Speaker 1: Halloween, that time of year when, for those in the
Speaker 1: northern hemisphere, the air is full of mischief and the
Speaker 1: skies have darkened so perceptibly that we can almost feel
Speaker 1: the quickening hand of winter laying ice upon our necks.
Speaker 1: Some of us celebrate by going trick or treating with
Speaker 1: our kids. Others might dress up in elaborate fancy dress
Speaker 1: or in the image of whatever current bogey man has
Speaker 1: gripped the zeitgeist to shock our friends at parties. More
Speaker 1: still will probably end up sitting at home watching scary movies,
Speaker 1: listening to podcasts, or, for the braver among us, participating
Speaker 1: in a seance or two. It's the time of year
Speaker 1: when the veil between this world and the next is
Speaker 1: said to be at its thinnest, when spirits walk the earth,
Speaker 1: displaced and restless, to knock on doors and reminders of
Speaker 1: their absence. Alloween or All Hallows Eve, has its roots
Speaker 1: in the ancient Celtic festival of Sowin, a feast marking
Speaker 1: the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter.
Speaker 1: As part of the festival, offerings of food and drink
Speaker 1: were left out to honor and appease the dead, ensuring
Speaker 1: their good will and protection through the dark months ahead.
Speaker 1: Strict adherence to the ritual was paramount lest the ace
Speaker 1: she or fairy folk punish the human population of the
Speaker 1: land with visitations, spoiled yields, disappearances, and even death. The
Speaker 1: act of dressing up or guising is thought to have
Speaker 1: begun more than two thousand years ago, with people adorning
Speaker 1: animal hides and garish masks in an effort to blend
Speaker 1: in with any malevolent spirits that might appear from the
Speaker 1: other world. The idea being that if the spirits couldn't
Speaker 1: see the human underneath the disguise, they would simply let
Speaker 1: them be. Should you fail to dress up or maintain
Speaker 1: the disguise at just the wrong moment, however, there was
Speaker 1: no telling just what might happen. You're listening to Unexplained
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McLean Smith. It was Halloween night in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. In the early hours of November one,
Speaker 1: Down at the Player's Nightclub in State College, Pennsylvania, a
Speaker 1: Halloween party was in full swing. The club on West
Speaker 1: College Avenue, located just a stone's throw from the central campus,
Speaker 1: was a popular hangout for college kids from Penn State University.
Speaker 1: Among the crowd of revelers that night, dying up dance
Speaker 1: floor with a warm, alcoholic buzz with twenty one year
Speaker 1: old seniors Stacy Pack, Lisa Kim, and Hyung Jong Song,
Speaker 1: also known as Cindy the Trio. Like most of everyone
Speaker 1: else there were in fancy dress for the occasion, Cindy
Speaker 1: had opted for a simple bunny costume, complete with ears
Speaker 1: and bushy tail. All three young women had met through
Speaker 1: the close knit Korean Undergraduate Student Association and had soon
Speaker 1: become inseparable. The Player's nightclub was one of their favorite hangouts.
Speaker 1: They could often be found there most Thursday nights, as
Speaker 1: Cindy wasn't working her weekly shift at the university's laptop library.
Speaker 1: That night had been an especially fun occasion for them.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the buzz of it being Halloween and
Speaker 1: how such nights seemed to charge the air with just
Speaker 1: that little bit more electricity. It was Cindy herself, or
Speaker 1: rather the old Cindy. For the best part of a month,
Speaker 1: Cindy had been carrying the weight of a broken heart.
Speaker 1: She and her ex had been seeing each other for
Speaker 1: six months and even shed an apartment together before he
Speaker 1: abruptly called the whole thing off and moved out. For
Speaker 1: the Korean student, so far from home with no close
Speaker 1: family to turn to, it had been a difficult few weeks,
Speaker 1: but slowly the bright smile for which she had become
Speaker 1: renowned on campus was returning. That night, down at the
Speaker 1: Player's nightclub, it seemed as though she was finally back
Speaker 1: to her usual self. Shortly before two a m. With
Speaker 1: the night club about to close, Stacy suggested they head
Speaker 1: to another party at a friend's place in the university's
Speaker 1: park Hill apartment complex, a short drive away along East
Speaker 1: Beaver Avenue. The three young women, joined by another friend,
Speaker 1: emerged from the club moments later and stepped out into
Speaker 1: the chill autumn air up above a large waxing gibbus
Speaker 1: dissolved intermittently between passing clouds as they clambered into Stacy's car.
