Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathwind Chiley for part two of
Speaker 1: our series about the disappearance of Cindy's Song. Robin, do
Speaker 1: you want to catch everyone up on what we talked
Speaker 1: about in our previous episode.
Speaker 2: Well, this is a Halloween mystery involving a twenty one
Speaker 2: year old exchange student named Cindy Song who was originally
Speaker 2: from Korea. She went out partying on Halloween night, dressed
Speaker 2: as a playboy bunny with pink ears and was hanging
Speaker 2: out with some of her friends going to a bunch
Speaker 2: of clubs. Then around four am on the morning of
Speaker 2: November first, her friend dropped her off at her apartment complex,
Speaker 2: yet Cindy would somehow vanish without a trace. When they
Speaker 2: checked inside her apartment, they found some of her items
Speaker 2: from her Halloween costumes, so she did get inside at
Speaker 2: some point, but there were no signs of struggle or
Speaker 2: forced entry. So the theory which has been pushed forward
Speaker 2: is that she may have stepped out to go to
Speaker 2: an overnight market or something, but then just cross paths
Speaker 2: with the wrong person who wound up abducting her. The
Speaker 2: big lead in this case is when they would look
Speaker 2: at a serial killer named Hugo Selenski. A couple of
Speaker 2: years later, they found a bunch of human remains on
Speaker 2: his property, located about a one hundred miles away from
Speaker 2: State College. These victims had been murdered and incinerated and
Speaker 2: the remains buried, and a former associate of Selenski's named
Speaker 2: Paul Weakley would claim that Selenski and another accomplice named
Speaker 2: Michael Kurkowski, had driven to State College and picked up
Speaker 2: Cindy while she was walking the streets, kept her in
Speaker 2: captivity for a little while at the residence, and sexually
Speaker 2: assaulted her before she was murdered. But they could not
Speaker 2: find any remains on the property that match Cindy. And
Speaker 2: of course Michael Kurkowski, the person who allegedly assisted Selensky
Speaker 2: with this crime, he was also one of the victims.
Speaker 2: They found his remains on the property, so there's been
Speaker 2: some doubt about the veracity of Paul Weekly's story. Selensky
Speaker 2: has been sent to prison for a number of other murders,
Speaker 2: but he has never admitted any involvement in Cindy's case,
Speaker 2: So that's the big question here. Was she murdered by
Speaker 2: Hugo Selenski or did she cross pass and be murdered
Speaker 2: by someone else. But all we really know for certain
Speaker 2: that is that here we are nearly twenty four years
Speaker 2: later and she is still a missing person. So this
Speaker 2: is one of those missing persons cases which offers nothing
Speaker 2: but pure frustration for everyone involved. You can understand the
Speaker 2: frustration on the part of the victim's family since the
Speaker 2: investigation has made such little progress, but you can also
Speaker 2: understand the frustration from the police because they have such
Speaker 2: little evidence to work with. I know there was a
Speaker 2: lot of friction between Cindy's family and the police after
Speaker 2: the Song's called a press conference to express their displeasure
Speaker 2: with the investigation. The specific mention of the Alicia Koza
Speaker 2: Keewitch case seemed to imply that Sidney's disappearance might have
Speaker 2: been handled with more urgency if she had been white. Well. Sadly,
Speaker 2: race can definitely be a serious issue when it comes
Speaker 2: to how missing person's investigations are handled, but I'm not
Speaker 2: sure it applies in this particular case. As I'd say,
Speaker 2: the problem was not so much police indifference but a
Speaker 2: lack of solid leads. They had no witnesses, no physical evidence,
Speaker 2: and no potential suspects, and Sidney just happened to go
Speaker 2: missing during the early morning hours when most people would
Speaker 2: have been asleep. I think the main reason Alicia Koza
Speaker 2: Kiwich had so many FBI agents assigned to her case
Speaker 2: is because she was a thirteen year old missing child
Speaker 2: while Cindy was twenty one and legally an adult. And
Speaker 2: since Alicia had gone missing after meeting someone online, there
Speaker 2: was a lot more evidence to work with. I suppose
Speaker 2: the biggest mistake in Sidney's investigation is when her family
Speaker 2: was allowed inside her apartment and they decided to clean it,
Speaker 2: destroying potential physical evidence before the police could perform a
Speaker 2: more thorough search. It sounds like this whole situation was
Speaker 2: due to a miscommunication, but I personally don't believe anything
Speaker 2: happened inside the apartment, and I think that Cindy was
Speaker 2: most likely abducted after she already left. If that's the case,
Speaker 2: then cleaning the place wouldn't have made any difference. The
Speaker 2: Ferguson Township Police Department believed that the Song family's dissatisfaction
Speaker 2: was due largely to a quote unquote cultural gap between
Speaker 2: how investigations are performed in the US and South Korea.
Speaker 2: We've actually seen the opposite side of the coin in
Speaker 2: cases where an American citizen has gone missing in a
Speaker 2: foreign country and their family expressed frustration because the police
Speaker 2: were handling the investigation in a different fashion than they're
Speaker 2: used to. The fact of the matter is that it
Speaker 2: must be a helpless feeling when your child goes missing
Speaker 2: thousands of miles away from you. And I'm sure it
Speaker 2: was daunting to travel to a country where you don't
Speaker 2: even speak the language in order to help out with
Speaker 2: the search effort.
