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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them, Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 6: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 6: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 4: Good evening. In Death on the River, best selling true
Speaker 4: crime author Diane Fanning recounts a tragic kayak accident that
Speaker 4: left one man dead and his fiancee arrested for his murder.
Speaker 4: A dream getaway a real life nightmare. It seemed like
Speaker 4: the perfect romantic afternoon, a kayaking trip for two on
Speaker 4: the Hudson River, but it ended in tragedy when beautiful
Speaker 4: blonde Angelica Graswald called nine one one to report that
Speaker 4: her fiancee, the handsome and athletic Vincent Viefort, had fallen
Speaker 4: into the choppy, frigid waters. Authorities assumed it was an accident,
Speaker 4: but when the bereft bride to be posted videos of
Speaker 4: herself doing cartwheels on social media shortly before Vincent's body
Speaker 4: was found, suspicions of murder rose to the surface. After
Speaker 4: hours of questioning, Angelica made several shocking admissions. She said
Speaker 4: she felt trapped and fed up with Vincent's demanding sexual lifestyle,
Speaker 4: the night life, the strip clubs, the three ways I
Speaker 4: wanted him dead, she had said, even though she insisted
Speaker 4: that she didn't kill him. But as more lurid details emerged,
Speaker 4: including a two hundred fifty thousand dollars life insurance Paul,
Speaker 4: We'll see a killer question remained. Did Angelica remove the
Speaker 4: plug of her fiance's boat and knock away his paddle
Speaker 4: as he sank. The book that we're featuring this evening
Speaker 4: is Death on the River, A Fiance's Dark Secrets and
Speaker 4: a kayak trip turned Deadly, with my special guest, journalist
Speaker 4: and author Diane Fanning. Welcome back to the program, and
Speaker 4: thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Diane Fanning.
Speaker 1: It is a pleasure to be here talking with you again.
Speaker 4: Dan, It's an absolute pleasure to have you back on Diana,
Speaker 4: especially this book. Again. You've done yourself once again with
Speaker 4: Death on the River. Let's talk about how you came
Speaker 4: to be the author of Death on the River. What
Speaker 4: brought you to this story? How did you come to
Speaker 4: be the author of Death on the River?
Speaker 1: Well, it seemed like something that was very different and
Speaker 1: had a lot of questions to it. Being the nosy
Speaker 1: person I am, I wanted to find answers, and so
Speaker 1: I started working on it. I took a trip up
Speaker 1: to Pipsie and looked at the river, and I tell you,
Speaker 1: when you stand by the side of that river and
Speaker 1: look across to Bannerman Island, to me, it looked like
Speaker 1: a very forbidding instance to travel. And that was when
Speaker 1: the war was.
Speaker 4: Pardon me, the part was cut off.
Speaker 1: Sorry. I said that when I looked across there, even
Speaker 1: though the river was calm at the time, it looked
Speaker 1: like a very forbidding distance. It's not something I would
Speaker 1: even think about trying.
Speaker 4: Yes, certainly. Well, let's get right to this, because, as
Speaker 4: you do in the book, you take us right to
Speaker 4: this incident in April nineteenth, twenty fifteen. So let's talk
Speaker 4: about Vincent via Ford, a forty six year old nscionce
Speaker 4: the Angelica Graswald. You write that they set off from
Speaker 4: their home in Pilkeepsie, New York, on the east side
Speaker 4: of the Hudson River with a pair of kayaks. Tell
Speaker 4: us about this planned trip and when it was and
Speaker 4: tell us more about this as you do, and the
Speaker 4: beginning of the book.
Speaker 1: This is a very beautiful spring day. It was early
Speaker 1: in the season for kayaking. It's one of those days
Speaker 1: that was so beautiful that it drove a lot of
Speaker 1: people into the outside and to enjoying the warmth and
Speaker 1: brilliance of the sun that day and vincent angels there
Speaker 1: were no exceptions. Back to kayaks and headed out. They
Speaker 1: stopped a fast food place and got something to eat,
Speaker 1: and then they headed south and turned in to a
Speaker 1: wilderness park kind of area along the river between the
Speaker 1: highway and the river worked to plumb point. It's a
Speaker 1: good spot for setting the kayaks in the water to
Speaker 1: travel across. They went across to Bannerman Island, which is
Speaker 1: a very small island, but it has ruins of what
Speaker 1: was an arsenal and it looks like a castle and
Speaker 1: one glorious mansion on the island, and it was a
Speaker 1: place that many times before she volunteered to work on
Speaker 1: the gardens there as warm Weather did kayak before they
Speaker 1: went over to the island, and Angelica had taken along
Speaker 1: some lingerie and she was trying it on and taking
Speaker 1: provocative pictures, and they had a nice afternoon. Towards the
Speaker 1: end of their trip over there, they tried to take
Speaker 1: the kayaks around the back of the island, but the
Speaker 1: island the weather was starting to turn stormy and they
Speaker 1: couldn't because of the tide, get back there, so instead
Speaker 1: they went back around and went back onto the island.
