The Deck - Wojciech Fudali (3 of Spades, Rhode Island)

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Our card this week is Wojciech Fudali, the 3 of Spades from Rhode Island. On its face, this missing person’s case might appear to be a tragic tale of a young man experiencing some sort of mental br...eak. But there are a lot of loose ends and strange occurrences that can’t fully be explained away by a young college grad simply taking off on his own.If you know anything about the mysterious disappearance of Wojciech Fudali on December 6th, 2008 in Narragansett, Rhode Island,  you can call Narragansett Police Department’s anonymous tip line at (401) 789-8967. If you don’t mind speaking to Detective Ryan Prest directly you can call him at (401) 789-1091, EXT. 305 or email him at rprest@narragansettri.gov. View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/wojciech-fudali Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Our card this week is Voitek Fudali, the Three of Spades from Rhode Island. And hi, the deck listeners. I'm Kylie Lowe, host of another weekly AudioChuck True Crime show, Dark Down East. And I'm so grateful Ashley passed me the mic today. But on Dark Down East, we cover cold cases in the New England area, just like the one you're going to hear about today. But on Dark Down East, we cover cold cases in the New England area, just like the one you're going to hear about today. And who knows, maybe next week you'll hear from another member of the AudioChuck family to tell you about a case in their backyard. Now this missing person's case, on its face, might appear to be a tragic tale of a young
Starting point is 00:00:41 man experiencing some sort of mental break. But there are a lot of loose ends and strange occurrences that can't fully be explained away by a young college grad simply taking off on his own. And since we're in my neck of the woods, Ashley asked me to take Highly low. During a cold 30-something degree afternoon on December 6, 2008, a patrolman was dispatched to a house on East Shore Road in Narragansett to take a report about a missing man. Pulling up to the quaint New England-style home in a nice neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon, I can only imagine why the first response wouldn't have been five alarm. It was likely that whatever was going on here wasn't the result of some criminal act.
Starting point is 00:02:05 When the officer arrived around 1 p.m., he was greeted by the callers, two young men who we know to be Burton, the guy living at the home, and another friend, Sean. Here's Nara Gansett Detective Ryan Prest. They were concerned because Wojtek had been at their house overnight, and when they went to go check on him in the morning, he was gone. He was not there. And the last time they saw him, they reported he was acting, what they said was strange." While the more than 50 pages of police documents related to this case redacted all the names,
Starting point is 00:02:38 AudioTrucks reporter Madison was able to identify the key players through her own sources and reporting from Terry Weber-Mangos for the Providence Journal. From what we were able to put together, officers learned that the night before, 22-year-old Wojtek had been at his place about 45 minutes away in Newport with his roommate Zachary and their buddy Sean. Wojtek was sleeping, but his friends woke him up for a night out in Narragansett. Sean's girlfriend at the time, Caroline, was there too, and the group took off in her car.
Starting point is 00:03:12 They went to a party, then hopped over to Charlie O's Tavern around 10 p.m., before rounding out the night at another party. Zachary parted ways with the group shortly after arriving at that second party, leaving with his girlfriend to go back to her place. And when the others eventually left themselves, all piled into Caroline's car, they went to pick up their friend Burton, who was walking home from a party of his own. The crew all made it back to Burton's place, the house on East Shore Road, between 1 and 1.30 or so in the morning. Burton and Sean said they went to sleep,
Starting point is 00:03:45 while Wojtek and Caroline stayed up chatting, before eventually heading to bed themselves. But before the crack of dawn, people at the house were apparently woken up, and they claimed things with Wojtek took a drastic turn. Around 5 a.m., one of the people at East Shore Road reported they had woken up because he was downstairs, highly emotional, crying. He was nude.
Starting point is 00:04:11 He was reportedly hitting himself with a piece of bed frame that he had disassembled from the bed. The roommates were able to calm him down and then went back to bed and all the roommates went back to bed. But they were concerned about his behavior, but nobody called the police or fire department at that time. And then the next day, around noon time, that's when they realized he was gone and all his clothes and stuff were still on the floor, so that's when they got concerned and called us."
