Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Cindy Song Pt. Two
Transcript
- 0:27Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathwind Chiley for part two of
- 0:30Speaker 1: our series about the disappearance of Cindy's Song. Robin, do
- 0:34Speaker 1: you want to catch everyone up on what we talked
- 0:35Speaker 1: about in our previous episode.
- 0:38Speaker 2: Well, this is a Halloween mystery involving a twenty one
- 0:41Speaker 2: year old exchange student named Cindy Song who was originally
- 0:44Speaker 2: from Korea. She went out partying on Halloween night, dressed
- 0:47Speaker 2: as a playboy bunny with pink ears and was hanging
- 0:50Speaker 2: out with some of her friends going to a bunch
- 0:52Speaker 2: of clubs. Then around four am on the morning of
- 0:55Speaker 2: November first, her friend dropped her off at her apartment complex,
- 0:59Speaker 2: yet Cindy would somehow vanish without a trace. When they
- 1:02Speaker 2: checked inside her apartment, they found some of her items
- 1:05Speaker 2: from her Halloween costumes, so she did get inside at
- 1:08Speaker 2: some point, but there were no signs of struggle or
- 1:10Speaker 2: forced entry. So the theory which has been pushed forward
- 1:13Speaker 2: is that she may have stepped out to go to
- 1:14Speaker 2: an overnight market or something, but then just cross paths
- 1:17Speaker 2: with the wrong person who wound up abducting her. The
- 1:21Speaker 2: big lead in this case is when they would look
- 1:23Speaker 2: at a serial killer named Hugo Selenski. A couple of
- 1:26Speaker 2: years later, they found a bunch of human remains on
- 1:29Speaker 2: his property, located about a one hundred miles away from
- 1:32Speaker 2: State College. These victims had been murdered and incinerated and
- 1:37Speaker 2: the remains buried, and a former associate of Selenski's named
- 1:41Speaker 2: Paul Weakley would claim that Selenski and another accomplice named
- 1:45Speaker 2: Michael Kurkowski, had driven to State College and picked up
- 1:48Speaker 2: Cindy while she was walking the streets, kept her in
- 1:51Speaker 2: captivity for a little while at the residence, and sexually
- 1:54Speaker 2: assaulted her before she was murdered. But they could not
- 1:58Speaker 2: find any remains on the property that match Cindy. And
- 2:01Speaker 2: of course Michael Kurkowski, the person who allegedly assisted Selensky
- 2:05Speaker 2: with this crime, he was also one of the victims.
- 2:07Speaker 2: They found his remains on the property, so there's been
- 2:10Speaker 2: some doubt about the veracity of Paul Weekly's story. Selensky
- 2:14Speaker 2: has been sent to prison for a number of other murders,
- 2:16Speaker 2: but he has never admitted any involvement in Cindy's case,
- 2:20Speaker 2: So that's the big question here. Was she murdered by
- 2:23Speaker 2: Hugo Selenski or did she cross pass and be murdered
- 2:26Speaker 2: by someone else. But all we really know for certain
- 2:29Speaker 2: that is that here we are nearly twenty four years
- 2:31Speaker 2: later and she is still a missing person. So this
- 2:35Speaker 2: is one of those missing persons cases which offers nothing
- 2:37Speaker 2: but pure frustration for everyone involved. You can understand the
- 2:41Speaker 2: frustration on the part of the victim's family since the
- 2:44Speaker 2: investigation has made such little progress, but you can also
- 2:47Speaker 2: understand the frustration from the police because they have such
- 2:50Speaker 2: little evidence to work with. I know there was a
- 2:53Speaker 2: lot of friction between Cindy's family and the police after
- 2:56Speaker 2: the Song's called a press conference to express their displeasure
- 2:59Speaker 2: with the investigation. The specific mention of the Alicia Koza
- 3:03Speaker 2: Keewitch case seemed to imply that Sidney's disappearance might have
- 3:07Speaker 2: been handled with more urgency if she had been white. Well. Sadly,
- 3:11Speaker 2: race can definitely be a serious issue when it comes
- 3:14Speaker 2: to how missing person's investigations are handled, but I'm not
- 3:17Speaker 2: sure it applies in this particular case. As I'd say,
- 3:20Speaker 2: the problem was not so much police indifference but a
- 3:23Speaker 2: lack of solid leads. They had no witnesses, no physical evidence,
- 3:27Speaker 2: and no potential suspects, and Sidney just happened to go
- 3:31Speaker 2: missing during the early morning hours when most people would
- 3:33Speaker 2: have been asleep. I think the main reason Alicia Koza
- 3:36Speaker 2: Kiwich had so many FBI agents assigned to her case
- 3:40Speaker 2: is because she was a thirteen year old missing child
- 3:42Speaker 2: while Cindy was twenty one and legally an adult. And
- 3:46Speaker 2: since Alicia had gone missing after meeting someone online, there
- 3:49Speaker 2: was a lot more evidence to work with. I suppose
- 3:52Speaker 2: the biggest mistake in Sidney's investigation is when her family
- 3:56Speaker 2: was allowed inside her apartment and they decided to clean it,
- 3:59Speaker 2: destroying potential physical evidence before the police could perform a
- 4:03Speaker 2: more thorough search. It sounds like this whole situation was
- 4:07Speaker 2: due to a miscommunication, but I personally don't believe anything
- 4:10Speaker 2: happened inside the apartment, and I think that Cindy was
- 4:14Speaker 2: most likely abducted after she already left. If that's the case,
- 4:18Speaker 2: then cleaning the place wouldn't have made any difference. The
- 4:21Speaker 2: Ferguson Township Police Department believed that the Song family's dissatisfaction
- 4:26Speaker 2: was due largely to a quote unquote cultural gap between
- 4:30Speaker 2: how investigations are performed in the US and South Korea.
- 4:34Speaker 2: We've actually seen the opposite side of the coin in
- 4:36Speaker 2: cases where an American citizen has gone missing in a
- 4:39Speaker 2: foreign country and their family expressed frustration because the police
- 4:43Speaker 2: were handling the investigation in a different fashion than they're
- 4:46Speaker 2: used to. The fact of the matter is that it
- 4:48Speaker 2: must be a helpless feeling when your child goes missing
- 4:51Speaker 2: thousands of miles away from you. And I'm sure it
- 4:54Speaker 2: was daunting to travel to a country where you don't
- 4:56Speaker 2: even speak the language in order to help out with
- 4:59Speaker 2: the search effort.