Speaker 3: And you know what, guys, I think that it's not
Speaker 3: just a cultural gap where it needs to be an
Speaker 3: international kind of gap. I think there is a natural
Speaker 3: disconnect between law enforcement and families because there isn't a
Speaker 3: structure in place where law enforcement can be the emotional
Speaker 3: support and provide the information that families need when they're
Speaker 3: working an active case. So when I would meet with families,
Speaker 3: one of the things that I would do is I
Speaker 3: would say, here's where the police are limited in giving
Speaker 3: you what you need. Right they're working an active case,
Speaker 3: even though it's a cold case. For many of the
Speaker 3: families I worked with, it's active and so you don't
Speaker 3: necessarily even want to be in a position where they
Speaker 3: share information that you might later be discussing with someone
Speaker 3: and actually harm the case accidentally. Right, that's a big
Speaker 3: burden for families to hold. So a lot of times
Speaker 3: law enforcement does keep the family at bay, even years later,
Speaker 3: because the little information that they have. You don't want
Speaker 3: the family to have that information and accidentally share it
Speaker 3: with someone who is not necessarily the right party to
Speaker 3: share it with. And then when you look at police officers,
Speaker 3: I would work with them and say little things like
Speaker 3: answering the phone, checking in with the family, trying to
Speaker 3: have some more empathy and compassion, even though that's not
Speaker 3: your quote job. Trying to add that layer of care
Speaker 3: for family members who are actively engaged with you matters.
Speaker 3: And so I think it's that just separation of someone
Speaker 3: doing their job and truly oftentimes trying to do it
Speaker 3: well and family saying well, if you can't find them,
Speaker 3: if you can't help us, then you're failing us and
Speaker 3: you're failing the victim. That's a natural kind of upset
Speaker 3: that's going to occur between those two parties. So it's
Speaker 3: so sad here it is hard not to make parallels
Speaker 3: to cases that are close by geographically that meet similar
Speaker 3: victim characteristics. But here I truly think those two cases
Speaker 3: that they're comparing with Alicia and Cindy, you do have
Speaker 3: more evidence in Alicia's case, and it's a underagediled that
Speaker 3: they thought they might have more leads to follow. So
Speaker 3: this whole case is tragic. Cindy was a young kid
Speaker 3: going out to have fun, she got home, she made
Speaker 3: it home safely, and she probably did what she did
Speaker 3: many and many a knight's, which was want to go
Speaker 3: get a snack or a drink, and then she ends
Speaker 3: up never coming home. So a lot of burden and
Speaker 3: heavy grief on the family. And I think the same
Speaker 3: kind of grief exists for many law enforcement agents who
Speaker 3: wanted to know where is Cindy, if she's still alive,
Speaker 3: is she being hurt, how do we protect the community
Speaker 3: from whoever took her? So just such such a sad case.
Speaker 1: So ask question for you, you've worked sort of as
Speaker 1: a bridge or a go between with law enforcement and families.
Speaker 1: Do you think that it would have made a greater
Speaker 1: impact or a difference if law enforcement had somebody to
Speaker 1: facilitate that type of a position with the Song family
Speaker 1: that spoke Korean.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, yes, oh my gosh, yes, honestly needs
Speaker 3: to be. There are a few victim advocates that are
Speaker 3: provided to each law enforcement agency, but they're understaffed, they're
Speaker 3: under resourced, and they honestly don't have the training for
Speaker 3: a plethora of crimes. Right you have someone who's willing
Speaker 3: to hold a victim's hand and help, but when you
Speaker 3: only have two of them or one of them at
Speaker 3: a law enforcement agency, you have several cases that need
Speaker 3: someone to assist the family and police who are untrained
Speaker 3: to do so. If there was that kind of bridge
Speaker 3: person who could assist or even come in, especially with
Speaker 3: language gaps, even racial gaps, all of those things where
Speaker 3: culture does matter, and especially understanding the language of the
Speaker 3: officers you're trying to communicate with as a family member
Speaker 3: and vice versa for law enforcement, I think it would
Speaker 3: have highly changed the dynamic. But again, unless they had
Speaker 3: apprehended someone. In Cindy's case, I think in the back
Speaker 3: of people's heads, if you can't tell me who did it,
Speaker 3: then I'm going to blame you for failing to provide
Speaker 3: that information to me, And so that blame that would
Speaker 3: normally go to a suspect, it would normally that anger
Speaker 3: and disappointment and frustration that would go towards the suspect
Speaker 3: has to be funneled somewhere. So oftentimes it's law enforcement
Speaker 3: for quote, failing to do their job when sometimes the
Speaker 3: evidence just isn't there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we mentioned this on our last episode, but I
Speaker 2: know that Cindy's brother became very frustrated because law enforcement
Speaker 2: had to get a subpoena in order to search her
Speaker 2: phone and internet records, and he was saying, well, we
Speaker 2: don't have to do this in Korea. What's the hold
Speaker 2: up here? This is wasting valuable time. But it sounds
Speaker 2: like someone really didn't take the time to sit down
Speaker 2: and explain to him that law enforcement just works a
Speaker 2: lot differently in the US than Korea and their procedures
Speaker 2: to go through. But they just took it as wasting time,
Speaker 2: thinking that going through all this bureaucracy and red tape
Speaker 2: was preventing them from finding out what happened to her.
Speaker 3: I think any family would feel that way. If you
Speaker 3: told me right now you can go help me find
Speaker 3: Reagan because there's red tape you've got to go through,
Speaker 3: I'd be like, what the hell are you doing? No,
Speaker 3: my daughter's missing. You get up now and find her phone,
Speaker 3: get her records, get her bank account. We're doing that now,
Speaker 3: and the officers would tell me the same thing. We
Speaker 3: have to wait. I'd be heartsick, I'd be angry. I'd
Speaker 3: be so infuriated that you're allowing her to be hurt
Speaker 3: right now by somebody because of your quote red tape,
Speaker 3: and you're not finding.
Speaker 2: My baby for me.
Speaker 3: So it's a very difficult situation, especially with a missing
Speaker 3: person versus let's say, finding a deceased victim. Right when
Speaker 3: there's the missing person, that urgency is there, that every
Speaker 3: second counts is there, and maybe I can get my
Speaker 3: arms back around my child.
Speaker 2: Please help me.
