GUILTY NY - Vincent Viafore, 46, Newburgh, 19 April 2015 - #1

[SwampMama]

<modsnip>

My husband has one that does not inflate until it hits the water (some kind of tiny pressurized canisters) it is much like almost no life jacket at all (bulkwise) because it has no bulk to it until it inflates.

<modsnip> My other question would be that given the conditions that night. Articles refer to it being 30 degrees (not sure if that was air temp or water temp). Cold air temps mean bulkier clothing, what were they wearing out there like that? Any experienced person knows that bulky clothing makes you more likely to drown so that would be MORE reason to wear one.

Also, that cold temp in the water means that hypothermia sets in real quick. Even on a sunny day in Alaska with warm temps, the water is cold and you can die of hypothermia in water or when wet real quick. Take for instance, when I scuba dive in Florida springs, the air temp may be upper 90's but the water temp is in the 60's and a wet suit is required to dive simply because it is too cold to swim without it. You quickly would lose body heat, be unable to think and other bad things plus it would be very unpleasant.

So to me, it would have been wise to wetsuits on, even short ones or light ones to stay warm, decrease bulk and provide floatation. Did he own a wetsuit of any type or had he ever used on in the past?

 

[dezibela]

I'm a certified kayak coach, so I can answer a few of the questions in this thread.

Skilled paddlers always wear life vests, which are called PFDs (personal flotation device). They are useless if they are just carried on the boat because it would be very difficult to put one on while in the water.

Yes, it would be easy to fall out of a recreational kayak. The cockpits are large. Sea kayakers wear something called a spray skirt, which is a tube that is attached to both the paddler's body and the kayak. A spray skirt can hold you and if you capsize. People in recreational kayaks rarely wear them. Also, it seems unlikely to me that someone who did not wear a PFD would wear a spray skirt.

Paddles are light; even the cheapest paddle is less than 3 pounds, and a good one is about a pound and a half. I don't think it's possible to kill someone with one.

Lastly, in those water temperatures, the appropriate gear is a dry suit. A dry suit looks like something an astronaut would wear, minus the helmet, and is made of waterproof material.

Kayaking fatalities almost always involve paddlers who are not wearing a PFD and appropriate clothing, and who make an error of judgment about the conditions of the water and the time their journey is expected to take.

Hope that helps.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SStarr33]

Check out the photo of his kayak in this slideshow. Is the yellow thing inside the cockpit an inflatable life vest?

Also, who is the dark haired woman in the photo?

http://www.recordonline.com/photogallery/TH/20150430/PHOTOGALLERY/430009997/PH/1

ETA, I just looked at that photo again. It looks like he has that yellow thing around his waist in one of the photos.

 

[hot cawfeee]

I'd assume whatever she wore, he wore as well.........it being so cold out I'd think wet suits and what about reflective clothing???? I am an avid walker and in dusk and early daylight wear high visibilty clothing and carry a flashlight........

 

[JerseyGirl]

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/...ayaker-remembered-fun-loving-active/26806337/

 

[JerseyGirl]

She was eventually saved by a passing boat and called 911 after reaching land to report Viafore missing - she worked as a volunteer gardener on the island.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-reveal-not-victim-s-body.html#ixzz3Z6F2Qwe7

Ahh, I didn't know she called from the island. Maybe that's what the telescope neighbor saw, some inconsistencies in that phone call. Perhaps Vincent was already dead, she killed him on the island - she did volunteer there and knows the island and the castle, calls police, and she pushes him off the island in his kayak (or hide him on the island or so close to shore), goes out in to the middle of the river, falls in the water and gets "rescued".

 

[SStarr33]

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/...ayaker-remembered-fun-loving-active/26806337/

Thanks--I don't think I had seen they recovered his kayak. So that means if she had tampered with it, they would know.

 

[JerseyGirl]

a photo Graswald posted to Facebook after her fiancee&#8217;s disappearance shows her paddling a sit-inside rec kayak without a sprayskirt.

http://www.canoekayak.com/news/kayak-murder-mystery/

 

[JerseyGirl]

Wearing a white prison jumpsuit, a makeup-less Graswald told NBC 4 New York "of course there were inconsistencies." "There still are. It was a crazy time," said Graswald, who worked as a gardener volunteer for the Bannerman Castle Trust. She says she was surprised she was arrested, but "can see why." "I was doing crazy things," Graswald said. She is being represented by Legal Aid.