- 5:00Speaker 3: And you know what, guys, I think that it's not
- 5:02Speaker 3: just a cultural gap where it needs to be an
- 5:05Speaker 3: international kind of gap. I think there is a natural
- 5:08Speaker 3: disconnect between law enforcement and families because there isn't a
- 5:12Speaker 3: structure in place where law enforcement can be the emotional
- 5:16Speaker 3: support and provide the information that families need when they're
- 5:20Speaker 3: working an active case. So when I would meet with families,
- 5:23Speaker 3: one of the things that I would do is I
- 5:24Speaker 3: would say, here's where the police are limited in giving
- 5:28Speaker 3: you what you need. Right they're working an active case,
- 5:31Speaker 3: even though it's a cold case. For many of the
- 5:33Speaker 3: families I worked with, it's active and so you don't
- 5:36Speaker 3: necessarily even want to be in a position where they
- 5:39Speaker 3: share information that you might later be discussing with someone
- 5:43Speaker 3: and actually harm the case accidentally. Right, that's a big
- 5:46Speaker 3: burden for families to hold. So a lot of times
- 5:49Speaker 3: law enforcement does keep the family at bay, even years later,
- 5:53Speaker 3: because the little information that they have. You don't want
- 5:56Speaker 3: the family to have that information and accidentally share it
- 6:00Speaker 3: with someone who is not necessarily the right party to
- 6:03Speaker 3: share it with. And then when you look at police officers,
- 6:06Speaker 3: I would work with them and say little things like
- 6:09Speaker 3: answering the phone, checking in with the family, trying to
- 6:12Speaker 3: have some more empathy and compassion, even though that's not
- 6:15Speaker 3: your quote job. Trying to add that layer of care
- 6:19Speaker 3: for family members who are actively engaged with you matters.
- 6:22Speaker 3: And so I think it's that just separation of someone
- 6:26Speaker 3: doing their job and truly oftentimes trying to do it
- 6:29Speaker 3: well and family saying well, if you can't find them,
- 6:32Speaker 3: if you can't help us, then you're failing us and
- 6:35Speaker 3: you're failing the victim. That's a natural kind of upset
- 6:38Speaker 3: that's going to occur between those two parties. So it's
- 6:42Speaker 3: so sad here it is hard not to make parallels
- 6:45Speaker 3: to cases that are close by geographically that meet similar
- 6:49Speaker 3: victim characteristics. But here I truly think those two cases
- 6:53Speaker 3: that they're comparing with Alicia and Cindy, you do have
- 6:56Speaker 3: more evidence in Alicia's case, and it's a underagediled that
- 7:00Speaker 3: they thought they might have more leads to follow. So
- 7:03Speaker 3: this whole case is tragic. Cindy was a young kid
- 7:07Speaker 3: going out to have fun, she got home, she made
- 7:10Speaker 3: it home safely, and she probably did what she did
- 7:13Speaker 3: many and many a knight's, which was want to go
- 7:15Speaker 3: get a snack or a drink, and then she ends
- 7:18Speaker 3: up never coming home. So a lot of burden and
- 7:21Speaker 3: heavy grief on the family. And I think the same
- 7:24Speaker 3: kind of grief exists for many law enforcement agents who
- 7:26Speaker 3: wanted to know where is Cindy, if she's still alive,
- 7:30Speaker 3: is she being hurt, how do we protect the community
- 7:32Speaker 3: from whoever took her? So just such such a sad case.
- 7:37Speaker 1: So ask question for you, you've worked sort of as
- 7:41Speaker 1: a bridge or a go between with law enforcement and families.
- 7:44Speaker 1: Do you think that it would have made a greater
- 7:47Speaker 1: impact or a difference if law enforcement had somebody to
- 7:52Speaker 1: facilitate that type of a position with the Song family
- 7:56Speaker 1: that spoke Korean.
- 7:57Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, yes, oh my gosh, yes, honestly needs
- 8:01Speaker 3: to be. There are a few victim advocates that are
- 8:04Speaker 3: provided to each law enforcement agency, but they're understaffed, they're
- 8:08Speaker 3: under resourced, and they honestly don't have the training for
- 8:12Speaker 3: a plethora of crimes. Right you have someone who's willing
- 8:15Speaker 3: to hold a victim's hand and help, but when you
- 8:17Speaker 3: only have two of them or one of them at
- 8:19Speaker 3: a law enforcement agency, you have several cases that need
- 8:23Speaker 3: someone to assist the family and police who are untrained
- 8:26Speaker 3: to do so. If there was that kind of bridge
- 8:29Speaker 3: person who could assist or even come in, especially with
- 8:33Speaker 3: language gaps, even racial gaps, all of those things where
- 8:38Speaker 3: culture does matter, and especially understanding the language of the
- 8:42Speaker 3: officers you're trying to communicate with as a family member
- 8:45Speaker 3: and vice versa for law enforcement, I think it would
- 8:48Speaker 3: have highly changed the dynamic. But again, unless they had
- 8:53Speaker 3: apprehended someone. In Cindy's case, I think in the back
- 8:56Speaker 3: of people's heads, if you can't tell me who did it,
- 9:00Speaker 3: then I'm going to blame you for failing to provide
- 9:03Speaker 3: that information to me, And so that blame that would
- 9:05Speaker 3: normally go to a suspect, it would normally that anger
- 9:09Speaker 3: and disappointment and frustration that would go towards the suspect
- 9:12Speaker 3: has to be funneled somewhere. So oftentimes it's law enforcement
- 9:16Speaker 3: for quote, failing to do their job when sometimes the
- 9:19Speaker 3: evidence just isn't there.
- 9:22Speaker 2: Yeah, we mentioned this on our last episode, but I
- 9:24Speaker 2: know that Cindy's brother became very frustrated because law enforcement
- 9:28Speaker 2: had to get a subpoena in order to search her
- 9:31Speaker 2: phone and internet records, and he was saying, well, we
- 9:34Speaker 2: don't have to do this in Korea. What's the hold
- 9:36Speaker 2: up here? This is wasting valuable time. But it sounds
- 9:39Speaker 2: like someone really didn't take the time to sit down
- 9:41Speaker 2: and explain to him that law enforcement just works a
- 9:44Speaker 2: lot differently in the US than Korea and their procedures
- 9:47Speaker 2: to go through. But they just took it as wasting time,
- 9:50Speaker 2: thinking that going through all this bureaucracy and red tape
- 9:54Speaker 2: was preventing them from finding out what happened to her.
- 9:57Speaker 3: I think any family would feel that way. If you
- 9:58Speaker 3: told me right now you can go help me find
- 10:00Speaker 3: Reagan because there's red tape you've got to go through,
- 10:04Speaker 3: I'd be like, what the hell are you doing? No,
- 10:06Speaker 3: my daughter's missing. You get up now and find her phone,
- 10:09Speaker 3: get her records, get her bank account. We're doing that now,
- 10:12Speaker 3: and the officers would tell me the same thing. We
- 10:14Speaker 3: have to wait. I'd be heartsick, I'd be angry. I'd
- 10:18Speaker 3: be so infuriated that you're allowing her to be hurt
- 10:21Speaker 3: right now by somebody because of your quote red tape,
- 10:24Speaker 3: and you're not finding.
- 10:25Speaker 2: My baby for me.
- 10:26Speaker 3: So it's a very difficult situation, especially with a missing
- 10:29Speaker 3: person versus let's say, finding a deceased victim. Right when
- 10:34Speaker 3: there's the missing person, that urgency is there, that every
- 10:37Speaker 3: second counts is there, and maybe I can get my
- 10:40Speaker 3: arms back around my child.
- 10:42Speaker 2: Please help me.