Speaker 1: The party at park Hill was petering out by the
Speaker 1: time Cindy and her friends arrived. After another hour or so,
Speaker 1: they decided to call it a night. Around three thirty am. Stacy, Lisa,
Speaker 1: and Cindy stepped back out into the chilly morning air,
Speaker 1: bundled back into Stacy's car, and set off towards Cindy's apartment.
Speaker 1: As the car made its way through town, they passed
Speaker 1: the occasional eerily costumed straggler swaying drunkenly on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: like a lost extra from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But
Speaker 1: before long they were heading out beyond the crowded bars
Speaker 1: and well lit downtown streets, to where the roads grew quieter,
Speaker 1: the houses further apart. Inside the car, the girl sat
Speaker 1: in a kind of dreamy silence, half drunk, half tired,
Speaker 1: watching the spindly silhouettes of the trees as they passed,
Speaker 1: in that strange early morning calm that comes after hours
Speaker 1: of noise and dancing. The smell of smoke, cheap vodka,
Speaker 1: and perfume hung in the air Up above. The moon
Speaker 1: seemed to follow them, sliding silently between drifting clouds, keeping
Speaker 1: pace over the rooftops and empty sidewalks. Finally, they arrived
Speaker 1: at Cindy's apartment, just off West Clinton Avenue. The College
Speaker 1: Park complex where Cindy lived was purpose built student accommodation,
Speaker 1: comprising a dozen or so buildings, each with about twelve apartments,
Speaker 1: and so A light, misty rain was falling as they
Speaker 1: pulled up Stacy and Lisa said their goodbyes to Cindy
Speaker 1: as she stepped out of the car. The complex was
Speaker 1: deadly silent, with not another soul in sight as they
Speaker 1: waved her off. They watched on for a moment as
Speaker 1: she drew closer to her door, Then, eager to get
Speaker 1: to bed themselves, Stacy started up the engine and drove off.
Speaker 1: It was sometime in the afternoon the following day that
Speaker 1: Yong Chu Kim, also known as Katherine, Cindy Song's flatmate,
Speaker 1: returned home. Katherine had missed the previous night's celebrations, having
Speaker 1: been away in Philadelphia. She and Cindy had made plans
Speaker 1: to hang out that afternoon, and she was looking forward
Speaker 1: to catching up on any gossip from the party. When
Speaker 1: Catherine arrived, she found the front door locked from the outside,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't a huge surprise to find no sign
Speaker 1: of Cindy inside, But as the afternoon turned to evening,
Speaker 1: Cindy was still yet to appear. Text to Cindy's phone
Speaker 1: went unanswered, but Catherine wasn't immediately concerned. There were countless
Speaker 1: places she could have been. Perhaps she'd hooked up with
Speaker 1: someone the night before, she thought, or had picked up
Speaker 1: a last minute shift at one of her two jobs,
Speaker 1: but when there was still no sign of her the
Speaker 1: following morning, Catherine began to worry. Weirdly, Stacy and Lisa
Speaker 1: hadn't heard from them either, since they'd last seen her
Speaker 1: two nights before. It was around this time that Catherine
Speaker 1: spotted the fake eyelashes Cindy had warned for Halloween on
Speaker 1: her bedside table, suggesting she had at least made it
Speaker 1: back inside the apartment after Stacy dropped her off. Catherine
Speaker 1: also found a bag that Cindy had used that night,
Speaker 1: containing a change of clothes and something else too, her
Speaker 1: mobile phone. It had been in the apartment the whole
Speaker 1: time that Catherine had been trying to contact her. Now
Speaker 1: Cyndy's friends were really starting to panic. Calls were made
Speaker 1: to the laptop library and the Korean restaurant where Cindy
Speaker 1: also worked. Her ex boyfriend and Cindy's aunt, Young Kim,
Speaker 1: who lived in Virginia, were also contacted, but neither had
Speaker 1: spoken to her recently. It appeared incredibly that at some point,
Speaker 1: after being dropped off by Stacy and her flatmate, returning
Speaker 1: the following day, she had completely vanished off the face
Speaker 1: of the earth. When there was still no word from
Speaker 1: her by the morning of Sunday, November fourth, Stacy contacted
Speaker 1: the Ferguson Township Police Department and reported Cindy missing. Yon
Speaker 1: Jong Song or Cindy, who like many of her Korean friends,
Speaker 1: took an anglicized name to ease her transition into America,
Speaker 1: was born and raised in Seoul. After moving to the
