The Kayak Killer Enigma: Unraveling the Controversial Case of Angelika Graswald

[00:00:00] The case featured in this episode has been researched using police records, court documents, witness statements, and the news. Listener discretion is advised. All parties mentioned are innocent until proven guilty and all opinions are my own.

[00:00:34] Editing Nikki here. I practiced saying her name like Angelica like a hundred times, but my brain still reverted to Angelica. So apologies in advance. This entire episode I pronounce her name incorrectly because I'm a dumb dumb who can barely speak English sometimes.

[00:00:56] Hey everyone, my name is Nikki Young and this is Serial Napper, the true crime podcast for naps. I'm back with another true crime story to lull you to sleep or perhaps to give you nightmares.

[00:01:07] It was the early evening hours of Sunday, April 19th, 2015. Vincent Viafor and his fiancé, Angelica Groswald, were trying to enjoy a kayaking adventure in the Hudson River. But the water was cold and choppy, and they were not adequately prepared for the conditions.

[00:01:26] For one, Vincent wasn't wearing a life vest, and his kayak was missing a drain plug. As they tried to cross the river, leaving from Bannerman's Island and heading towards Plum Point Park, disaster struck. Vincent's kayak started to take in water, eventually capsizing,

[00:01:45] leaving him to drown in the choppy river. Angelica called 911 on her cell phone from her kayak, but by the time emergency services arrived, it was far too late to save her fiancé. His body wouldn't be recovered from the water until a month later.

[00:02:02] When Angelica was questioned about how things had taken such a tragic turn, she made several statements that raised the alarm and had detectives wondering whether this was truly an accident or if she had planned his murder. Then there was the detail about the missing drain

[00:02:20] plug, which she admitted to removing from his kayak herself, and then there were witnesses who claimed that they saw her pull Vincent's paddle away from him intentionally, keeping him in the water. Her motive? A $550,000 life insurance policy, according to investigators. So dim the

[00:02:40] lights, put your phone down, and listen to the story of Angelica Groswald, dubbed the kayak killer by the media, who some believe was treated unfairly because she's a woman while others think

[00:02:51] she got away with the perfect murder. So let's jump right in. Angelica Groswald grew up in a middle-class family in Latvia. Her father was a police officer for a time before changing careers

[00:03:03] to work as an administrator at a trucking company. Her mother was a homemaker, who was very much in charge of child rearing. Angelica always enjoyed spending as much of her time outside as possible,

[00:03:16] whether it was swimming, fishing, or camping. She was very much the kind of person who was always looking for her next adventure. So, after graduating from university, she decided to place

[00:03:28] an ad in the newspaper looking for employment as an au pair. Working for a family as an au pair would offer her the chance to travel and see the world, maybe even learn a new language. She was

[00:03:41] excited just thinking of all of the possibilities. She landed her first au pair job working for a Norwegian family who was living in Greenwich, Connecticut, her chance to experience living in the United States. While she enjoyed being abroad in North America, she found the job to be

[00:04:00] challenging. So, after just six months, she quit and instead, she applied to work at a local bar. This would allow her to stay in the states while having a much better work-life balance.

[00:04:13] Over the course of the next decade while still living in America, she would be married twice and divorced twice. She was young and lonely without having her family around her, so things seemed to move quickly in her romantic relationships. Unfortunately, they just didn't work out, but

[00:04:33] she had a lot of positives in her life too. She found a passion for photography and she had the opportunity to take some courses online, landing her a job as a camera operator for some time.

[00:04:45] Even after that employment ended, she never stopped taking pictures. She loved to document the beauty of seemingly mundane things around her. Angelica began volunteering at Bannerman Castle, which is this beautiful, historical, abandoned military surplus warehouse that looks like a

[00:05:04] castle. It's located on a small, picturesque, non-inhabited island in New York. While working as a volunteer there, she took beautiful photos of the gardens and the river and she even gave the other volunteers discs containing all of the photos for them to have as a keepsake. She was

[00:05:23] known as a charming, sweet, hardworking, and vivacious young woman who was generally just very kind to the other volunteers and visitors to the castle. In September of 2013, while she was working at Fishkill Restaurant, 36-year-old Angelica met and began to date 46-year-old Vincent Viafor.

[00:05:45] Though she was 10 years his junior, she was actually older than the girls that Vincent typically liked to date, who were quite a bit younger than him, like in their 20s. Vincent and Angelica had a lot in common. Not only did they both love the outdoors,

[00:06:01] but they had both been divorced twice before, and now they were looking for a fresh start for the real thing. According to friends around them, they just couldn't get enough of one another. They wanted to spend every minute together. Vincent really seemed to have his life together.