Speaker 1: But then they saw the ominous clouds that were rolling
Speaker 1: in and the daylight was fading, and they decided that yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe they better head on back. Well, the Hudson is
Speaker 1: a tidal river, so you get a lot of waves
Speaker 1: on it when the storm turns it up, and it
Speaker 1: turns very rough, very readily. And they started heading back,
Speaker 1: and at first Vince thought it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It was like riding rapids, and they were going back,
Speaker 1: and suddenly Vince was in full his kayak had taken
Speaker 1: on water, and was starting to think next thing. He
Speaker 1: was in the water. The spring day had been very
Speaker 1: deceiving because the winners of the Hudson was still very pold,
Speaker 1: and when he fell in that water without a wet
Speaker 1: suit on Ermia started to set in almost immediately, and
Speaker 1: they were in the water. Angelica was still in her kayak,
Speaker 1: but Vince was losing control of all of his muscles
Speaker 1: and it was becoming harder and harder for him to breathe,
Speaker 1: and for some reason, Angelika took his ore his kayak
Speaker 1: paddle and fastened the side of her boat. At one point,
Speaker 1: she said she took it away from him, and then
Speaker 1: she tried to walk back out of it and say
Speaker 1: he gave it to her. Whatever the case, she spent
Speaker 1: one half hour watching Vince's struggle before she called nine
Speaker 1: to one one, And that is the most damning fact
Speaker 1: in this case, in my opinion, that she did nothing.
Speaker 1: If I were out on the water with someone I loved,
Speaker 1: I most certainly would have done anything to try and
Speaker 1: save their life. I'd even risk my own to do it.
Speaker 1: Angelika didn't. She just sat in that kayak, and then
Speaker 1: while she was on the phone with nine to one one,
Speaker 1: she said she couldn't see him anymore, and they told
Speaker 1: her to start paddling towards the yacht club. There was
Speaker 1: a boat coming out to rescue her. She started doing that,
Speaker 1: but when she saw the boat approaching she intentionally overturned
Speaker 1: her own kayak, and when asked about that later, she said, well,
Speaker 1: I wanted him to think I had tried to save
Speaker 1: his life. But when the rescue boat went out, they
Speaker 1: brought in Angelica, but they could not find any sign. Okay, the.
Speaker 4: Information that you just mentioned the twenty minutes, none of
Speaker 4: this information is known right away when she calls nine
Speaker 4: one one, right from the beginning of right from the
Speaker 4: very beginning, when she calls nine one one, and then
Speaker 4: this rescue unit comes out. There there are things that
Speaker 4: personnel notice immediately. Can you tell us some of those
Speaker 4: things that they noticed immediately in terms of her demeanor, behavior,
Speaker 4: and then how slowly or quickly it unravels some of
Speaker 4: the inconsistencies that she says two different law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Officials, one thing that while they were still trying to
Speaker 1: rescue him and save as well, and she repeatedly said
Speaker 1: that she had dropped her telephone into the river. But
Speaker 1: while she was being put on a gurney and be
Speaker 1: taken toward an ambulance, a police officer there heard a
Speaker 1: phone ringing in her bag. When he tried to look
Speaker 1: in her bag, she stopped him. She wouldn't let him
Speaker 1: look in her bag, and so that was once that
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you let the police have that tone? That
Speaker 1: phone could have located the exact spot where Vince went
Speaker 1: into the water, but she wouldn't let them know that.
Speaker 1: And she continued in that behavior after she was taking
Speaker 1: to the hospital. That same police officer went there and
Speaker 1: he tried a couple of times to look in her bag,
Speaker 1: and she kept sitting up suddenly looking at him and
Speaker 1: asking what he was doing. And it was interfering with
Speaker 1: her being treated for hypothermia. Because of her short time
Speaker 1: in the water, she already had some symptoms of hypothermia.
Speaker 1: That something that was a bit disturbing, but it didn't
Speaker 1: really immediately point to her as having done something wrong.
Speaker 1: Everybody was giving her the benefit of the doubt at first.
Speaker 1: Number one, there was a grief issue. Number two, she
Speaker 1: had just so although right away she was doing suspicious things,
Speaker 1: everybody wanted to treat her as if she just lost
Speaker 1: a loved one, and she was treated very gently initially.
Speaker 1: But when she went down when they were doing the
Speaker 1: search for events along the river, she showed up not
Speaker 1: every day, but a lot of the days, and she
Speaker 1: was not really searching. She was treating it more like
Speaker 1: a party experience, a social experience, and she was giving
Speaker 1: away items belonged to Vince. Now, when you think somebody's
Speaker 1: just missing, you don't start giving their stuff away. It
Speaker 1: was very alarming to the people who overheard her, like
Speaker 1: Vince's sister, something wasn't right, and they started out being
Speaker 1: supportive of her, but she totally chewed away at their
Speaker 1: lack of suspicion. The police, on the other hand, weren't
Speaker 1: hearing any of these things. And even when she said
Speaker 1: We're going to have a get together to remember Vince
Speaker 1: at his favorite restaurant and she invited the police, they
Speaker 1: didn't go. And the people that were there were disturbed
Speaker 1: by her behavior. Was around talking to everybody acting happy.
Speaker 1: The ex wife of Vince was absolutely devastated. She was great,
Speaker 1: and it was the difference was stark. People could not
Speaker 1: understand how his ex wife could be grieving so badly
Speaker 1: and Angelica with Angelica rather was walking around acting like
Speaker 1: it was a big event all for her, And so
Speaker 1: the friends and family were starting to have lots of questions,
Speaker 1: and Vince's sister even called one of the investigators to
Speaker 1: express her concerns after Angelica into the cartwheel in her backyard.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like she was grieving at all.