Starting point is 00:04:34 Burton told police there'd been a short period of tug-of-war between the two as he attempted to take the piece of bed frame away from Wojtek. It seems like Shawn eventually went in to assist too. As Detective Press mentioned, the friend said Wojtek. It seems like Sjan eventually went in to assist too. As Detective Press mentioned, the friend said Wojtek eventually calmed down, even put his clothes back on at some point. According to statements in the case files, at least one of the friends checked on him throughout the night, and every time, they said he was either lying down or putting the bed frame back together.
Starting point is 00:05:04 Now I know what you might be thinking with all of this happening after a night of partying. But let me just stop you right there because it appears Wojtek's abnormal behavior couldn't be blamed on inebriation. We never had any evidence that he was highly intoxicated or under the influence of narcotics. Nobody ever stated he did a list of drugs, he did drink, but not heavily. They stated he had a glass of wine at Charlie O's bar." Although it seems like Wojtek was being social, there was a report from a friend saying he seemed a bit off that night, like maybe more quiet, standoffish than usual, but nothing
Starting point is 00:05:42 alarming. Despite reporting that Wojtek was hitting himself with the bed frame hard enough that there were visible marks on his body, it's specifically documented in the police reports that all subjects said that Wojtek had never made threats to harm himself. I'm guessing that means they were saying he hadn't actually threatened to take his own life or anything. If these accounts from the group of friends were in fact true,
Starting point is 00:06:09 then clearly Wojtek was suffering from something. But since he seemed sober, what was happening here? Well, his friends did say the odd behavior hadn't just started suddenly overnight. According to some of them, it had been going on for a few weeks or so. Some of his friends were concerned. They reported in their statements that he was somewhat depressed
Starting point is 00:06:33 about not being able to get a job. He was talking a lot about how he could live, survive out in wilderness. One of his friends said that he was just eating only bread and drinking water recently. He was talking about being one with nature. He was walking around in cold temperatures, wearing light clothing, walking around barefoot. He had an encounter with Newport police a week or so prior, where he was out in the freezing cold temperatures, barefoot, wearing, I believe, jeans and a t-shirt. And it wasn't really making sense when the officers talked to him. They were a little concerned about some of the things he'd been saying and the way he'd
Starting point is 00:07:07 been acting lately. VOYTECH graduated from the University of Rhode Island that May. That's how this group knew each other. They had either graduated from URI or were current students there. Remember, this was 2008, a recession. It was hard to find work. But if anyone was going to find a job, it was Voightek. The guy was a genius, spoke multiple languages, had a degree in international business with a 4.0. Understandably, not being able to find full-time work would have
Starting point is 00:07:39 been stressful. And a friend stated Voightek may have also been worried about student loan debt and paying his rent. But it seems like he had a solid backup plan. His parents were supportive and more than willing to allow him to stay with them while he was on the job hunt. In fact, his mom, Anna, told us he was actually planning on moving back in with them in Massachusetts when this all went down. Likely the greatest source of his sadness, though, the loss of his big brother. He died tragically a few years prior. From what we learned, Wojtek had been on some type of antidepressant medications around the time he went missing. But even with these stressors, this extreme outburst his friends
Starting point is 00:08:23 had described to police still didn't add up for many of his loved ones. His parents were aware of his struggles and knew he'd been prescribed medications to help cope, but they hadn't personally experienced any of this out-of-character behavior. Wojtek's cousin, Beata, had recently seen him about a month before. He came to Western Massachusetts to visit her for her 21st birthday. She described her cousin as being laid back, calm, peaceful, with a heart of gold and a good head on his shoulders. Here's Beata recalling this. I didn't see any red flags. There was nothing, nothing that stood out to me, like nothing felt off and, you know,
Starting point is 00:09:06 I'm an empathetic person, like I can pick up on vibes. And I don't remember feeling any negative or bad or weird vibes at all from spending time with him." Now with more context for the time leading up to the night he went missing, back in Narragansett, something they found at the house made a lot more sense. They observed a book that was turned to a page about being one with the ocean. I believe he didn't have his keys, his house keys or his car keys with him at the time because he left those back in Newport. But just his clothing and a book is what they located on
Starting point is 00:09:43 the floor." Strangely, his clothes were found neatly folded, and they appeared to have been recently laundered, something his mom said didn't make much sense. He'd wear the same pair of jeans for weeks and wasn't known to be neat and tidy. Concerned for his safety, the search was on for this around 5'11", 200 or so pound young man with brown hair and blue eyes who had a large tattoo inspired by the Polish coat of arms under his left rib cage of a black eagle with a yellow and green background, which should be pretty visible since he'd apparently left the house naked. Even his speech would have been distinct if anyone were to interact with him. He had a Polish accent that would have stuck out to any potential witnesses.