Speaker 1: United States in the mid nineteen nineties, she lived with
Speaker 1: her aunt Young Kim in Springfield, Virginia. After graduating high school,
Speaker 1: she enrolled at Pennsylvania State University, where she majored for
Speaker 1: a bachelor's degree in integrative arts. Her ambition must to
Speaker 1: one day be a successful graphic and fashion designer. Though
Speaker 1: things had been hard initially moving to a whole new
Speaker 1: country and culture, by two thousand and one America felt
Speaker 1: very much like a second home. She had a close
Speaker 1: knit circle of friends and an active social life, and
Speaker 1: often took to her personal penn State web page to
Speaker 1: share her various loves like Van Goch and Ben and
Speaker 1: Jerry ice cream, or to proudly promote things that her
Speaker 1: friends had been working on. She enjoyed running and swimming,
Speaker 1: but disliked fakers and selfish people. Fun, she said, was
Speaker 1: anything except hardcore drugs. When police first arrived at her
Speaker 1: apartment to investigate, they began by questioning her friends about
Speaker 1: her last known movements. All shared what they knew, which
Speaker 1: in essence wasn't much. Cindy had been in good spirits
Speaker 1: that night, they said, Stacy had dropped her off at
Speaker 1: her apartment, and though she hadn't seen her enter the property,
Speaker 1: the fact they later found her fake eyelashes, bag and
Speaker 1: phone inside was clear evidence that she had made it home.
Speaker 1: A more thorough inspection of the apartment revealed no signs
Speaker 1: of a struggle inside or outside. Nothing of Cindy's, as
Speaker 1: far as anyone could tell, appeared to be missing, except
Speaker 1: for her keys and wallet, which contained her ID and
Speaker 1: credit cards. Detective Brian Sprinkle, who led the case, wanted
Speaker 1: to keep an open mind, hoping that maybe she'd just
Speaker 1: left spontaneously for some time away, but certain details made
Speaker 1: him wonder if she'd done something far more drastic. Cindy's
Speaker 1: friends said she'd been in good spirits the night she disappeared,
Speaker 1: but in reality things were a little more complicated. Although
Speaker 1: she'd been doing better in recent days, She'd also been
Speaker 1: taking medication and seeing a therapist to help get over
Speaker 1: her break up. Cindy's home in America outside of university
Speaker 1: was her aunt Young Kim's house in Springfield, Virginia. As
Speaker 1: her aunt quietly explained to the police, the last time
Speaker 1: she'd seen Cindy, she seemed unusually quiet and distant. Cindy's mum, Benson,
Speaker 1: back in South Korea, who Cindy was much more open
Speaker 1: with than her aunt, was horrifying to learn that her
Speaker 1: daughter was missing. She too, recounted how devastated Cindy had
Speaker 1: seemed after the break up. Then police discovered this on
Speaker 1: Cindy's personal Penn State web page, written just a week
Speaker 1: before she disappeared. Sad but happy, crying but laughing, ugly
Speaker 1: but pretty, hungry but full, hurt but fine, weak but strong.
Speaker 1: I pretend and this is me. Despite the mounting evidence
Speaker 1: that Cindy might have killed herself, in truth, the idea
Speaker 1: never really sat right. The more detective Sprinkle learned about her,
Speaker 1: the more out of character it seemed. She was studious
Speaker 1: and a reliable employer. The owner of the Sole Garden
Speaker 1: restaurant where Cindy worked part time as a server was
Speaker 1: effusive about her dependability and work ethic. She even dropped
Speaker 1: in occasionally on her days off to spend time with
Speaker 1: the owner's young children and to do something without even
Speaker 1: leaving a note. It just didn't fit. When officers searched
Speaker 1: Cindy's apartment, they found tickets for a Britney Spears concert
Speaker 1: due the following week that she'd been hugely excited about.
Speaker 1: Pinned to her wall. Alongside that was a letter and
Speaker 1: resume she'd been working on for a graphic design internship
Speaker 1: that she was hoping to get onto the following year. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: then wandered Detective Sprinkle, maybe she really had just simply
Speaker 1: run away and wanted to be alone for a short time.
Speaker 1: But as the days went by, that supposed alone time
Speaker 1: just got longer and longer, and Cindy didn't come back.
Speaker 1: To Detective Brian Sprinkle and many of his colleagues, it
Speaker 1: was beginning to look like something altogether different had happened.