- 10:44Speaker 1: Anyway. The only thing we know for certain about this
- 10:47Speaker 1: case is the chances of Cindy running away voluntarily or
- 10:52Speaker 1: completing suicide seem pretty much non existent. It was actually
- 10:56Speaker 1: Cindy's own family who pushed forward the theory that she
- 11:00Speaker 1: may have taken her own life because she was despondent
- 11:03Speaker 1: over her breakup with her boyfriend. But you have to
- 11:06Speaker 1: remember that they weren't living near her, and Cindy's friends,
- 11:09Speaker 1: who were around her all the time, insisted that she
- 11:12Speaker 1: had gotten over the breakup and was not feeling depressed
- 11:15Speaker 1: or suicidal. By all accounts, Cindy was in a great
- 11:19Speaker 1: mood on Hallowey night, and it seems unlikely that she
- 11:23Speaker 1: would spend the night partying with friends, go back inside
- 11:26Speaker 1: her apartment to drop off some items, and then leave
- 11:29Speaker 1: again to go somewhere to complete suicide, unless she jumped
- 11:33Speaker 1: into a body of water somewhere or traveled to a
- 11:36Speaker 1: remote area. I think Cindy's remains would have surfaced by
- 11:40Speaker 1: now if she had taken her own life, So the
- 11:42Speaker 1: most logical explanation for her disappearance is an abduction, But
- 11:48Speaker 1: the big question is how would have transpired. The presence
- 11:53Speaker 1: of Cindy's bags, cell phone, and fake eyelashes proved that
- 11:56Speaker 1: she made it inside her apartment after she was dropped off,
- 12:00Speaker 1: but since the rest of her bunny costume was never found,
- 12:04Speaker 1: that seems to indicate that she went missing before she
- 12:06Speaker 1: had a chance to change clothing, so she probably wasn't
- 12:09Speaker 1: in her apartment for very long. Since there was no
- 12:13Speaker 1: sign of struggle or forced entry, it seems like someone
- 12:16Speaker 1: could have knocked on Cindy's door and abducted her after
- 12:19Speaker 1: she opened it, or she was abducted after stepping outside
- 12:23Speaker 1: to go somewhere. I get the impression that the door
- 12:26Speaker 1: was locked when Cindy's roommate returned to the apartment later
- 12:29Speaker 1: that day, and since she didn't seem to notice anything
- 12:32Speaker 1: out of the ordinary, I'd say the second scenario is
- 12:35Speaker 1: far more likely. In spite of the fact that it
- 12:38Speaker 1: was four am. It apparently wasn't that uncommon for Cindy
- 12:41Speaker 1: to visit the nearby twenty four hour market at odd hours,
- 12:45Speaker 1: and given that her purse was missing, she probably made
- 12:48Speaker 1: the impulsive decision to go grab something and wound up
- 12:51Speaker 1: crossing paths with the wrong person.
- 12:54Speaker 3: And think about this too, when you think about the
- 12:56Speaker 3: iconic playboy bunny and the way that boy buddies are sexualized,
- 13:01Speaker 3: there a sexual icon right that you could imagine this
- 13:06Speaker 3: young girl in a bunny costume, right, even though her
- 13:09Speaker 3: ears are back at the house. Let's say she had
- 13:11Speaker 3: on a leotard and a tail or, a cute little
- 13:14Speaker 3: shorts and a tail on it or whatever. On Halloween night.
- 13:18Speaker 3: You could imagine the kind of men who would be
- 13:22Speaker 3: driving around at four am in the morning what they
- 13:26Speaker 3: could be thinking when they pass a young girl like
- 13:29Speaker 3: that what kind of sick, depraved thoughts could go on.
- 13:33Speaker 3: She's alone, there probably aren't many other people out and
- 13:36Speaker 3: about on the streets at that hour, and so I
- 13:38Speaker 3: just feel like the combination of factors playing in right there,
- 13:42Speaker 3: the vulnerability, the sexualization, the kind of depravity that could
- 13:45Speaker 3: come from that could escalate quite quickly.
- 13:48Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking has happened. That if she
- 13:50Speaker 2: was out there alone at four am and just some
- 13:53Speaker 2: predator just happened to be driving by, if he saw
- 13:55Speaker 2: her in the playboy buddy costume, he may have decided
- 13:58Speaker 2: this is a great target. This is who I'm going
- 13:59Speaker 2: to to have ducked. The big issue which hampered the
- 14:02Speaker 2: early stages of the investigation was the lack of suspects,
- 14:06Speaker 2: as Cindy didn't have any known enemies and her ex boyfriend,
- 14:09Speaker 2: the one person who might have had a potential motive
- 14:11Speaker 2: to harmer, was ruled out almost immediately. Since Cindy spent
- 14:16Speaker 2: the night partying at a club, you could easily assume
- 14:18Speaker 2: that someone who was there might have developed a fixation
- 14:21Speaker 2: on her and followed her home. But the problem is
- 14:24Speaker 2: that Cindy left the club at two AM and spent
- 14:26Speaker 2: the next two hours, traveling to various locations such as
- 14:29Speaker 2: a friend's place, before heading back to her apartment, and
- 14:33Speaker 2: I'm not sure anyone would have followed her for that
- 14:35Speaker 2: length of time, particularly if she was in the company
- 14:38Speaker 2: of other friends, and even if they did, they probably
- 14:41Speaker 2: wouldn't have been able to predict that she would enter
- 14:43Speaker 2: her apartment and then decide to leave again at that
- 14:46Speaker 2: time of the morning, So I think her abduction may
- 14:48Speaker 2: have been completely random, as the wrong person could have
- 14:51Speaker 2: seen her walking down the street alone and took advantage
- 14:54Speaker 2: of the situation to grab her. The most prominent eyewitness
- 14:58Speaker 2: sighting of Cindy after she would sing is the woman
- 15:01Speaker 2: who claims she saw in Philadelphia's Chinatown district a few
- 15:04Speaker 2: days later screaming for help while in the clutches of
- 15:07Speaker 2: another man. This led to speculation that Cindy may have
- 15:11Speaker 2: been kidnapped and forced into sex work, and this man
- 15:14Speaker 2: was her handler. However, I'm inclined to think the witness
- 15:17Speaker 2: may have been mistaken and after she saw another Asian
- 15:20Speaker 2: woman who was not Cindy. In fact, I wonder if
- 15:23Speaker 2: her account is even true at all, As investigators claimed
- 15:26Speaker 2: the witnesses story changed multiple times so I'd hate to
- 15:29Speaker 2: think she just made the whole story up. But if
- 15:32Speaker 2: she was telling the truth and she really did see
- 15:34Speaker 2: a completely different woman crying and screaming for help, then
- 15:38Speaker 2: I have to wonder what was going on there. Regardless,
- 15:41Speaker 2: it does not sound like the authorities found the Philadelphia
- 15:44Speaker 2: sighting to be credible.
