Fiancée convicted in Hudson River kayak case

vince villafor was the definition of a new york italian mama's boy talk to me about vinnie he was a good kid he liked to help people he's an ulta boy but he wasn't always an angel the athletic altar boy tries college and learns it's not for him so he works gets married and with his wife finds a new hobby kayaking they love to do it together unfortunately the marriage doesn't last but what does is vinnie's passion for paddling he loved the hudson river not far from the hudson and vinnie's home in poughkeepsie a beautiful blonde bartender from latvia serving up drinks with a song and a smile her name angelica graswald how did you know angelica we met at a bar restaurant that was a music venue she'd come in and sing back up and what else does she like to do photography that's the other place where we bonded the multi-talented former nanny is also a kayaker so when 44 year old vinnie and 34 year old angelica meet the attraction is instant and mutual they're inseparable she didn't hang out as much outside socially because she found somebody that she seemed very close to the two of them seemed to be enough for each other what was your first impression well she was not really a warm fuzzy type person she's russian so she i guess they have a different culture a different way of looking at things a little hardened it wasn't me that was going to go out with her if then he was happy that's what counted and it seems like angelica makes vinnie very say happy new year baby happy happy new year within a few months she moves in this was fast fast and not too long after that he asked her to marry him angelica quits her job at the bar and while vinnie is hard at work angelica spends her days doing yoga and taking photos he took care of her he put her on his insurance policy because he wanted to claim her as a domestic partner so she could be under his health insurance she was a beneficiary along with my daughter and myself angelica does have one job she volunteers as a gardener on bannerman's island a century-old abandoned island on the hudson river once used as a warehouse to store weapons and military equipment bannerman's island was a place angelica frequented oh yes what does it look like runes and people go there so she would volunteer there it would be a trip home from that very island that would sink the unsinkable it's a chilly afternoon in april a little after 4 pm vinnie and angelica decide to kayak from plum point to bannerman's island it's their first time taking this round they get to the island take some photos then notice a change in the weather so they get back in their kayaks vinnie in the blue angelica in the red they head out the trip back will take about 40 minutes then around 7 40 p.m about 20 minutes from shore i don't know hi emma i'm in the hudson river why cornwall yacht club my fiance fell in the water can you please call anybody and what's your name angelica tell me exactly what happened we are kayaking my fiance whipped over he's in the water right now all right stay on the phone with me okay i can't get to him it's very windy and the waves are coming in and i can't i can't paddle to him he's getting further and further away from me i i he's gonna drown please call somebody you've got help on the way stay on the phone with me okay okay i have you on the speaker okay i'm trying to paddle the waves look very strong i just still see him floating but i'm getting okay good so he's still above he's still above water right he's out of water yes hold on baby oh my gosh okay we've got everybody coming out there okay okay i can't see him anymore you don't see him no oh my god the call drops the operator calls angelica back when hope arrives [Music] okay what's his name oh my god i'm in a red kayak but he fell in and i couldn't explain to him i couldn't paddle did he have a life jacket on when he flipped over he had a little um like a floating thing he didn't have a pet oh my god can you see the kayak still no the kayak went on the water the water is very cold i'm afraid can you see the rescue boat we have a boat in the water coming out to you guys i'm not worried about myself when help arrives rescuers pluck angelica from the frigid waters there is no sign of vinnie anywhere at first did you think this was a tragic accident yes i did until the tide turns it was a game changer absolutely vince villafore is missing somewhere in the hudson river he capsized while kayaking back from an afternoon at bannerman's island with his fiancee angelico graswell hold on oh my god i can't see him anymore when rescuers arrived they pull angelica from the 46 degree waters and take her to the hospital when you first met her at the hospital what was she like she seemed very quiet what did she say happened she said that as a result of the conditions he flipped over into the water and she was unable to get to him detective donald decorno and senior investigator neil moscato promised to call angelica with updates i immediately exchanged phone numbers with her and tell the former bartender from latvia she can also call them my heart ached for her the next morning as vince's mom marianne vufor is getting ready for work she receives the worst call of her life i got a phone call from my son-in-law that there was an accident and to come over to their house and then they told me that then he was out kayaking with angelica he fell overboard and he was missing marianne says vinnie's family friend and angelica all go looking for him cops find vince's blue kayak near plum point where their trip began but the efforts to find vents turn up empty the first day comes and goes what's the second day like it just kept getting hotter and harder and then we just prayed for him to be found so he could come home over the next several days the search for the 46 year old intensifies there were extensive searches done by