Speaker 1: Anyway. The only thing we know for certain about this
Speaker 1: case is the chances of Cindy running away voluntarily or
Speaker 1: completing suicide seem pretty much non existent. It was actually
Speaker 1: Cindy's own family who pushed forward the theory that she
Speaker 1: may have taken her own life because she was despondent
Speaker 1: over her breakup with her boyfriend. But you have to
Speaker 1: remember that they weren't living near her, and Cindy's friends,
Speaker 1: who were around her all the time, insisted that she
Speaker 1: had gotten over the breakup and was not feeling depressed
Speaker 1: or suicidal. By all accounts, Cindy was in a great
Speaker 1: mood on Hallowey night, and it seems unlikely that she
Speaker 1: would spend the night partying with friends, go back inside
Speaker 1: her apartment to drop off some items, and then leave
Speaker 1: again to go somewhere to complete suicide, unless she jumped
Speaker 1: into a body of water somewhere or traveled to a
Speaker 1: remote area. I think Cindy's remains would have surfaced by
Speaker 1: now if she had taken her own life, So the
Speaker 1: most logical explanation for her disappearance is an abduction, But
Speaker 1: the big question is how would have transpired. The presence
Speaker 1: of Cindy's bags, cell phone, and fake eyelashes proved that
Speaker 1: she made it inside her apartment after she was dropped off,
Speaker 1: but since the rest of her bunny costume was never found,
Speaker 1: that seems to indicate that she went missing before she
Speaker 1: had a chance to change clothing, so she probably wasn't
Speaker 1: in her apartment for very long. Since there was no
Speaker 1: sign of struggle or forced entry, it seems like someone
Speaker 1: could have knocked on Cindy's door and abducted her after
Speaker 1: she opened it, or she was abducted after stepping outside
Speaker 1: to go somewhere. I get the impression that the door
Speaker 1: was locked when Cindy's roommate returned to the apartment later
Speaker 1: that day, and since she didn't seem to notice anything
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary, I'd say the second scenario is
Speaker 1: far more likely. In spite of the fact that it
Speaker 1: was four am. It apparently wasn't that uncommon for Cindy
Speaker 1: to visit the nearby twenty four hour market at odd hours,
Speaker 1: and given that her purse was missing, she probably made
Speaker 1: the impulsive decision to go grab something and wound up
Speaker 1: crossing paths with the wrong person.
Speaker 3: And think about this too, when you think about the
Speaker 3: iconic playboy bunny and the way that boy buddies are sexualized,
Speaker 3: there a sexual icon right that you could imagine this
Speaker 3: young girl in a bunny costume, right, even though her
Speaker 3: ears are back at the house. Let's say she had
Speaker 3: on a leotard and a tail or, a cute little
Speaker 3: shorts and a tail on it or whatever. On Halloween night.
Speaker 3: You could imagine the kind of men who would be
Speaker 3: driving around at four am in the morning what they
Speaker 3: could be thinking when they pass a young girl like
Speaker 3: that what kind of sick, depraved thoughts could go on.
Speaker 3: She's alone, there probably aren't many other people out and
Speaker 3: about on the streets at that hour, and so I
Speaker 3: just feel like the combination of factors playing in right there,
Speaker 3: the vulnerability, the sexualization, the kind of depravity that could
Speaker 3: come from that could escalate quite quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking has happened. That if she
Speaker 2: was out there alone at four am and just some
Speaker 2: predator just happened to be driving by, if he saw
Speaker 2: her in the playboy buddy costume, he may have decided
Speaker 2: this is a great target. This is who I'm going
Speaker 2: to to have ducked. The big issue which hampered the
Speaker 2: early stages of the investigation was the lack of suspects,
Speaker 2: as Cindy didn't have any known enemies and her ex boyfriend,
Speaker 2: the one person who might have had a potential motive
Speaker 2: to harmer, was ruled out almost immediately. Since Cindy spent
Speaker 2: the night partying at a club, you could easily assume
Speaker 2: that someone who was there might have developed a fixation
Speaker 2: on her and followed her home. But the problem is
Speaker 2: that Cindy left the club at two AM and spent
Speaker 2: the next two hours, traveling to various locations such as
Speaker 2: a friend's place, before heading back to her apartment, and
Speaker 2: I'm not sure anyone would have followed her for that
Speaker 2: length of time, particularly if she was in the company
Speaker 2: of other friends, and even if they did, they probably
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been able to predict that she would enter
Speaker 2: her apartment and then decide to leave again at that
Speaker 2: time of the morning, So I think her abduction may
Speaker 2: have been completely random, as the wrong person could have
Speaker 2: seen her walking down the street alone and took advantage
Speaker 2: of the situation to grab her. The most prominent eyewitness
Speaker 2: sighting of Cindy after she would sing is the woman
Speaker 2: who claims she saw in Philadelphia's Chinatown district a few
Speaker 2: days later screaming for help while in the clutches of
Speaker 2: another man. This led to speculation that Cindy may have
Speaker 2: been kidnapped and forced into sex work, and this man
Speaker 2: was her handler. However, I'm inclined to think the witness
Speaker 2: may have been mistaken and after she saw another Asian
Speaker 2: woman who was not Cindy. In fact, I wonder if
Speaker 2: her account is even true at all, As investigators claimed
Speaker 2: the witnesses story changed multiple times so I'd hate to
Speaker 2: think she just made the whole story up. But if
Speaker 2: she was telling the truth and she really did see
Speaker 2: a completely different woman crying and screaming for help, then
Speaker 2: I have to wonder what was going on there. Regardless,
Speaker 2: it does not sound like the authorities found the Philadelphia
Speaker 2: sighting to be credible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with eyewitness identification, especially if this was like a
Speaker 3: cross racial kind of identification, like a Caucasian woman I
Speaker 3: didnifind an Asian woman, or let's say that she might
Speaker 3: have been a black woman, identifying this Asian woman, you
Speaker 3: will see lower rates of successful eyewitness identification. Scientifically, it
Speaker 3: just says we paint a canvas clearer on the same
Speaker 3: color skin that we have, and so I think that
Speaker 3: complicates the situation. I also think that you have to remember,
Speaker 3: if Cindy's face is plastered everywhere as a missing girl,
Speaker 3: people might in their mind replace the face of the
Speaker 3: person they saw with that image that's on the missing
Speaker 3: poster or on the news that night. And so I
Speaker 3: rarely think eyewitnesses are coming forward trying to complicate or
Speaker 3: hurt a scenario or an investigation, But I do think
Speaker 3: that they often get it wrong trying to help and
Speaker 3: just not having accurate information. If this woman did see
Speaker 3: Cindy that day, it does make sense that she could
Speaker 3: be trying to scream out in public when she's been
Speaker 3: let's say, held captive, and then this man takes her
Speaker 3: out for sex work or even just to be out
Speaker 3: in public, and when she thinks she has a chance,
Speaker 3: she screams for her home. How scary to think if
Speaker 3: it was Cindy, she truly was at that moment trying
Speaker 3: to get someone to recognize and help her fight for
Speaker 3: her life. And it doesn't seem like anything happened from
Speaker 3: that dispute in public with this man.
