The woman accused of killing her fiancé by sabotaging his kayak before a Hudson River trip claimed her innocence, saying she thought an interrogation in which she confessed to the crime was a “therapy session.”
“I didn’t kill him…I loved him,” the Latvian-born Angelika Graswald, 35, told ABC News’ “20/20” in a jailhouse interview that aired Friday night. “I’m not a killer. I’m a good person.”
Her comments were in stark contrast to a confession she made to detectives.
“I wanted him dead, and now he’s gone. And I’m OK with it,” the Poughkeepsie woman is heard saying in a video of her 11-hour interrogation over the drowning of Vincent Viafore.
She was charged with murder after Viafore, 46, drowned on April 19 when his kayak capsized 50 miles north of New York City. His body was found May 23.
“They kept asking me the same questions like a hundred times. And I knew that I was innocent,” Graswald told “20/20” at the Orange County Jail, where she is being held on $9 million bond. “I was at my breaking point. I just, I had it. So I just gave ’em what they wanted.”
In the interrogation video, obtained by “20/20,” Graswald is seen stretching in apparent yoga poses. She told the program it was her attempt to “stay awake.”
“I didn’t sleep for like four nights prior to that. I was exhausted. I was hungry. I was just out of it,” she said. “What would you do? Like, they don’t give you a rule book on what to do.”
Graswald also told “20/20” she was read her rights before her interrogation but had no clue she was suspected of murder.
“I knew I was innocent, so I assumed they thought so,” she said. “They told me it was going to be like a therapy session…I thought that meant that they’re trying to help me and I can open up. And I didn’t need a lawyer.”
She said she “just told them what they wanted to hear.”
“I’m being accused of murder, which I’m not capable of doing,” Graswald added.
She said that Viafore drowned after waves swamped his kayak and that she couldn’t reach him.
She defended the carefree attitude she displayed while he was missing, including posting a photo of herself doing a cartwheel.
“I never liked crying in public. That’s just not me. I much rather put on a happy face, and that’s what I did,” Graswald said. “I was just trying to let people — show people — know that I was OK. That was my way of dealing with it. I mean, I just lost my fiancé. I was in shock.”
Prosecutors say Graswald thought she could get a $250,000 insurance payout if Viafore died.
She told “20/20” she can’t say goodbye to him, yet.
“It still feels unreal,” she said.