[00:06:18] He had a great job working with the NYS Office of General Services Design and Construction as a Certified Code Enforcement Official and a Senior Project Manager for over 20 years. He was also well-liked by just about everyone, including his ex-wives, who he was still on good

[00:06:37] terms with, and he also had a large group of friends. He was known to be the life of the party. His sister would say, quote, "'Vinnie was a good-hearted person. He loved life, loved people. He would be the center of

[00:06:51] attention everywhere he went. He would do anything for anybody.'" Things moved quickly between the couple. Within just a few weeks of meeting, Angelica moved into Vincent's condo and then just five months later, he proposed to her, with an onion ring at a hibachi

[00:07:09] grill. They seemed to be very much in love and happy together. They had plans to marry the following summer in Latvia, but shortly before the wedding, they called it off. According to those closest to the couple, they had begun fighting a lot,

[00:07:25] and there were even times when Vincent had threatened to throw Angelica out of the condo. Later, Angelica would accuse Vincent of pressuring her to do things in the bedroom that she wasn't comfortable with, like having her be submissive to him and also participating

[00:07:42] in threesomes, which just wasn't her jam. Still, they stayed together and they tried to work it out. And that brings us to April 19th, 2015, the day of the kayaking trip. Though the couple woke

[00:07:55] up hungover that morning after a night out, they were determined to go on this kayaking trip. It was an unusually warm and pleasant day for mid-April, but the weather was supposed to turn bad later that evening. They really should have called the whole thing off because they didn't

[00:08:12] get going until around 4.30pm that night. According to Vincent's sister, Laura, he texted her to let her know where he was going, and he even included a diagram of the area, like a map,

[00:08:24] something that in hindsight, she would find unusual. He had never texted her a map of where he was going on any other outings that he had taken, but hindsight is 20-20. The couple set off from Plum Point and they planned to kayak over to Bannerman Island,

[00:08:42] where Angelica was a volunteer. Angelica had with her a purse and she was wearing a life jacket over her sweatshirt. Vincent had his phone, a camera, and a daybag, but he opted not to bother with a

[00:08:56] life vest or any kind of wetsuit. It would take them about half an hour to reach the island, and once they got there, they had plans to do a sexy photoshoot, something that they like to do

[00:09:07] quite often, but it was too cold for the fishnet stockings that Angelica had brought with her. Instead, they walked around the island, drinking a few beers, and taking a few less sexy photos of each other. And then the weather began to turn, and they decided that it would

[00:09:25] probably be best to head back to Plum Point before it was too late. They got into their kayaks, and they headed down the Hudson River just after 7pm. The wind was picking up, and the waves were

[00:09:39] growing, some as high as 3 feet, and Vincent's kayak? It filled with water and ultimately capsized. Vincent was plunged into the cold water with no life vest or wetsuit on. It wouldn't have taken

[00:09:54] long for him to begin to lose all of his gross motor skills because of the freezing temperatures of the river. At approximately 7.40pm, 911 dispatch gets a call from Angelica Groswald, and here is a clip. Tell me exactly what happened. We are kayaking, my fiance.

[00:10:16] Does he have a life vest on? Yeah, he has. Angelica? Angelica, can you hear me? Angelica, are you still with me? Okay, Angelica, can you hear me? Hello? Angelica? Hey, can you hear me? Hi, can you hear me now? I can hear you.

[00:10:56] Okay, did he have... Okay, all right, we've got help on the way. Okay, did he have a life jacket on when he flipped over? He had a little...uh, like a floating thing. He didn't have a vest.

[00:11:08] It wasn't a vest, but he had something to hold...it was something that helped him float? But I don't see him. Oh my god. Can you make your way over towards the Cornwall Yacht Club where you see all the lights? Yes.

[00:11:25] Yeah, start paddling over towards that way, okay? I'm not worried about myself. I'm worried about him. No, I understand. I understand. Okay, I'm gonna put you down. Oh no, okay. Yeah, that's fine. Put me down. Just keep the phone on. I see the boat.

[00:11:38] You see the boat now. Good. Now if you're having a hard time hearing what's happening on the call, I'll summarize it for you. Angelica tells the dispatcher that her fiancé's kayak has slipped over and he's drowning in the river.

