Criminology - Orsolya Gaal

Episode Date: May 22, 2022

The body of wife and mother Orsolya Gaal was in April 2022 inside a rolling hockey bag in New York City. This case has received a lot of media attention due to video footage that showed a man rolling the bag down the street. Police discovered a trail of blood from the bag's location that led directly back to Orsolya's home. Inside they found a very bloody crime scene. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Orsolya Gaal. It didn't take the authorities long to focus on a man named David Bonola. Bonola was a handyman who had done work at the Gaal home. It also came out that Orsolya and David had some sort of relationship. He has reportedly said that he killed Orsolya because she refused to see him anymore but has also made statements that point to other motives. Bonola has been charged with 13 counts including murder but has not yet gone to trial. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So everyone and welcome to episode 208 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, man. What's going on with you? I'm trying to recuperate, tired. Coming back from CrimeCon, this is our first episode since we got back. And I don't know about you, but I'm feeling it.

Yeah. Yeah, I had a red eye. And I'm just not a big fan of those red eye flights. I can't sleep on the plane. So then I got home. I took about a three hour nap, but it's, it's taken me about three days probably to, to start to feel back to normal.

Yeah. I'm still in the same boat. I still feel like I felt like when I got back. And of course, I had some some mega travel issues going and coming back, but I'm just happy to be back here at home. So it'll, it'll even out sooner or later.

But crime con was amazing. It was a lot of fun. We met a lot of, great people, a lot of fans. It was, it was a blast. It was and our meetup went really well too. There was a lot of great people there and it was comfortable and everybody was just sort of mingling and having a good time and I really felt great about that. Yeah, yeah, it really was. So let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Rachel Buckley, Patrick Campbell, Susan Thompson, Nikki McLagan and Michael van Rookheisen.

So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks to everyone that takes the time to support us on Patreon. It means a lot. And if anyone out there would like to support the show, they can do so by you want to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy. Let's go ahead and jump into this episode.

And this is a case that has recently made headlines internationally. There was a lot of coverage out of, of the United Kingdom, even though the crime took place here in the U.S., it also seemed like there was a lot of information leaking out about the investigation, despite investigators not releasing a lot of official information. And some of this information included misinformation. We're talking about the murder of Orsolia Gaul in Forest Hills in New York City. There were about 84,000 people living in the Forest Hills neighborhood, including According to a write-up about the area on DNAInfo.com, Forest Hills has been one of New York's

most coveted residential neighborhoods for decades. The crime rate is much lower in Forest Hills, which is a suburb within the city of New York than most other areas in the city, and incidences of violent crime are very low. And this is part of what makes this case so shocking. At the southern tip of the Forest Hills neighborhood is Forest Park, the 10th largest park in New York City, with a total 538 acres of park. There are nature trails, playgrounds, a pond, a carousel, and 165 acres of trees. Around 8 a.m. on April 16th, 2020, someone walking right outside the eastern edge of Forest Park found a large duffel bag, soaked with blood near Metropolitan Avenue and Forest Park

drive. The bag was a large bower rolling hockey bag, left laying out. the open, not concealed at all. Due to the blood, the person called the police immediately, afraid of what was inside the back. Another man, Glenn Van Nostrin, who was out walking his dogs, also saw the bag. At first, he didn't realize the bag was soaked in blood. As he has mentioned that he has pretty poor vision, people apparently dump things in the area often.

And he was braced for a dead animal, maybe a dog. maybe even a pig to be in the bag. In fact, he had found a pig's head near Forest Park just weeks before. Van Nostrand decided to open the back. Due to the behavior of his dogs, two Rhodesian Ridgebacks, hunting dogs, he unzipped the right side of the back and saw two very pale human feet. And more of I think you hear it so many times, especially in older cases, you know that someone comes across a body and thinks,

sits a mannequin. Well, Van Nostron told the Daily Mail, it looked like a mannequin. It didn't look very fleshy. It was more like a crash test dummy. I thought it was maybe some equipment being used for something. He unzipped the bag a little more and realized that it was a body in the fetal position wearing skinny jeans and a belt. Then he realized that there was blood in the bag. That's when he called 9-1-1 at 8-11 a.m. And just to throw this out there, it's never a mannequin. That's actually a good saying for a T-shirt. We should put that out. It's never a mannequin. Because you do hear that a lot in cases throughout history. Why I thought it was a mannequin. Well, I can tell you right now, Mor, if I've never found a mannequin out in a field or in the

