A woman frames her boyfriend for murder and implicates herself, but the real culprit is a serial killer. Originally aired 11/05/21 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What mysterious events lead to Tanya Bennett's murder?
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This is Deborah Roberts with 2020. For more than four decades, 2020 has brought you an incredible variety of compelling stories. Well, now we're going to bring you back to some of the most heart-stopping ones from the 2020 True Crime Vault. And we're going to give you updates on what happened to the people involved. Thanks for listening.
I avoid this place. Since 1990, my sister Tonya Bennett was murdered here.
It was the most jumbled up case I've ever seen in my life. It's beginning to become very bizarre to me.
Laverne Pavlenak says she heard her boyfriend talking about killing a woman.
She was a character, I can tell you that.
A decade-long relationship that can only be described as dysfunctional, to put it mildly.
the police start to zero in on John Sosnovsky.
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Chapter 2: How did Laverne Pavlenak's relationship with John Sosnovsky evolve?
She had left her home, according to her mother, and she had some videotapes she was gonna return, and she had her Sony Walkman with her in her purse.
She was carrying her Soul to Soul cassette tape. Listening to her favorite song, Back to Life.
Not far from where Tonya Bennett lived was a neighborhood tavern called the B&I. And she was kind of a semi-regular there. A waitress at the bar remembered Tonya being in there.
She walked in just happy-go-lucky and was hugging people. She was there playing pool with two guys. And then later during her shift, why, she noticed that Tonya had left and the two men had gone.
but she didn't know anything more about whether she left with them or who the men were.
It wasn't unusual for her to leave the house and not come home for a few days.
Never found out what she was doing, how she was doing it. Because she kept everything a secret.
We need to check out who she's been with, who might have a motive to do something like this.
Police spend days trying to track down these two guys who were playing pool where she'd been hanging around.
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Chapter 3: What evidence was found in the investigation?
They're able to get into the house, and they search, and they find basically nothing except for a piece of paper that has T. Bennett-Goodpeace written on it.
T, like in the initial T for Tonya, Bennett-Goodpeace. That, I thought, was amazing.
A good piece, the expression used to be a good piece of ass. Is that a reference to a woman he had just murdered and raped?
They're not able to identify who that handwriting is, but it moves the investigation somewhat forward.
The police decide to question John Sosnowski. They bring him in.
Do you have any knowledge of the death?
Then they discover something that will turn this entire case on its head.
It's beginning to become very bizarre to me.
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Chapter 4: How did Laverne's confession change the course of the investigation?
We go and try to talk to Chuck Riley. He says, you're crazy. No, that didn't happen at all.
Do you have any knowledge of the death of Tonya Ann Bennett? None. Do you have any responsibility? Were you involved in that personally? No. Do you know anything about this gal at all? No. Do you have any idea of why Mr. Sosnowski would tell the police that You were involved in that. No, I did not.
No way would I do something like that. Chuck Riley voluntarily says, hey, look, he says, you guys can search my car. Fully cooperative with the examination of the car. It's fully processed. There isn't one item of evidence in there to indicate that Tonya Bennett had ever been in that car. No blood, no hair, nothing.
There was no indication at the truck stop that any room had been rented either by that man or by Tonya Bennett. He passed his polygraph.
The Chuck Riley story in the analysis of the investigation becomes a deflection by Sosnovsky, who we believe is responsible for the murder.
Police really need something much more concrete to be able to arrest him for Tonya's murder. So they get a warrant and they install a wiretap in John's apartment.
We were outside in an unmarked van, and we had asked Laverne to try to get John to volunteer information regarding the homicide of Tonya Bennett.
I don't know.
And he raises his voice and says, I don't know what you're talking about. Are you trying to frame me?
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Chapter 5: What was John Sosnovsky's reaction during the police questioning?
She points out exactly where that body had been placed. She couldn't have missed it by 10 feet. And that absolutely astounded me. I thought, my god, this woman was actually here.
We have a photograph. She is standing in the forest. and the detectives swore to me they had not in any way given her a clue.
They brought that information back and we said, you need to go out and arrest him and put him in jail.
John Sosnovsky has been charged with the murder of Tonya Bennett based on Laverne's account. But now, Laverne tells police, she has something new to share.
What she said was, correction time.
I thought, okay, what do we got now?
This was sort of like Laverne, are you telling stories again?
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Chapter 6: What new evidence emerged that implicated Laverne?
I'm told to place her into a holding cell. I said, okay, Laverne, you need to go into that room right there. She turned around and she looked at me and she gave me a hug. I thought, oh my God, I felt like I put my mother in jail.
They slam that metal door on you. That's when I started to realize what I had done. Like it woke me up.
So once behind bars, alone with her thoughts, Laverne Pavlenak has a stunning about face. She says her dying grandson pleads with her to finally come clean.
I finally told my attorney, what would you say if I told you I didn't, that I made all this up? I lied. He said he wouldn't believe me. But I says, well, I did. I lied.
And she told me that she wasn't going to plead guilty. And I warned her that she was likely to be convicted, but she still wanted to go to trial.
Her trial defense was that she had made this up.
She recants her confession and says, I made it all up just to get rid of this guy.
She says, I just wanted to get out of this abusive relationship. So you're going to frame him for murder and incriminate yourself? Who does that?
She did say that she was sorry about it all. It was kind of weak compared to what she had been saying.
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Chapter 7: How did Laverne Pavlenak's story evolve over time?
And these were anonymous letters.
About halfway through the first page, the writer confessed to a murder. He named the victim Tanya Bennett.
But we already have two people locked up in prison, Laverne Pavlenek and then John Ciesnowski.
So it looked like a hoax. But the letter just went on for several pages, all handwritten. And then he started confessing to other murders. And another murder.
And another. I went to truck driving school and learned to drive. While driving, I learned a lot and heard of people that have gotten away with such a crime because of our nomad life.
Here's a guy who's on the move constantly. He's a long-haul trucker. So he pulls into one place one night, he's there for a few hours, maybe he sleeps in his cab, and he's gone. Who even knew he was there?
I had to decide whether I was going to recycle it or do something with it. I decided I would give it to a reporter, a guy named Phil Stanford.
Phil Sanford, who was sort of a muckraker in many respects, but he could be pretty thorough.
The letter said five of five, sort of cryptic. Turned out to be five murders he was talking about. And the first one was the local murder, Tanya Bennett. Two people were already in prison for that. I figured, okay, I'll check out the other four.
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Chapter 8: What ultimately led to the arrest of John Sosnovsky?
Where do you know Julie from?
I know her from down on D Street when she came up with the gun.
Was Julie here with someone else?
Yes, she was. Okay, can you tell me a little bit, how'd they get here? In a blue semi-truck.
Interviewing other friends of Julie Winningham, and we're getting a picture that she had been seen with a very large man, a long-haul truck driver, drove a big blue semi-truck.
What did he look like?
He was tall, built, He was about 6'6", a good 300 pounds.
Police learned that Julie was in a relationship with a very tall, large trucker, that they were talking about moving in together, and Julie had even told some people that they were engaged to be married.
So it's something that it was a close relationship with whoever this man was. Unfortunately, the friends couldn't remember what his name was. Do you know the guy's name?
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