto.]
Right.
[static.]
I didn't want anybody hurt.
I never would want anybody hurt.
[DeQuarto.]
Right.
So why do you feel guilt? Because of that thought that I had.
[DeQuarto.]
That you [Angelika.]
That I wanted to be free, - that I wanted him to be gone.
- Okay.
So I feel guilty about that.
[DeQuarto.]
That's understandable.
[Richard.]
Investigator DeQuarto, his ultimate goal was to convince her that, subconsciously, she had taken the plug out to kill Vince.
[birds chirping.]
[man.]
Most of the headlines alluded to "killing fiancé with kayak," and that's really what caught my attention.
I was like, "Hm, how do you kill someone with a kayak?" I started working with Richard Portale and the defense team, specifically around the mechanics of paddle sport, boat design and how boats work in complex environments like the Hudson River.
In the Graswald case, if we're hinging on intentionally removing the drain plug so that water would come in through this part of the boat, that would be a really complex way to kill someone.
To build a plan around something that is about a half-inch in diameter, that's like a James Bond villain plan, like sharks with laser beams on their head-type plan.
Um, because so many things have to be constructively aligned in order to achieve an outcome.
So, as I'm paddling, just look at the distance of the drain plug to the water.
The prosecution, they were really sticking to the drain plug as their primary angle.
And so there's a lot of video footage.
They were trying to show that you could sink a boat by removing the drain plug.
[man 1.]
Camera's recording.
- [whistle blows.]
- [man 2.]
Go! One video was a variety of different-sized people really aggressively paddling in order to get the stern to submerge.
[man.]
Start.
[man.]
No, no, no.
No, we didn't I'm gonna say, "Ready, set, go.
" [Todd.]
Looking at that footage, my gut response was, "Wow, they're trying really hard to get the stern to go underwater.
" You can get anything to happen if you try hard enough.
[engine roars.]
I went on the Hudson, and they had the powerboat go around, and they said, "Let's swamp the boat.
" The cockpit is relatively close to the water.
With a little bit of wave action and a bit of wind, waves are gonna come over the deck of that boat and enter through the cockpit.
The boat, essentially, is a bathtub.
There really isn't a bulkhead.
And if we look sideways, we can see very clearly a small wave lapping is gonna cause water to go into this giant hole.
[Richard.]
Vince is not respectful of the river, so he doesn't have any of the safety precautions that an experienced, vigilant kayaker would have.
So the water is 44.
5 degrees that day, but Vince doesn't take that into consideration.
He doesn't think it's important to wear a wet suit.
His kayak, we know, is designed for a pond.
This is a recreational kayak.
If you're expecting whitecaps or waves or any kind of turbulence, it doesn't belong there.
That's in the manual.
Vince's kayak has beers and a six-pack of water.
He's got chairs.
They've got these kayaks weighted down.
Vince's BAC was 0.
066, which in New York State is legally impaired.
When they set out at four o'clock, the weather wasn't bad.
But around seven, the weather kicks up and it really kicks up.
And at some point, Vince swamps.
So now he's going very fast, being pulled south in the water.
She's fighting the wind, dead into the wind, and she's being pulled north, and so they're being pulled apart.
Our experts So Todd Wright, who is one of the best kayakers in the world currently, said that he would love that.
Like, he would But he wouldn't use that kayak.
He wouldn't be caught in that kayak.
But for an inexperienced kayaker and someone who is not prepared with the proper safety equipment, it can be deadly, and it was deadly.
[static.]
Because of the waves which started to pick up, I couldn't He started to come in and out of my vision.
I started losing sight of him, so I kept paddling.
[DeQuarto.]
Okay.
And then when he yells to you, "I don't think I'm gonna make it," did you call 911 then or No, I called 911 when he told me to call 911.
[Richard.]
It's a creep.
You know, it's a slow grind, kind of like a Komodo dragon, you know, hunts a deer, like miles and miles and days and days.
He just kept at her.
[DeQuarto.]