middle of nowhere. Now, I have to be honest and say I've never found a body either, but. Well, I did mention this on an episode a long time ago. I did find a mannequin in the water, and it was, I was afraid it was, I was the opposite. I was afraid it was a body, and I looked closely, and then I got a little bit of courage and poked it with a stick, and then I saw it actually was a mannequin. But I also have been in a position where I've found a suitcase way out in the middle of the woods in some place so far from the road that the suitcase, I don't have any idea how it wound up there. and I knew that when I opened it, I was going to find a body, and when I opened it, I found trash inside. So a couple of things that made me nervous, but turned out to be nothing in the end. Police came out and took charge of the scene, looking in the bag themselves.

Inside, they found the body of an adult woman in the fetal position covered in blood. Emergency medical services responded to the area, just off the Jackie Robinson Parkway is part of protocol. But as expected, they pronounced the woman dead. Some reports would trickle out that the woman had been dismembered, but authorities would later confirm that this detail was incorrect. A blood trail ran from the bag down the sidewalk, and investigators followed it all the way to the side door of a home on Juno Street, just over half a mile away. It was like a scene out of a slasher movie. Inside the $2.2 million tutor-styled home, where the blood trail ended, lived a family of four. Howard Klein, his wife, Orsolia, Gull, and their two teenage sons.

But only one person was there when authorities knocked on the door. It was Orsolia's 13-year-old son. He told the investigators that he didn't know where Orsolia was and that his father and his older 17-year-old brother were away on a trip. Even the family dog was away. It had been boarded because Orsolia and her son were scheduled to head off. off to Michigan to meet up with Howard and her older son. The New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later confirmed that the woman found

in the hockey bag near Forest Park was indeed 51-year-old, or so you a gall, and revealed that her killer had stabbed her total of 58 times. In many stabbing crimes, we hear that it seemed personal because of the brutality of the crime, and these are often called crimes of passion when someone just seems to snap during the heat of a moment. Immediately, the close personal nature of the stabbing, the excessive number of wounds, and no sign of forced entry pointed to someone who knew Orsolia. Authorities searched the entire home and found blood on the first floor and a lot of blood in the basement. The murder weapon, a standard basic kitchen knife was found at the home. Orsolia's

13-year-old son had been asleep on an upper level of the home and was oblivious to what apparently had gone on in the house. An image of authorities walking or his 13 year old son who appeared to be handcuffed to a waiting police car quickly made the rounds on the internet. People were very suspicious of him early on. I think more if they're thinking was, how could someone just be in another part of a home

in which someone was murdered and not know a thing, not hear anything? People, I think a lot of times, Just don't believe that. It seemed too convenient that this happened when there were only two people at home. That's the thinking, I think, a lot of times that the people have. And I think there's a lot of high-profile cases that we've covered and that people have discussed where crime does happen. Someone is murdered while other people are in the home.

Yeah, there's no doubt about it. But I think you can see whether it's correct or incorrect to think, think that way, people do think that. Okay, another person or other individuals were in the home. So they must have either had something to do with the murder or they know more than what they're telling police right off the back. Man, I'm thinking here that this is a 13 year old boy. If he's anything like my kids, he's probably got games or phone or headphones on or something. So if he's in another part of the house doing whatever he's doing, it's realistic that he might not hear anything. Well, and the other thing that I think is that some people just sleep so soundly.

I know I'm one of those individuals. You know, my wife never wakes me up in the morning when she gets ready for work. She's got the lights on. She's banging door shut. I sleep through all that, man. police verified that Orsoya's husband Howard and their 17-year-old son were in Portland, Michigan, visiting a college that the son planned to attend. Howard went to the University of Michigan, which is only about an hour and a half away from Portland.