Speaker 1: Across the road from Cindy's apartment was the twenty four
Speaker 1: Hour Giant Supermarket. It was often used by students on
Speaker 1: a late night essay binge looking for refreshments, or indeed
Speaker 1: by anyone who might just be looking for snacks to
Speaker 1: stave off a hangover in the early hours of the morning.
Speaker 1: That Cindy appeared to have left the flat only with
Speaker 1: her wallet and keys could imply that she merely left
Speaker 1: to go to the store with the full intention of
Speaker 1: coming home immediately after. After all, what would she need
Speaker 1: her phone for on a quick dash to the shops
Speaker 1: at five am in the morning. If this is what happened,
Speaker 1: there were only a few likely possibilities for what had happened.
Speaker 1: She'd been the victim of a hidden run that someone
Speaker 1: had tried to cover up, or she'd been deliberately attacked
Speaker 1: or abducted and possibly murdered. On her student web page,
Speaker 1: Cindy listed her strong qualities as creativity, responsibility, and her
Speaker 1: unbounding energy. Under weaknesses, she said that she was too gullible.
Speaker 1: Others agreed she had a tendency to naively assume the
Speaker 1: best of everyone. Perhaps some wondered she'd been approached by
Speaker 1: someone on her way back from the supermarket asking for help,
Speaker 1: and Cindy had stopped to speak with them, only for
Speaker 1: them to then attack her. Either way, all speculation was useless.
Speaker 1: What the police needed was evidence something to point to
Speaker 1: a crime being committed. Just over a week after Cindy disappeared,
Speaker 1: the first search teams assembled outside Cindy's apartment block while
Speaker 1: the heavy hum of a police search helicopter buzzed overhead.
Speaker 1: Numbering about twenty to thirty people, the team was compiled
Speaker 1: from members of the Ferguson Township Police, as well as
Speaker 1: Center County and Elk County Search and Rescue departments. They
Speaker 1: focused first on the wooded area and bike paths immediately
Speaker 1: to the west of Cindy's apartment, but eventually stretched across
Speaker 1: to Brier Green on the eastern edge of town. Teams
Speaker 1: worked methodically plodding along under colorless skies as they searched
Speaker 1: for a body, jewelry, clothing, bank cards, or anything else
Speaker 1: belonging to Cindy. Search docs yanked at their leads, eagerly
Speaker 1: sniffing at whatever patch of undergrowth they could find. CCTV
Speaker 1: from the Giants Superstore was investigated, and Cindy's email and
Speaker 1: bank cards were monitored. Cindy's ex boyfriend and others were
Speaker 1: questioned over their possible involvements while all over town. Cindy's
Speaker 1: face with her characteristically bright smile peered out from posters
Speaker 1: and leaflets with requests for any information. They detailed Cindy's particulars.
Speaker 1: Twenty one year old Asian female, black hair, brown eyes,
Speaker 1: height around five foot two, last seen in the early
Speaker 1: hours of November first, wearing a rabbit costume consisting of
Speaker 1: a pink sleeveless shirt with a rabbit imprinted on the front,
Speaker 1: a white tennis skirt with a cotton bunny tail attached
Speaker 1: to the back, brown sweded knee high boots, rabbit ears,
Speaker 1: and a red knee length hooded parker, but all of
Speaker 1: it was to no avail. The CCTV footage had already
Speaker 1: been taped over by the time the police got to it.
Speaker 1: Cindy's e mail and bank carts remained inactive throughout. All
Speaker 1: potential suspects were eliminated, and the search teams found nothing.
Speaker 1: After three solid weeks of investigating, Detective Brian Sprinkle and
Speaker 1: the Ferguson Township Police Department had failed to find one
Speaker 1: single clue as to what might have happened to Cindy.
Speaker 1: Due to complications with Cindy's father's health, it wasn't until
Speaker 1: late November that Cindy's mother Pensun and brother Kihor were
Speaker 1: finally able to fly out to the States to do
Speaker 1: what they could to help for Cindy's mother, especially already
Speaker 1: enduring a life away from her daughter on the other
Speaker 1: side of the world. It's impossible to articulate the sadness
Speaker 1: she must have felt as she sat for the first
Speaker 1: time on her daughter's bed, surrounded by all her things,
Speaker 1: feeling for all the world as though she might step
Speaker 1: through the door at any minute. They were adrift on
Speaker 1: a sea of grief. Cindy's brother vowed that they would
Speaker 1: stay in town until Cindy's case was resolved. As November
Speaker 1: turned to December, the nightmare showed no sign of ending.