Speaker 1: I think it would be a lot more credible if
Speaker 1: the witness was Korean themselves, because what we know about
Speaker 1: cross racial identification being so poor. Do we know anything
Speaker 1: about this witness?
Speaker 2: Robin Uh, I'm just going to check the unsolve Mysteri's reenactment.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't say it to be accurate, but
Speaker 2: I'm curious to see if the woman was white or
Speaker 2: if she was Asian herself. Well, I don't know any
Speaker 2: information about her as a person, but let me just see. Uh, Okay, Well,
Speaker 2: the reenactment shows that the witness was an Asian woman,
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure if there was any cross racial
Speaker 2: identification here.
Speaker 3: Well, I definitely think that would strengthen her her reporting
Speaker 3: at that point that you have same race identification, which helps.
Speaker 3: But again, you also have a moment where there's a
Speaker 3: struggle and a kind of chaotic scene where a woman's
Speaker 3: screaming for help. There's a lot of factors that'll go
Speaker 3: into distracting someone's brain from focusing specifically on facial features.
Speaker 3: When you have a lot of chaos at the scene,
Speaker 3: or you have a weapon present lighting, all kinds of
Speaker 3: things matter. So again, I don't think many people come
Speaker 3: forward trying to distract police. But I wish our story
Speaker 3: had stayed the same, and I wish there had been
Speaker 3: more clear evidence that this really was Cindy.
Speaker 2: I mean, if she was telling the truth, it might
Speaker 2: have been nothing more than a regular domestic dispute involving
Speaker 2: a pair of a couple or something like that and
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with Cindy.
Speaker 1: And who knows, Maybe it was somebody who was in
Speaker 1: a situation where they were being trafficked, but it just
Speaker 1: wasn't Cindy. For a while, the Philadelphia sighting was the
Speaker 1: only major lead in Cindy's case until she was connected
Speaker 1: to Hugo Soelenski. Now, like we mentioned in our last episode,
Speaker 1: trying to cover Hugo Selenski's story from beginning to end
Speaker 1: would probably take an entire long form podcast, and we
Speaker 1: don't want to become too distracted by it in order
Speaker 1: to take the focus away from Cindy's case. But the
Speaker 1: whole story is pretty crazy, and I'm not sure we'll
Speaker 1: ever learn the full extent of all the horrific crimes
Speaker 1: that Selensky has committed. Before he was charged with any murders,
Speaker 1: Selensky was already in jail because he'd been arrested for
Speaker 1: extorting money from Michael Kurkowski's father After he murdered Kurkowski
Speaker 1: and buried his body. Selensky had the audacity to keep
Speaker 1: visiting the guy's father to inform him that his son
Speaker 1: was on the run and needed money to help him
Speaker 1: hide out. When Krekowski's father eventually became suspicious, Selensky threatened
Speaker 1: him with a gun in order to get him to
Speaker 1: hand over his money, and in total, he managed to
Speaker 1: extort around one hundred thousand dollars from him. Another crazy
Speaker 1: part of his saga which we didn't mention is the
Speaker 1: shortly after he was charged with the murders of Frank
Speaker 1: James and a day Keeler Selenski managed to perform a
Speaker 1: daring escape from the Luzerne County prison by trying twelve
Speaker 1: bed sheets together as a rope and using it to
Speaker 1: climb out a six floor window. He turned himself in
Speaker 1: only three days later, but the escape was pretty big
Speaker 1: news in Pennsylvania at the time.
Speaker 3: How scary when you have this idea that we know
Speaker 3: he killed the two people and then he also murdered Kurkowski,
Speaker 3: but then he goes and extorts the father of one
Speaker 3: of his murder victims and someone who was supposedly quote
Speaker 3: his friend.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah, Like Selensky have been helping Kakowski
Speaker 2: out because he had his own legal situation where he
Speaker 2: was getting arrested for illegally selling pharmaceuticals. But it seemed
Speaker 2: like an obvious con job where he was going to
Speaker 2: bleed Kurkowski drive then kill him, and then after he's dead,
Speaker 2: he starts trying to bleed money from Kurkowski's father.
Speaker 3: That's insane. And in the story from the the other
Speaker 3: we have another person who comes forward and says both
Speaker 3: of those men were the ones who could have possibly
Speaker 3: abducted Cindy.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. Yeah, And that's the run reason people are
Speaker 2: skeptical because even though Kurkowski was a drug dealer, he
Speaker 2: doesn't have any known history of violence. So people are wondering,
Speaker 2: would he really team up with Selenski just to abduct
Speaker 2: some random woman and then kill her and hold.
Speaker 3: Her captive and things like that. That's quite a jump.
