A woman who was accused of murdering her husband while they went for a kayaking trip in New York's Hudson River has now come out to claim that she is innocent and is not a murder in her first television jailhouse interview with ABC News' "20/20."
"I didn't kill him. ... I loved him," Angelika Graswald said. "I'm not a killer. I'm a good person."
The 35-year-old, who hails from Latvia, has been held at the Orange County Jail in New York on a $9 million bond since April, pending her murder trial. She was living with her fiancé Vince Viafore in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., according to ABC News.
Authorities claim that Graswald sabotaged her fiancé's kayak and paddle before they went out on the Hudson River. Viafore, 46, sank in the river and drowned on April 19. With major publicity surrounding the murder case, Graswald had not been allowed to tell her side of the story until now.
"I needed a chance to let people know that I'm innocent. I'm being accused of murder, which I'm not capable of doing," said Graswald.
Graswald claimed that it was under natural circumstances due to the strong waves of the Hudson River that caused Viafore's boat to overturn. She said that she was unable to get to him on time before he vanished underwater, the Examiner reported.
New York officials, however, remain confident that Graswald did cause Viafore's murder. Two weeks after the incident, CBS New York did report that she confessed to the murder and was promptly arrested. Officials claim that Graswald only seduced Viafore for his wealth and murdered him to claim it for herself.
Graswald then later insisted that it was only because she was under so much stress and scrutiny that she told the police that she murdered Viafore.
"I was exhausted. I was hungry. I was just out of it. What would you do? Like, they don't give you a rulebook on what to do," said Graswald.
A month after the incident, authorities did find Viafore's remains along with the kayak and confirmed that it had been tampered with. A diary, which Graswald wrote, read that she sometimes wanted Viafore dead because of pressure to give in to sexual demands that she did not agree with.
The case is expected to go on trial in the spring of 2016, and the suspect is set to appear in court on Nov. 25, according to The Inquisitr.