Is that all that happened at that point? - [Angelika.]
Yeah.
- Nothing else? [Angelika.]
Nothing else.
[DeQuarto.]
And you watched him drown? [static.]
- [DeQuarto.]
I know it's difficult.
- No, I didn't just watch him drown.
I tried to do something about it.
[Richard.]
So eventually, I think he realizes that he wasn't getting what he wanted, and he tagged out.
You know, he tagged out to Investigator Skarkas, who comes in even more aggressively, and they were relentless.
[rustling.]
[man.]
All right.
- Angelika - Hi.
How you doing? I'm Matt.
- [Angelika.]
Nice to meet you.
- He works with me.
[Angelika.]
Okay.
That's your partner? One of them.
He's one of them.
[Skarkas.]
Some of the time frames that we've talked about don't match up.
[Angelika.]
Okay.
Which ones? [Skarkas sighs.]
From the time you leave Bannerman Island - to the time that you make the 911 call.
- Okay.
[Skarkas.]
All right? For that duration of time which is, like, about 40 minutes - [Angelika.]
Oh, it's 40? - Yeah, it's right around there.
It's long enough for you to be back at Plum Point.
Did anything happen out there, aside from what you're telling me, that there's a delay? Did he go under and you wait ten minutes, and then you call 911? No, I called 911 when he was still holding on.
[Richard.]
They thought she killed him.
They just didn't know how.
The theory was that she let him drown, and she didn't do anything to save him, and she just watched him go, but if that's the case, she would have been recovered well north of Plum Point.
[Skarkas.]
Did you pull the oar away? Did you pull the kayak away? [Angelika.]
No.
I didn't pull the kayak or oar away.
[Skarkas.]
But there's nothing else? - No.
- There's not gonna be any type of a drug, anything that you would have put into a drink, food, anything like that that we're gonna find in there? I have sleeping pills that my doctor prescribed, but I haven't touched them.
Okay.
You didn't crush any up and put them inside any of his drinks, - nothing like - That was after.
- They gave me those sleeping pills.
- Okay.
I just picked them up yesterday, actually.
[mechanical whirring.]
[Angelika.]
When you are in a room like that and you have no windows, no sense of time, they take everything from you, plus not sleeping for several days prior to that, I was exhausted.
I was stressed out.
I was not in a right state of mind.
I was lost.
Just the setting of, "Oh, you can't leave the room by yourself.
You can't go to the bathroom by yourself.
You'll be escorted.
" And I had my period happening at that time, so I kind of needed a bathroom.
And they didn't care.
[chuckles.]
They just kept pushing and pressuring and trying to get out of me and squeeze out of me everything they could.
- Angelika? - Yes? [Richard.]
So, at that point, they have executed search warrants of the apartment.
They have her in the interrogation room.
They do not have a body.
They don't know truly the cause of death, and they now come to realize that there's a gun missing.
[DeQuarto.]
In the house, Vinny had guns, right? [Angelika.]
Yes.
[DeQuarto.]
Do you know specifically what type of guns they were? [Angelika.]
No.
[DeQuarto.]
Okay, 'cause there's one gun that's missing.
There's magazines for it and bullets for it, but the gun's not there.
- [Angelika.]
What do you mean? - [DeQuarto.]
IÂ don't know.
I'm asking, did you know where that one gun might be? Have you seen all of his guns? - [Angelika.]
No, IÂ haven't.
- [DeQuarto.]
No? They really thought that she shot him, and they believed that when they did find Vince's body, he was going to have a gunshot wound somewhere on his body.
[Skarkas.]
Okay, you're lying to me, and you're lying to yourself because you still will not come out and say what we know to be true.
[Angelika.]
IÂ don't want to admit that I killed him.
[Skarkas.]
Okay.
I understand that.
- [Angelika.]
Okay.
- But you did.
When you say, "I want to be free," you're not going to be free of any of this until you admit you killed Vinny.
You took that plug out to kill him.
- [Angelika.]
