Every Town - The Strange Unsolved Case of Andrew Sadek's Tragic Death - Wahpeton, ND

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

In 2014, 20 yr old N. Dakota Native Andrew Sadek mysteriously disappeared, and later on was found dead. He was reunited with his brother in the afterlife, and his parents left devastated, now without a single living child. Andrew never got to graduate college, and the mystery as to who really killed him and why lingered in many peoples minds for a long time.  💥 Watch On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries🎧 Our Other Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579💀 Follow Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 💀 Follow Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg👁 Follow Our TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald💥 Follow Our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial🗣 Business Inquiries: [e-mail] Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Every town has a dark side. For any 20-year-old who values education and focuses sharply on achieving their goals, well, the world's their oyster. But then again, when you're young, you still have a lot to learn, and you're far from perfect. In 2014, 20-year-old North Dakota native Andrew Sedeck

mysteriously disappeared and later on was found dead. He was reunited with his brother in the afterlife and his parents. were left devastated, now without a single living child. Andrew never got the chance to graduate from college, and the mystery as to who really killed them and why lingered in many people's minds for a long time. I'm Andrew, and welcome to this week's episode of Everytown, which will take us up to Richland County, North Dakota,

more specifically, to the 119-year-old North Dakota State College of Science. That's where Andrew Sadek studied, and likewise worked as an undercover informant to the local police after he himself was caught selling marijuana on campus and has played a crucial role in his untimely and unexplained death two weeks before his college graduation. So let's dig in and learn all the details. Prior to Andrew's case, another student at North Dakota State College of Science

or ND-S-CSCS, was placed in the same quandary. He too sold weed at school and was. arrested by the Southeast multi-county agency, also known as Semka, a task force of police officers from various local agencies in the three counties of southeastern North Dakota working on drug-related cases. The marijuana-selling student was threatened with 30 years in jail if he didn't agree to work as a confidential informant, and he adamantly refused and faced the charges. He and his mother lawyered up, and in the end, he was sentenced to just two years of probation and paid a fine of $800. But what happens if a more naive student decides to become a

CI? Andrew Sedeck was born on November 22nd, 1993 in Valley City, North Dakota, was raised together with his elder brother Nick on the family cattle ranch and Rogers. Tammy said her youngest son loved the outdoors, fishing, hunting, and helping out wherever he could around the farm. But tragedy befell the family on July 22nd, 2005, when then 18-year-old Nick and his girlfriend were hit and killed by a train on their way to the Sadex farm. Only 11 years old at the time, Andrew was hit hard by his brother's death. His deep sadness may have contributed to him being quiet and shy, which is how his family and teachers described him. After graduating from Valley City High School in 2012, Andrew went on to ND, S-E-S-E-S and Wapperton, where he studied to become an

electrical technician through a scholarship he earned at the state skills competition. He also maintained his own herd of cattle to help handle his day-to-day college expenses. Quite expectedly, Andrew was at the top of his electrical technology class, and he had plans on getting a minor in robotics after he wrapped up his main courses. It's still not exactly clear why, but Andrew began selling marijuana at school in April of 2013. It was sort of strange because he didn't have much financial needs after receiving. receiving a scholarship. But it would bring in more cash, and of course, as a shy guy, he was trying to fit in, and it was probably nice having people reaching out looking for party favors.

Andrew made his deals with his customers in the school parking lot. Unluckly, though, in two instances, he had buyers who were confidential informants for Semka. A report from Semka states that a confidential informant could be an individual that is working with law enforcement for consideration regarding current charges and or sentencing. Andrew first sold three and a half grams of weed for $60 and subsequently sold one gram for $20 to two informants. In November 2013, Andrew consented to a search by Semka authorities of his dorm room in Nordgard Hall. And there they found drug paraphernalia, particularly an orange plastic grinder with weed residue, which Andrew admitted belonged to him.

However, he wasn't arrested or charged for anything at the time, but on November 22nd, 2013, the day he turned 20. Andrew was summoned by Richland County Deputy Sheriff Jason Weber, and in their meeting, which was videotaped, Weber told him that under North Dakota law, the student could be charged with the most severe Class A felonies because he saw a weed on a college campus. The felony charges carried a maximum combined sentence of 40 years in jail and a 40-pillar. $1,000 fine. And for a 20-year-old graduating college, this was almost akin to a death sentence. And the sheriff used this to his advantage. So he offered Andrew a choice. He could face the 40 years or work as a confidential informant to help reduce the charges down to misdemeanors. But what exactly

would Andrew need to do as a CI? Well, he would pose as an undercover buyer of weed from sellers on his campus who weren't yet apprehended by the authorities. Seemed easy enough. Andrew half-heartedly signed a contract without his parents' knowledge, and he ended up buying pot as a CI three times between November of 2013 and January of 2014. His first controlled buy of three and a half grams of pot worth $60 happened in November. Before the month ended, he again bought the same amount for the same price from the same seller. Both transactions took place in the school parking lot where Andrew himself used to deal.