Speaker 2: Selensky is clearly a sociopathic monster who has murdered multiple people.
Speaker 2: But all that being said, I can't say I'm entirely
Speaker 2: convinced that he murdered Cindy Song. Let's go back and
Speaker 2: examine how Sidney's disappearance was linked to Selensky. To begin with,
Speaker 2: this was all due to a secondhand story shared by
Speaker 2: Paul Weakley, the same man who led the authorities to
Speaker 2: the murder victims buried on Selenski's property. According to Weekly,
Speaker 2: Selensky had told him that he and Michael Kurkowski saw
Speaker 2: Cindy walking down the street, thought she was a sex worker,
Speaker 2: and decided to abduct her. Kurkowski then kept Sydney confer
Speaker 2: find inside is safe at his home to have his
Speaker 2: way with her for a while before she died curiously.
Speaker 2: Not even the accounts of this story described Cindy's exact
Speaker 2: cause of death, only that she died while in captivity,
Speaker 2: but afterward Selenski and Kurkowski proceeded to bury her body
Speaker 2: somewhere together. It's been established that none of the victims
Speaker 2: found on Selenski's property in two thousand and three were Cindy,
Speaker 2: but there is some confusion about how many victims there
Speaker 2: actually are. Initially, it was reported that they only found
Speaker 2: the remains of five people, but a grand jury report
Speaker 2: from twenty fourteen stated that Selensky was believed to be
Speaker 2: involved in the murder of twelve people, and Weekly claimed
Speaker 2: that Selensky was responsible for at least sixteen murders. I
Speaker 2: think some of the confusion might stem from the fact
Speaker 2: that a number of bone fragments were found in a
Speaker 2: burn pit, and some of them were so badly burned
Speaker 2: and destroyed that it was impossible to extract any DNA
Speaker 2: from them. We know some of these fragments belong to
Speaker 2: Frank James a Day, a healer, and a third person
Speaker 2: who has never been publicly identified, but it's possible. They've
Speaker 2: since determined that there's some remains there which belong to
Speaker 2: other people.
Speaker 3: What do we know about Weekly himself. Is it possible
Speaker 3: that he could have actually been part of this and
Speaker 3: had an ability to put people on Selenski's property with him,
Speaker 3: or is he been ruled out as having any kind
Speaker 3: of foul play recognition with Selensky.
Speaker 2: They're not entirely sure yet, because he does seem like
Speaker 2: he could be a compulsive liar, and I know that
Speaker 2: he definitely helped with the disposal of some of these
Speaker 2: bodies at the very least. And they think that maybe
Speaker 2: he's just making up stories because he's trying to beat
Speaker 2: his own charges and hoping that if he can offer
Speaker 2: more information maybe he'll get a reduced sentence or something.
Speaker 2: So authorities have never been entirely clear about whether everything
Speaker 2: he's telling is the truth.
Speaker 3: I think it's very scary that the grand jury report,
Speaker 3: not just Weekly, but a grand jury report actually believes
Speaker 3: Lensky's involved in the murder of up to twelve people.
Speaker 3: That's insane because right now, really it's five, three to five,
Speaker 3: and then they said, well, actually we believe it's twelve.
Speaker 3: That's an insane victim count for somebody.
Speaker 1: And it can't just be this arbitrary number that they're
Speaker 1: coming up with. They must have people that have disappeared
Speaker 1: or that they believe are murdered that are very specific,
Speaker 1: like they know the identities of them. Otherwise, how could
Speaker 1: you just put a number out there like, oh, it's twelve,
Speaker 1: since you know that there's at least the remains of
Speaker 1: three people there. I don't understand how they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be this other nine people unless you just think he's
Speaker 1: this killer and he's got these other like associates if
Speaker 1: they're doing illegal things together and a lot of these
Speaker 1: associates have disappeared, and it seems like he's a common denominator.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's always been very secretive about how they came
Speaker 2: in with that number twelve, because there are just so
Speaker 2: many bone fragments all over the property, Like how do
Speaker 2: you term in an exact number from what you find?
Speaker 2: So it does make me think that they have more
Speaker 2: information than they're letting us know. But this grand jury
Speaker 2: report came out nearly ten years ago, and we still
Speaker 2: don't have any further information about why they came to
Speaker 2: that number. And Selensky has never been linked to any
Speaker 2: additional murders.
Speaker 1: But even if the authorities have managed to uncover additional
Speaker 1: victims who were murdered on Selenski's property, I really don't
Speaker 1: think it's relevant to Cindy's case. Remember, Selenski did not
Speaker 1: actually move on to this property until the spring of
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, months after Cindy went missing. In fact,
Speaker 1: his entire motive for murdering Kurkowski around this time period
Speaker 1: was because he needed money to close on the purchase
Speaker 1: of his new home. So if Selensky was involved in
Speaker 1: Cindy's murder, he probably would have buried her body somewhere else.
Speaker 1: And unless Lensky decided to recover her remains at a
Speaker 1: later time and then move them to his property in
Speaker 1: order to bury your birth in them, I have my
Speaker 1: doubts that you're ever going to find her there. But
Speaker 1: all this talk about remains is completely irrelevant. If Paul
Speaker 1: Weakley's story about Cindy's alleged abduction and murder aren't even
Speaker 1: true and there are definitely some serious credibility issues with him.
Speaker 1: The problem is that both Selenski and Michael Kurkowski were
Speaker 1: accused of committing this crime together and I'm not entirely
Speaker 1: sure if this fits Kurkowski's profile. The reason Selensky and
Speaker 1: Kurkowski became acquainted in the first place is because Krekowski
Speaker 1: had been charged with several felonies because of his illegal
Speaker 1: prescription drug bring. While he was out on bond, Selensky
Speaker 1: convinced Kurkowski to pay him to help him out with
Speaker 1: his legal issues, but of course this turned out to
Speaker 1: be nothing but an elaborate scam to extort money from Kurkowski. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Krekowski was not a saint, and he deserved to spend
Speaker 1: time in prison for his crimes, but as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, he did not have any known propena
Speaker 1: city for violence before his legal troubles. He was a
Speaker 1: married man with two children who ran a successful pharmacy,
Speaker 1: and it seems like his crimes were entirely motivated by greed.