- 15:46Speaker 3: Yeah, with eyewitness identification, especially if this was like a
- 15:49Speaker 3: cross racial kind of identification, like a Caucasian woman I
- 15:53Speaker 3: didnifind an Asian woman, or let's say that she might
- 15:55Speaker 3: have been a black woman, identifying this Asian woman, you
- 15:58Speaker 3: will see lower rates of successful eyewitness identification. Scientifically, it
- 16:03Speaker 3: just says we paint a canvas clearer on the same
- 16:06Speaker 3: color skin that we have, and so I think that
- 16:09Speaker 3: complicates the situation. I also think that you have to remember,
- 16:14Speaker 3: if Cindy's face is plastered everywhere as a missing girl,
- 16:18Speaker 3: people might in their mind replace the face of the
- 16:21Speaker 3: person they saw with that image that's on the missing
- 16:24Speaker 3: poster or on the news that night. And so I
- 16:27Speaker 3: rarely think eyewitnesses are coming forward trying to complicate or
- 16:32Speaker 3: hurt a scenario or an investigation, But I do think
- 16:36Speaker 3: that they often get it wrong trying to help and
- 16:38Speaker 3: just not having accurate information. If this woman did see
- 16:43Speaker 3: Cindy that day, it does make sense that she could
- 16:47Speaker 3: be trying to scream out in public when she's been
- 16:51Speaker 3: let's say, held captive, and then this man takes her
- 16:53Speaker 3: out for sex work or even just to be out
- 16:55Speaker 3: in public, and when she thinks she has a chance,
- 16:59Speaker 3: she screams for her home. How scary to think if
- 17:02Speaker 3: it was Cindy, she truly was at that moment trying
- 17:05Speaker 3: to get someone to recognize and help her fight for
- 17:07Speaker 3: her life. And it doesn't seem like anything happened from
- 17:11Speaker 3: that dispute in public with this man.
- 17:15Speaker 1: I think it would be a lot more credible if
- 17:17Speaker 1: the witness was Korean themselves, because what we know about
- 17:21Speaker 1: cross racial identification being so poor. Do we know anything
- 17:25Speaker 1: about this witness?
- 17:26Speaker 2: Robin Uh, I'm just going to check the unsolve Mysteri's reenactment.
- 17:30Speaker 2: I mean, I can't say it to be accurate, but
- 17:32Speaker 2: I'm curious to see if the woman was white or
- 17:35Speaker 2: if she was Asian herself. Well, I don't know any
- 17:38Speaker 2: information about her as a person, but let me just see. Uh, Okay, Well,
- 17:43Speaker 2: the reenactment shows that the witness was an Asian woman,
- 17:46Speaker 2: So I'm not sure if there was any cross racial
- 17:48Speaker 2: identification here.
- 17:51Speaker 3: Well, I definitely think that would strengthen her her reporting
- 17:54Speaker 3: at that point that you have same race identification, which helps.
- 17:59Speaker 3: But again, you also have a moment where there's a
- 18:03Speaker 3: struggle and a kind of chaotic scene where a woman's
- 18:05Speaker 3: screaming for help. There's a lot of factors that'll go
- 18:08Speaker 3: into distracting someone's brain from focusing specifically on facial features.
- 18:13Speaker 3: When you have a lot of chaos at the scene,
- 18:16Speaker 3: or you have a weapon present lighting, all kinds of
- 18:20Speaker 3: things matter. So again, I don't think many people come
- 18:24Speaker 3: forward trying to distract police. But I wish our story
- 18:27Speaker 3: had stayed the same, and I wish there had been
- 18:29Speaker 3: more clear evidence that this really was Cindy.
- 18:33Speaker 2: I mean, if she was telling the truth, it might
- 18:35Speaker 2: have been nothing more than a regular domestic dispute involving
- 18:38Speaker 2: a pair of a couple or something like that and
- 18:40Speaker 2: had nothing to do with Cindy.
- 18:42Speaker 1: And who knows, Maybe it was somebody who was in
- 18:45Speaker 1: a situation where they were being trafficked, but it just
- 18:48Speaker 1: wasn't Cindy. For a while, the Philadelphia sighting was the
- 18:52Speaker 1: only major lead in Cindy's case until she was connected
- 18:56Speaker 1: to Hugo Soelenski. Now, like we mentioned in our last episode,
- 19:00Speaker 1: trying to cover Hugo Selenski's story from beginning to end
- 19:04Speaker 1: would probably take an entire long form podcast, and we
- 19:08Speaker 1: don't want to become too distracted by it in order
- 19:10Speaker 1: to take the focus away from Cindy's case. But the
- 19:13Speaker 1: whole story is pretty crazy, and I'm not sure we'll
- 19:16Speaker 1: ever learn the full extent of all the horrific crimes
- 19:19Speaker 1: that Selensky has committed. Before he was charged with any murders,
- 19:24Speaker 1: Selensky was already in jail because he'd been arrested for
- 19:27Speaker 1: extorting money from Michael Kurkowski's father After he murdered Kurkowski
- 19:31Speaker 1: and buried his body. Selensky had the audacity to keep
- 19:35Speaker 1: visiting the guy's father to inform him that his son
- 19:39Speaker 1: was on the run and needed money to help him
- 19:41Speaker 1: hide out. When Krekowski's father eventually became suspicious, Selensky threatened
- 19:47Speaker 1: him with a gun in order to get him to
- 19:49Speaker 1: hand over his money, and in total, he managed to
- 19:52Speaker 1: extort around one hundred thousand dollars from him. Another crazy
- 19:56Speaker 1: part of his saga which we didn't mention is the
- 20:00Speaker 1: shortly after he was charged with the murders of Frank
- 20:02Speaker 1: James and a day Keeler Selenski managed to perform a
- 20:06Speaker 1: daring escape from the Luzerne County prison by trying twelve
- 20:11Speaker 1: bed sheets together as a rope and using it to
- 20:14Speaker 1: climb out a six floor window. He turned himself in
- 20:17Speaker 1: only three days later, but the escape was pretty big
- 20:20Speaker 1: news in Pennsylvania at the time.
- 20:23Speaker 3: How scary when you have this idea that we know
- 20:25Speaker 3: he killed the two people and then he also murdered Kurkowski,
- 20:31Speaker 3: but then he goes and extorts the father of one
- 20:34Speaker 3: of his murder victims and someone who was supposedly quote
- 20:37Speaker 3: his friend.
- 20:38Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah, Like Selensky have been helping Kakowski
- 20:42Speaker 2: out because he had his own legal situation where he
- 20:45Speaker 2: was getting arrested for illegally selling pharmaceuticals. But it seemed
- 20:48Speaker 2: like an obvious con job where he was going to
- 20:51Speaker 2: bleed Kurkowski drive then kill him, and then after he's dead,
- 20:54Speaker 2: he starts trying to bleed money from Kurkowski's father.
- 20:57Speaker 3: That's insane. And in the story from the the other
- 21:00Speaker 3: we have another person who comes forward and says both
- 21:02Speaker 3: of those men were the ones who could have possibly
- 21:05Speaker 3: abducted Cindy.
- 21:06Speaker 2: Right exactly. Yeah, And that's the run reason people are
- 21:10Speaker 2: skeptical because even though Kurkowski was a drug dealer, he
- 21:13Speaker 2: doesn't have any known history of violence. So people are wondering,
- 21:16Speaker 2: would he really team up with Selenski just to abduct
- 21:19Speaker 2: some random woman and then kill her and hold.
- 21:21Speaker 3: Her captive and things like that. That's quite a jump.
- 21:24Speaker 2: Selensky is clearly a sociopathic monster who has murdered multiple people.