Starting point is 00:10:30 The initial responding officer talked with a neighbor, who said he hadn't seen any unusual activity, definitely no one walking around naked on that cold winter day. He did add that he'd noticed the lights were on at the house across the street around 5 am, though. He took note because he thought it was a bit abnormal for the Spry young adults to be up so early on a Saturday morning. But it does fit with their version of events. The officer went on to check with a local hospital, but no one there matched Voightek's description. So with that, a Be On-lookout was sent out to surrounding departments.
Starting point is 00:11:07 That evening, Wojtek's parents, Anna and Richie, made the drive to Rhode Island from their home in Massachusetts. They'd gotten word about the situation from Wojtek's roommate Zachary, who'd been the one to call them concerned when he first heard his friend, who had slept over at the East Shore house, had seemingly vanished. According to our law enforcement sources, the others at the house that night, Burton, Sean, and Caroline, were acting as you'd expect Voightek's friends to act. They seemed genuinely concerned. But obviously, something we often talk about, it's not fair to judge innocence or guilt based solely on
Starting point is 00:11:45 someone's reaction. However, when Madison tracked down Wojtek's parents in Poland and spoke to his mom through a family friend who could translate, she remembers it differently. Anna explained that when they arrived at the house in Narragansett, Burton and Sian were there. She said that while in her opinion Sian seemed concerned, she described Burton as having a stone face, not appearing concerned with the issue at hand. And instead of giving them all the details about what had happened the previous night, they directed them to the police.
Starting point is 00:12:32 Since they didn't seem to want to participate in this podcast, we don't know why they may have acted like this. It's possible they were simply nervous, or maybe something just got lost in translation. From what we can tell, although they were all spoken to, it doesn't seem like Burton and Shawn were separated and really probed about their shared account of the previous night. Neither of them, nor Caroline, appeared to be treated like persons of interest. We were told there was nothing out of place or suspicious at the house — no blood, no signs of a struggle. So maybe that's why the people there that night, or the home itself, didn't seem to be put under a microscope.
Starting point is 00:13:14 At least at the start of all of this, I get the feeling that law enforcement probably thought this had to be a mental health crisis. But there's something I haven't told you yet. Something that makes me wonder if, maybe, something more was going down at the house overnight that Wojtek's friends should have been pressed on. One p.m. wasn't actually the first time police responded to that house. Another officer had been called out there around 3 o'clock that morning, mere hours before Wojtek seemingly disappeared. The call was for a wellness check. But it wasn't for Wojtek. It was for someone else.