Can you lower your voice? - I just have a big mouth, sorry.
[Angelika.]
IÂ do too.
[Skarkas.]
I come from a Mediterranean family.
[Angelika mumbles.]
[static.]
[Angelika.]
Well, go ahead.
[Skarkas.]
IÂ want to hear it from you.
To me, personally, it was just the constant repetition of questions and going over it and over it and over it and just, again, pressure.
I don't deal well with pressure.
[laughs.]
I guess.
[Skarkas.]
You killed Vinny.
Right? [inaudible.]
- No, I'm asking you the question - You want me to admit it.
[Skarkas.]
IÂ want you to tell me the truth.
- I am telling you the truth.
- What is the answer to that question? I didn't I didn't want him Angelika, what is the true answer to that question? [Angelika.]
You need your fucking statement.
[Skarkas.]
What is it? [Angelika.]
I wanted him dead, and now he's gone.
And I'm okay with that.
[Angelika clears throat.]
[Angelika.]
I'm okay with that.
[knocking, door opens.]
Stand up.
[Angelika.]
You don't expect anything like that happening.
I didn't know I was a suspect.
That was never in my mind.
Not until they put the cuffs on me.
I didn't know that.
[keys jangling.]
Oddly enough, I got a phone call.
The exact words were, "They arrested your kayak chick for murder," and I'm like, "Shut up.
" And they're like, "Yeah.
" And I'm like, "Really?" [reporter 1.]
A love story that police say ended in murder.
[reporter 2.]
Tonight, the fiancée of a missing kayaker is charged in his death.
This case took on a life of its own in the media.
Because this was a murder charge, it was very unusual.
Like, pulling a plug from a kayak.
No one had really seen this before.
It turned into a media circus.
Well, prosecutors maintain that Angelika Graswald pulled the plug Pulled the plug on the drain hole in the rear, allowing water to enter more easily [reporter.]
They did say she made statements she was relieved Viafore died.
The so-called Kayak Killer, Angelika Graswald, admitted to killing her fiancé, but a legal loophole still makes her eligible to cash out on his life insurance policy.
[Mary Ann.]
She knew about the insurance policy, so maybe she thought that, you know, "I can get some money and be on my own.
" My daughter and myself, the three of us were on it.
It was a big chunk of money that she would have gotten.
You're engaged to be married.
You're starting to set up your life together.
And if anyone was going to murder somebody, you would do it for millions.
Millions! [laughs.]
If you're gonna get murdered Oh, God.
She didn't murder him at all.
It was an accident on the river.
[phone ringing.]
[dispatcher.]
911, where is the emergency? [man.]
I'm not sure it's an emergency, but I'm just south of Newburgh in my boat and there's a body floating in the water.
[dispatcher.]
Do you have a buoy number? [man.]
Let me see.
It's just south of what's called Bannerman's Island.
I think the state police found five people in the water looking for my son.
So every time they found somebody, you know, we would "Is it Vinny?" And it wasn't until May 23rd.
Evidently, a fisherman saw a body near Bannerman's Island.
[dispatcher.]
And it's a body, correct? [man.]
It's a body, yeah.
It's floating in the water.
It's - [dispatcher.]
Is it a male or a female? - [man.]
It looks like it's a male.
[dispatcher.]
Can you give me a clothing description, if there's any? [man.]
Kind of tan pants and, like, a dark shirt.
A lot of algae on 'em.
Because of what he was wearing, they thought it was him.
But they had to use the dental records, and they took my DNA just to make sure.
And it was.
It was him.
[reporter.]
The state police were patrolling the waters off West Point on Saturday when they discovered Viafore's body.
By that time, he had been inside the Hudson River for more than a month.
The Orange County DA won't comment on the condition of the body.
Toxicology tests are underway to determine the cause of death.
This is Jennifer Roman, dictating case OC-15.
Also present, senior investigator with the New York State Police.
[camera shutter clicking.]
[camera shutter clicking.]