- 21:28Speaker 2: But all that being said, I can't say I'm entirely
- 21:32Speaker 2: convinced that he murdered Cindy Song. Let's go back and
- 21:35Speaker 2: examine how Sidney's disappearance was linked to Selensky. To begin with,
- 21:39Speaker 2: this was all due to a secondhand story shared by
- 21:42Speaker 2: Paul Weakley, the same man who led the authorities to
- 21:45Speaker 2: the murder victims buried on Selenski's property. According to Weekly,
- 21:49Speaker 2: Selensky had told him that he and Michael Kurkowski saw
- 21:53Speaker 2: Cindy walking down the street, thought she was a sex worker,
- 21:56Speaker 2: and decided to abduct her. Kurkowski then kept Sydney confer
- 22:00Speaker 2: find inside is safe at his home to have his
- 22:02Speaker 2: way with her for a while before she died curiously.
- 22:06Speaker 2: Not even the accounts of this story described Cindy's exact
- 22:09Speaker 2: cause of death, only that she died while in captivity,
- 22:12Speaker 2: but afterward Selenski and Kurkowski proceeded to bury her body
- 22:16Speaker 2: somewhere together. It's been established that none of the victims
- 22:20Speaker 2: found on Selenski's property in two thousand and three were Cindy,
- 22:24Speaker 2: but there is some confusion about how many victims there
- 22:27Speaker 2: actually are. Initially, it was reported that they only found
- 22:31Speaker 2: the remains of five people, but a grand jury report
- 22:34Speaker 2: from twenty fourteen stated that Selensky was believed to be
- 22:38Speaker 2: involved in the murder of twelve people, and Weekly claimed
- 22:41Speaker 2: that Selensky was responsible for at least sixteen murders. I
- 22:46Speaker 2: think some of the confusion might stem from the fact
- 22:48Speaker 2: that a number of bone fragments were found in a
- 22:50Speaker 2: burn pit, and some of them were so badly burned
- 22:53Speaker 2: and destroyed that it was impossible to extract any DNA
- 22:57Speaker 2: from them. We know some of these fragments belong to
- 23:00Speaker 2: Frank James a Day, a healer, and a third person
- 23:03Speaker 2: who has never been publicly identified, but it's possible. They've
- 23:06Speaker 2: since determined that there's some remains there which belong to
- 23:09Speaker 2: other people.
- 23:11Speaker 3: What do we know about Weekly himself. Is it possible
- 23:14Speaker 3: that he could have actually been part of this and
- 23:17Speaker 3: had an ability to put people on Selenski's property with him,
- 23:20Speaker 3: or is he been ruled out as having any kind
- 23:23Speaker 3: of foul play recognition with Selensky.
- 23:27Speaker 2: They're not entirely sure yet, because he does seem like
- 23:30Speaker 2: he could be a compulsive liar, and I know that
- 23:32Speaker 2: he definitely helped with the disposal of some of these
- 23:35Speaker 2: bodies at the very least. And they think that maybe
- 23:38Speaker 2: he's just making up stories because he's trying to beat
- 23:41Speaker 2: his own charges and hoping that if he can offer
- 23:43Speaker 2: more information maybe he'll get a reduced sentence or something.
- 23:46Speaker 2: So authorities have never been entirely clear about whether everything
- 23:51Speaker 2: he's telling is the truth.
- 23:53Speaker 3: I think it's very scary that the grand jury report,
- 23:56Speaker 3: not just Weekly, but a grand jury report actually believes
- 24:00Speaker 3: Lensky's involved in the murder of up to twelve people.
- 24:03Speaker 3: That's insane because right now, really it's five, three to five,
- 24:07Speaker 3: and then they said, well, actually we believe it's twelve.
- 24:10Speaker 3: That's an insane victim count for somebody.
- 24:14Speaker 1: And it can't just be this arbitrary number that they're
- 24:17Speaker 1: coming up with. They must have people that have disappeared
- 24:21Speaker 1: or that they believe are murdered that are very specific,
- 24:24Speaker 1: like they know the identities of them. Otherwise, how could
- 24:28Speaker 1: you just put a number out there like, oh, it's twelve,
- 24:31Speaker 1: since you know that there's at least the remains of
- 24:33Speaker 1: three people there. I don't understand how they're supposed to
- 24:37Speaker 1: be this other nine people unless you just think he's
- 24:40Speaker 1: this killer and he's got these other like associates if
- 24:43Speaker 1: they're doing illegal things together and a lot of these
- 24:46Speaker 1: associates have disappeared, and it seems like he's a common denominator.
- 24:51Speaker 2: Yeah, that's always been very secretive about how they came
- 24:54Speaker 2: in with that number twelve, because there are just so
- 24:56Speaker 2: many bone fragments all over the property, Like how do
- 24:59Speaker 2: you term in an exact number from what you find?
- 25:03Speaker 2: So it does make me think that they have more
- 25:04Speaker 2: information than they're letting us know. But this grand jury
- 25:07Speaker 2: report came out nearly ten years ago, and we still
- 25:11Speaker 2: don't have any further information about why they came to
- 25:14Speaker 2: that number. And Selensky has never been linked to any
- 25:17Speaker 2: additional murders.
- 25:19Speaker 1: But even if the authorities have managed to uncover additional
- 25:23Speaker 1: victims who were murdered on Selenski's property, I really don't
- 25:27Speaker 1: think it's relevant to Cindy's case. Remember, Selenski did not
- 25:31Speaker 1: actually move on to this property until the spring of
- 25:34Speaker 1: two thousand and two, months after Cindy went missing. In fact,
- 25:38Speaker 1: his entire motive for murdering Kurkowski around this time period
- 25:42Speaker 1: was because he needed money to close on the purchase
- 25:44Speaker 1: of his new home. So if Selensky was involved in
- 25:48Speaker 1: Cindy's murder, he probably would have buried her body somewhere else.
- 25:53Speaker 1: And unless Lensky decided to recover her remains at a
- 25:56Speaker 1: later time and then move them to his property in
- 25:58Speaker 1: order to bury your birth in them, I have my
- 26:01Speaker 1: doubts that you're ever going to find her there. But
- 26:04Speaker 1: all this talk about remains is completely irrelevant. If Paul
- 26:08Speaker 1: Weakley's story about Cindy's alleged abduction and murder aren't even
- 26:12Speaker 1: true and there are definitely some serious credibility issues with him.
- 26:17Speaker 1: The problem is that both Selenski and Michael Kurkowski were
- 26:21Speaker 1: accused of committing this crime together and I'm not entirely
- 26:24Speaker 1: sure if this fits Kurkowski's profile. The reason Selensky and
- 26:28Speaker 1: Kurkowski became acquainted in the first place is because Krekowski
- 26:33Speaker 1: had been charged with several felonies because of his illegal
- 26:36Speaker 1: prescription drug bring. While he was out on bond, Selensky
- 26:41Speaker 1: convinced Kurkowski to pay him to help him out with
- 26:43Speaker 1: his legal issues, but of course this turned out to
- 26:46Speaker 1: be nothing but an elaborate scam to extort money from Kurkowski. Obviously,
- 26:51Speaker 1: Krekowski was not a saint, and he deserved to spend
- 26:54Speaker 1: time in prison for his crimes, but as far as
- 26:57Speaker 1: I can tell, he did not have any known propena
- 27:00Speaker 1: city for violence before his legal troubles. He was a
- 27:03Speaker 1: married man with two children who ran a successful pharmacy,
- 27:08Speaker 1: and it seems like his crimes were entirely motivated by greed.