you and your team yes absolutely we utilized our scuba team we used canines we also utilized outside resources such as the sheriff's office boats the fire department our aviation unit for an aerial search we did this every day every day every day while police are out searching angelica to some is dealing with vinnie's disappearance in a peculiar way she looked like she was having a good time we had his friends over my daughter's house and she was doing cartwheels in the backyard angelico was doing cartwheels in the backyard yeah she was doing cartwheels we're ready cartwheels and karaoke some of his friends got together at one of the restaurants and she was there singing they said having a good time and they're all looking at her kind of strange as this doesn't seem right the social media what was she posting she was posting pictures of herself doing shots smoking cigars doing cartwheels just seemed like she was having a great time at one point she invited me and the others to suspend our search in the frigid waters and go have a uh a drink with her at a party that she was celebrating vinnie's life we respectfully declined to go to the event i didn't think it was crazy odd because everybody reacts differently ten days in still no sign of any so moscato and de cuardo along with a third investigator decide to take a trip to bannerman's island hoping to find something they may have missed something that can help lead them to vinnie the night before you had a conversation with angelica that's correct i told her that we were going to be going to bannerman's island what did she say she said oh good maybe i'll see you out there because i want to do a release of flowers or ceremony in memory of vincent the next day on the way out to the island moscato's phone rings it's angelica confirming she'll be there soon i said what are you going over there for and she actually said i'm going there to clean up i'm like going there to clean up what do you mean by that she says oh uh i'm part of the preservation society over there so i left off with her okay well maybe we'll see you there later on so we went to the island and we looked around didn't really find anything but i made the decision i said you know what angelica said she was coming over here let's give her a couple minutes and maybe we should can just go over retrace the steps when angelico arrives moscato suggests together they recreate what she and vinnie did that day what happened it was during that time that her behavior became very very bizarre in my eyes she was holding her stomach she had two cigarettes in a matter of 20 minutes and then she had to go to the bathroom we asked her to bring us up to where they were on the island we began walking up the trail and at that point she's becoming visibly upset she begins crying she sees some tears in her eyes she was just not focused she was all over the place she was all over place to a point where i told angelica what is wrong with you the investigators are about to get an earful she begins to open up about her sex life with vincent and how he made these sexual demands towards her and that it really really bothered her at that point i put myself in angelica's shoes would i really want to tell my sexual activity with my fiance to three state police investigators so i said to her listen would you feel more comfortable just talking to one of us she said jess i asked her who and she chose to speak to investigator de cuardo so de cuardo and angelica walk away and find a spot to talk what is she confiding in you at this point she smoked the sarah and then she looks up at me and she says you know about the plug right ten days in and still no sign of vince via four while two new york state investigators are standing nearby on bannermen's island they claim angelica graswald is about to drop a bombshell on another investigator donald de cuardo she looks up at me and she says you know about the plug right and at that point i didn't know what she was talking about so i said tell me about it she said he didn't have the plug in that car and i said is that why his kayak sunk and she's like yes i said did you take it out she said yes i think i did a stunning revelation and according to de cordo that wasn't all she goes on to also tell me about a ring that was on a paddle that she had taken off to disable and dismantle his paddle so it was inoperable i said did you take the plug out and take the ring off the paddle because you wanted him dead and she says yes i guess i did and i said was there a point where you could have helped him or saved him but you didn't and she says yes i said so you didn't help him she says no and i said why and she goes i wanted him gone i wanted to be free and i wanted to be myself at this point you're getting a confession yes and i'm sure it's not what you expected to hear no it wasn't anything that we expected to hear because we had went there to do a search of the island we had nothing with us we had no pens you weren't recording her no you don't place her under arrest i don't handcuff her i don't place her under arrest however she just confessed to murder so she wasn't free to leave per se i saw the other investigators i said you know you're not going to believe this and i said to him you got to be kidding me i probably used it a little bit more candid terms yeah yeah yeah but we i was shocked so this turned from an innocent grieving fiance to possibly a cold-blooded killer yeah absolutely no pun intended the tide changed on the boat ride back across the hudson on the very waters where vinnie disappeared moscato says angelica does something else that shocks investigators she throws up her hands and she says i'm free i'm not like looking at each other like doesn't this girl get it she just pretty much confessed to murder how free can you be 35 year old angelica grosswald is brought back to the state police barracks for