Speaker 1: Around one thirty am in the morning of Friday, December seventh,
Speaker 1: police received an anonymous phone call from a woman claiming
Speaker 1: she had some vital information relating to Cindy's case. Police
Speaker 1: tracked the call back to a phone line located downtown
Speaker 1: on East College Avenue, but they never heard from the
Speaker 1: caller again. Penn State University put up a twenty seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollar reward for any information that would lead to
Speaker 1: a breakthrough in the case, but as two thousand and
Speaker 1: one came to an end, no one came forward with
Speaker 1: anything useful for Cindy's family. The lack of movement in
Speaker 1: the case was devastating. After a further month of nothing,
Speaker 1: they conducted a press conference accusing Ferguson Township PD of
Speaker 1: fail to commit sufficient time and attention to Cindy's disappearance.
Speaker 1: On New Year's Day two thousand and two, thirteen year
Speaker 1: old Alicia Kazakivich was abducted from her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: After a fevered search was mounted for her, involving fifty
Speaker 1: FBI agents, Alicia was eventually found alive three days later,
Speaker 1: chained up at the home of her abductor. Cindy's family
Speaker 1: wanted to know why it was that the disappearance of Alicia,
Speaker 1: who was white, had merited such a profoundly different response
Speaker 1: to Cindy's disappearance, for whom it took the police a
Speaker 1: whole week before they began searching for her in earnest.
Speaker 1: Though Alysia was a minor compared to the more self
Speaker 1: reliant and autonomous twenty one year old Cindy, who had
Speaker 1: possible reasons to electively disappear, there was some considerable justification
Speaker 1: to the anger. The police department's response was to cut
Speaker 1: off all communication with Cindy's family. Either way, none of
Speaker 1: it brought Cindy home. Then, on February thirteenth, the police
Speaker 1: received a possible tip off. It came from a woman
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, nearly two hundred miles from where Cindy was
Speaker 1: last seen. The caller claimed she'd spotted someone that looked
Speaker 1: like Cindy in a car in the city's Chinatown district.
Speaker 1: The young woman appeared distressed and even called out for
Speaker 1: help before the man she was with quickly intervened, telling
Speaker 1: the witness to get lost. According to investigators, however, the
Speaker 1: witness's story changed so many times following her initial testimony
Speaker 1: they couldn't verify her statements in any meaningful way. Several
Speaker 1: attempts were made to identify the man, who was described
Speaker 1: as having an olive or light brown skin complexion and
Speaker 1: medium length hair, but nothing came of it. Detective Sprinkle
Speaker 1: described Cindy's disappearance as the most baffling case he'd ever
Speaker 1: been involved with. By May two thousand and two, he
Speaker 1: was at a complete loss and just about ready to
Speaker 1: accept any kind of help. Back in September, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, nineteen year old Penn State student Ryan Buell
Speaker 1: established the Penn State Paranormal Research Society. The twenty five
Speaker 1: member strong group had been in discussions with self described
Speaker 1: psychic Carla Barron about giving a talk to the organization
Speaker 1: when it occurred to Buell that maybe she could help
Speaker 1: the investigation. Detective Sprinkle felt he had nothing to lose.
Speaker 1: Carla Barron was based in Los Angeles, but had a
Speaker 1: connection with Pennsylvania, having graduated from lock Haven High School,
Speaker 1: about forty miles north from where Cindy disappeared. With her
Speaker 1: own radio show, The Crystal Palace and regular appearances on MTV,
Speaker 1: Barron claimed to have assisted in over fifty criminal cases
Speaker 1: in Mexico and the United States, including the O. J.
Speaker 1: Simpson and John Bennet Ramsey cases. Over a number of
Speaker 1: phone calls with Detective Sprinkle in May, Barron made the
Speaker 1: startling claim that she'd made contact with Cindy's spirit. There
Speaker 1: were three to four men involved. She'd said they'd loaded
Speaker 1: her into a vehicle with the intention of carrying out
Speaker 1: a sexual assault. It wasn't very long before she crossed over,
Speaker 1: she added solemnly. Over the next few weeks on the
Speaker 1: phone to Sprinkle, Barren relayed a series of visions she
Speaker 1: claimed to have regarding Cindy's disappearance. According to Baron, she'd
Speaker 1: seen the image of an Asian word carved into a
Speaker 1: tree in Two Deck Park, a small recreational ground right
Speaker 1: next to Cindy's apartment complex. Another vision involved a wooded
Speaker 1: area and water, as well as some kind of electrical
Speaker 1: device lying close to a railroad crossing. She couldn't say
Speaker 1: what any of it meant exactly, only that all of
Speaker 1: it was linked to Cindy. In August, Sprinkle invited Baron
Speaker 1: to come down to State College to investigate the area
Speaker 1: for herself. Walking together through Two Deck Park, Carla found
Speaker 1: herself drawn to one of the trees at the park's periphery.
