The New York woman accused of murder in her fiance's kayaking death confessed to sabotage even before the body of Vincent Viafore was found, a police investigator testified at a pretrial hearing. Senior investigator Aniello Moscato told the hearing Monday that during a trip to lay a wreath for the missing man last April, Angelika Graswald told another investigator that she had pulled out a plug on Viafore's kayak, which capsized in the Hudson River, ABC News reports. Moscato testified that on a boat ride back to police barracks, Graswald seemed "happy-go-lucky" and joked about jumping off the boat. Viafore's body was found in the river more than a month after he disappeared.
At Monday's hearing, one of the first police officers to respond to the scene said he found Graswald, whose kayak had also capsized, oddly calm and "matter-of-fact" when describing events, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports. He said he heard her cellphone ring at the scene, though she had claimed it had fallen in the water. Prosecutors say Graswald, 36, sabotaged Viafore's kayak so she could collect his life insurance policy and confessed to the killing during a police interview last year, News 12 reports. Her defense argues that the confession was coerced and police faced a language barrier when dealing with Graswald, who's from Latvia. Pretrial testimony on what statements can be admitted in court will continue this week, but her trial is not expected until next spring. (More kayaking stories.)
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