Starting point is 00:14:03 Through the records we got access to and confirmation from Detective Prest, we've discovered that an ex-girlfriend of Burton called police and asked them to do a welfare check on him at his house. From what we gathered, it seems like she was worried because she hadn't heard from him. Apparently, he had a history with substance use, and for some reason that night, she was afraid he might hurt himself. The responding officer found, quote, all people at the house lucid, end quote. There was also a note about both subjects being sober at the time of the police visit, but again, names are redacted. There's nothing else of note in the documents we have. We asked Detective Prest if he knew anything more about it, and again, names are redacted. There's nothing else of note in the documents we have. We asked Detective Prest if he knew
Starting point is 00:14:47 anything more about it, and he said although it's not clear in the files, he spoke to the responding officer who took Wojtek's missing persons report. And when he showed up, he remembers being aware that police had already been to that same house in the wee hours of the morning for the wellness check. But there's no documentation in the report about him confronting Burton with this information, or if it even came up in their conversation at all. Although it feels like a super important detail to disclose about that night, it doesn't seem like Burton brought it up when the officer was taking his statement. However, it does appear Sean mentioned it when he spoke to an officer during the early days
Starting point is 00:15:29 of the investigation. Either way, whatever happened, the focus then was on finding Wojtek and hopefully finding him alive and well. Starting the very next day on December 7th, more intense searches were organized. We had a K-19 with several dogs come in to search the area. We had officers on the ground.
Starting point is 00:15:51 There's a campground nearby which is pretty vacant in the winter. So we had to search that. There's an old military base. So there's these old tunnels and all kinds of old gun turrets and stuff back there. We had to search that area. There was a report of a ladder on the nearby dock that was broken, so they found that suspicious. We sent divers down, but it turned out we learned
Starting point is 00:16:12 that that was just damaged by a fishing boat striking the fence there. Per the case files, there's a witness who saw Burton and a few of his friends loading up his truck to go surfing the morning of the civilian search for Wojtek, which we believe took place on December 13. There isn't much context, but it seems like this person felt like instead of heading to the beach, Burton should have been participating in looking for his friend, especially since
Starting point is 00:16:39 Wojtek went missing from his house. Anna also told us that the same morning of the big community search, a neighbor told her that they saw Burton's ex-girlfriend come by with two friends to move some of her stuff out of his house. While the timing might seem sudden, blurbs in the case file indicate that, apparently, her reasoning was they'd broken up the month before, but she waited until that day to pick up the rest of her belongings to avoid contact with Burton, figuring he'd be out on the search. As word about Wojtek being missing spread throughout the tight-knit community, two promising
Starting point is 00:17:15 leads popped up pretty quickly. First, a neighbor claimed he saw a man on the dock at the back of the house on East Shore Road where Wojtek had been sleeping over, at around 9.30 Saturday morning. He observed the man, a clothed man, with a blue hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head and long pants, sitting, slouched over on the dock for a long time not really moving, before eventually getting up and walking back towards the rear of the house. I don't think this necessarily screams a Voightek unless he somehow got a hold of some clothes,
Starting point is 00:17:50 but this second one feels a bit closer maybe. One male party claimed that he saw a naked man around 11 o'clock on the sixth walking through the marsh, which is right in the area where he short-rode that house border, this marshy salt marsh area. And after people talking about this, Voightek going missing, he claims he saw a naked man walking through the marsh southbound around 11 a.m. in the morning. For some reason, he never decided to call the police. It was December, it was cold, there's a naked man walking through the marsh, but he says he saw him as he was driving by, and he claimed that the man walking through the marsh
Starting point is 00:18:29 kind of matched up with the description he provided of Wojtek." According to the files, this guy was jogging, not walking, by the way. And when you look up this case, the vibe I get is that this tip is often taken as fact, proof that Wojtek definitely wandered off from the home on his own free will. But one of our sources pointed out something that I think is crucial to note. It's not that this witness isn't reliable. It's just that even he can't be sure of what exactly he saw. He was in a car going like 40 miles per hour.
Starting point is 00:19:03 According to an article published by the Providence Journal, this witness was a University of Rhode Island student. Madison wasn't able to find him, but it'd be curious if he was friends with anyone in the group at the house that night. After leaving the house barefoot, it's hard to imagine how even a strong and athletic Voightek would have made it to that area of the marsh where he was supposedly seen in the first place.