Speaker 1: Moving closer to it, Detective Sprinkle felt the hares stand
Speaker 1: up on the back of his neck. An Asian word
Speaker 1: had been carved into it. Later, the pair made their
Speaker 1: way out to Curtain Village, the site of an old
Speaker 1: iron works nestled away on the banks of Bald Eagle Creek,
Speaker 1: about twenty miles north of State College. Although the works
Speaker 1: had closed down in the nineteen twenties, the vacated buildings
Speaker 1: remained Today, it's preserved as a kind of ghost town.
Speaker 1: It was eerie enough out there in the pastoral silence,
Speaker 1: surrounded by the old furnace stack, gristmill, and the long
Speaker 1: abandoned grand iron Master's mansion house. Detective Sprinkle eyed it
Speaker 1: all suspiciously, wondering if this was where Cindy had been taken,
Speaker 1: or if her body might even still be there. Having
Speaker 1: found nothing untoward, Detective Sprinkle and Carla headed into the
Speaker 1: surrounding trees until they stumbled upon a railroad crossing, where
Speaker 1: right beside it was some kind of electrical device, just
Speaker 1: as Carla claimed to have seen her visions. The detective
Speaker 1: was astounded, Though none of it led to anything concrete.
Speaker 1: At that point in time, Detective Sprinkle remained convinced that
Speaker 1: quote a good deal of the information Carla had provided
Speaker 1: would help them crack the case. On the twenty first
Speaker 1: of that month, Cindy's case was featured on an episode
Speaker 1: of Unsolved Mysteries, leading to another bump of public interest.
Speaker 1: A string of tips and apparent sightings followed, but once
Speaker 1: again all of it came to nothing. Over time, with
Speaker 1: no solid leads to bring investigators any closer to finding
Speaker 1: an answer, interest in the case began to fade. It
Speaker 1: was late March two thousand and three, eighteen months since
Speaker 1: Cindy Song vanished into thin air, when Luzerne County Homicide
Speaker 1: to Teensive Lieutenant Gary Kapitano got a call out of
Speaker 1: the blue from an old friend. The man was calling
Speaker 1: on behalf of his niece, Ellen Smarker, from Wilkes Barry,
Speaker 1: a town about one hundred and forty miles east of
Speaker 1: State College, who had fallen victim to a string of
Speaker 1: recent burglaries. He wanted to know if Detective Capitano could
Speaker 1: do him a favor and look into it. Happy to oblige,
Speaker 1: Capitano had called Ellen and asked if she had any
Speaker 1: idea who the perpetrators might be. She gave him two names,
Speaker 1: Hugo Celenski and Paul Weekly. Ellen had grown up with Hugo,
Speaker 1: who had a string of prior charges of robbery. Paul
Speaker 1: Weekly was his flatmate. As it happened, Weekly was at
Speaker 1: that point in prison serving time for an unrelated robbery.
Speaker 1: It seemed reasonable to think there was a good chance
Speaker 1: he had also robbed Ellen's house, so Detective Capitano decided
Speaker 1: to pay him a visit. Weekly thankfully agreed to talk
Speaker 1: with him, alongside his attorney, Tom Cometta. Capitana was somewhat
Speaker 1: surprised when Weekly quickly informed him that he couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: have robbed Ellen's house on the night in question. That night,
Speaker 1: he was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet while on federal probation,
Speaker 1: and records showed he was home at the time. Why then,
Speaker 1: thought the detective had. He agreed to speak to him,
Speaker 1: as weeakly explained, then he wanted to inform on the
Speaker 1: guys who actually did it, in the hope that his
Speaker 1: present sentence would get reduced. When Detective Capitana agreed to
Speaker 1: see what he could do, Weakley gave him two names,
Speaker 1: Hugo Celenski and Patrick Russin. The detective duly noted them down,
Speaker 1: then got up to leave. Then Weekly's attorney called him back.
Speaker 1: Cap He said, there's more, sit down. What Poor Weekly
Speaker 1: told him next was almost too grotesque to believe. He
Speaker 1: claimed that Hugo Selenski had also murdered multiple people, possibly
Speaker 1: as many as sixteen, and that their bodies were buried
Speaker 1: on Selenski's property in the nearby Kingston Township. Among the dead,
Speaker 1: Weekly set was a young woman he'd picked up from
Speaker 1: State College, a woman who'd been wearing bunny ears when
Speaker 1: she was abducted back in two thousand and one, Cindy Song.