questioning after she's read her rights the 11 hour head spinning interview begins remember none of her alleged statements on bannerman's island were recorded so cops need her to confess on tape so we had good discussions there um you know i think you feel like that all right i know we probably don't want to run through it again but this is what we have to do all right decorto starts by asking her about the plug why didn't you have that plug in there he didn't have it because i guess i have it did you intentionally take that player because you wanted to set yourself free i didn't want to kill him did you do you want him gone isn't that what you said [Applause] okay asks another way he gets a very different answer when you watched him in the water with a part of you saying my worries are going away now and i'm free and we're almost for it before that he was gonna be gone he felt that way but just an hour later the euphoria seems to subside and angelica changes her story yet again you watch some typical i know no i didn't just watch you drown i tried to do something about it that's a little different from when you told me earlier though why why do you keep changing what you're saying i you're confusing me and that's a that's an issue for me trying to zero in on a possible motive decordo asks about vince and angelica's relationship specifically about the sexual demands vince allegedly put on her as she described to investigators on bannerman's island the sex sexual stuff he always wanted to do sexual things well yeah for everything okay and i was not ready but could the real motive be money he had a life insurance policy yeah and you were honest yes they take a break angelica checks herself out in the mirror and does some yoga a quick sun salutation and downward dog before five hours in de cuardo's partner joins the interrogation and they go over angelica's story again from beginning to end at one point circling back to the ring on the paddle remember de guardo claims she confessed to taking the ring off the paddle in order to disable it how long before you guys went on your kayaking trip did you take that right daddy yet another changed story and tell us tell you what what was really going through your head that afternoon about what was going to happen on that hudson river what do you want well i want i want to travel the world no what did you want what did he want what did you want that day i wanted to be free then angelica describes her internal struggle what are your feelings and emotions knowing that this is about to happen that when you're going like ripping in too hot you know things will begin what's the demon side saying getting inside oh he's not good you guys don't want to see that side that side will tell me [Music] [Applause] why the demon side went out mostly they take another break and over the next several breaks angelica fits in almost an entire yoga class then several hours in the interview resumes and with hands to the heart i don't want to admit they kill them okay i understand that but you did the reality is you took that plug out because you wanted to kill him you wanted him to be dead you wanted to be free i took it out before yes for a long time because you wanted him to die yes yes angelica the reality is this okay you killed any right no i'm i'm asking you the question i want to hear i want i want you to tell me truth i am telling you what is the answer to that question i didn't i didn't want him angelica what is the true answer to that question statement angelica graswald has been at new york state police barracks for several hours eating pizza smoking and downward dogging into the night but investigators are frustrated because the one thing she hasn't done is confess the way they say she did on bannermen's island is that about to change by taking that plug out you killed benny correct and you wanted that to happen correct the reality is this you killed any right what is it i wanted him dead and now he's gone and i'm okay with it is that the admission they've been waiting for here's the fact okay is that when somebody's dead there's a certain level of accountability that we all have to take right yes tonight yes i'd say it's a pretty good possibility yes you knew that right you came here but even though she's headed to the slammer she suddenly seems much more concerned about someone else we will take care of your cat i promise you that okay get my cat okay over the next few hours angelica passes the time writing stretching meditating and unbelievably plain hopscotch then the time for kids games is up at the end of the questioning is she charged she's charged with murder in a second degree when vince's mother marianne villaford learns angelique has been arrested for her son's murder she's in complete shock i said she did what and they told me that she caused his death and it was just mind-boggling i couldn't believe it have the person they believe is responsible for vince's death but they still don't have his body then an agonizing 34 days after vince villaforce kayaked capsized his badly decomposed body is recovered officials need dental records to make a proper identification they found him he was right near batman's island we couldn't have awake he was in the water too long new york state police have found vince and they have his alleged confessed killer locked up for second-degree murder but even with all that they still have to be able to prove everything in court so they start with investigating some unanswered questions like why did vince agree to go kayaking that day in 46 degree waters did he tell anyone he was going kayaking oh yeah one or two of his friends told him what are you crazy this is cold you shouldn't be going don't don't go kayaking but he was sad ongoing she was set on going yeah i think she made it very very uh appealing to him obviously for for them to go out there that day