Starting point is 00:19:28 It sounds like you'd maybe have to swim from an inlet near the house on East Shore Road. And even though it's only a short swim, in right around freezing December temperatures, I don't know if it would even be possible to survive. It's possible your body would just shut down. Did the dogs pick up a scent at the house or leaving the house? No. Which is kind of odd, not even leaving. Yeah, it's odd, but I'm not a canine officer. The area is contaminated because so many people are walking around searching.
Starting point is 00:19:55 There's so many scents down there. The scent dissipates as time goes by. If he did go in the water, the dog wouldn't sense a living person going in the water. Dogs over the next few weeks did pick up some scents, as time goes by, if he did go in the water, the dog wouldn't sense a living person going in the water. Dogs over the next few weeks did pick up some scents, but they found deer carcasses, deer bones, other animals and whatnot. So they never picked up a definite scent from Voitech
Starting point is 00:20:18 to be able to track that. This was the only real lead investigators had at that moment. So I get why they ran with it. This witness took officers out to the area and showed them exactly where he'd spotted the man. Detectives blocked off the location with crime scene tape. Since that specific area of the marsh was very shallow and you could see to the bottom in most parts, helicopters did an aerial search overhead while divers and boats saturated the surrounding deeper waters.
Starting point is 00:20:47 But no sign of Wojtek was found. The next search police needed to conduct was of properties that were often vacant during the winter off-season in Narragansett. Apparently Wojtek had made comments in the past that he could squat in one of them all winter. With his alleged recent reckoning of wanting to live an off-the-grid lifestyle, maybe he was hiding out in one of them. But officers found no signs of him anywhere.
Starting point is 00:21:14 Of course, police also considered the possibility that Wojtek didn't leave on his own, that something happened to him that night. But it was hard for that theory to grow legs. In all their interviews with Wojtek's family, friends, and acquaintances, no one could think of a single person who'd have a motive to make him disappear. He wasn't dating anyone. He seemed to be a well-liked guy with zero drama in any of his personal relationships. His cell phone was eventually checked, but since it had been back at his place in Newport
Starting point is 00:21:45 the night this happened, there wasn't anything helpful. Calls and texts from earlier that week seemed pretty standard, too. Basic convos, checking in with friends, and asking what's up. The official searches eventually came to a halt with no luck. It sounds like investigators were leaning towards a theory that did not involve foul play. Whether he died by suicide or had an accident and was swept out to sea never to be found, I think many people in the community assumed Wojtek was no longer alive. But more than seven months later, in July of 2009, someone left Wojtek's mom a message that suggested
Starting point is 00:22:28 otherwise. We were notified by the Wilbraham Police Department that Ms. Anna Fodali had reported to them there was a suspicious note left on a refrigerator when she was out. She reported that she arrived home at 10 p.m. on the 15th, and there was two yellow Post-it notes affixed to the outside of her refrigerator door. The notes mentioned Wojtek's name,
Starting point is 00:22:58 although it was spelled wrong. The police investigated and Wilbraham asked, there was no signs of anybody broken to the residence. They did secure these two yellow post-it notes as evidence one just said I'm mice You and my se love and it looks like it's this woi te Possibly K which she felt was Voightek spelled wrong And then the second post-it note appeared have said, and I am at the bat, B-E-T." The handwriting was sloppy, almost childlike. You can take a look for yourself. We have pictures of the notes on the blog post for this episode. The writing was compared to known samples from
Starting point is 00:23:39 Voightek, but Detective Prest told us they didn't match up. According to the case files, only a day before finding the notes, Anna also reported their car had been broken into — the car that used to belong to Voightek. It's possible some change may have been taken from it, but besides that, there wasn't really anything else to steal. She said the seat had been moved back as if someone had been inside. In the case files, it seems like there may have been an attempt to compare Wojtek's fingerprints to those found in the car after it was broken into, but I can't tell whatever came of it. Plus, I would expect Wojtek's prints to be there anyways, since he used to drive the car. It's difficult to make sense of it. It's definitely suspicious.
