Slippery When Wet: The True Story of the 'Kayak Killer'

A reported feature for ELLE magazine.

“I’m going to be stopping a lot to take pictures,” Angelika Graswald warns me. It’s been four years since her fiancé drowned in the Hudson River, since Graswald told police officers that she felt “euphoric” about his death, and since the New York tabloids dubbed her the Kayak Killer. It’s been 19 months since Graswald pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide, admitting that she helped cause Viafore’s death by removing the plug from his kayak, and by being aware that he was not wearing a life vest and that the water was dangerously cold and rough. Fourteen months ago, she was released on parole, having served 31 months in Orange County Jail and one month in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. We’re attempting to hike Breakneck Ridge, a vertiginous slab of rock that looks down onto Bannerman Island.”