what did she do to make it appealing from what we know today you know she brought out some clothing that she dressed up in and they took pictures and she was wearing her sexy lingerie next investigators need to be able to prove what angelica allegedly said she did was even possible could a kayak sink from a missing drain plug moscato and decordo take me through their theory of what happened so here's the plug here and it's maybe the size of a nickel it takes seconds to take off we ran a number of tests on it and surprisingly even to us that little hole no bigger than a size of a nickel takes on water to the point consistently within seven to ten minutes with a person of the body weight of vincent via foreigner with all this in here on a calm river on a calm river it sinks without fail and we did repeated tests on it we did it with the plug we did it without the plug we also tried to do it with creating three foot waves we did it in still water we did it a number of different ways and the end results in our opinion speak for themselves what about the paddles this is a safety ring and what this does is when you put the paddles together the safety ring you tighten down and it squeezes the paddle together and it holds the pedal together when we located the paddle the safety ring was missing and we didn't know anything about that until she said well the clip was off his paddle we also did the experiment with the paddles we did it with the clip on with the clip off and we had kayak experts paddling with those paddles and by their own admissions without having that clip on there it's extremely difficult to pad on calm water let alone having wind and one two three foot swells in the hudson river again this is investigator's version of what happened cops also investigate the timing of angelica's 9-1-1 call hold on baby oh my god i can't see him anymore at the time it appeared that this man was essentially dying in front of her and there's nothing she could do absolutely we later find out that it was probably a good 15 minutes after he had gone down under the frigid waters that she even makes that call that's their timeline of events investigators also learn more that might point to motive the insurance policy angelica could cash in on is worth nearly five hundred thousand dollars the other beneficiaries are vince's mother and sister and there's something else they were supposed to get married then he put it off a little bit and we also had found out during the investigation through the friends that then he had given her kind of an ultimatum you better get yourself a job by the end of the month or else you're out of this apartment so she had to hurry up and come up with a plan and if there was still any doubt for investigators during a search cops find two important items in her car the plug as well as the o-ring that holds together the paddles you found the plug absolutely and that ring absolutely yeah so it matched what she was saying she was spot on with that cops believe all this paints a diabolical picture in my opinion it was premeditated how can you not come to that conclusion but there's someone who says do not jump to that conclusion or any others it's the furthest thing from a confession angelica graswald has been charged with murdering her fiance vince vieffor police say was her alleged confession on bernerman's island and in their interrogation room they got her indicted by taking that plug out you killed benny correct and you wanted that to happen correct but that wasn't the end of the story not long after that epic 11 hour police interview angelica hires defense attorney richard portalli and he says everybody's gotten it dead wrong do you believe in her innocence well i mean i believe in it but i know it because i i have all the evidence starting with the alleged bombshell confession on bannermen's island portale says it never happened cops made it all up they heard she was going to the island and they sat on her i mean like a pack of wolves there were three armed male senior investigators and they pulled her to an isolated spot and they beat her up emotionally and we have witnesses that saw it they were trying to conjure up a confession and they didn't get it we know that they didn't get it because they didn't arrest her if she had confessed they would have put her in handcuffs they would have read her her rights that's not what happened and portalli says detectives behavior during that 11-hour interview proves it i mean you've watched every detective show if she had said on the island that she intentionally killed vincent therefore those detectives investigators would have said to her you just told me that you killed him 10 20 minutes ago on the island you said you killed them and now you're going to sit here and deny it 11 hours never did that never did they ever say you confessed on the island which is why we know it never happened and they made it up in fact there were moments like this your accounts of what happened at night that don't make sense they were making sense when we were out on the island now you're kind of going back to you know i don't know what you're going back to so that's in dispute but what about what angelica can clearly be heard saying on that interrogation video i wanted him dead and now he's gone cortelli says that does not make her a maritime murderer so you don't think that's a confession of any of any kind you think it's a confession well i don't know i'm asking you that is not a confession that's not i killed him it reminds me of you know the old gangster movies when you know the the detective uh approaches a gangster that in some way shape or form is like related to another mobster who has died and he says did you kill him you wanted them dead and so the gangster says yeah so did everybody so what i wanted them did it doesn't mean that doesn't mean you killed it this wasn't a confession