Graswald said she came to the United States when she was 15 and worked for a few months as a nanny in Greenwich, Connecticut. She had no legal right to be in the U.S. at the time, she said, but she has a green card now. Graswald said she got her first real job tending bar at the age of 21 and is relying on emotional support from her family in Latvia now.

She denied killing Viafore, saying she was falsely accused based on outdated entries in her diary that included her writing there were times she wished him dead because he pushed her for rough sex and wanted her to engage in threesomes.

Graswald began volunteering three years ago in the gardens on Bannerman Island, a landmark for its crumbling, castle-like 19th-century arsenal near the river's east shore.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...-Missing-New-York-Hudson-River-302204221.html

 

[JerseyGirl]

Barbara Gottlock, a friend of Graswald who did volunteer work with her, where she and her husband, whose home overlooks the water, remember seeing Graswald and Viafore just as they pushed their kayaks into the water from Bannerman's Island.

"I could see a woman and a man out there, but I couldn't make out faces," Gottlock said. "We put two and two together and figured that's her. And then she sent a few pictures from the island before she left."

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...-Missing-New-York-Hudson-River-302204221.html

 

[wfgodot]

"We put two and two together and figured that's her."

snip

Hmmm.....

 

[Inthedetails]

The body needs to be found for conviction, imo. I know there have been cases where someone was accused and found guilty of murder without a body, but I'm having doubts that could happen in this case.

The victim is a big, health man who is experienced in the water. The murderer is a small wisp of a woman who was planning to marry the man soon. The victim has not been found.

I envision the defense demanding proof that a death indeed happened. We really don't know without a doubt that the man is dead. I think he is, but it wouldn't be hard to plant a seed of doubt that this is somehow a scam and the man is alive somewhere.

It would also be very easy to plant a seed of doubt that this was an accident and not murder.

Could a jury send her to jail for murder without his body? I'm thinking no.

The fiance said something so incriminating that the police arrested her. But, I think a defense attorney could find excuses for misstatements and say, "Show me the body."

The Hudson at that location has a current that goes both ways, affected by the ocean tides. The body could be upriver or downriver at this point.

 

[wfgodot]

Re: "no body" cases, this is interesting, listing those brought to trial:

http://www.nobodycases.com/no_body2.pdf

 

[Inthedetails]

Re: "no body" cases, this is interesting, listing those brought to trial:

http://www.nobodycases.com/no_body2.pdf

What an interesting list! Thanks for finding that and posting.

When I scroll through it, I see the vast majority of perps are men. There are few women on the list who were convicted of murder without a body, and even fewer who acted alone.

I'm not saying it hasn't been done and can't be done. I'm just saying a jury might not convict without reasonable doubt in this particular case unless the other evidence is so strong.

I'm hoping the body is found before the case is brought to court.

 

[wfgodot]

Orange County -- where the current charges are filed -- had its own no-body trial in 2000:

Two men guilty in Pendino murder case

 

[Inthedetails]

Orange County -- where the current charges are filed -- had its own no-body trial in 2000:

Two men guilty in Pendino murder case

LOL. Okay, you win. No body, no prob.

 

[SStarr33]

LOL. Okay, you win. No body, no prob.

80% conviction rate is pretty good

 

[SStarr33]

LOL. Okay, you win. No body, no prob.

80% conviction rate is pretty good

 

[wfgodot]

LOL. Okay, you win. No body, no prob.

In this case, you're right -- they'd better have the body and the body better tell a prosecutorial tale.

 

[JerseyGirl]

She spoke to PEOPLE Magazine yesterday and FINALLY spoke to lawyers who told her to ZIP IT:

____________________

Vincent Viafore, 46, she says, was a man she loved, with whom she had a simple European beach wedding planned for August and hopes for children.

"I'm devastated," says Graswald of her fiancé's death. Viafore's presence, she says, feels constant. "He's always with me," she says, "and he'll always be with me."

When asked to describe what happened in the water that night, Graswald declined to answer, saying she had met with two attorneys who may represent her and advised her not to talk about the incident.

Graswald tells PEOPLE said that her problem is that she talks too much, that when police read her her Miranda rights, she made the mistake of continuing to talk to law enforcement officials. When asked if she felt police tricked her, she said: "Yes."

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20920379,00.html