Speaker 1: The very next day after his astonishing claim, Detective Capitano
Speaker 1: interviewed Poor Weekly more extensively. Weekly claimed that during the
Speaker 1: summer of two thousand and two, he'd seen Selenski's dog
Speaker 1: carrying a dismembered human arm around in its mouth. He
Speaker 1: said he'd spotted the bodies of a woman and child
Speaker 1: in a well while working on Selensky's water system, and
Speaker 1: had seen bone fragments and a jawbone under the porch.
Speaker 1: But it was the story about Cindy's Song that particularly
Speaker 1: caught the investigator's attention. According to Weekly, Zelensky told him
Speaker 1: in April two thousand and two that he and a
Speaker 1: man named Michael Kokovsky had abducted a young woman from
Speaker 1: State College, believing she was a sex worker. Krkovsky allegedly
Speaker 1: said he had its way with her and kept her
Speaker 1: at his Hunlock Creek home until she died. Weekly acclaimed
Speaker 1: Kokovsky had kept the bunny ears song was wearing as
Speaker 1: part of her Halloween costume as a souvenir. Michael Krkovski
Speaker 1: was a pharmacist from Hunlock Creek who pleaded guilty to
Speaker 1: running a prescription drug rink that netted at least eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars and was about to be sentenced when
Speaker 1: he and his girlfriend Tammy Fassett were reported missing in
Speaker 1: men two thousand and two. They were both thirty seven
Speaker 1: years old. Weekly informed police that Selensky had in fact
Speaker 1: murdered Kikovski and Facet, fearing they might lead the police
Speaker 1: to him after he allegedly discovered that Kokovsky had kept
Speaker 1: Cindy's bunny ears. The following morning, June fifth, a team
Speaker 1: of investigators, along with Paul Weekly, made the short journey
Speaker 1: along tree lined country lanes out to Hugo Selensky's seven
Speaker 1: acre property on Mount Olivet Road. When they arrived, Selensky
Speaker 1: was preparing to host a graduation party for one of
Speaker 1: his sisters, with workmen setting up a tent for the
Speaker 1: occasion in the yard. They handed him a warrant to
Speaker 1: search his property. Selensky's face went pale as some officers
Speaker 1: took him inside for questioning Weekly proceeded to lead the
Speaker 1: others around the property, pointing out places where he claimed
Speaker 1: the bodies had been buried. The investigators began to dig.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long before they found something. Located about twenty
Speaker 1: feet from a corner of the house, close to a well,
Speaker 1: were two sets of human remains in a shallow grave,
Speaker 1: their wrists still bound together with zip ties, and the
Speaker 1: excavation didn't stop there. Over the next few days, officials
Speaker 1: unearthed the badly charred remains of two more bodies, as
Speaker 1: Weekly continued to direct them around the property, pointing out
Speaker 1: places where he claimed to have seen bones. According to him,
Speaker 1: Selensky had as many as twelve of his victims buried
Speaker 1: in the garden. Selenski's girlfriend, Christina Strom, to whom the
Speaker 1: property actually belonged, had lived there the entire time, with
Speaker 1: no idea whatsoever that she did so, surrounded by dead bodies.
Speaker 1: In the end, despite Weekly insistence there was more, after
Speaker 1: thirty eight days of digging, the police only succeeded in
Speaker 1: finding five sets of remains. After DNA analysis, two were
Speaker 1: found to be pharmacist Michael Kokowski and its partner Tammy Fassett.
Speaker 1: Another two were identified as twenty nine year old Frank
Speaker 1: James and twenty three year old Addie assasss Keeler, alleged
Speaker 1: drug dealers who Selenski had apparently killed back in May
Speaker 1: two thousand and three before burning their bodies in a pit.
Speaker 1: Although the fifth body was impossible to identify, its DNA
Speaker 1: was not a match for Cindy's. A short time after
Speaker 1: the gruesome discovery at Hugo Selenski's property, police searched Paul
Speaker 1: Weekley's home. On his computer, they found a slew of
Speaker 1: downloaded information about Cindy Song's disappearance from the Internet. It
Speaker 1: appeared that Weekly had researched the case thoroughly before electing
Speaker 1: to speak to the police about it. Detective Capitano knew
Speaker 1: that Weekly wanted to share information in the hope of
Speaker 1: reducing a prison sentence he was serving at the time.
