The Latvian woman known as the “Kayak Killer,” who admitted to the criminally negligent homicide of her then-fiancé by pulling a plug from his kayak and watching him drown, now says she has no regrets because she’s a born again Christian and has a “bright future.” This comes after she was sentenced to two and half years behind bars and was let out on parole.
Angelika Graswald pleaded guilty to the April 2015 homicide of Vincent Viafore after reaching a deal with the prosecution that took murder and life imprisonment off the table. The case made national news, given the shock of the victim’s family over the short prison stint and the things Graswald said during police interviews. She claimed that Viafore was controlling, was constantly demanding sex, and pressuring her to participate in threesomes. She also admitted that she “wanted him dead and now he’s gone and [she was] OK with it.” She further said that she felt “euphoric” about his death.
Elle magazine decided to profile Graswald on Tuesday, and they asked her about these police interviews. Her responses were quite something.
“I was just being honest,” she said. “They said it was therapy.” Somehow, she claimed, she wasn’t aware that she might be considered a suspect in Viafore’s death. Asked if she had any regrets about the things she said, “I don’t think back. I look forward […] I don’t regret what happened. I don’t think ‘What if’ anymore.”
Then came the most eye-popping quote of them all: “That’s the beauty of being a Christian. You know you have a bright future.”
Graswald apparently became a “born-again Christian” and now lives in a small lake-side cabin where, you guessed it, still still kayaks sometimes:
Discouraged from using social media while on parole, Graswald edits her favorite photos, overlays them with a few relevant words of scripture, and sends them to friends. Her cabin looks out onto a lake where she sometimes kayaks, and where she was baptized in September, she says, “born-again Christian.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Graswald said she “read the Bible” and said “it teaches you not to dwell on the past.”
“I don’t have any more fear. Period. God didn’t give us a spirit of fear. Right out of the Bible,” she said, adding that when it came to kayaking again, she “prayed on it.”
“Vince loved me. I loved him. He had mentioned that he would die for me if need be, and I feel like he did so I could live,” she claimed. “He saved me in a way.”
[Image via ABC News screengrab]