Speaker 1: There doesn't seem to be anything in his background to
Speaker 1: suggest that he was a type of guy who would
Speaker 1: abduct a woman, keep her imprisoned as a sex slave,
Speaker 1: and then kill her.
Speaker 3: And what's really interesting is that these are he's committing
Speaker 3: white collar crimes. He's stealing illegal prescription drugs. I believe
Speaker 3: in selling those from the pharmacy, and so that's a
Speaker 3: very different level of crime than let's say a street
Speaker 3: drug dealer who might actually be involved in things like
Speaker 3: sex work, all kinds of things where he's doing other
Speaker 3: street crimes to help supplement or provide more power and
Speaker 3: control on the streets for him. So I keep wondering
Speaker 3: what the heck did Kurkowski think Selensky was going to
Speaker 3: help him with when he went and started getting conned
Speaker 3: out of money from Selensky. What did Selensky offer?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that part is confusing to me because it's not
Speaker 2: like he was a lawyer, so I don't know what
Speaker 2: he thought Selensky was going to do to help him,
Speaker 2: to help him to cause him to beat his charges.
Speaker 2: So he must have been a very smooth talking con man.
Speaker 2: But Jules brought this up in the last episode, and
Speaker 2: while this has never been conclusively proven, we also wondered
Speaker 2: if Kurkowski might have had addiction issues, that maybe he
Speaker 2: had been having issues with a lot of these prescription
Speaker 2: drugs himself and that's why he became desperate enough in
Speaker 2: order to start selling them legally because he desperately needed money. So,
Speaker 2: like I said, he may not be a bad person
Speaker 2: at heart. He may have just done a bad thing
Speaker 2: because he was desperate, and that's a far cry from
Speaker 2: actively participating in the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of
Speaker 2: a woman. At the time Cindy disappeared, Kurkowski's wife had
Speaker 2: already divorced him and moved out of his house with
Speaker 2: their kids. But no one is certain when he began
Speaker 2: his relationship with his new girlfriend, Tammy Fassett. We know
Speaker 2: she was at Kurkowski's home on the day Selensky killed him,
Speaker 2: but I'm not entirely sure if they were living together
Speaker 2: at the time. Regardless, if Kurkowski and Fasett were involved
Speaker 2: in a serious relationship in November of two thousand and
Speaker 2: one and she was often frequenting his home, would he
Speaker 2: really be keeping a kidnapped sex slave in prison inside
Speaker 2: a safe But even if you don't believe Kurkowski was
Speaker 2: a sex criminal, that doesn't really fit Selenski's profile either.
Speaker 2: As awful as Selensky is, it seems like the murders
Speaker 2: he committed were motivated purely by financial game, as he
Speaker 2: killed his four known victims in order to rob them.
Speaker 2: I see nothing to indicate that he was the type
Speaker 2: of guy who would abduct random women off the street
Speaker 2: in order to rape and murder them. The circumstances of
Speaker 2: this alleged crime really don't make much sense. Kurkowski was
Speaker 2: out on bond facing potential prison time, and Selensky is
Speaker 2: supposed to be helping him with his legal situation, So
Speaker 2: would Kirkowski really want to take the risk of abducting someone.
Speaker 2: It's also where mentioning that Kurkowski lived in Humlock Creek,
Speaker 2: which is over two hours away from State College. So
Speaker 2: the idea of him and Selensky making a four hour
Speaker 2: round trip to cruise the streets and abduct a random
Speaker 2: woman at four am before taking her back to Kurkowski's
Speaker 2: home just doesn't ring true to me.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't really seem to fit. I agree with you.
Speaker 3: Even Selenski doesn't seem to be the sexually motivated, crazed
Speaker 3: killer that would be someone. As he's driving past, he
Speaker 3: sees his girl on a playboy bunny outfit and abducts
Speaker 3: her and keeps her. Right, that's a whole nother level.
Speaker 3: You're going to take the risk of keeping her for
Speaker 3: days and abusing her and then killing her with other
Speaker 3: people like a lot of those things totally changed the
Speaker 3: organization and the style of a killer. Selensky seems to
Speaker 3: use people for financial gain and murder them and hind them.
Speaker 3: Never before have we seen him really killing with someone else.
Speaker 3: Un last week happens to be part of it as well.
Speaker 3: But it is odd. It's very weird, especially for Kurkowski.
Speaker 3: He had a good life and even if he was
Speaker 3: struggling with addiction, obviously he's facing legal issues. He was
Speaker 3: just just a different part of his life. Like if
Speaker 3: he's trying to get away from these legal charges, try
Speaker 3: to figure out how to get his LFE back on track,
Speaker 3: and he truly thinks Celensky can help him. Why all
Speaker 3: of a sudden is he going to take those kinds
Speaker 3: of big risk and say, you know what we should do, abduct, torture,
Speaker 3: hold and then kill a girl together. Just doesn't seem
Speaker 3: to make sense.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest issue is that the only thing
Speaker 1: linking these two men to Cindy's disappearance is Paul Weekley,
Speaker 1: who is just not a very credible source. It was
Speaker 1: established the Weekly had downloaded articles about Cindy's case off
Speaker 1: the Internet prior to sharing his story, so he very
Speaker 1: well could have been looking up information about random Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: cold cases and keeping it in his back pocket if
Speaker 1: he ever felt like feeding something to the authorities. To reiterate,
Speaker 1: Weekly decided to snitch on Selenski and lead authorities to
Speaker 1: the remains on his property because he was facing a
Speaker 1: burglary charge, but he did not tell the full truth
Speaker 1: about what happened. He initially claimed that Patrick Gruson was
Speaker 1: with Selenski when he murdered Michael Kurkowski and Tammy Fassett,
Speaker 1: but it actually turned out that Weekly himself was there instead.