Starting point is 00:24:25 If indeed somebody entered her house while she was gone and put these on the refrigerator, the local police department was never able to confirm that the house was broken into when they were put there. But Ms. Fadali swears that she was out when she got back there on the refrigerator. She feels like it may have been a sign from him or somebody else. And Voitek's cousin, Beata, also agrees it's suspicious. "...my hunch is that I think she thought someone was trying to cover something up, like trying to make them think Wojtek was still alive or something.
Starting point is 00:25:03 I don't think she, you know, obviously just didn't think it was actually him that did it." Months passed, then another year, and the Fudali family was left waiting for something else to come about that would help them hold onto hope. Even if it couldn't be proven that the notes were actually from their son or not, I'm sure there was a longing for things to just get shaken up again, anything to propel the stagnant case forward." And that movement would come one day in August of 2010, when Anna Fudali did something she probably so often did after Wojtek went missing — picked up her ringing phone, even though it was a number she didn't recognize.
Starting point is 00:25:45 She said it sounded like a young child talking to her on the phone. They asked, is Voightek home? She said, how do you know Voightek? He said, well, the voice said he is my brother. She said, he's not your brother. And then the voice said, yes, he is. Is he home? And then she asked if she could speak with the child's mother or somebody else. And then another woman took the phone and said something in Spanish and then hung up.
Starting point is 00:26:09 She got the number from the caller ID. And I'm not sure if she looked it up on her own or the local police department did, but they found out that area code was from Puerto Rico. The fact that the call came from Puerto Rico was interesting because Wojtek had traveled there with some buddies on a surfing trip in early 2008. A source told us that it's possible Wojtek and his friends had rented a place while they were there. So maybe this was a little boy connected to that somehow?
Starting point is 00:26:38 We may never know. We tried following up that number. We didn't get anywhere. There was never a response. Our detectives at the time contacted authorities in Puerto Rico and they were unable to ever locate where this call came from. Investigators didn't know what to think
Starting point is 00:26:53 about this puzzling phone call or those cryptic notes. Was someone trying to steer them away from the truth of what actually happened that night? Were these sick pranks? Or did it mean Wojtek could still be alive? Maybe this was his way of checking in and letting his family know he was okay. Sadly, that seems unlikely, though, because in speaking with Detective Prest, it appears
Starting point is 00:27:18 as if Wojtek's social security and debit and credit cards have never been used since, and there have been no reliable sightings of him to this day. And Wojtek's family still feels the frustration from all of this. I don't think there's anything in this story or situation that could make us lean one way or the other. Here's Wojtek's childhood buddy, Adam. He remembers friends from their hometown thinking Wojtek must be alive after hearing bits and pieces about the mysterious notes and phone call, only to be crushed to discover he was actually still missing. "'What didn't make sense to me is if someone kills themselves, it's really hard for them
Starting point is 00:28:04 to do that in a way where they are never found again, especially when it's single degree weather, right? If he's just disappearing, where is he going naked in eight or nine degree weather? He's not going to get very far and therefore his body is going to be found, you know what I mean? Unless you can kind of walk the path. I've never personally done that. And just trace, you know, okay, you left this house and this is where people say they saw him.
Starting point is 00:28:31 You know, kind of do the math. Like, in this temperature with this little clothing on, this is how long you could remain moving. And here's the radius. Like, what's the explanation for where you go to just never be found again? We checked the weather history for around the time Wojtek went missing, and although it wasn't single digits, it was below freezing at some points. It didn't reach past 32 degrees
Starting point is 00:28:57 until closer to 10 a.m. on December 6. But in 2017, detectives collected a DNA sample from Wojtek's mom, Anna, for Namus. Every once in a while, remains will be found. Recently, there were skeletal remains found up in Coventry, Rhode Island. Voitek's entered into a database of missing persons, which is checked whenever there are remains found locally. And I was in contact with the Coventry PD. They ruled him out. Voitek, they actually identified that body. Over the years, people have found bones on our beaches quite frequently actually and we always take the bones to the medical examiner's office and have
Starting point is 00:29:35 them checked. All the bones that have been located have been identified as animal bones, which a lot of them look similar to human skeletal remains. But every time this human remains located within the general area, we're in contact with the medical examiner's office to see if they could be Voitex." The hard part for me is knowing Voitex's poor parents came to this country hoping to give their two boys a better life. But instead, they lost both of their sons in the matter of only several years. The family can't make sense of what they've been told about the night he went missing. Somebody knows something, and the family believes that starts with asking the friends who were there
Starting point is 00:30:17 with him that night some more questions. Detective Prest had this to say when our reporter Madison asked if there's any reason to believe that they could be involved in Voitek's disappearance. There's no indication that they were involved in his disappearance. That being said, we keep an open mind here and there's a possibility that we could have future interviews with them. To be fair, judging by the case files, it does seem like the group fully cooperated with law enforcement at the time, and they were all re-interviewed later on in the investigation too. We only found a few things in the case files that could indicate police were looking
Starting point is 00:30:58 at the friends present that night as at least a little suspicious. One of the friends was asked to come into the PD back in early 2009 because the detective needed to clarify a couple of inconsistencies in his statement. The report mentions that he expressed that during his initial statement, he did not believe the police were interested in his actions the whole night,
Starting point is 00:31:22 but rather his interactions with Wojtek. It seemed like most of the inconsistencies revolved around him leaving out some details about the entire night, like what exactly he was doing before meeting up with Wojtek, etc. There was also a note that he expressed shock and disbelief that Wojtek's parents would think his closest friends would do something to him. Also in the case files, there were a few mentions about some people believing that maybe someone had given drugs to Wojtek without his knowledge. Madison tried reaching out to Burton, Sean, and Caroline, and no one but Burton got back to her. It
Starting point is 00:32:03 was just a simple text he sent, saying, "'Hey Madison, very sad, confusing and tough story which has never been easy to talk about. I am not interested in speaking on the podcast, but hope it goes well. All the best.'" Maybe it's not easy to talk about, but Wojtek's family is still interested in hearing the details of that night from those who lived it. So if you have nothing to hide, I would encourage Burton, and everyone else who was there that night, to reach out to them. Even with the family's lingering skepticism, Beata likes to imagine the best-case scenario. Her super cool surfer boy cousin,
Starting point is 00:32:43 still out there on a beach somewhere. Well, I still think about him all the time. I still love and care about him. And I wish I could see him, wish I could talk to him. Like I miss him so much. I don't know if he knows this, but when I got married, Matt and I wanted him to be a groomsman because he was just so close and near and dear to us. And when my son, who's now 13, was born, I wanted, and Matt wanted him to be his godfather. Like, that's how much we love and care about him. This situation just really broke our hearts, but we hope, we hope, we still hold on to the hope that he is out there somewhere and that he's doing well. We just want closure, we just want our souls, you know,
Starting point is 00:33:41 and brains and hearts to be at peace. We don't care about what happened or pointing fingers. We just want to know, is he dead? Is he alive? And is he okay? So even an anonymous tip in any form would mean so much to us. It would mean the world to us. I mean, what else can you do to help a family
Starting point is 00:34:07 that's been through so much heartache? If you know anything about the mysterious disappearance of Voightek Fudali on December 6th, 2008 in Narragansett, Rhode Island, take this as your sign to come forward now. No detail is too small or insignificant. Even a small piece of the puzzle could help detectives see the bigger picture here. You can call Narragansett PD's anonymous tip line at 401-789-8967.
Starting point is 00:34:39 If you don't mind speaking to Detective Ryan Prest directly, we have all the ways you can contact him in the show notes. The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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