Some may recall the tragic story of a star-crossed love affair that ended tragically on the Hudson River on a Spring afternoon in 2015:
"[Angelika Graswald] pulled the drain plug on Viafore’s kayak while they were paddling on the Hudson River in 2015 and watched him drown."
This seems to have been as cold-blooded a murder as I've ever read of, and compounded by the fact that she and the victim, Vincent Viafore, were actually engaged to be married. He had apparently named her as one of the beneficiaries of his almost half a million dollar life insurance policy.
Okay, we know that criminals aren't allowed to profit from their crimes: arsonists don't get their houses paid off, murderers don't collect on their victim's life insur....
Wait, what's this?
"A woman dubbed the “kayak killer” -- who drowned her fiancé by pulling the plug on the couple's small boat -- was awarded a portion of his $491,000 life insurance payout Monday."
How could this be? I get that the arrangement included her dropping her appeal, and the victim's family dropping their wrongful death lawsuit, but I didn't understand how this deal worked until I got to almost the end of the article:
"The criminal plea did not disqualify our client from taking these funds. They still had to prove that she recklessly or intentionally committed this murder."
Okay, but how would that work? I'm not aware of any law that says "well, if you commit just plain vanilla murder you get the cash, but if it's reckless or intentional you get zip." This seems ... illogical.
So I reached out to FoIB Brian D (a carrier rep of outstanding repute) for insight, and he offered this explanation:
When carriers have a disputed claim (such as a murder or other suspicious circumstance), they will pay it out to the state to be held in escrow until the matter is resolved. Looks like this is what happened with the Kayak Killer case here.
Thanks, Brian!
"[Angelika Graswald] pulled the drain plug on Viafore’s kayak while they were paddling on the Hudson River in 2015 and watched him drown."
This seems to have been as cold-blooded a murder as I've ever read of, and compounded by the fact that she and the victim, Vincent Viafore, were actually engaged to be married. He had apparently named her as one of the beneficiaries of his almost half a million dollar life insurance policy.
Okay, we know that criminals aren't allowed to profit from their crimes: arsonists don't get their houses paid off, murderers don't collect on their victim's life insur....
Wait, what's this?
"A woman dubbed the “kayak killer” -- who drowned her fiancé by pulling the plug on the couple's small boat -- was awarded a portion of his $491,000 life insurance payout Monday."
How could this be? I get that the arrangement included her dropping her appeal, and the victim's family dropping their wrongful death lawsuit, but I didn't understand how this deal worked until I got to almost the end of the article:
"The criminal plea did not disqualify our client from taking these funds. They still had to prove that she recklessly or intentionally committed this murder."
Okay, but how would that work? I'm not aware of any law that says "well, if you commit just plain vanilla murder you get the cash, but if it's reckless or intentional you get zip." This seems ... illogical.
So I reached out to FoIB Brian D (a carrier rep of outstanding repute) for insight, and he offered this explanation:
When carriers have a disputed claim (such as a murder or other suspicious circumstance), they will pay it out to the state to be held in escrow until the matter is resolved. Looks like this is what happened with the Kayak Killer case here.
Thanks, Brian!
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