[00:11:52] She gives them their location and she tells them to just send anybody who could help. It sounds like she's trying to get her kayak over to him because while he doesn't have a

[00:12:02] life jacket on, he's trying to hold onto a small floating cushion, but the waves are washing her further away from him. Later into the call, she's crying and she says that she can't see Vincent any longer. The dispatcher tells her to try paddling towards the emergency vehicles

[00:12:20] who are now parked on shore. As she's doing this, Angelica's kayak also flips and she falls into the river too, just before a boat rescues her from the water. That night, she's taken by ambulance to the hospital and she's treated for hypothermia

[00:12:37] while search teams attempt to find Vincent in the river. It's time for a quick break and a word from tonight's sponsors. Hang on, I'll be back before you know it. My family is getting ready to make a big move across the ocean to a place where

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[00:14:25] That's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com slash today today. Now back to our story. According to officers who took her statement that evening, Angelica seemed unusually calm for what she had just experienced. Allegedly, she was emotionless.

[00:14:56] Even more strange was a statement given by an eyewitness who claimed that she had actually flipped her own kayak just prior to being rescued by that boat. Investigators also believed that she may have taken away Vincent's paddle so that he

[00:15:12] wouldn't be able to use it to rescue himself, so that he wouldn't have anything to try to stay afloat. The next day, Vincent's blue kayak is recovered near Plum Point. However, the search team fails to find his body, and they have to suspend the search

[00:15:27] because of bad weather. Initially, the kayak trip and Vincent's drowning is treated like a tragic accident. But those close to the situation revealed that Angelica's behavior during the following days made them feel uneasy and a little suspicious.

[00:15:45] According to family members, she began to give her fiancé's belongings away, including his much-loved meat smoker, claiming that he would have wanted them to have it. At a family gathering to honor Vincent's memory, she was seen doing cartwheels.

[00:16:01] His family starts to wonder if perhaps she is a little too happy that her fiancé is now gone. Angelica also makes several strange social media posts, including a photo of herself kayaking with a caption that read, quote, If I only could have paddled harder, damn it.

[00:16:20] On April 29, 10 days after the kayaking incident, Angelica returned to Bannerman Island with a group of volunteers to lay a floral wreath that she had made in honor of Vincent. The police were also there to meet her, and they wanted to speak to her.

[00:16:37] At the time, she had no idea that they were actually looking at her as the person who may be responsible for Vincent's death. So they asked her to show them around the island and to point out any notable locations

[00:16:49] that might help them piece together what had happened to her fiancé. This is when Angelica made several other concerning statements. According to the report, the police officers mentioned that, when they examined Vincent's kayak, they noticed that the drain plug was missing.

[00:17:07] And Angelica informed them that she had actually been the one to take it out, and she had put it in a drawer in their shared apartment. At one point, she had even seen their cat playing with it.

[00:17:18] This, combined with her odd behavior, was enough for investigators to decide to bring her back to the station for further questioning. And it's here that she would be interrogated for 11 hours, which is a grueling amount of time.

[00:17:42] I'm afraid, and we all hoped for it, that he was going to be gone. He felt that way. Before any of the hard-hitting questions were asked, one officer could be heard on the recording saying, And Angelica kind of took that to heart.

[00:18:16] She didn't ask for a lawyer because she didn't realize that she was being looked at as a murder suspect. Still, she talks about how she had actually wanted Vincent to die because of how controlling he was and all of the sexual demands that he made of her.

[00:18:32] She said that he pushed her for them to engage in threesomes, despite the fact that Angelica didn't want to. According to her statements, he wanted her to be submissive in the bedroom and he wanted to dominate her, which made her extremely uncomfortable and it caused them to fight.

[00:18:49] She alleged that he was kind of addicted to porn and he wanted to reenact situations that he saw in these porn videos. Angelica said, But she also denied killing him. She admitted to removing the drain plug from her fiancé's kayak, but she says that it

[00:19:09] had been removed months prior to the incident and it was now just sitting in a drawer of their apartment. Investigators questioned her about keeping the paddle away from Vincent while he was in the water, and she flat out denies it, stating that yeah, she did grab onto the

[00:19:24] paddle, but it had already drifted away from him because his hands were full. He may have even pushed it towards her to pick up so that the paddle didn't get lost. Towards the end of the interrogation, she makes several more strange remarks.

[00:19:39] She says something about sentencing that her fiancé was going to die that day and how she felt at peace now. The investigator asks, And she answers, I wanted to be free. It was a startling confession.

[00:19:58] If nothing else, she was incredibly naive about how her statements might have consequences, but she didn't seem to notice the way the room had shifted. When she was done talking, 11 hours later, she asked if she could go home to feed her cats.

[00:20:17] And this kind of reminds me of the interrogation of Brendan Dassey. He was accused and eventually convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach. He was 16 years old when he was questioned by the police for hours without his mother present or a lawyer present.