Speaker 4: You introduced some very very fascinating characters. Detective di Quarto,
Speaker 4: he's a state police investigator that had got a call
Speaker 4: from Trooper Vidakovich who told him of the missing kayak
Speaker 4: mission and kayaker and so he had asked Freeman to
Speaker 4: talk to Angelica. So this is the first person, and
Speaker 4: you talk about Detective de Quarto and his approach to
Speaker 4: Angelica and the questioning. Tell us what her reasoning or
Speaker 4: the reason for Vincent not having not only a bodysuit
Speaker 4: in that time of the year, but also a life vest.
Speaker 4: What's her explanation.
Speaker 1: She said, they only brought one with them, and Vince
Speaker 1: insisted did she wear it, which does sound like something
Speaker 1: Vince would do, but still it's odd that there was
Speaker 1: only one. Vince was an experienced kayaker, he knew he
Speaker 1: should have a life veest. So what happened to that
Speaker 1: other life. That's a question that will probably never be
Speaker 1: answered because we can't ask Vince. So she insisted that
Speaker 1: it was all because of Vince, that he didn't have
Speaker 1: a life jacket. All he had was that little flotation
Speaker 1: device that doubled as a seat cover in the kayak.
Speaker 4: You talked about that. The extensive search, an incredible search
Speaker 4: with professionals and volunteers and friends and family. At some point, helicopters,
Speaker 4: different county police departments in working in cooperation with each other.
Speaker 4: But the Hudson River is problematic in them predicting where
Speaker 4: this body might turn up. And as a result, this
Speaker 4: search continued for quite a while, didn't.
Speaker 1: It continued, and they it was very difficult because the
Speaker 1: Hudson is a tidal river, so that means it sort
Speaker 1: of changes direction.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 1: When, like with a lot of bodies of water, you
Speaker 1: can trace the direction of body might go in because
Speaker 1: you can chart it well, the Hudson can't be charted
Speaker 1: so well because it could have gone either way. And
Speaker 1: so they had to keep broadening and broadening it. And
Speaker 1: they had helicopters, they had people walking along the shoreline,
Speaker 1: they had sides standing sonar on a boat. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were doing everything they could try to find his body.
Speaker 1: But part of the problem that Vince had with the
Speaker 1: water was the fact that it was so cold, and
Speaker 1: that also provided a problem for the search because it
Speaker 1: isn't with the Hudson River. When it gets so cold,
Speaker 1: bodies go down to the bottom and they don't come
Speaker 1: up until the weather it gets a little warmer.
Speaker 4: You talk about and including this book that Angelica her
Speaker 4: former name Angelica Lipska, you provide for us that she
Speaker 4: was born in Riga, Latvia, and you tell a little
Speaker 4: bit of the history of its relation with Germany, that
Speaker 4: of Germany. So let's talk about a little bit about
Speaker 4: her upbringing and especially the very very interesting and of
Speaker 4: course relevant former marriage and relationship background on Angelica.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was raised in a pretty big situation of poverty.
Speaker 1: Her family didn't have much money and not need. It's
Speaker 1: no goods because they were behind the Iron curtain when
Speaker 1: Angelica was born, so they were surviving basically. When the
Speaker 1: iron curtain was lifted, things did get a little bit
Speaker 1: better as far as the hopefulness returned to the people.
Speaker 1: And it was when that happened that Angelika was able
Speaker 1: to start having dreams that she could believe might come through.
Speaker 1: And her big dream was to go to the United States.
Speaker 1: Before the curtain lifted when she was around ten, nobody
Speaker 1: could count on ever doing that, and once it was
Speaker 1: up she could dream of that, and when he got
Speaker 1: old enough, she immediately went and applied for a visa
Speaker 1: to go to the United States and started looking for
Speaker 1: a job as a nanny, and she got one with
Speaker 1: family in New Jersey, and so she went over to
Speaker 1: the United States with that job. She hadn't been there
Speaker 1: really long when this guy came in to repair the
Speaker 1: furnace and Angelika and he hit it off right away,
Speaker 1: and before you know it, she was getting married and
Speaker 1: Sean was taking her away from her from her nanny job.
Speaker 1: That marriage didn't last very long at all. It was
Speaker 1: tumultuous from the very beginning. It was too sudden, and
Speaker 1: they didn't really know each other. After that relationship ended,
Speaker 1: she met a man who had Richard Greswold, who had
Speaker 1: a very prosperous concrete business and it was out of
Speaker 1: the decorative concrete product available, and she was married to him.
Speaker 1: And when she got a job at the Frank Eleanor
Speaker 1: Roosevelt Museum, digitalizing a lot of the records they had
Speaker 1: stored there. So she was going up to the Presidential
Speaker 1: Museum and working on making digital stuff that could go online.
Speaker 1: And she'd go into there and she would stay during
Speaker 1: the weekend, then go to her husband on the weekend. Well,
Speaker 1: by being there, she ended up going to a lot
Speaker 1: of the different bars in the area on her evenings off,
Speaker 1: and it was in doing that that she met another
Speaker 1: guy that she really liked, and she suddenly decided to
Speaker 1: leave her husband. And she sent a message to this
Speaker 1: guy and say, hey, I'm leaving my husband. Well, he
Speaker 1: was kind of odd that she would inform him of
Speaker 1: this because as far as he was concerned, she was
Speaker 1: just an occasional liason. And then, much to his surprise,
Speaker 1: she comes and knocks on his door and says she's
Speaker 1: moving in. Well, he was kind of a really laid
Speaker 1: back guy, so he thought, okay, let's move in. She
Speaker 1: can move in, no big deal. So that's what happened.