Speaker 1: Weekly also initially said that Selensky murdered Krekowski because he
Speaker 1: was angry about him keeping Cindy's bunny ears as a souvenir,
Speaker 1: but it turned out the real motive was to steal
Speaker 1: sixty thousand dollars from Kurkowski's house, and Weekly conveniently neglected
Speaker 1: to mention that he personally got cut out of that money.
Speaker 1: So you can see why he might feel the need
Speaker 1: to fabricate a story about Cindy's abduction and pin the
Speaker 1: crime on a guy who was already dead in order
Speaker 1: to take the heat off of himself. But there might
Speaker 1: actually have been an ulterior motive for this. What if
Speaker 1: this was actually Selenski and Weekly who abducted and murdered Cindy.
Speaker 1: When the allegation's first surface, Selenski's defense attorney claimed that
Speaker 1: several people could place his client over one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty miles away in wilkes Bury at the time that
Speaker 1: Cindy went missing. Although I'm not sure if this was
Speaker 1: ever confirmed, But if Selensky wasn't involved, could it be
Speaker 1: possible that Weekly himself might be responsible for Cindy's disappearance.
Speaker 1: This might explain why he had so much information about
Speaker 1: Cindy on his computer. After all, if weakly wanted to
Speaker 1: divert suspicion away from himself, pinning the crime on an
Speaker 1: associate who already had a bunch of murder victims buried
Speaker 1: on his property wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.
Speaker 1: It's definitely an intriguing theory, But much like Selenski, it
Speaker 1: seems like most of Weekly's crimes were motivated by financial gain,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing in his background to suggesse he's a
Speaker 1: sexual predator.
Speaker 3: I think we really could have a lot of motivations.
Speaker 3: I definitely think he could be the person who did it.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's, like you said, not a not a
Speaker 3: dumb idea. If you know that you have an associate
Speaker 3: who's pretty evil themselves, and you do something that's dark
Speaker 3: and devious, why not just blame it on the person
Speaker 3: that's already going to go down for a lot of
Speaker 3: really bad things. But I also think like Weekly could
Speaker 3: have had a falling out with Selinsky. Selensky could be
Speaker 3: threatening Weekly, and there could be like a revenge kind
Speaker 3: of thing where he wants to just get back at Selensky.
Speaker 3: And I mean blatantly say I'm lying about you, but
Speaker 3: here you go, I'm turning against you on this case.
Speaker 3: Or it's very possible too, Like you said earlier, that
Speaker 3: Weekly is trying to get favoritism with whoever he's going
Speaker 3: to be up against for legal issues, you know, the
Speaker 3: prosecutor or law enforcement things like that, to get better
Speaker 3: treatment for himself. And so it's really nothing to do
Speaker 3: with Selinsky. He's just saying, Hey, I'm going to help
Speaker 3: the police because then they'll see me as someone who's valuable.
Speaker 3: I could be more of an informant and maybe they'll
Speaker 3: reduce my charge. They'll actually lighten up things that they're
Speaker 3: doing against me because I'm helping them.
Speaker 2: That definitely would make sense to me, because he was
Speaker 2: facing all these charges and he knows that his former
Speaker 2: assays he has all these human remains buried on his property,
Speaker 2: so he could just say, hey, I can pick some
Speaker 2: other missing girl whom I found in the news and
Speaker 2: claim that she's among the remains, and maybe they'll give
Speaker 2: me some leniency. Be able, they'll believe me. But they
Speaker 2: just never found any conclusive evidence to approve that. Overall,
Speaker 2: there has never been any hard evidence to implicate Selensky, Kurkowski,
Speaker 2: or Weekly in this crime, and when you look at
Speaker 2: the situation as a whole, it just seems more likely
Speaker 2: that the real perpetrator was someone who was yet to
Speaker 2: show up on the radar. Weekly probably learned about Sidney's
Speaker 2: disappearance on the internet and decided to fabricate a story
Speaker 2: about Selensky's involvement in order to potentially earn some brownie
Speaker 2: points from the authorities. On the one hand, I really
Speaker 2: hope Weekly story isn't true, since it's horrifying to consider
Speaker 2: the idea of Sidy being held captive in a safe
Speaker 2: and being repeatedly sexually assaulted before her death. But on
Speaker 2: the other hand, if you completely disregard Weekly's story, then
Speaker 2: that means the investigation is back at square one and
Speaker 2: there are no other leads or suspects. Sadly, Cindy was
Speaker 2: probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time,
Speaker 2: and while she was walking to the market, some predator
Speaker 2: happened to notice an attractive young woman walking alone, and
Speaker 2: since there was no one else around during the wee
Speaker 2: hours of the morning, he took advantage of the situation
Speaker 2: by abducting her. If no one saw anything and the
Speaker 2: perpetrator did leave any evidence behind, it's going to be
Speaker 2: very difficult to figure out who is responsible. The best
Speaker 2: hope for solving this case is if Cindy's remains just
Speaker 2: happened to be found somewhere, or if whoever was involved
Speaker 2: in her disappearance decides to talk. Remember, for the first
Speaker 2: year that Michael Kurkowski and Tammy Fasset were missing, everyone
Speaker 2: just assumed they were wanted fugitives on the run until
Speaker 2: Paul Weekly talked and revealed they were buried on hyug
Speaker 2: Selenski's property. So maybe the same thing will happen in
Speaker 2: this case, and Sydney's remains will be recovered. If you
Speaker 2: happen to have any information about the unsolved disappearance of
Speaker 2: Sidney Song, please contact the Ferguson Township Police Department at
Speaker 2: eight one four two three seven one one seven two.