His third marijuana purchase weighed three and a half grams priced at $60 and was done in January of 2014. This time though, Andrew bought it from a different dealer who had been under surveillance by the Semka officers. Andrew's contract as a CI obliged him to buy one more time from the person he purchased pot from in January of 2014 and another sales transaction from a third dealer. When these remaining tasks were supposedly done, Andrew would have fulfilled his obligations and would have been off the hook.

But he had had enough, and Andrew didn't make the last two required purchases, and cut off his ties with Semka. His family said the young man was preoccupied preparing for life after college, doing job interviews in North Dakota's bigger cities like Bismarck and Grand Forks. He also spent time with his new girlfriend, and on the third weekend of April of 2014,

Andrew visited his folks and Rogers and tended to his cattle herd while there. He returned to his dorm on April 26 and had a phone call with his mom that night about their shared phone data plan. There was nothing special in that call, but neither of them knew that it would be the last time they talked to one another. Andrew spent the night of April 30th relaxing with his dorm roommate, Drew Coogel, and some friends off campus. When they returned to their dorm, the roommates watched a movie before hitting the hay.

Drew woke up alone in the morning and thought that Andrew had gone to see his girlfriend, but the scholar didn't attend any of his classes over the next two days. So Drew reported his roommate Andrew missing to the college campus police. At 2 a.m. on May 1st, the dorm security cameras show that Andrew left Nordgard Hall wearing jeans in a Tampa Bay Buccaneers hooded sweatshirt. He was carrying with him a black backpack and a cell phone, which wasn't turned on. At May 1st, just so happened to be Deputy Weber's deadline for Andrew to complete his obligations as a CI. Work he kept a secret from his parents for a variety of reasons, I'm sure.

John and Tammy Sedeck finally learned about his undercover job, though, after police held a news conference at the college campus on May 5th, four days after Andrew went missing. Samka assumed that Andrew fled because he wanted to avoid working further as a CI. So in an attempt to motivate him to return, they formally charged him with two felonies. And Richland County also issued a warrant for Andrew's arrest that day. Parents John and Tammy were shocked and devastated at the news and publicly made tearful pleas for their son to return home. And this began two months of hell.

They had to endure until Andrew was finally found 56 days later. On June 27th, Andrew's body was discovered by a police diving team doing a training exercise at the Red River near Breckenridge, Minnesota, just across from Wepeton. Dental records enable police to identify that the body was in fact Andrew, and then took two more months for the release of the official autopsy report by investigators from both North Dakota and Minnesota. In post-mortem, it was confirmed that a 22-caliber gunshot wound to his head was the common. as a death. However, coroners didn't determine exactly when Andrew died, although police dated his death to within two days of his disappearance. More importantly, though, was I didn't know if he shot himself or if he was murdered. There were other strange circumstances surrounding his death. The gun used was never found, despite many times the police diving team searched the Red River.

The backpack Andrew was seen carrying in his dorm security camera was filled with rocks. His wallet was also missing. He wasn't wearing the hooded Tampa Bay Buccaneers sweatshirt, also seen on the security camera, but instead wearing a jacket which his parents didn't recognize as Andrews. Richland County Police labeled the case as a suicide, believing that Andrew had killed himself to escape his role as a CI. The victim's parents believed it was a homicide case, and they were damn well determined to prove it. On the day the autopsy report was released, Tammy was interviewed on Fargo Station, KF.D. GOFM and the feisty mother didn't mince her words. She refuted the police's suicide theory saying

there was no suicidal tendencies, there was no note, there was no depression, and his grades were excellent. Who shoots themselves in the head and fills their backpack with rocks, ties it to themselves and ends up in the river. It's just too much. She questioned the lack of evidence to prove that her son took his own life. For one, the gun used was never found, and additionally, the coroner didn't label Andrew's death as a suicide, but considered it undetermined. It was, in fact, the police who were saying it was a suicide.

Aside from the gun, Andrew's wallet also wasn't found, which suggested somebody exerted efforts to hide her son's identity. Moreover, Tamey believed the police officials will never solve the case because they just didn't care, and never took her son's vanishing in death. seriously because Andrew was labeled as a drug dealer. Finally, an emboldened Mrs. Sadek had called on North Dakota's attorney general, Wayne Stenegim, to investigate Semka's handling of her son's work as a CI. But when the investigators inquired with the Sadex about the gun, the couple noticed that they were actually missing

a 22-caliber handgun. But still, they doubted that Andrew would kill himself two weeks before his graduation. Believe that their son may have taken the gun for the gun. self-defense, and it may have been used by someone else against him. By December of 2014, Tammy had more revelations. She said that when she and her husband brought Andrew's car home from school, they found the carpet inside it soaking wet. And there were several inches of water in the well of the spare tire kept in the trunk. Tammy theorized that someone may killed Andrew and put his body in the trunk, and then drove to the river dumping him there before driving the car back to the school. Unfortunately, the school parking lot security cameras malfunctioned on the night in question.

However, someone reported to Tammy about seeing three people cleaning a car similar to Andrews the night he went missing. She also asked why her son's case hadn't been referred to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation both in North Dakota and Minnesota, as well as to the FBI. She believed that these higher-level state and federal law enforcement agencies had the expertise and resources to solve the case. But nobody is asking them, said Tammy, whose exasperation was through the roof. A response to Tammy's call to investigate Semka's conduct of investigating her son's case, North Dakota's attorney general, Wayne Stenegham, created an independent review board composed of three veteran law enforcement officers from both North and South Dakota. Their report was published

in early 2015 and a clear police of any misconduct regarding Andrew's time as a CI. But it was still silent about his actual death. Most of its handling of Andrew had followed established law and procedure, and part of the report stated, Based on the review of the confidential informant file and related case files, the review board did not have any concerns with the case files where Andrew SEDEC was a CI and conducted controlled buys. The review board also noted that the length of the time SEDEC was used as a CI was not uncommon. Despite this, though, Tammy didn't believe the reviewers were truly independent. Since they were all law enforcers, naturally they had each other's backs.

She believed Andrew was murdered and said with conviction. He was pressured into working for the Drug Task Force and was murdered for being an informant. In 2016, the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Richland County and Deputy Sheriff Jason Weber. It accused Weber of negligence, fraud, and deceit. and recruiting Andrew, who, according to his parents, was misled into becoming an informant. They likewise alleged that the county failed to train and oversee Andrew for what they were asking him to do. Timmy explained, A lawsuit is not the North Dakota way, but this is our last grasp, but hoping to get some answers.

The trial was beset with delays by first, a dispute over a gag order filed by Deputy Weber's lawyers against the SEDC couple in 2017. The trial was reset for April 2018, but one of the Sadec family's attorneys filed for postponement because the school and law enforcement agencies involved in Andrew's case never provided the documents that the prosecution needed. The court ruled in the Sadek's favor and postponed that trial again. When the day a reckoning came in mid-May of 2019, Southeast District Judge J. Schmidt dismissed the case. The court documents filed on May 20th, Judge stated that there was no evidence. evidence of the sheriff's deputy directly caused Andrew's death, or that the county acted negligently in assessing the dangers of being an informant.

Schmidt said, The stark reality of this case is that there is not and perhaps can never be any evidence of how, when, where, why Andrew Siddek died. One can only speculate almost endlessly, was Andrew's death of suicide or homicide? If it was a homicide, who did it? What was the killer? or killer's motivation. Was Andrew killed during a drug deal?

And if so, was it related to his role as a confidential informant? The heart cries out for an answer to what happened to Andrew, but the mind searches the record in vain for that answer. But John and Tammy were relentless, and on July 10, 2019, two months after, Schmitts had dismissed the couple's wrongful death lawsuit. They filed an appeal with the North Dakota Supreme Court, requesting the higher court to overturn the judge's decision.

Timmy once again let out bold statements. I'm ready to do it. It rejuvenated us. I just want them to admit they screwed up. On December 19, 2019, lawyers of the Sedeck family presented their case to the higher court's justices and submitted a 112-page expert report which contained all the reasons why Deputy Sheriff Weber's behavior was inappropriate

and not within national standards, which endangered Andrew. The defense argued, though, that no one knew why Andrew left his dorm, where he intended to go, or how he died. And certainly, a jury couldn't possibly determine what law enforcement themselves had resolved. If the Seddak family's appeal is successful, the case will come back to Richland County District Court, where it could go to trial. It's been eight years since Andrew died. His case remains in limbo despite the efforts of his parents to his parents to a trial. obtain justice. But in response to Andrew's case and in cooperation with his parents, Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Becker, a member of the state house, announced he was drafting

legislation in 2015. In it, it sought to lower the penalties for possessing marijuana on campus by making the offenses less severe, ending mandatory sentencing, increasing the amount of the drug that offenders must have to be charged with dealing, and protect, confidential informants. This bill unanimously passed the state house on February 17, 2017. Two months later, it passed the state Senate and North Dakota Governor Doug Bergman signed the bill into law, and it was known as Andrew's law. The investigation into his death is still open and active. The FBI has been asked to take a look into the case. Andrew Sedeck has achieved immortality through the law named in his honor.

And hopefully, achieving justice for him and his family will be next. So that's going to do it for this week's episode of Everytown. If you guys liked it, please subscribe and share it with your friends. Remember to tune in next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories because you never know your town might be next.