Speaker 1: And it was very strange because she kind of thought
Speaker 1: she should be a kept woman and he objected to that,
Speaker 1: and he said she's got to get a job, and
Speaker 1: even went so far as to buy her a car
Speaker 1: so she could get to work. So we did that,
Speaker 1: But then they went to this Beatles convention and he
Speaker 1: had to drink and because of that, he couldn't perform sexually.
Speaker 1: So as far as Angelica was concerned because he couldn't
Speaker 1: do that on that one time. He was unger a man,
Speaker 1: and she moved into the separate bedroom and then met
Speaker 1: this other guy who was a photographer, and next thing
Speaker 1: you know, she's leaving the house she's living in and
Speaker 1: serving in with this guy's sister. That sister, and he
Speaker 1: was then kicked out of his sister's house because they
Speaker 1: didn't want him bringing other people in. So he and
Speaker 1: Angelica were living by the river in a tent when
Speaker 1: her former live in decided he bought this car and
Speaker 1: he wants the car back, he doesn't want her driving it.
Speaker 1: They returned it, but then Angelica wanted the cat they had,
Speaker 1: and he said, you can't take a cat to live
Speaker 1: in a tent, and she insisted to the point of
Speaker 1: lagging down in the driveway and refusing to let him
Speaker 1: leave her to work until he agreed to let her
Speaker 1: have the cat. So she took the cat. That didn't
Speaker 1: last long either. She ended up bringing the cat back because, yeah,
Speaker 1: living in the tents not a good place to try
Speaker 1: to deal with a cat. So then after him, I mean,
Speaker 1: I never could figure out exactly when he faded out
Speaker 1: out of the scene, but she went to take photographs
Speaker 1: at a fundraiser event that Vince was tending to and
Speaker 1: that's where they met, and the two of them kind
Speaker 1: of hit it off. He had a good job, so
Speaker 1: that was very promising to her, and she thought she
Speaker 1: had somebody else who might take care of her. And
Speaker 1: Vince was smitten with this exotic, perky woman who spoke
Speaker 1: with an adorable accent, and before you knew it, he
Speaker 1: had gotten an apartment that she could move into with him.
Speaker 1: And his friends were shocked because it wasn't that long
Speaker 1: that his second marriage ended, and they thought that he
Speaker 1: was going to stay sinkle for a while time that's
Speaker 1: what he said he was going to do. He just
Speaker 1: wasn't going to have settled down for a while. But
Speaker 1: Derry was settling down and before long he was proposing
Speaker 1: to Angelika and they were going to get married. And
Speaker 1: what really shocked some of his friends was when he
Speaker 1: said I want to have a child with her, because
Speaker 1: they knew that was something he'd always said he didn't
Speaker 1: want to do, so they said he must really be
Speaker 1: in love.
Speaker 4: There was also another thing that would be disturbing later well,
Speaker 4: one people found out, but there was according to Vincent,
Speaker 4: a reason for it, even though they weren't married. He
Speaker 4: decided to put her and name her as a beneficiary
Speaker 4: on those insurance policies and put her on hisself.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and he at his work. When you're not
Speaker 1: married and you want to get a living partner put
Speaker 1: on your medical insurance, you have to do a certain
Speaker 1: number of things to prove the commitment of the relationship,
Speaker 1: and one of them was to put her on his
Speaker 1: life insurance policy. And he did that because he it
Speaker 1: bothered him that she didn't have any healthcare coverage and
Speaker 1: he wanted her to, so that's what he did. And
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's kind of eerie. It's it's almost
Speaker 1: like said, Okay, if you get somebody on your life
Speaker 1: insurance policy, don't let them know about it. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like like a little red flag. Because that is
Speaker 1: believed was part of her motivation for wanting Vince gone.
Speaker 1: What was She also complained about what go ahead?
Speaker 4: Sorry.
Speaker 1: She also complained about the fact that she went to
Speaker 1: strip clubs. And the fact of the matter was there
Speaker 1: were others who knew that she had gone to strip
Speaker 1: clubs with girlfriends before, so it's not like that was
Speaker 1: something that was alien to her, although she tried to
Speaker 1: make it sound like it was. And then she talked
Speaker 1: about threesomes, well, there was never any real clear message
Speaker 1: from her that the threesomes actually happened, So that leaves
Speaker 1: a big question. Were threesomes just a fantasy thing for
Speaker 1: Evince that he liked to talk about because it didn't
Speaker 1: seem like they ever actually went through it. And it's
Speaker 1: so just having a fantasy is not like you're doing
Speaker 1: anybody wrong. So, you know, a lot of what she
Speaker 1: said didn't make particular sense, as the attack shoes making
Speaker 1: on gyms.
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Speaker 4: As you're written in the book, Vince has a sort
Speaker 4: of or bumpy past or or we'll say a history
Speaker 4: that's not without incident. We'll say, tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit about Vincent's past and the characteristics of that. But overall,
Speaker 4: what is the impression from family and friends of Vincent.
Speaker 1: Jenson was a really, really nice guy. One of his
Speaker 1: problems was that he was generous to a fault. He
Speaker 1: would give people stuff, He.
Speaker 3: Would buy drinks for people at bars, he would.
Speaker 1: Let him borrow his car. He he was a bit
Speaker 1: of a spendthrift, but a lot of it was for others,
Speaker 1: not for himself, and he didn't get into financial trouble
Speaker 1: and have to file for bankruptcy.