Speaker 1: What emerged over the next few weeks was an even
Speaker 1: more disturbing picture. Weekly, who first met Selensky in prison
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, eventually admitted that it was in
Speaker 1: fact he who had plotted with Selenski to kidnap Kokovsky
Speaker 1: and his girlfriend Tammy, with the intention of extorting them
Speaker 1: for money. In the end they had killed them both.
Speaker 1: Weekly acknowledged under cross examination that he misled the authorities
Speaker 1: early in the investigation because he wanted to pin it
Speaker 1: all on Selenski. My stories had a lot of holes
Speaker 1: in them, he said, I told numerous lies. On October sixth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, Hugo Selenski was charged with two
Speaker 1: counts of homicide in the deaths of James and Keeler,
Speaker 1: and was also eventually charged with killing Kokovsky and Facet two. However,
Speaker 1: it would take until January twenty fifteen, more than twelve
Speaker 1: years after the bodies were discovered, before Selenski finally stood trial.
Speaker 1: Paul Weekly, forty six years old, by then, avoided a
Speaker 1: potential death sentence by pleading guilty to federal charges, having
Speaker 1: already been sentenced to life in prison in June two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. In February twenty fifteen, Hugo Selenski was
Speaker 1: sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Despite the hollowness of
Speaker 1: Poor Weekly's accusation that Zelenski had been involved in Cindy
Speaker 1: Song's murder, Detective Brian Sprinkle and his team back in
Speaker 1: the Ferguson Township Police department remained haunted by his claims.
Speaker 1: Could there really be more bodies on Selenski's property just
Speaker 1: waiting to be uncovered? Might one of them be Cindy's.
Speaker 1: In the end, investigators were never able to connect Hugo
Speaker 1: Selenski to Cindy's disappearance, As State Police Sergeant Stephen Byron,
Speaker 1: who was heavily involved in her investigation, put it, we
Speaker 1: looked at everything. We haven't uncovered one piece of evidence
Speaker 1: to corroborate this. In October two thousand and four, shortly
Speaker 1: after Hugo Selenski and poor Weekly's arrests, frustrated at having
Speaker 1: come to yet another dead end, Detective Brian Sprinkle turned
Speaker 1: once more to self described psychic Carla barn This time,
Speaker 1: Detective Sprinkle and Carla agreed to let ABC News film
Speaker 1: her in action, almost exactly three years to the day.
Speaker 1: Detective Sprinkle and ABC Primetimes John Kinyonis and his camera
Speaker 1: crew watched on silently as Carla Baron sat at a
Speaker 1: desk down at the Ferguson County Police Station and slowly
Speaker 1: laid out a set of tarot carts. Placed above the
Speaker 1: carts was a polaroid of Cindy's Song. Carla took a
Speaker 1: deep breath, then settled her mind. She's telling me she's
Speaker 1: in a different place now, she said. She now knows
Speaker 1: why this happened to her. Detective Sprinkle leaned in closer,
Speaker 1: hoping for more details, but nothing came. Then Carla spoke
Speaker 1: into the air, Cindy, how did you lose your life?
Speaker 1: The others in the room held their breath as Carla
Speaker 1: appeared to be receiving more information. It was somebody obsessed
Speaker 1: with her, she said. Detective Sprinkle jumped in. Is it
Speaker 1: Zelensky or Kokowski? He said eagerly. Carla seemed to nod.
Speaker 1: They were at the helm. She said, they were orchestrating,
Speaker 1: but the main person she knew the person. Finally, Carla asked,
Speaker 1: all right, Cindy, where are your remains? But no answer came.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this episode on its release, it
Speaker 1: is twenty four years to the day that then twenty
Speaker 1: one year old Heyon Jong Song, also known as Cindy,
Speaker 1: disappeared without a trace. Today, twenty one binders remain in
Speaker 1: the Ferguson County Police Station archives containing all materials relevant
Speaker 1: to the case, one for each year of Cindy's life.
Speaker 1: Perhaps someday they might yet yield an answer to this
Speaker 1: tragic and beguiling mystery. Until then, just what exactly happened
Speaker 1: to Cindy's song on that haunting Halloween night remains to
Speaker 1: this day unexplained. This episode was written by Richard mclin
Speaker 1: Smith and James Connor Patterson. Thank you as ever for
Speaker 1: listening Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by
Speaker 1: Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including
Speaker 1: the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or
Speaker 1: a story of your own you'd like to share. You
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