Now, there was other people who wondered whether or not Howard was really just trying to establish an alibi. The timing of his wife's murder perfectly coincided with their trip. there were rumors that Howard tweeted that he and his son were on the West Coast, but deleted it very soon after it was posted. It doesn't seem as if there are any screenshots proving this tweet happened, but many people wondered why someone would delete that kind of tweet unless they didn't want people to know where they were. And more if we talked about it right at the beginning of this episode,

there was quite a bit of what you would have to call misinformation. in this case in the beginning. And it's important to note that Howard's whereabouts got pretty confusing because some reporters only said Portland, not Portland, Michigan. Obviously, when most people hear Portland, they think Portland, Oregon, they think West Coast. So that added, you know, some pieces to the puzzle that people thought were missing. Yeah, in a case like this, things can get confusing really easily, especially when you hear. Portland and a lot of people, I think you and I included, would automatically think of the West Coast and, you know, people have that on their mind when he's really right there closer

to home. Yeah, to be honest with you, I didn't even know there was a Portland, Michigan. So if you said Portland, I would just naturally assume Oregon. So it really seems as if early on, there were three different lines of reasoning and suspicion in the case. People were suspicious of the 13-year-old son, believing that he planned an attack on his mother during a time where the bigger males in the household wouldn't be there to stop him and protect Orsula. They simply didn't believe that he could be inside when his mom was killed and not hear anything. Some were also suspicious that Howard and their 17-year-old son were lying about being on the West Coast due to the tweet, and more suspicious that the tweet had been apparently deleted. Now, some people

came to the defense of the 13-year-old saying that perhaps he hadn't even woken up before the New York Police Department knocked on the front door. He may not have he even had time to realize anything was wrong. Maybe he didn't find any blood. He didn't even know that his mom was missing. I think more of I can speak from experience. And a lot of people listening will understand, you know, when you talk about teenagers, A lot of them are not early risers. So to me, that is not out of the ordinary for a teenager to sleep in. And, you know, really for a teenager to kind of be oblivious to what's going on, you know,

inside the home. Now, we're talking about something very big here, a murder. But it doesn't change the fact that that a lot of teenagers just don't really pay attention or not aware of everything that's happening. Yeah, and this is a $2 million house too, so I'm assuming it's pretty big. And again, if there was no time for her to scream, if she was attacked suddenly without warning, there may not have been much noise at all to begin with. So he may not have even heard it if he was awake.

Well, and if we go back to the timeline, you know, police were investigating a murder scene with the blood trail leading right back to the home before 8.30 a.m. okay well that is early for a lot of teenagers so to me maybe it's not all that unreasonable to think that he'd either been asleep or you know in the middle of doing his own thing figured that his mom would get the door only to then wonder where she was because she wasn't there to answer the door some of the 13 year old's accusers even got him confused with his older brother who is in some sort of metal band and wears goth clothes. This along with the band name and one of their song titles was all taken by some to be proof that Orsoya's 13 year old son had been planning this.

The photograph circulating of her son flanked by NYPD officers possibly handcuffed made him look guilty to many people. And more if this is another thing that has come up in a lot of cases. you know, metal bands, goth, okay, that was something that we heard a lot of in the 80s. Oh my gosh, satanic panic and this person listens to heavy metal and wears dark clothes. This is 2022. And people are still kind of, you know, thinking along those same lines. That part really surprised to me. Yeah, it seems like it's so common now for younger people to have their own.

own style and their own personality and display that in different kinds of ways, whether it's some kind of makeup or clothing, whatever it is. So just automatically think, you know, because someone has that appearance or dresses a certain way, that they're involved in the murder of their own mom is pretty rough to, to imagine that. Well, we know it wasn't even real 40 years ago. So to me, it's even less, you know, real today than it was back then. The 13-year-old's feet weren't visible in the photo of him being let out by police, but we would later learn that he had been barefoot when the police knocked on the door,

and they hadn't given him time to put on shoes. According to Sun.com news, he was dragged to the police station, the 112th precinct, barefoot and in handcuffs. Investigators were also quick to confirm that Orsoli's son had been taken into custody for questioning, but not as quick to announce that he had been clear. cleared as a suspect. For a day or so, depending on which article you read, he was either cleared or not cleared, adding to the confusion. Ultimately, all of Orsolia's family were cleared by police. The NYPD put up a $3,500 reward for information leading to a conviction in Orsolia's murder, despite

Orsolia's family being ruled out. The reward amount once again fueled public suspicion of her 13-year-old son, because it seemed like a relatively small reward, maybe something a kid would turn on another kid for in a heartbeat, but not really something most adults would risk it all for. The same night the reward was offered, Chicago New 7 reported that Orsolia's murder was a, quote, domestic situation. But they didn't elaborate on that.