Speaker 3: Because of the.
Speaker 1: Way he did not watch his money very well. So
Speaker 1: you know, that was problematic. But it seems like he
Speaker 1: learned his lesson because in early April twenty fifteen, he
Speaker 1: gave Angelica an ultimatum. Angelica had planned this wedding where
Speaker 1: they would go over to Latvia, Mary on the beach
Speaker 1: there with their family around, and then they would come
Speaker 1: back to the United States and have a big party
Speaker 1: in a boat on the Hudson River, celebrating their marriage.
Speaker 1: And so that's an expensive proposition.
Speaker 7: And Angelika hadn't been working for for a long time now,
Speaker 7: and since said you've got to get a job, you've
Speaker 7: got to work, and the marriage is off.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to get into all that deet again.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to go down that road.
Speaker 7: But Angelinka was a little bit resentful.
Speaker 1: Of the fact that he expected her to work.
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Speaker 4: d d er Shutter Now, Dane. When we last left off,
Speaker 4: we were talking about Vincent and the situation that had changed,
Speaker 4: where she believed Angelica believe that she was going to
Speaker 4: get married. Now they go on this trip and now
Speaker 4: the police, the quarto is questioning her. Let's get back
Speaker 4: to this masterful attempt to try to get this woman
Speaker 4: to come and tell the truth about what really happened
Speaker 4: that day in April twenty fifteen. What happens next in
Speaker 4: this incredible search and case.
Speaker 1: Well, it was Saturday, and the police went out to
Speaker 1: the island and they were searching around the island, going
Speaker 1: around the edges, making sure the body hadn't ended up
Speaker 1: there on the island and getting a feel for the place.
Speaker 1: And Jelika also came there that day and she brought
Speaker 1: a wreath to put on the water in Vince's memory.
Speaker 1: When she arrived, the police were talking to her and
Speaker 1: all there were three of them, there three investigators and
Speaker 1: they were all talking to her. And then a little
Speaker 1: ways into it, it became clear that she was getting
Speaker 1: uncomfortable because some of the information she wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about seemed.
Speaker 4: To be personal.
Speaker 1: So they let her go off with the quarto to
Speaker 1: talk to him alone. And he was her choice for
Speaker 1: the one to talk to alone, and she told him
Speaker 1: that she had removed the plug from the kayak, that
Speaker 1: she had taken the ring off his paddle which held
Speaker 1: the two halves of it together, and that you know,
Speaker 1: she was very unhappy with the relationship and wanted to
Speaker 1: be free. Well to Quarto realized the significance of what
Speaker 1: she was saying and wanted to take her back to
Speaker 1: the barracks, and she agreed to go back there for
Speaker 1: further questioning. She went and told the other officers and
Speaker 1: they all got onto the boat, and Angelica didn't protest,
Speaker 1: She wasn't handcuffed nothing. She went right on the boat
Speaker 1: with them, and as they pulled away from the dock,
Speaker 1: she laid back in the wind and shouted, I'm free.
Speaker 1: I'm free, which was a kind of odd thing to say,
Speaker 1: considering the circumstances. But she drove back to the police
Speaker 1: barracks with the state investigators and went into an interrogation situation.
Speaker 1: She was asked about her Miranda Wrights. The whole thing
Speaker 1: was read to her. She signed them away and agreed
Speaker 1: to talk to them, and she went on and on
Speaker 1: about her relationship with Vince and how she felt he
Speaker 1: was too controlling and she wanted to be free, and
Speaker 1: she wanted him to be gone, and it was just
Speaker 1: stunning to the police. It was a confession that she
Speaker 1: had deliberately caused Vince's death. To her attorney later, it
Speaker 1: was not a confession, and he said when she asked
Speaker 1: who's Miranda, that meant she did not understand the Miranda warning.
Speaker 1: But actually, if you listened to it in context, she
Speaker 1: was merely asking a historical question, like why is it
Speaker 1: named after Miranda? What does that mean? So the defense
Speaker 1: was really clever in trying to make it look like
Speaker 1: she had limited understanding of English. But she'd been working
Speaker 1: in the public and you know, working as a waitress,
Speaker 1: working as a hostess, working as a bartender, and she
Speaker 1: never had any communication problems with any of those people.
Speaker 1: And besides that, she had gone to community college and
Speaker 1: graduated with honors in English, so obviously language proficiency wasn't
Speaker 1: really a problem for her. And the whole thing was
Speaker 1: portrayed by the defense attorney as an accident, but what
Speaker 1: she said to the police did not make it sound
Speaker 1: like an accident at all. It sounded like she very
Speaker 1: opportunistically took advantage of a deteriorating weather situation and did
Speaker 1: not come to the aid events. And she actually said
Speaker 1: he's gone, he's dead, and I'm glad.
Speaker 4: You have an incredible amount of exchanges in here amount
Speaker 4: of exchanges between Decado and other interrogators when there and
Speaker 4: then there's Sharkess and there's Dequado with different approaches, and
Speaker 4: she responds to each of these detectors differently. But it's
Speaker 4: incredible the amount of time that is used utilized to
Speaker 4: hammer home to try to get to the specifics because
Speaker 4: it's circumstantial case a certain degree, to try to get
Speaker 4: her to admit, like you say that, and you're right,
Speaker 4: she's on. She says she wanted to be free, she
Speaker 4: was tired of the demands that he gave upon her.
Speaker 4: She eventu get her to agree admit that she was
Speaker 4: mad that the engagement. She wanted to have children, she
Speaker 4: wanted to get married, and it looks like the marriage
Speaker 4: was not going to happen. So that's what the police
Speaker 4: in that interrogation room, over a period of days, we're
Speaker 4: trying to do till they believe in their minds that
Speaker 4: securely they had enough information to be able to present
Speaker 4: to the prosecutor. And that prosecutor finally filed charges for
Speaker 4: second degree murder and for manslaughter.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, yes, and I think it was in some states
Speaker 1: you're allowed to include lesser charges in New York State
Speaker 1: is one of those. So that and that's for the
Speaker 1: purpose if if the jury has difficulty seeing second.
Speaker 3: Degree murder, there's a lesson charge you can.
Speaker 1: Fall back on. But could you say the big legal
Speaker 1: confrontation in this whole case was not a trial. It
Speaker 1: was the hearing to determine whether or not her statements
Speaker 1: to the police could be submitted as evidence in a trial.
Speaker 1: And the sense was fighting against that tooth and nail,
Speaker 1: and there were five days of testimony on that question,
Speaker 1: and that was really the pivotal question if they went
Speaker 1: into a trial. I don't see how the prosecution could
Speaker 1: have gone forward if they were denied admitting that tape
Speaker 1: from the interrogation into the trial. So it was very
Speaker 1: very important, and it was five very tense days of questioning.
Speaker 1: In the end, the judge agreed that it could be
Speaker 1: submitted at trial. And now you had a descent who
Speaker 1: wasn't sure they would win, and you had a prosecution
Speaker 1: who had a largely circumstantial case and a kind of
Speaker 1: vague confession because both sides were not confident in the win.
Speaker 1: It was then that plea bargaining bargaining started.
Speaker 4: I would I would say that what I saw in this,
Speaker 4: what I read in this as well as that he
Speaker 4: didn't have a public defender, and at a very very
Speaker 4: interesting lead. There was a question, and I guess to
Speaker 4: shock our audience further in that that this insurance claim
Speaker 4: under New York state law, if there were a murder
Speaker 4: or a manslaughter, it wasn't clear cut that the person
Speaker 4: like someone like Angelica would not be available those payout
Speaker 4: in insurance would not be available to her. It's not
Speaker 4: clear cut. And this, and this is an important issue
Speaker 4: later when we find out that at one point Angelica
Speaker 4: said that she would not be petitioning or trying to
Speaker 4: get any of the proceeds from those insurance policies. But
Speaker 4: that changed tell us about state law in terms of
Speaker 4: whether it's even possible for someone like Angelica to collect
Speaker 4: on those insurance policies despite conditions.
Speaker 1: Well, it was real clear that you could not if
Speaker 1: there was a seleny conviction. And so that became a
Speaker 1: big concern to the attorney because the defense attorney had
Speaker 1: a document from her where she signed over anything she
Speaker 1: got from the insurance would automatically go to the defense attorney.
Speaker 1: And he was saying that it was about a million
Speaker 1: dollars is what.
Speaker 3: Charges were accrued in presenting her case.
Speaker 1: So the attorney, more than Angelinka had a vested.
Speaker 3: Interest in that life insurance and so he very carefully.
Speaker 4: Went to uh, pardon me sorry. You talk about his
Speaker 4: his approach in this in terms of gaining that money,
Speaker 4: and we and you as you're writing the book, what
Speaker 4: we talk about is that Richard Portal and Jeffrey charge Shark,
Speaker 4: the second attorney, it ended up that they were talking
Speaker 4: about a plea bargain. They were talking about a plea
Speaker 4: bargain at this point when the family of Vincent Via
Speaker 4: four and all the friends thought that there was going
Speaker 4: to be this finally, eventually, this going to be this
Speaker 4: trial of this woman that they thought had admitted to
Speaker 4: having something to do with everything to do with Vincent
Speaker 4: viafore dying in those waters that day on the Hudson River.
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit more about this, how it
Speaker 4: comes to be, other than the pressure from these very
Speaker 4: very capable lawyers, why this had to end in a
Speaker 4: plea agreement, and what was that plea agreement.
Speaker 1: The plea agreement was reached because there of the uncertainty
Speaker 1: of a conviction. Prosecutors do not want to let someone
Speaker 1: totally walk free, and with a jury that is always
Speaker 1: a risk, and they were uncertain if they could get
Speaker 1: a conviction on either the second degree murder or the manslaughter,
Speaker 1: and because of that uncertainty, they worked with the defense
Speaker 1: to have a plea agreement that would get her at
Speaker 1: least some time in prison, and they came up with
Speaker 1: a lesser homicide charge of negligence and negligent homicide. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: with that, it had never gone to court to see
Speaker 1: if the laws that prevent someone from inheriting insurance money
Speaker 1: would hold up in a charge to a lesser charged
Speaker 1: like that, and it was thought that it would, but
Speaker 1: that apparently was a mistaken thought because she ended up
Speaker 1: benefiting indirectly from getting life insurance money and didn't go
Speaker 1: to her attorney. But it did not all go to
Speaker 1: the family. They got some of it, but so did Angelica.