Speaker 2: That's eight one four two three seven one one seven
Speaker 2: two Jules Ashley. Any final thoughts in this case.
Speaker 3: The missing person's cases break my heart in a different
Speaker 3: way that there's a family wondering what happened to our
Speaker 3: baby girl and knowing that it's likely horrific, knowing that
Speaker 3: it is likely something that is so devastating that the
Speaker 3: human mind can't wrap, you know, its own head around.
Speaker 3: But when you think about it, they have zero peace.
Speaker 3: They don't have a body that they can go visit.
Speaker 3: They don't have the ability to say she was safe
Speaker 3: at the end of her life with us right we
Speaker 3: had our body back, we were able to cremate her,
Speaker 3: bury her, or bring her home to her home country
Speaker 3: like none of that, And so then your brain starts
Speaker 3: to think what could be done to her? Is she deceased,
Speaker 3: is she cold and alone somewhere? Is she being trafficked?
Speaker 3: Is she still alive somewhere? All that I think adds
Speaker 3: a totally different kind of heartbreak to these kinds of cases.
Speaker 3: Her family came here and sent her here thinking she
Speaker 3: was going to get this amazing opportunity, and that's exactly
Speaker 3: what she was doing. She was going to school, she
Speaker 3: was going to parties, she was just being a kid
Speaker 3: and having fun and exploring a new country and making
Speaker 3: new friends. And literally a Halloween evening, I believe she
Speaker 3: was probably doing something she did all the time, which
Speaker 3: was getting settled at home thinking, you know what, I
Speaker 3: want a little snack or something to drink before I
Speaker 3: go to bed, and walking to the very close by
Speaker 3: convenience store, and on that route, especially that night, because
Speaker 3: she was dressed in her Halloween costume, someone increased their
Speaker 3: feeling of vulnerability for her and abducted her and hurt her.
Speaker 3: I do not think Cindy hurt herself. I think she
Speaker 3: had a lot going for her, and her friends were
Speaker 3: able to vouch for the fact that she was happy
Speaker 3: and she was making plans and she was engaged. That night,
Speaker 3: I think someone saw an opportunity and they took it.
Speaker 3: And my heart breaks. It's cases like this that I
Speaker 3: just want her found, no matter what condition. That's inn
Speaker 3: I want her found because there is a different level
Speaker 3: of peace that comes when I know she's at least
Speaker 3: not being hurt by somebody else.
Speaker 1: I really don't have a lot to add on top
Speaker 1: of what Ash said, because you summed it up so succinctly,
Speaker 1: and I agree with every single point that she made.
Speaker 1: My heart breaks for the family, and I truly believe
Speaker 1: that Celenski, Krakowski and Weekly as the informant, are a
Speaker 1: red herring here. I think was an opportunistic predator. Somebody
Speaker 1: just came alway long in that small window of time
Speaker 1: and they snatched her off the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: But I truly hope for the family's sake that they're
Speaker 1: able to have some kind of resolution, that her body
Speaker 1: or her remains will be found somewhere, and that if
Speaker 1: anybody knows anything that at this point, I would truly hope,
Speaker 1: after it's been so many years, it's been like what
Speaker 1: twenty three years at this point, that if somebody had information,
Speaker 1: I would truly hope that they would go to the
Speaker 1: authorities so that this family can get a resolution and
Speaker 1: they can truly heal or at least begin the process,
Speaker 1: because not having a body not having somewhere that you
Speaker 1: can go and visit for a loved one and to
Speaker 1: be able to say what you're thinking, but to know
Speaker 1: that their remains are out there somewhere and they aren't
Speaker 1: where you are is just another kind of horrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember learning about this case on Unsolved Mystery
Speaker 2: shortly after it origidly occurred, and I also vividly remember
Speaker 2: when the news started coming out that her remains could
Speaker 2: be on the property of Hugo Selenski, And there were
Speaker 2: a couple of years where I legitimately believed this was
Speaker 2: the best lead, that Selenski was responsible, and that the
Speaker 2: stories about her abducted and held in captivity were true.
Speaker 2: And it was only after I put together my original
Speaker 2: Trail and Cold episode way back in twenty eighteen and
Speaker 2: started digging more into this that I realized, like you said,
Speaker 2: that this is probably all a red herring, that even
Speaker 2: though Hugo Selenski's a serial killer, he's a monster and
Speaker 2: he's done some awful things, this really isn't his m
Speaker 2: He seems like the type of person who would kill
Speaker 2: people just purely for financial gain in his own benefits,
Speaker 2: and not someone who would abduct a random young woman
Speaker 2: he saw walking down the street at four am. So, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I do believe that this whole lead is not really
Speaker 2: viable and that city was just a victim who was
Speaker 2: in the wrong place at the wrong time, that she
Speaker 2: made a last minute decision to leave her apartments and
Speaker 2: go to a nearby market or something, but someone just
Speaker 2: happened to see her and abducted her. And we just
Speaker 2: don't know who this person is, what they did to her,
Speaker 2: and what they may have done to her body. So
Speaker 2: I guess that is kind of the downside to this
Speaker 2: whole Hugo Soelenski angle not going anywhere? Is that? Where
Speaker 2: do we begin now? Because there's just no evidence whatsoever
Speaker 2: to work with if Cindy was abducted by a completely
Speaker 2: random stranger. But all we can to really do is
Speaker 2: just keep her case out here on the spotlight, spread
Speaker 2: the word, and maybe one of these days the right
Speaker 2: person will come for with information which leads to a
Speaker 2: resolution and her family will finally get some closure.
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 2: which I talk about cases with are not featured on
Speaker 2: the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
Speaker 2: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
Speaker 2: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
Speaker 2: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 2: Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of the Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 4: so they're not very mini, but they're just too short
Speaker 4: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 4: so we hope you check out those patreons will link
Speaker 4: them in the show notes.
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
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Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy