Angelika seemed incapable of forming a lasting relationship with a man. It was as if she needed a male in her life to feel complete but really didn’t like them all that much. She expected them to support her financially, be in sync with her sexual appetites, and do everything her way. The moment she didn’t get precisely what she wanted, when she wanted it, she saw her partner of the moment as more of a nuisance than an asset. When that happened, she usually was off trolling for a new man without any downtime.
Before long, Angelika met a man named Pat. At home, she gushed about him to Mike. They had a lot in common. First and foremost, he, too, was a photographer. She was also excited that Pat owned a kayak and loved to hear her talk about her experiences kayaking on the Baltic Sea in Latvia and on Lake Zoar in Connecticut.
She spent an increasing amount of time with Pat, with them hanging out and going on photo shoots together. Pat was the photographer of the picture that raised a lot of eyebrows when Angelika later posted it on Facebook while Vince was missing—the shot of her in a kayak on the Hudson River, under an ominous sky.
When Pat and Angelika decided to live together, Pat went to Mahoney’s to talk to Mike about their plans. Mike was polite and didn’t say what he was really thinking, but he was relieved that, at last, someone was taking Angelika off his hands.
Pat was living with his sister at the time and moved Angelika into her house with him. His sister said there was no way that his girlfriend could live there, too, and she kicked Pat out on the street. The couple ended up settling in a tent on the Highland side of the Hudson River.
Angelika and Mike’s breakup flowed along in an amicable fashion, up to the point when Mike made a demand. Everything went sideways when he insisted that she return the Hyundai Elantra—the insurance was in his name and he wasn’t comfortable letting her continue to drive it. Angelika was furious and wanted to get back at Mike in some way. On July 4, 2010, she drove to Mike’s house, accompanied by Pat in his car, to return the Hyundai and pick up her belongings. Mike waited patiently as she gathered her things, even though he was due at work. He certainly didn’t want to leave her alone in his house, knowing what she’d done to Richard Graswald.
When she finished packing up her stuff, she said, “I want the cat,” referring to Myetka, a black cat with white spots given to the couple by Mike’s sister.
“You’re living in a tent,” Mike said. “There’s no way you can take care of a cat.”
“I want the cat,” she insisted.
“No way are you taking our cat to a tent on the Hudson River.”
“No!” she shouted, stomping her foot. “If you don’t let me have the cat, I’ll break into the house and take it.” She lay down on the driveway right behind Mike’s car, daring him to run over her.
Mike tried to get her to move, but she refused. He looked to Pat, hoping for some assistance. But Pat just sat in his car, looking shocked and stunned by the drama unfolding over the custody of the animal.
Finally, Mike relented. If he hadn’t, he knew she would stay there and make him late to work. He watched her drive away with Myetka, hoping the cat would be okay. He was still unnerved, however, by her threat of a break-in. The next day, he had a security system installed.
He was right about the difficulty of caring for a cat when your home was a tent. Three or four days later, Angelika returned, cat in tow. She begrudgingly admitted that she couldn’t keep Myetka.
Rodney Van Dunk, a friend of Angelika’s, told the media that in the aftermath of leaving Mike she spent a lot of time at a bar, which he said was sometimes frequented by swingers just over the state line in New Jersey. She was a weekly regular who arrived with three or four girls, all dressed up to meet men, he claimed: “She was like a vulture looking for a sugar daddy.”
It seemed that Angelika didn’t look at it that way. She appeared to want the emotional and financial security of a committed relationship with a man she could love. With that mind-set, she was ready to fall for the charismatic Vincent Viafore when he came into her life. With gorgeous blue eyes and crazy dance moves that made everyone laugh, Vince checked all the boxes.