Speaker 4: I found it interesting, and again I hate to beat
Speaker 4: up on attorneys because everybody will say, oh, they're just
Speaker 4: doing their job, but this one was extraordinary and that
Speaker 4: it at least was allowed for Angelica to make it
Speaker 4: make people believe, including the family of Vincent's family, that
Speaker 4: she wouldn't go after that money, and then conveniently that
Speaker 4: we don't know, as you write, we don't know exactly
Speaker 4: how much she received. But all of that money went
Speaker 4: to the lawyers, and like you say, it was a
Speaker 4: million dollars worth of defense. And what I read in
Speaker 4: this as opposed to say a duty counsel representation in
Speaker 4: this kind of case, regardless of how experienced that lawyer is,
Speaker 4: that this lawyer for money, in effect for money, basically
Speaker 4: accomplished something that I think the reader would find incredible
Speaker 4: and unbelievable. There was no proof of a coerced confession.
Speaker 4: There was no proof that she couldn't understand English. In fact,
Speaker 4: she was very fluent in English. There was no proof that.
Speaker 4: But these are the best charges that they could lay
Speaker 4: on her, was his criminal negligence causing the death of
Speaker 4: this person. But everybody in that court, from every impact
Speaker 4: statement and even the statements from the judge, clearly this
Speaker 4: woman was far more guilty than those charges.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I think I sometimes I think defense attorneys
Speaker 1: go too far. I do not have a problem with
Speaker 1: them trying to convince people that there was a coerce confession,
Speaker 1: because that's kind of a subjective kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: he lied about her English, and you know he he
Speaker 1: lied when he said at the at the at the
Speaker 1: end of the plea bargain of the thing in the courtroom,
Speaker 1: he said that Angelica has no intention of going for
Speaker 1: that money. And I think that's just what he wanted
Speaker 1: to say to set things up so everybody would be
Speaker 1: comfortable with the deal. And it was later that they
Speaker 1: they submitted the paperwork to go for that money, and
Speaker 1: I think that was a little sleasy, to be honest. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The other thing is that despite warnings and a gag
Speaker 4: a gag order, both defense attorney and Angelica made public
Speaker 4: media appearances.
Speaker 1: Didn't they sit in Yes, And you know, the defense
Speaker 1: sort the first time said oh, well, I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: mean the gag orders were on the attorneys, they weren't
Speaker 1: specifically on Angelica. And so when she had a second
Speaker 1: national appearance schedule to do an interview, but the the
Speaker 1: attorney wanted to be there like he had been for
Speaker 1: the first one, but the judge said, no, you can't
Speaker 1: be there. If she wants to make a statement to
Speaker 1: the media. We can't take away her first amendment, right,
Speaker 1: but you can't be there. We have a gag order.
Speaker 1: But you know, he did violate once, and I think
Speaker 1: he would have continued to violate until the judge told
Speaker 1: him no.
Speaker 4: It's interesting to post conviction, what does she maintain again
Speaker 4: in the media after this sentence, And again she was
Speaker 4: looking at fifteen and then the families were hopeful fifteen
Speaker 4: to life, fifteen to the rest of her life, and
Speaker 4: this was the deal was unfortunately disappointingly fifteen months to
Speaker 4: four years.
Speaker 1: Yes, and she had also got credit for time served,
Speaker 1: so it ended up that she only spent a couple
Speaker 1: months in prison. And it was really unfair to the
Speaker 1: memory of this. It was not justice for his family.
Speaker 1: And she's going around and saying, oh, she loved him
Speaker 1: and it was just an accident. You know. It's just
Speaker 1: annoying after all the things she said to to try
Speaker 1: to make him look bad and to try to make
Speaker 1: her look good, and it is, you know, victim time,
Speaker 1: and it angers me. None of us are perfect, but
Speaker 1: none of us deserve to be trashed after we even
Speaker 1: killed either. But she's protesting her love for him, and
Speaker 1: it kind of reminds me of that song by Amy
Speaker 1: V years back that says killing him doesn't make fuff
Speaker 1: go away.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right. Also, again, it's not a quest for justice,
Speaker 4: but people are looking for some kind of recourse from
Speaker 4: the court's October twenty seventh, twenty seventeen, Vince's family files
Speaker 4: a wrongful death suit against Angelica and the State Supreme
Speaker 4: Court Dutchess County. As of now, what does the status
Speaker 4: of that.
Speaker 1: I think that it's all been wrapped up, and it
Speaker 1: was wrapped up in some sort of agreement. Now insurance
Speaker 1: money would be divided, and I think the family realized
Speaker 1: who was kind of feudal because none of the insurance
Speaker 1: money was ever going to go to Angelica anyway, so
Speaker 1: she couldn't give it back. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes, for this book, you as usual, and this is
Speaker 4: the fourteenth or the fifteenth through crime book that you've written. Fifteenth, Yes, yes, fifteenth. Congratulations.
Speaker 4: Who are the some of the people that you had
Speaker 4: access to that I think I can answer this question,
Speaker 4: but I'm asking you, what are the some of the people,
Speaker 4: some of the characters that were essential that you had
Speaker 4: access to to really be able to write this book.
Speaker 1: Sean van Klauss, who was a lifelong friend of Vince,
Speaker 1: was extremely helpful to me in giving me a lot
Speaker 1: of information and a lot of just stories about Vince.
Speaker 1: And another person who is very helpful was his mother,
Speaker 1: and that I tell those two probably were the biggest
Speaker 1: help of all in discovering exactly who Vince was. And
Speaker 1: you know, he was really a good guy. And you know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't perfect, but he was good to his friends.
Speaker 1: He had so many friends, it was just unbelievable. From
Speaker 1: elementary school on forward. Everywhere he went and he made friends.