[00:20:33] He also has a very low IQ, and it's evident in the way that the questions were presented that he was being led towards a very specific narrative. There were things that they wanted him to say and they were setting him up to say.

[00:20:47] At the end of his interrogation, when he has now admitted to murder, he asks if he can go home and watch wrestling. He has no idea of what has just happened. Brendan would spend the last 18 plus years trying to exonerate himself and to get out of prison.

[00:21:04] When Angelica's interrogation was over, they put her into handcuffs and they told her that she was being arrested for the murder of her fiancé. She would later say that it wasn't until that moment that she realized she was a suspect in his death.

[00:21:19] Angelica Groswald was charged with second-degree murder and eventually manslaughter. They believed that she had deliberately removed the drain plug for his kayak so that it would fill up with water and capsize. They also believed that she had tampered with his paddle by removing the ring that

[00:21:38] secured it together. And then when he fell into the water, they believed that she kept the paddle away from him so that he couldn't hold onto it and would ultimately drown. The motive? Two life insurance policies totaling around $550,000.

[00:21:55] Vincent had added Angelica as the beneficiary of the policies just months after they began dating. It's a lot of money for most people, but especially for Angelica who came from nothing and owned nothing of value.

[00:22:10] She would plead not guilty to the charges of murder in the second degree and manslaughter in the second degree. Her bond was set at $9 million because the judge considered her a serious flight risk.

[00:22:24] While she was in custody waiting to go to trial, the body of her fiancé Vincent Viafor is recovered from the Hudson River. He had been missing in the water for a little bit over a month.

[00:22:36] It's a small bit of solace that his family can now lay him to rest. That fall, while still awaiting for her trial to begin, Angelica gives an interview to 2020. And of course, she's asked about the statements that she made to the police during her

[00:22:51] interrogation, particularly what she said about being at peace with his death and just wanting to be free. She would clarify that quote, What I meant was I wanted to be free from the lifestyle that we had, the nightlife, the strip clubs, the threesomes.

[00:23:08] I didn't want any part of that. I wanted to be free from that. But as far as he goes, I wanted to be with him. Vincent's family has never believed that to be true, that he was the kind of person

[00:23:22] that would have threesomes and dominate her in the bedroom. But truly, how would they ever know what he was like in the bedroom with his romantic partner behind closed doors? Angelica's defense attorney fought to have her confession tossed because he says it's

[00:23:36] basically meaningless and it was obtained illegally. According to the defense, Angelica only became a suspect in her fiance's death after she told the detectives about the drain plug that she had removed and how she took her fiance's paddle after the kayak had capsized.

[00:23:53] But at that point, she had not been read her Miranda rights. So they didn't have any reason to push things further. Her attorney also claimed that the alleged confession was coerced after a grueling 11 hours of interrogation.

[00:24:08] Still, the judge ruled that the taped confession could be admitted into court. It's really the most damning piece of evidence that the prosecution had. The other evidence, well, it was all kind of just circumstantial.

[00:24:21] At the end of the day, Angelica would be tried based upon whether or not the jury believes that she was happy her fiance had died. Her defense team knew that they would have an uphill battle because her behavior certainly

[00:24:34] wasn't typical for what you would imagine a grieving lover to be. But did that make her a killer? An expert working for the defense team certainly didn't think so. According to forensic scientist Michael Archer, this case had all of the signs of an accidental drowning.

[00:24:52] The water was cold and frigid. It was really windy that night, and the waves were growing as high as 5 feet. Even the most experienced kayakers would have had trouble staying upright in those conditions.

[00:25:06] Vincent didn't have a life jacket on or wasn't wearing a wetsuit, so he would have lost most of his bodily functions within minutes of falling into the water. It would have made it nearly impossible for him to swim or to hold onto anything.

[00:25:20] Combine that with the fact that they had been drinking beer when they were walking around the island just moments before, and that could all add up to an accidental death. But what about that drain plug, which Angelica had admitted to removing during the off-season

[00:25:36] and then putting into a drawer? During reenactments of the situation, keeping the drain plug out of a kayak that they used to test to see what would happen, the water that the kayak took on was very minimal. The plug is actually on top of the boat.

[00:25:50] It's not on the bottom, and it's only about the size of a pinky finger. So the only water that it would have taken on was from the waves, and it would have been the smallest amount.

[00:26:02] These experts believe that the kayak actually took water on from the cockpit, where Vincent had been sitting. It's obviously the biggest, widest opening, and that would have been due to the weather conditions. It would have been due to the wind causing the high waves, not by human action.

[00:26:18] Police also allege that Angelica had tampered with the paddle by removing the ring that kind of holds the two ends together. But according to the experts, the paddle performs perfectly fine even without that ring.

[00:26:30] And even if Angelica hadn't taken the paddle out of the water, if Vincent had been able to hang onto that paddle, it likely wouldn't have been enough to save him. Not without a life jacket.

[00:26:42] Any significant amount of weight on the paddle would have instantly sunk it, and they tested this using a brick, which is much lighter than the body of a human being. Still, the statements made by Angelica didn't look good, and the defense team knew it.

[00:26:57] So when the prosecution offered a plea deal, her attorney encouraged her to take it. Angelica would need to plead guilty to the lesser felony charge of negligent homicide. She would be able to maintain her innocence of intentionally killing Vincent, but she

[00:27:13] would have to admit that she was aware of the risks that were taken that day, which all contributed to his tragic drowning. Which in my opinion is kind of crazy if you think about it. Vincent was a grown man of almost 50 years old.

[00:27:28] He decided not to wear a life vest or a wetsuit. He also decided to use his kayak on the choppy river that day, which is not suited for that kind of water. It's absolutely horrible that he drowned, but if we're assuming that Angelica didn't

[00:27:43] intend for her fiancé to die that day, then it does seem a bit unfair to charge her with a felony for the decisions that he willfully made. I know personally my husband doesn't listen to a word I say, especially of things like

[00:27:57] that where he thinks he knows best. Like life jackets? I could tell him until I'm blue in the face and he is not going to listen to me if he doesn't want to.

[00:28:04] He is a grown man and I want to keep him safe, but sometimes, you know men, they think they're like Superman. This plea deal does make sense for the prosecution if they truly believe that she did kill Vincent,

[00:28:17] but they aren't confident that they'll be able to get a guilty verdict. It's one of the troubling things about our justice system. Sometimes a person has to take the charge. They have to take the jail time.

[00:28:29] They have to take the felony, even if they're innocent, just so that they can escape a life behind bars where their life would be over. And sometimes a guilty person who truly has done it, they get a lessened sentence just

[00:28:44] to face any kind of justice at all, just to have that criminal charge, any kind of charge on their record. Otherwise, they'd be walking free. There's really no winning. Angelica's attorney Richard Portale would give the following statement. Quote, she loved Vincent. She cared for him.

[00:29:01] Never in her wildest dreams did her conduct cause his death. But after 27 months in jail, Groswald now understands her decisions started a fatal chain of events. With the accepted plea deal, a jury would never hear the recording of that 11-hour interrogation.

[00:29:19] It may have been the best decision for her because it's difficult for many to understand how someone who has just tragically lost their fiancé could act so cold, so calm, and even euphoric after their death.

[00:29:33] Angelica believes that part of the reason why she appeared so careless was mostly due to her upbringing. She said, quote, Russian women are not meant to be seen crying or as weak or broken.

[00:29:45] Angelica would be sentenced to serve one and a half to four years in state prison, the maximum allowed for criminally negligent homicide, but she would be released after serving just over two and a half years.

[00:29:58] In the end, she would also be able to collect on Vincent's life insurance policy, at least a portion of it, though the amount that she did receive has been kept confidential. For obvious reasons, typically convicted murderers can't financially benefit from the deaths of their victims.

[00:30:15] I mean, that's kind of clear. But because she took this plea deal for negligent homicide, she was able to cash in on her portion. Vincent's family did file a wrongful death lawsuit to try to prevent her from getting

[00:30:29] any of his insurance money, but they did withdraw their case and it appears that now they just want to move on with their life. Because she accumulated nearly half a million dollars in lawyer's fees during the trial,

[00:30:42] it's probably safe to assume that any money she did inherit went directly to paying her legal team. So now I turn it back to you. Do you think that Angelica intentionally tried to have her fiancé killed?

[00:30:54] And if not, do you think that she should have been held criminally responsible for the things that she did admit to doing, like removing the drain plug or holding onto the paddle? Let me know what you think. That's it for me tonight.

[00:31:08] If you want to reach out, you can find me on Facebook at Serial Napper. I also have a Serial Napper true crime discussion group. It's called Serial Society and you can also search for it on Facebook.

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[00:31:42] I'm over on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Serial underscore Napper and I post things on TikTok. Serial Napper Nick and that's all one word. Until next time, sweet dreams, stay kind, especially in the comments. Bye. Adventure awaits at every turn in Cedar City, Utah.

[00:32:20] Hike through breathtaking red rock canyons, bike along scenic trails, and catch a show at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. There's so much to discover in Cedar City, Utah. Check out visitcedarcity.com to learn more.