she described at one point watching vincent float away as euphoric how do you explain that she wanted to go home she was done and when it comes to that missing drain plug police say angelica confessed to pulling out of vince's kayak portale says that didn't happen either that vince often kayaked without it in so that he could use the drain plug hold to strap the kayak to his car we've provided you with pictures so that you can see them where i mean look it's not like it's under a microscope but you can see that the strap is up and it's through the plug the drain plug hole but even so portalli says the missing plug wasn't the cause of vincent's death the drain plug is 5 8 of an inch in diameter and it's topside on the stern of the kayak when waves hit the kayak they crash into the cockpit so when you get out of your kayak water has entered the cockpit when you want to drain the kayak you hang it upside down and it trickles out the drain plug hole water would not enter that drain plug hole in any significant way to cause that kayak to submerge so what about the paddle did she tamper with the paddle no i shouldn't tamper with the paddle but investigators said she admitted well she didn't do anything but there were some things that no one could dispute like angelica's bizarre behavior in the days after vince's kayak capsized and some people have criticized her for the way that she was for doing cartwheels on camera the yoga inviting investigators and having a party i think to say that some people criticized her as an understatement everyone got caught up in watching her you know do a cartwheel and thinking well she's happy that she that she must have killed him she came from a community where open grieving was not an option you don't cry in latvia and as for the alleged motive cops say it was the insurance money did the unemployed bartender have dollar bills on the brain she's not somebody who cares about money she's not interested in money she's a very simple girl from a simple country who cares more about flowers and photographs and sunsets than she does about money portaly says the bottom line is his client is not responsible for vince via four's death i think it was a tragedy it was caused by a combination of mother nature and two people who were not careful i'm sorry but he did not respect mother nature with the 44 degree water and he's not wearing a life vest was she wearing a life vest she was yeah why wasn't he she didn't own one let's let that sink in for a second he didn't own life vest that's not ms graswell's error whether or not it was angelica's error that would be up to the jury angelica graswald is on the eve of standing trial for the murder of her fiance vince villafore then in an unbelievable turn orange county new york prosecutors offer her a plea deal to criminally negligent homicide why was there a plea offer and why was the plea offer accepted well i can't tell you why the plea was offered but i can tell you that the prosecution probably knew that we knew a lot of the things that we didn't that the public didn't know and they knew that this case was not strong and if we pushed that it was all going to come out it's a huge victory for the defense that crime is the equivalent of keying a mercedes it's the equivalent of stealing a thousand and one dollars it is the lowest felony on the books angelica's sentence one and a half to four years and after time served and time off for good behavior angelica is released after serving 32 months a lot of people were outraged that she spent such a little time behind bars more people were outraged that she spent a day behind bars one of those most outraged angelicas walking the streets a free woman is vince's mother mary ann viafor i don't feel that justice was served by her getting out you also wanted her to go through a trial and to hopefully be convicted correct the judge said that she did nothing to help him at her sentencings he said that he said if you wanted out of the relationship you should have just left that's when he called her narcissistic has she ever publicly stated she was sorry or offered anything to you and your family no and closure for marianne will have to wait they have filed a notice of appeal and in what some may call a brazen move angelica is fighting for the very thing cops believe was her motive to kill her portion of vince's insurance money does she deserve it well she would never see a dime of it it's going to go to you she had signed it all over to the defense team it's been reported that her defense is an excess of half a million dollars at this point is that accurate yeah five hundred and forty two thousand dollars to be exact so but she's home [Music] investigators moscondo and de courtos say despite the outcome and the controversy surrounding the case they are proud of the work they and so many others have done as an agency i'm very proud of what we did very proud of what donnie de cuardo did because let's face it if it weren't for his interview she would have gotten away with murder there are critics out there and people who look at this case and have negative things to say well i'm as the lead investigator on this case i can say that i know what she did i know what she told me and any other critic that has anything else to say about that doesn't know the truth we repeatedly asked the prosecutor's office for an on-camera interview about the case in the plea deal given to graswal instead we received this statement that says in part since ms grasswall pleaded guilty and executed a waiver of her right to appeal the case is over and as such we have no further comment

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 2,153,909

Rating: 4.6870422 out of 5

Keywords: Vince Viafore, Angelika Graswald, True Crime Daily, Crime Watch Daily

Id: 3-XalU_UvAI

Length: 37min 1sec (2221 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 30 2019