Speaker 1: He was crazy and irreverent, and he did funny dance
Speaker 1: moves and he brightened everybody up, and he gave his
Speaker 1: friends good advice. He'd sit down and talk to them
Speaker 1: art to heart and try to help them, and he
Speaker 1: just was a good guy.
Speaker 4: What's interesting too, you talk about he's such a good
Speaker 4: guy and in your book is really I think anybody
Speaker 4: that involved with Vincent would be happy with the depiction
Speaker 4: of him. But what's interesting and disturbing really is that
Speaker 4: the media were able to attend this hearing and yet
Speaker 4: you get a February twenty and eighteen, twenty twenty updated
Speaker 4: show about Angelica's case and Richard Portel was interviewed the
Speaker 4: defense attorney and he talked about the missing gun. So
Speaker 4: again I don't need to harp on this, but oh,
Speaker 4: that is interesting that after the fact he's still still
Speaker 4: trying to cast doubt on his client's guilt, but using
Speaker 4: such a I don't know, defenseless play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the gun. The answer is very simple. The
Speaker 1: missing gun was still with his ex wife, and so
Speaker 1: it wasn't really missing. It just wasn't in the house
Speaker 1: to be shared with Angelsca. And you know he's saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's why the police researching the aten. No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. They'd already established where that gun was before
Speaker 1: they ever went out on the island. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you right now from talking to the investigators, and it's
Speaker 1: really clear that if they had ever thought that a
Speaker 1: gun had been used the death of Vents, they would
Speaker 1: have been out to that island lickety split. They just
Speaker 1: went back there basically grasping for straws that they could
Speaker 1: find on that island that could answer the questions they had.
Speaker 1: But if they thought a gun was involved, that would
Speaker 1: have been the first place they went.
Speaker 4: As a seemingly psychopathic as this person, Angelica is, it
Speaker 4: is also interesting when you look at everything and the
Speaker 4: end result that if she were to be a little
Speaker 4: bit more careful, a little a little smarter about things,
Speaker 4: we wouldn't know even the three quarters of the truth
Speaker 4: that we know today, wouldn't we No.
Speaker 1: In fact, Dan, if she had put up a semblance
Speaker 1: of genuine grief and acted like it mattered to her
Speaker 1: that when Dince was missing, that it mattered to her
Speaker 1: when when she found out was dead. If she acted
Speaker 1: just a little bit, no one would have ever thought
Speaker 1: that there was a problem, that it was anything but
Speaker 1: an accident. But it was her behavior and the things
Speaker 1: she said to police that brought the eyes of justice
Speaker 1: down upon her. She brought that on because she was
Speaker 1: carrying the kilt. She knew she'd done wrong by him,
Speaker 1: and she couldn't even take it.
Speaker 4: It was interesting too, she got a photographer, because of
Speaker 4: course she was interested in photography, and that's how she
Speaker 4: met some of these people through some of her interests singing,
Speaker 4: playing guitar, and so anyway, with this she was i saying.
Speaker 4: She definitely was interested in the attention that she got,
Speaker 4: and as a result, she said things and did things.
Speaker 4: The cartwill in the backyard was one thing, but she
Speaker 4: took another photo of a Cartwell, again, you say, cartwheels
Speaker 4: are expressing some kind of joy and kind of the
Speaker 4: opposite of what you should be feeling. But she also
Speaker 4: posted a strange photo from this photographer of her paddling
Speaker 4: at kayak with the Bannerman Island the crime scene in
Speaker 4: the background. I thought that was one of the most
Speaker 4: interesting visuals.
Speaker 1: That is an eerie picture, you know, it just speaks
Speaker 1: so much of the danger, and that she would put
Speaker 1: that up at that time really was disturbing, and she
Speaker 1: just you know, I don't understand a lot of what
Speaker 1: she did. And to be honest, it's trying to understand
Speaker 1: the motivation of a sociopaths.
Speaker 8: Is difficult, trying to understand how someone and it can
Speaker 8: be so consumed by narcissistic feelings.
Speaker 1: It is hard to understand. So I guess it's good
Speaker 1: that I don't understand it, or maybe that would say
Speaker 1: something ugly about me, But it's still, you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to wrap your mind around how a sociopath's mind works.
Speaker 1: And it's very disturbing and very tragic. You know, Vince
Speaker 1: should still be around, he should still be with us,
Speaker 1: He should still be given his mother a hug on
Speaker 1: Mother's Day, and the fact that he isn't is just tragic.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, we certainly do get a very vivid glimpse
Speaker 4: into the into acial theopathic killer's mind. I want to
Speaker 4: thank you very much Dan for coming on and talking
Speaker 4: about Death on the River, a fiance's dark secrets, and
Speaker 4: a kayak trip turned deadly. For those people that might
Speaker 4: want to look at other work, we talked about this
Speaker 4: being your fifteenth through crime book, but twenty six books
Speaker 4: overall or twenty seven? Is there a website, Facebook page
Speaker 4: they might take a look at.
Speaker 1: A website is Dianfanning dot com and I am Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash Diane Fanning. I have my regular page
Speaker 1: and I also have a true crime books page.
Speaker 4: Thank you, look up absolutely. Thank you very much, Diane.
Speaker 4: It has been an absolute pleasure talking about Death on
Speaker 4: the River. You have a great eating and I know
Speaker 4: we'll be talking to you again real soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Dan Bode, Bye, good night,