- 27:11Speaker 1: There doesn't seem to be anything in his background to
- 27:14Speaker 1: suggest that he was a type of guy who would
- 27:16Speaker 1: abduct a woman, keep her imprisoned as a sex slave,
- 27:19Speaker 1: and then kill her.
- 27:20Speaker 3: And what's really interesting is that these are he's committing
- 27:23Speaker 3: white collar crimes. He's stealing illegal prescription drugs. I believe
- 27:27Speaker 3: in selling those from the pharmacy, and so that's a
- 27:31Speaker 3: very different level of crime than let's say a street
- 27:34Speaker 3: drug dealer who might actually be involved in things like
- 27:38Speaker 3: sex work, all kinds of things where he's doing other
- 27:41Speaker 3: street crimes to help supplement or provide more power and
- 27:46Speaker 3: control on the streets for him. So I keep wondering
- 27:50Speaker 3: what the heck did Kurkowski think Selensky was going to
- 27:54Speaker 3: help him with when he went and started getting conned
- 27:56Speaker 3: out of money from Selensky. What did Selensky offer?
- 28:02Speaker 2: Yeah, that part is confusing to me because it's not
- 28:04Speaker 2: like he was a lawyer, so I don't know what
- 28:06Speaker 2: he thought Selensky was going to do to help him,
- 28:08Speaker 2: to help him to cause him to beat his charges.
- 28:11Speaker 2: So he must have been a very smooth talking con man.
- 28:14Speaker 2: But Jules brought this up in the last episode, and
- 28:17Speaker 2: while this has never been conclusively proven, we also wondered
- 28:20Speaker 2: if Kurkowski might have had addiction issues, that maybe he
- 28:24Speaker 2: had been having issues with a lot of these prescription
- 28:27Speaker 2: drugs himself and that's why he became desperate enough in
- 28:30Speaker 2: order to start selling them legally because he desperately needed money. So,
- 28:35Speaker 2: like I said, he may not be a bad person
- 28:37Speaker 2: at heart. He may have just done a bad thing
- 28:39Speaker 2: because he was desperate, and that's a far cry from
- 28:42Speaker 2: actively participating in the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of
- 28:46Speaker 2: a woman. At the time Cindy disappeared, Kurkowski's wife had
- 28:50Speaker 2: already divorced him and moved out of his house with
- 28:53Speaker 2: their kids. But no one is certain when he began
- 28:55Speaker 2: his relationship with his new girlfriend, Tammy Fassett. We know
- 29:00Speaker 2: she was at Kurkowski's home on the day Selensky killed him,
- 29:03Speaker 2: but I'm not entirely sure if they were living together
- 29:05Speaker 2: at the time. Regardless, if Kurkowski and Fasett were involved
- 29:09Speaker 2: in a serious relationship in November of two thousand and
- 29:12Speaker 2: one and she was often frequenting his home, would he
- 29:16Speaker 2: really be keeping a kidnapped sex slave in prison inside
- 29:19Speaker 2: a safe But even if you don't believe Kurkowski was
- 29:22Speaker 2: a sex criminal, that doesn't really fit Selenski's profile either.
- 29:26Speaker 2: As awful as Selensky is, it seems like the murders
- 29:29Speaker 2: he committed were motivated purely by financial game, as he
- 29:33Speaker 2: killed his four known victims in order to rob them.
- 29:36Speaker 2: I see nothing to indicate that he was the type
- 29:38Speaker 2: of guy who would abduct random women off the street
- 29:41Speaker 2: in order to rape and murder them. The circumstances of
- 29:45Speaker 2: this alleged crime really don't make much sense. Kurkowski was
- 29:48Speaker 2: out on bond facing potential prison time, and Selensky is
- 29:52Speaker 2: supposed to be helping him with his legal situation, So
- 29:55Speaker 2: would Kirkowski really want to take the risk of abducting someone.
- 29:59Speaker 2: It's also where mentioning that Kurkowski lived in Humlock Creek,
- 30:02Speaker 2: which is over two hours away from State College. So
- 30:05Speaker 2: the idea of him and Selensky making a four hour
- 30:08Speaker 2: round trip to cruise the streets and abduct a random
- 30:11Speaker 2: woman at four am before taking her back to Kurkowski's
- 30:15Speaker 2: home just doesn't ring true to me.
- 30:18Speaker 3: No, it doesn't really seem to fit. I agree with you.
- 30:21Speaker 3: Even Selenski doesn't seem to be the sexually motivated, crazed
- 30:26Speaker 3: killer that would be someone. As he's driving past, he
- 30:30Speaker 3: sees his girl on a playboy bunny outfit and abducts
- 30:33Speaker 3: her and keeps her. Right, that's a whole nother level.
- 30:36Speaker 3: You're going to take the risk of keeping her for
- 30:38Speaker 3: days and abusing her and then killing her with other
- 30:42Speaker 3: people like a lot of those things totally changed the
- 30:46Speaker 3: organization and the style of a killer. Selensky seems to
- 30:50Speaker 3: use people for financial gain and murder them and hind them.
- 30:55Speaker 3: Never before have we seen him really killing with someone else.
- 30:59Speaker 3: Un last week happens to be part of it as well.
- 31:02Speaker 3: But it is odd. It's very weird, especially for Kurkowski.
- 31:06Speaker 3: He had a good life and even if he was
- 31:09Speaker 3: struggling with addiction, obviously he's facing legal issues. He was
- 31:14Speaker 3: just just a different part of his life. Like if
- 31:17Speaker 3: he's trying to get away from these legal charges, try
- 31:21Speaker 3: to figure out how to get his LFE back on track,
- 31:22Speaker 3: and he truly thinks Celensky can help him. Why all
- 31:25Speaker 3: of a sudden is he going to take those kinds
- 31:27Speaker 3: of big risk and say, you know what we should do, abduct, torture,
- 31:31Speaker 3: hold and then kill a girl together. Just doesn't seem
- 31:34Speaker 3: to make sense.
- 31:36Speaker 1: I think the biggest issue is that the only thing
- 31:38Speaker 1: linking these two men to Cindy's disappearance is Paul Weekley,
- 31:43Speaker 1: who is just not a very credible source. It was
- 31:46Speaker 1: established the Weekly had downloaded articles about Cindy's case off
- 31:50Speaker 1: the Internet prior to sharing his story, so he very
- 31:53Speaker 1: well could have been looking up information about random Pennsylvania
- 31:57Speaker 1: cold cases and keeping it in his back pocket if
- 32:00Speaker 1: he ever felt like feeding something to the authorities. To reiterate,
- 32:04Speaker 1: Weekly decided to snitch on Selenski and lead authorities to
- 32:08Speaker 1: the remains on his property because he was facing a
- 32:10Speaker 1: burglary charge, but he did not tell the full truth
- 32:13Speaker 1: about what happened. He initially claimed that Patrick Gruson was
- 32:18Speaker 1: with Selenski when he murdered Michael Kurkowski and Tammy Fassett,
- 32:22Speaker 1: but it actually turned out that Weekly himself was there instead.
- 32:27Speaker 1: Weekly also initially said that Selensky murdered Krekowski because he
- 32:31Speaker 1: was angry about him keeping Cindy's bunny ears as a souvenir,
- 32:35Speaker 1: but it turned out the real motive was to steal
- 32:37Speaker 1: sixty thousand dollars from Kurkowski's house, and Weekly conveniently neglected
- 32:42Speaker 1: to mention that he personally got cut out of that money.