I hereby certify that I, Jennifer Roman, Orange County Acting Medical Examiner, performed an autopsy on the body of Vincent Viafore.
Final diagnosis: numeral one drowning.
Letter A: body recovered from water.
Letter B: pulmonary congestion and edema with hyperinflation.
[Richard.]
They fully examined him, inside and out, and they did not find any foul play.
[man.]
The coroner's report says that the cause of death was drowning due to plug being removed by some other person.
The medical examiner relied on speculation from police.
Does that wash? [woman.]
This is absolutely ridiculous.
There's no way for this coroner to be able to determine whether or not, medically, this was a homicide.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I remember seeing it and going, "Oh, my God.
You've got to be kidding me.
" [reporter.]
Accused kayak killer Angelika Graswald isn't talking much these days.
Graswald, meanwhile, who is a foreign national holding a Latvian passport, remains behind bars on a crushing bail of $3 million cash, $9 million bond.
Her lawyer says she'll likely stay in jail until the trial.
[Angelika.]
When they put me in jail, I was so tired.
Like, I think the first two days in jail, I just slept.
I even passed out in a peanut butter sandwich in a waiting room.
For the longest time, I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna be out of here.
There's no way they're gonna put me away.
They can't 'cause I didn't do anything.
" But as the time went by, and I was there for so long, I just started to think that "Well, they can actually put me away.
" [Richard.]
Imagine an entire defense team.
Three lawyers, two investigators, four experts are funneling towards this moment.
- Good afternoon, everyone.
- Good afternoon, Judge.
[Angelika.]
The trial, I dreaded.
I didn't want to put Vince's family through that, or my family through that.
I wanted nothing to do with that.
I just wanted to be done.
[Richard.]
The prosecution starts to pressure us to resolve it without a trial.
So we were able to craft a plea, you know, and the plea would be to criminally negligent homicide.
He told me "It's either this or we go to trial.
" I talked to my family.
I prayed about it.
Twenty-five to life.
Imagine that being told to you.
What do you do? You take the least out of both evils.
Angelika Graswald has been here in Orange County Jail for more than two years and now that plea deal could get her released on time served.
[man.]
You have removed the plug from his kayak at some point prior to April 19th.
Correct? Yes.
[man.]
As Vincent attempted to kayak back across the Hudson River, he struggled in his kayak.
Correct? Yes.
[man.]
His kayak took on water and began to sink.
Correct? Yes.
[man.]
His kayak took on water because of the plug being out and the conditions of the river.
Correct? Yes.
[man.]
As his kayak continued to take on water, he entered the river and was out of his kayak.
Correct? [Richard.]
Can we have a second? Can we have a second, please? [judge.]
You pled to something, not necessarily an intentional act that you committed, but you certainly knew how to end unsatisfactory relationships in a manner that would be socially and legally acceptable.
You could have walked out on Vinny if you were unhappy.
It just shows that you are the kind of person You certainly have a lack of understanding of other people's feelings.
It appears to me you have an excessive need for admiration and Mr.
Viafore was the unnecessary victim of that.
[Angelika.]
Judge Freehill.
I don't like to speak bad about anyone, but he was very mean to me that day.
He just put me down, and I was, like, "Wow.
That's what you really think of me?" I never stood a chance.
If I went to trial with him in the judge seat, I would have been put away.
Judge laid into Angelika Graswald before sentencing her to four years in prison.
Four years for taking someone's life? No way.
My son was a good man, and everybody loved him, and we miss him very much.
[Angelika.]
We are in a Christian camp where I live.
This is one of the cabins that is called a hideout, and I come out here to just be alone, be with God.
Having faith is what got me through this.
Thinking back when the interrogation was happening, just the thought that I could have gotten up and left at any point never crossed my mind.
I never thought that I could just leave.
I thought that by speaking and telling them everything that I knew or I could tell them, that I would just clear it up, I wouldn't need a lawyer, and I would just be free.
But [laughs.]
Boy, was I naive!