And more of to me, the use of that phrase, a domestic situation, that could mean a lot of different things to different people. I think to many that would conjure up images of domestic violence. Or, you know, you could just take it literally and think that it has something to do with the family. Yeah, it was a really broad and sort of wide open comment to put in the article and just sort of leave it there without much more to it than that, because that does get people think about all kinds of different possibilities. But obviously, the news had some kind of insight from the police that led them to report that way. Police worked to create a timeline

of Rosalia's movements leading to her murder. The timeline of her last night was pretty tight, and it led police to believe that she had been killed in the middle of the night. She had been spotted multiple times during both the day and late the night before her body was found. On Friday evening, and Abra saw her and the family dog walking around the backyard enjoying the sun. She had gone to Manhattan earlier in the night and watched a show at the Lincoln Center. She was at a local bar in Queens from about 1145 until about 1230 sitting alone. Some witnesses said it appeared that she had been waiting for someone who never showed up to the bar. But the manager of the Forest Hills Station House, where Solia, was seen that night.

said that she was a regular there and was usually there alone. And this is definitely one of the things more of that you see online. There are a lot of people who question why Orsouya was out 1145, 1230 with her young 13 year old son, home alone. And to me, that's one of the big differences in a case today than let's say 30, 40, years ago, right, before social media. Now, with social media, you can go out and look at the comments. There are thousands, tens of thousands that you can find. Some of them are pretty brutal, to be honest with you. There's a little bit of a backlash against her it seems online and whether it was the right decision to leave him home alone. You know, I'm trying to think back to when I was 13 years

old, you know, I know, I know coming home, my parents were at work. I had a key. I'd let myself in and, you know, I'd stay there for an hour or two until they got home. But I think a lot of people, it's more troubling to them if the scenarios were, it's nighttime midnight and one of the parents is out and that child's home alone. So I think that's maybe what they were bringing up and reflecting on. The manager Gabe Veras told police that Orsolia ordered her usual, a Moscow mule before she left alone. It seemed as if Gabe Veras and Orsolia were friendly

with each other. They spoke as regulars at a bar will do with their favorite bartenders and staff at the places they go. Just days before she was murdered. She and Veras spoke about how happy she had been after seeing a concert.

CBS News reported that she was delighted and elated. That she saw this particular composer live and that Ursolia was very into the arts and music. Gabe told NBC News New York that she was composed, collected in the middle of the bar, just keeping to herself and talking to staff, and that she didn't seem frightened or scared or panicked.

NBC News, New York also reported that as far as Varus and other staff could tell, she just enjoyed her one drink before going home. P.I.X11 News has reported since the day after her, murder, that although she told her younger son that she was going out to watch a show, she actually met up with another man instead. It's not clear where this would fit in the timeline between going out and being alone at a bar or whether this information that was reported was any good. But at the time of the writing of this episode, they hadn't corrected the article or

changed it. And it fueled the headlines and speculation, Orsoula was leading a hidden life. And more, if you think about the headlines and the speculation. You know, you have a woman who has been murdered. But then I think as often happens, you know, a person's life starts to get dissected. And some things come out that maybe are not reported as being flattering. You know, people are looking for skeletons in, in the closet, even of a victim as they go to tell the story. And a lot of times I think, you know, that can't be easy on the family.

Yeah, because they've got to hear all this stuff come out and deal with that part of it on top of their loved one being brutally murdered. It can't be easiest. And we're talking young men here, teenage sons, to hear this stuff had to be pretty rough for them. But it was a disturbing surveillance camera that gave the police their best clue. At 4.30 a.m., a man was caught on a ring doorbell camera, wheeling the bloody hockey bag, that contained Orsolia's body behind him. According to Fox News, there were actually at least seven doorbell cameras just on the immediate block of Juno Street.

And Orsoya's home had a security system with surveillance cameras. There were also multiple cameras along 75th Avenue that caught the suspect rolling the hockey bag down the sidewalk. The suspect appeared grainy in the footage. and the footage didn't reveal much at all about what he looked like. And here again, Morif, when we're talking about the differences between a case in 2022 and a case that goes back to the 70s or the 80s or the 90s, okay, there have been surveillance cameras that, you know, have proliferated over the years.

But to me, it's really the rise of these ring doorbells. cameras or and there's a lot of other companies that make them that are starting to really play a vital role in cases now. And I think for anyone that's seen that video, that surveillance video playing on the news, it's really disturbing that this person's just casually walking down the street, dragging this thing like they might be bringing some groceries home in a cart from the store or something. It's really bizarre. It was also. It was also, also reported that Howard Klein, Orselaia's husband, had received a text message from his wife's killer sometime after her murder. According to reports, the language in the text tried to point

the blame to someone in Orsela's past, stating, your wife sent me to jail some years ago. I'm back, and it went on to threaten the rest of her family with an ominous message. Don't call the police or I will kill your family. When Howard got this text, while he was in a different state than his wife and young his son, he was under his under his son. He was under his under his own. understandably terrified for his family. Some people wondered if the text even existed and felt that Howard could have sent them to himself or set up a hit on Orsalia and ordered her killer to text him threats to point away from him as a suspect. Klein, a lithium trader and founder of an equity firm, was under a lot of suspicion from the general public online.

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door. and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. One thing that was clear about the crime was that everything seemed very sloppy, unplanned at the very least, almost panicked. A murder weapon was left behind.

There was a trail of blood from the crime scene to the area where the body was dumped. The body was not even wrapped in a blanket or a shower curtain to try and hide the blood. We have weird text messages that don't really add up with the message that they were trying to send. You have a body dumped right in the open next to a sidewalk by a park that has over 150 acres of woods as well. as a pond big enough to drop a body in a few days into the investigation. Articles announced that the NYPD suspected someone who had access to the home, someone who had possibly used a spare key. I think it's important to talk about the victim here, or Selya Gahl.

She was originally from Hungary, where her sister and her mother both still live. Her Facebook page said she attended the Budapest Business School College of International Management and Business. where Solia and her family had lived in the home on Juno Street for about 10 years. From the outside looking in, her life seemed amazing to many. She often posted photos of her two sons and photos of her wedding to Howard. Her youngest son was old enough for a bar mitzvah, and her oldest son, a talented musician. The family often took international vacations, as evidenced by photos of the family in Tokyo and Paris. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they still got out often,

usually going to a beach in Long Island. A neighbor of the family, Theodoric Raffis, told the New York Post, she was a lovely lady, always very attentive to her family, her kids, just an amazing person. Police didn't come out and publicly name a suspect. They simply stated that they wanted to speak with a handyman who had done work in the family home. It came out that this man was 44-year-old David Bonola who had done work. around Orsola's home over the last two years, and he was wanted for questioning in her murder. They soon tracked him down, and he was arrested on Wednesday, April 20th, around 1130 p.m.

After walking up to officers who were staking out his home, according to police, he said to them, I hear you are looking for me, and they took him into custody without incident. It seemed pretty clear that authorities had some sort of evidence. footage from the home security cameras, text messages, or even fingerprints that pointed to Bonilla. It was later reported by the sun.com news that a note inside the home immediately pointed investigators to Bonola, who, as we mentioned, had done odd jobs as a handyman in the house. Attached to the fridge was a handwritten note that read, get a new handyman. But police apparently had physical evidence pointing to Bonola.

While they were staking out his home, they searched in his trash, and they found bloody bandages, a pair of blood-soaked boots, and a t-shirt covered in blood. They had also found a bloody jacket in Forest Park directly along the route that you would take from Orsolia's home to Banola's apartment. It seems like right from the beginning this guy was leaving sort of breadcrumbs in the form of bloody clues and evidence from the blood going down the sidewalk to Orsalia's body, to the clues that he's leaving on his route right to his house. in his own trash. It seems like he wasn't very clever or careful to hide this evidence. But Nola's YouTube playlists are, to say the least, uncomfortable. There are many videos about female narcissists and what to do when a woman says she wants space.

He has also commented on multiple photos on Orsoya's Facebook. Some of these are flirty things. Mostly compliments. The U.S. Sun's sources. on this information was Robert Boyce, the 35-year veteran of the NYPD, who stated that due to Orsolia's very active presence on social media, authorities would be taking those numbers, connecting them to Facebook profiles, and triangulating them to the home to see if they were there when she was killed. So more to me, when he says taking those numbers, he's talking about cell phone numbers and trying to track people who were using social media connected to or Solia and find out if they were in the area when she was killed.

You know, that's, that's some fascinating stuff. Yeah, I think you mentioned earlier. It's a different time than it was back in the 80s. There's a lot more digital stuff here and clues for police to work with. It's harder for people that do stuff like this to get away. because of the technology. Yeah, well, let's face it, we all leave a digital footprint.

We may not think about it, but it's there. I think we're all pretty familiar with cell phone usage. And, you know, the authorities trying to triangulate pings off of a tower or use that type of information. But now here we're getting into the area of actual social media. usage. And like I said, to me, that's a very fascinating avenue for authorities to go down.

Employees at a nearby Starbucks recognized Bonola with one young woman who had used to work there telling the son that everyone knew he was a weird individual, especially the Starbucks on Austin Street. He reportedly made the women who worked there uncomfortable on more than one occasion and was said to stock people. He even proposed to two different employees there. In lieu of tips for the young female baristas, he would apparently leave little flirty notes for them. He would also comment on their appearances. One former barista claimed that they did call police multiple times about him, but Bonola would leave the area before they got there.

However, an NYPD spokesperson said that harassment complaints on file didn't match the ex-workers' allegations. Well, if there's one thing I know more, it's that people in the hospitality or food service industry, what they love most more so than money is little flirty notes. I mean, you'll hear that from anybody who works at a coffee shop or any place like that. Yeah, I think these people that deal with so many people on a regular basis develop good skills for sussing out people that may be troubled or have something to hide or maybe

have some issues. And I think it was pretty clear that this guy had some issues. Yeah, I understand that. I think people who do work in, you know, some of these industries where they encounter a lot of people on a daily basis probably develop a pretty good six cents about people. Now, one issue this guy had was that he was obviously a horrible tipper. I was being sarcastic. If anybody didn't pick up on it, talking about. about leaving flirty notes in lieu of tips. No, people want tips. They want money. They want to be

compensated for their service. It was during an interrogation with police that Bonola claimed to investigators that he and Orsolia had been in what the son called an off again, on again relationship for two years. And she had only recently tried to break it off with him. He also confessed to her murder. Laying out all the details for investigators, he was angry after seeing text between Orsolia and another man. So a few minutes past midnight on Saturday, April 16th, he showed up at her house on Juno Street to talk things out with her. It's still unclear where or how he would have seen the texts between Orsolia and this other man. Perhaps it's possible that he saw, he saw, saw any communication she was having only after he killed her. But at this point, we just don't know.

It could even emerge that he somehow had unauthorized access to Orsoya's text. We'll have to wait to see if some of these details come out. Much of what police believe happened is based on Bonilla's words. There's some reports that Orsoya opened the door and let him in. But at the press conference, following Bonola's arrest, it was confirmed that a spare key had been hidden in the barbecue in the backyard. Because Bonola's statements haven't been released yet, it seems possible that Benola knew about this key and used it to let himself in. Perhaps if Orsulia did actually let him in, it was most likely to get him off the porch, so he didn't cause any kind of scene after midnight in her upscale neighborhood. This wasn't an argument she would have wanted to have with a man

she was romantically involved with on the front porch of her home at 12 in the morning when her husband wasn't home. We don't know yet what exactly really happened. Once Bonola was inside, it's been speculated that perhaps Orsulia took him to the basement so they didn't wake up her 13 year old son. The son news reported that Orsolia tried to ask him to leave multiple times, but he refused. According to some reports during the argument, he picked up. a knife and attacked Orsoya, slitting her throat and stabbing her multiple times.

Some news sources have this the other way around, stating that investigators believe Orsoya's killer entered the home and killed her on the first floor and then took her body to the basement. For some reason, Benola stayed in the home until around 4.30 a.m. When he left for Forest Park, articles don't make any mention of a cleanup at the scene, and officers at the press conference didn't mention anything regarding this either. So it's kind of unclear what he was doing there for hours. We know that he did grab Orsela's son's hockey bag to transport her body.

But other than that, we don't have all the details. But Nola did admit to investigators that the reason he moved Orsolia's body was that he didn't want her 13-year-old to go downstairs in the basement and find her. Some people from the beginning thought that the fact that Orsolia's body was moved in such a careless manner, pointed solely to the motivation to move her away from the home. Now more, if we talked about the initial speculation, you know, many people thought that her 13-year-old son was involved. Many pointed to the body being moved away from the house as proof that the son didn't

want to incriminate himself. But even early on, there were others who believed that whoever killed or Soya was showing some sympathy for her young son. And they believe that that's why it didn't matter that the knife was left behind. It didn't matter that the person was seen on camera. It didn't matter that there was a blood trail leading anyone who was looking straight to the body. And it didn't matter that the hockey bag was just left near the sidewalk. The sole motivation for moving Orsoya's body out of the home. And this was backed up by her alleged killer was to make sure that her young son did not have to see his mother that way.

There have not been any confirmations, whether or Soya's children ever interacted with Bonola at all. But I think more if you'd have to say, it's not uncommon for kids to be around when a handyman is at the home fixing something. It's hard for me to believe that at least one or both. of the children didn't at least know who this guy was or had seen this guy at the home performing work. Yeah, and to me it just brings up a really odd situation of someone that savagely stabs this victim 50-something times. It just seems brutal, but then he has the afterthought of, oh, I can't let this poor kid find his mom like that.

Let me get her body out of her. It's just a, you almost can't balance that out how that thinking happens. Well, there's definitely a dichotomy there and it's not something that we see with a lot of killers. Especially when we talk about serial killers, they seem to think very little about those types of things because you need remorse or you need some kind of conscience to come up with that train of thought. But it is kind of hard. to make the connection there. On the one hand, a person is able to stab a woman over 50 times

and then just kind of callously drag her body in a bag and dump it. But yet in this person's mind, there needs to be care taken so that a young boy doesn't wake up and find his mother. That's fascinating. It's gruesome. But the thought pattern that this person was going through is a fascinating part of this case. Yeah, I think to me it backs up the fact that this probably was some kind of crime of passion, heat of the moment attack where he simply snapped. And it wasn't thought out.

It wasn't well planned. He didn't take great precautions to avoid being found or tracked down. He's walking right down the middle of the street, leaving a blood trail. So I think he just really didn't have a plan other than this. It happened. And maybe his afterthought was, what did I do? I can't let this kid find his mom. And his half-ass plan, so to put it, was just to get the body out of there.

Yeah, there's no doubt that the killer didn't take great precautions, didn't try to clean up or really, you know, do anything like that. In the hours after Orsolia was killed, Bonola went to a city medical clinic for treatment of gashes to both of his hands. They referred him to Bellevue Hospital due to the injuries that he had. People have pointed out that if you look closely at the grainy footage of him dragging the hockey bag, you can see a bandage on his left hand as he walks home after dropping the hockey bag outside of Forest Park. It's unclear if these wounds were solely due to the knife slipping while he attacked Orsulia, since kitchen knives aren't meant to stab and don't have guards for that kind of motion,

or if she may have had the knife at some point before or during the attack. It's not really clear where the knife was when Benola grabbed it, but if he had barged into the home at almost 1 a.m., it's not unreasonable that she may have grabbed the knife to try and protect herself. Bonola reportedly gave a second confession to prosecutors. This time it was videotaped, according to the New York Post, A police source stated that his videotape confession was, matter of fact, very thorough, and he answered every question they had. Investigators later revealed that Bonola had not been at the bar that night, and he also had not followed Orsolia home.

The impact of Orsolia's loss has already started to show even to neighbors. One of them said their lives would never be the same. stating to CBS news every time I would come out. I would hear her or the dog barking, but now she will not be there. Gabe Barris, the manager at Forest Hill Station House, said about the unfolding case.

It's very surreal how it's going down. Even the man who found the hockey back said, I don't care if they're 17 and 13. They are children. I can't imagine how it's going to affect the rest of their lives. After the 911 call about the hockey bag, authorities had arrived quickly and would soon cover the bag with a sheet, but not before a van Nostron was able to take a few photos of the bag in the grass, which are now circulating online today. Apparently some news outlets are in the process of purchasing these photos.

A background investigation of David Bonola revealed that he was a father of two and entered the United States through Mexico in 2001, and has remained in the country illegally ever since. Aside from this, he had no prior reported criminal history. He is estranged from his wife, who also lives in Queens. Even the NYPD have been clear about this, stating to the Sun news that Orsolia and Bonola argued over regular domestic issues before he attacked her. Even Bonola has admitted to investigators that Orsolio,

had broken up with him and asked him to leave. Yet the media and many online have latched onto the idea that Orsoya was having affairs and sneaking around, almost as if that was worse than what Bonola did to her and her family, or as though this was an inevitable outcome because of her behavior. And I think more we see this in too many cases. It's very unfortunate here as well. It's that Orsolia has been victim shamed by some for being involved in an extra marital affair. I get it.

People don't like that. They don't agree with that. But there's no doubt she didn't deserve what happened to her. According to Bonola, Orsolia Gaul said no, asked him to leave. And that's why he decided to kill her. And man, I'm telling you, we have got to get out of this victim blaming, victim shaming. You know, there are a lot of people who do things that you don't agree with. I get that.

And you can judge those individuals. Many people do. We're very judgey nowadays. But whether it's the fact that you're in a profession that someone doesn't like, you're exhibiting behaviors that people don't like. At the end of the day, this woman was brutally murdered. And those things that she did or was doing that you don't agree with still don't make that murder right.

And I hate to see that online. I really do. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that if any one of us was in that situation, someone was dumping our lives upside down to see what. fell out, there'd be things that not everyone would agree with, maybe things that we wouldn't want out there in the public, but again, it just doesn't justify someone being murdered the way she was and dying that way. We still don't have a lot of answers, and we'll have to keep an eye on this

case as it makes its way through the court system. There's been an outpouring of support for Orsulia's family with many flowers left at the home on Juno Street. We do know that our husband and sons must be going through an incredibly difficult time and have a long road ahead. Orsulia's family has not yet made a public statement. At the time of this recording, 44-year-old David Bonola has been charged with murder in the second degree, criminal tampering, and criminal possession of a weapon. He is being held without bond due to his confession to the crime. He faces 25 years to life in prison for the second-degree murder, but it's unknown.

if he will stay in the United States to serve any time that he may be sentenced to. So Morph as we wrap up this case, you know, this is a very interesting one in that it's still, you know, going on right now. It's very recent. And there are some good things and bad things about doing these types of cases. You know, the pros for doing this type of case is that it's very current. it's in the news. People want to hear about it because they might be seeing it flash up on their news feed or

things like that. You know, I think the downside is that there will be more facts to come out. I mean, this guy did confess and he's given quite a bit of information to police. I don't know how much of that they've actually released. You know, if there's a full-blown trial,

no doubt more if there will be much more. information that comes out. Yeah, one takeaway I have from this case is that I think crimes of passion, people that are killed by people they know that they're close to, that happens across the country every day. And I think many times we don't even hear about it because it's in another town. It's far away. It doesn't make big news headlines. But this case, because of that bizarre, creepy footage of him wheeling her body down the middle of the sidewalk in New York. It's just hard not to have that etched in your mind and see that playing over and over again. And I think that's why the news latched onto it.

And so many people became interested in this case. Well, it's something that you and I have talked about before, right? Why do some cases receive quite a bit of attention, while others that are very similar receive, you know, only local or very limited type of coverage. Well, I think in this situation, you're exactly right. You have these videos that really draw people in, you know, capturing this person wheeling a murder victim's body down the street. Okay.

It's hard for people not to pay attention to that, for that not to, grab them. But to your point, morph, these types of murders happen every day all over the world, right? These types of crimes of passion, if you want to call them that, I don't know what else you would call them. Obviously, Bonola, if he is found guilty, he has already confessed to the crime, but if he's found guilty in a court of law, he killed Orsolia because he could handle the fact that she was rejecting him. She didn't want to have anything more to do with him. That's what it sounds like to me.

I'm taking that from some of his statements. And I think, you know, going back to some of the vague wording in some of the reporting where it talked about domestic issues, right? We touched on that earlier in the episode. You could take that phrase a number of different ways. ways. The one thing that we didn't talk about, because we didn't want, you know, to give it away at that point in the episode, is that domestic issues could also mean someone you're involved with outside of your marriage. And I think in this case, that's exactly what happened. Yeah, this is just a really sad case. Here's a family that's left without or so you in it. And they've got to go on. they're going to have to face the justice system and what happens to their trials, things of that nature. These two young men are going to have to grow up without their mom. Just a real ugly

situation. And it's something we're to keep an eye on to see how things play out and see if this guy is found guilty and held accountable for what happened. Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of hard at this point not to think that he will be held accountable. He's confessed to the crime. We've seen people confess and then recant and, you know, who knows what could happen. But, you know, like you said, we'll just have to keep an eye on it. Things are developing so quickly in this case that after we recorded the episode, David Bonola was arraigned on a 13 count indictment, charging him with two counts of murder in the second degree, two counts of burglary in the first degree, concealment of a human corpse, tampering with physical evidence and criminal position.

possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. But Nola, according to court records, also told police that he believed that his victim, or Solia Gaul, had given him HIV. So that may be a motive here. We will definitely have to keep an eye on this case and see where it goes in the court process. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for help with writing and research in this episode. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out and give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends who love true crime about the criminology podcast. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our

Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. Some more if that is it for our episode on Orsolia Gaul. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of So until then for Mike. And we'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone. In the race to reach customers, Ready, set, go!

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