- 32:45Speaker 1: So you can see why he might feel the need
- 32:47Speaker 1: to fabricate a story about Cindy's abduction and pin the
- 32:51Speaker 1: crime on a guy who was already dead in order
- 32:53Speaker 1: to take the heat off of himself. But there might
- 32:56Speaker 1: actually have been an ulterior motive for this. What if
- 32:59Speaker 1: this was actually Selenski and Weekly who abducted and murdered Cindy.
- 33:04Speaker 1: When the allegation's first surface, Selenski's defense attorney claimed that
- 33:09Speaker 1: several people could place his client over one hundred and
- 33:11Speaker 1: thirty miles away in wilkes Bury at the time that
- 33:14Speaker 1: Cindy went missing. Although I'm not sure if this was
- 33:18Speaker 1: ever confirmed, But if Selensky wasn't involved, could it be
- 33:22Speaker 1: possible that Weekly himself might be responsible for Cindy's disappearance.
- 33:27Speaker 1: This might explain why he had so much information about
- 33:30Speaker 1: Cindy on his computer. After all, if weakly wanted to
- 33:34Speaker 1: divert suspicion away from himself, pinning the crime on an
- 33:37Speaker 1: associate who already had a bunch of murder victims buried
- 33:40Speaker 1: on his property wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.
- 33:44Speaker 1: It's definitely an intriguing theory, But much like Selenski, it
- 33:48Speaker 1: seems like most of Weekly's crimes were motivated by financial gain,
- 33:52Speaker 1: and there's nothing in his background to suggesse he's a
- 33:55Speaker 1: sexual predator.
- 33:57Speaker 3: I think we really could have a lot of motivations.
- 33:59Speaker 3: I definitely think he could be the person who did it.
- 34:02Speaker 3: I mean, that's, like you said, not a not a
- 34:04Speaker 3: dumb idea. If you know that you have an associate
- 34:07Speaker 3: who's pretty evil themselves, and you do something that's dark
- 34:11Speaker 3: and devious, why not just blame it on the person
- 34:14Speaker 3: that's already going to go down for a lot of
- 34:15Speaker 3: really bad things. But I also think like Weekly could
- 34:19Speaker 3: have had a falling out with Selinsky. Selensky could be
- 34:21Speaker 3: threatening Weekly, and there could be like a revenge kind
- 34:24Speaker 3: of thing where he wants to just get back at Selensky.
- 34:28Speaker 3: And I mean blatantly say I'm lying about you, but
- 34:32Speaker 3: here you go, I'm turning against you on this case.
- 34:35Speaker 3: Or it's very possible too, Like you said earlier, that
- 34:37Speaker 3: Weekly is trying to get favoritism with whoever he's going
- 34:40Speaker 3: to be up against for legal issues, you know, the
- 34:45Speaker 3: prosecutor or law enforcement things like that, to get better
- 34:48Speaker 3: treatment for himself. And so it's really nothing to do
- 34:51Speaker 3: with Selinsky. He's just saying, Hey, I'm going to help
- 34:53Speaker 3: the police because then they'll see me as someone who's valuable.
- 34:56Speaker 3: I could be more of an informant and maybe they'll
- 34:59Speaker 3: reduce my charge. They'll actually lighten up things that they're
- 35:02Speaker 3: doing against me because I'm helping them.
- 35:06Speaker 2: That definitely would make sense to me, because he was
- 35:08Speaker 2: facing all these charges and he knows that his former
- 35:11Speaker 2: assays he has all these human remains buried on his property,
- 35:14Speaker 2: so he could just say, hey, I can pick some
- 35:17Speaker 2: other missing girl whom I found in the news and
- 35:19Speaker 2: claim that she's among the remains, and maybe they'll give
- 35:22Speaker 2: me some leniency. Be able, they'll believe me. But they
- 35:25Speaker 2: just never found any conclusive evidence to approve that. Overall,
- 35:31Speaker 2: there has never been any hard evidence to implicate Selensky, Kurkowski,
- 35:34Speaker 2: or Weekly in this crime, and when you look at
- 35:36Speaker 2: the situation as a whole, it just seems more likely
- 35:39Speaker 2: that the real perpetrator was someone who was yet to
- 35:42Speaker 2: show up on the radar. Weekly probably learned about Sidney's
- 35:45Speaker 2: disappearance on the internet and decided to fabricate a story
- 35:48Speaker 2: about Selensky's involvement in order to potentially earn some brownie
- 35:52Speaker 2: points from the authorities. On the one hand, I really
- 35:55Speaker 2: hope Weekly story isn't true, since it's horrifying to consider
- 35:59Speaker 2: the idea of Sidy being held captive in a safe
- 36:02Speaker 2: and being repeatedly sexually assaulted before her death. But on
- 36:06Speaker 2: the other hand, if you completely disregard Weekly's story, then
- 36:09Speaker 2: that means the investigation is back at square one and
- 36:12Speaker 2: there are no other leads or suspects. Sadly, Cindy was
- 36:16Speaker 2: probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time,
- 36:18Speaker 2: and while she was walking to the market, some predator
- 36:21Speaker 2: happened to notice an attractive young woman walking alone, and
- 36:25Speaker 2: since there was no one else around during the wee
- 36:26Speaker 2: hours of the morning, he took advantage of the situation
- 36:29Speaker 2: by abducting her. If no one saw anything and the
- 36:32Speaker 2: perpetrator did leave any evidence behind, it's going to be
- 36:36Speaker 2: very difficult to figure out who is responsible. The best
- 36:39Speaker 2: hope for solving this case is if Cindy's remains just
- 36:42Speaker 2: happened to be found somewhere, or if whoever was involved
- 36:45Speaker 2: in her disappearance decides to talk. Remember, for the first
- 36:49Speaker 2: year that Michael Kurkowski and Tammy Fasset were missing, everyone
- 36:52Speaker 2: just assumed they were wanted fugitives on the run until
- 36:55Speaker 2: Paul Weekly talked and revealed they were buried on hyug
- 36:59Speaker 2: Selenski's property. So maybe the same thing will happen in
- 37:02Speaker 2: this case, and Sydney's remains will be recovered. If you
- 37:06Speaker 2: happen to have any information about the unsolved disappearance of
- 37:09Speaker 2: Sidney Song, please contact the Ferguson Township Police Department at
- 37:13Speaker 2: eight one four two three seven one one seven two.
- 37:16Speaker 2: That's eight one four two three seven one one seven
- 37:20Speaker 2: two Jules Ashley. Any final thoughts in this case.
- 37:25Speaker 3: The missing person's cases break my heart in a different
- 37:29Speaker 3: way that there's a family wondering what happened to our
- 37:33Speaker 3: baby girl and knowing that it's likely horrific, knowing that
- 37:38Speaker 3: it is likely something that is so devastating that the
- 37:41Speaker 3: human mind can't wrap, you know, its own head around.
- 37:45Speaker 3: But when you think about it, they have zero peace.
- 37:49Speaker 3: They don't have a body that they can go visit.
- 37:51Speaker 3: They don't have the ability to say she was safe
- 37:55Speaker 3: at the end of her life with us right we
- 37:57Speaker 3: had our body back, we were able to cremate her,
- 38:00Speaker 3: bury her, or bring her home to her home country
- 38:02Speaker 3: like none of that, And so then your brain starts
- 38:06Speaker 3: to think what could be done to her? Is she deceased,
- 38:09Speaker 3: is she cold and alone somewhere? Is she being trafficked?
- 38:14Speaker 3: Is she still alive somewhere? All that I think adds
- 38:17Speaker 3: a totally different kind of heartbreak to these kinds of cases.
- 38:22Speaker 3: Her family came here and sent her here thinking she
- 38:27Speaker 3: was going to get this amazing opportunity, and that's exactly
- 38:30Speaker 3: what she was doing. She was going to school, she
- 38:33Speaker 3: was going to parties, she was just being a kid
- 38:37Speaker 3: and having fun and exploring a new country and making
- 38:41Speaker 3: new friends. And literally a Halloween evening, I believe she
- 38:45Speaker 3: was probably doing something she did all the time, which
- 38:48Speaker 3: was getting settled at home thinking, you know what, I
- 38:51Speaker 3: want a little snack or something to drink before I
- 38:53Speaker 3: go to bed, and walking to the very close by
- 38:56Speaker 3: convenience store, and on that route, especially that night, because
- 39:00Speaker 3: she was dressed in her Halloween costume, someone increased their
- 39:04Speaker 3: feeling of vulnerability for her and abducted her and hurt her.
- 39:08Speaker 3: I do not think Cindy hurt herself. I think she
- 39:10Speaker 3: had a lot going for her, and her friends were
- 39:13Speaker 3: able to vouch for the fact that she was happy
- 39:16Speaker 3: and she was making plans and she was engaged. That night,
- 39:19Speaker 3: I think someone saw an opportunity and they took it.
- 39:22Speaker 3: And my heart breaks. It's cases like this that I
- 39:25Speaker 3: just want her found, no matter what condition. That's inn
- 39:29Speaker 3: I want her found because there is a different level
- 39:31Speaker 3: of peace that comes when I know she's at least
- 39:35Speaker 3: not being hurt by somebody else.
- 39:37Speaker 1: I really don't have a lot to add on top
- 39:39Speaker 1: of what Ash said, because you summed it up so succinctly,
- 39:43Speaker 1: and I agree with every single point that she made.
- 39:46Speaker 1: My heart breaks for the family, and I truly believe
- 39:50Speaker 1: that Celenski, Krakowski and Weekly as the informant, are a
- 39:55Speaker 1: red herring here. I think was an opportunistic predator. Somebody
- 39:59Speaker 1: just came alway long in that small window of time
- 40:02Speaker 1: and they snatched her off the face of the earth.
- 40:04Speaker 1: But I truly hope for the family's sake that they're
- 40:08Speaker 1: able to have some kind of resolution, that her body
- 40:12Speaker 1: or her remains will be found somewhere, and that if
- 40:15Speaker 1: anybody knows anything that at this point, I would truly hope,
- 40:19Speaker 1: after it's been so many years, it's been like what
- 40:22Speaker 1: twenty three years at this point, that if somebody had information,
- 40:26Speaker 1: I would truly hope that they would go to the
- 40:27Speaker 1: authorities so that this family can get a resolution and
- 40:31Speaker 1: they can truly heal or at least begin the process,
- 40:34Speaker 1: because not having a body not having somewhere that you
- 40:38Speaker 1: can go and visit for a loved one and to
- 40:40Speaker 1: be able to say what you're thinking, but to know
- 40:43Speaker 1: that their remains are out there somewhere and they aren't
- 40:45Speaker 1: where you are is just another kind of horrible.
- 40:51Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember learning about this case on Unsolved Mystery
- 40:53Speaker 2: shortly after it origidly occurred, and I also vividly remember
- 40:58Speaker 2: when the news started coming out that her remains could
- 41:00Speaker 2: be on the property of Hugo Selenski, And there were
- 41:04Speaker 2: a couple of years where I legitimately believed this was
- 41:06Speaker 2: the best lead, that Selenski was responsible, and that the
- 41:10Speaker 2: stories about her abducted and held in captivity were true.
- 41:13Speaker 2: And it was only after I put together my original
- 41:15Speaker 2: Trail and Cold episode way back in twenty eighteen and
- 41:18Speaker 2: started digging more into this that I realized, like you said,
- 41:21Speaker 2: that this is probably all a red herring, that even
- 41:24Speaker 2: though Hugo Selenski's a serial killer, he's a monster and
- 41:27Speaker 2: he's done some awful things, this really isn't his m
- 41:31Speaker 2: He seems like the type of person who would kill
- 41:33Speaker 2: people just purely for financial gain in his own benefits,
- 41:37Speaker 2: and not someone who would abduct a random young woman
- 41:40Speaker 2: he saw walking down the street at four am. So, unfortunately,
- 41:44Speaker 2: I do believe that this whole lead is not really
- 41:48Speaker 2: viable and that city was just a victim who was
- 41:50Speaker 2: in the wrong place at the wrong time, that she
- 41:52Speaker 2: made a last minute decision to leave her apartments and
- 41:55Speaker 2: go to a nearby market or something, but someone just
- 41:57Speaker 2: happened to see her and abducted her. And we just
- 42:00Speaker 2: don't know who this person is, what they did to her,
- 42:03Speaker 2: and what they may have done to her body. So
- 42:06Speaker 2: I guess that is kind of the downside to this
- 42:08Speaker 2: whole Hugo Soelenski angle not going anywhere? Is that? Where
- 42:12Speaker 2: do we begin now? Because there's just no evidence whatsoever
- 42:16Speaker 2: to work with if Cindy was abducted by a completely
- 42:20Speaker 2: random stranger. But all we can to really do is
- 42:23Speaker 2: just keep her case out here on the spotlight, spread
- 42:25Speaker 2: the word, and maybe one of these days the right
- 42:27Speaker 2: person will come for with information which leads to a
- 42:30Speaker 2: resolution and her family will finally get some closure.
- 42:34Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
- 42:36Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
- 42:38Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
- 42:41Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
- 42:44Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
- 42:48Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
- 42:51Speaker 2: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
- 42:53Speaker 2: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
- 42:57Speaker 2: which I talk about cases with are not featured on
- 43:01Speaker 2: the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
- 43:03Speaker 2: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
- 43:07Speaker 2: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
- 43:10Speaker 2: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
- 43:14Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
- 43:17Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
- 43:21Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
- 43:24Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
- 43:27Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
- 43:31Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
- 43:33Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
- 43:36Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
- 43:39Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
- 43:42Speaker 2: Tier three.
- 43:43Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
- 43:45Speaker 4: about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
- 43:48Speaker 4: free episodes of the Path Went Chili. We've got our
- 43:50Speaker 4: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
- 43:53Speaker 4: so they're not very mini, but they're just too short
- 43:56Speaker 4: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
- 43:59Speaker 4: so we hope you check out those patreons will link
- 44:01Speaker 4: them in the show notes.
- 44:03Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
- 44:05Speaker 2: any chance you have to share us on social media
- 44:07Speaker 2: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated.
- 44:10Speaker 2: You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
- 44:14Speaker 2: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
- 44:16Speaker 2: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
- 44:19Speaker 2: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
- 44:22Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy