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 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.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 [email protected]. 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!
Chapter 1: Who is Wojciech Fudali and what happened to him?
Our card this week is Wojtek Fudali, the Three of Spades from Rhode Island. And hi, The Deck listeners. I'm Kylie Lowe, host of another weekly audio chuck 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.
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 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 over for this episode. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is The Deck.
During a cold 30-something degree afternoon on December 6th, 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. 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 Narragansett 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.
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Chapter 2: What were the circumstances leading to Wojciech's disappearance?
While the more than 50 pages of police documents related to this case redacted all the names, 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.
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, 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. 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.
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 Sean 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.
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Chapter 3: What did Wojciech's friends report about his behavior?
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. 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 illicit 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 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, 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 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 been acting lately.
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Chapter 4: What did the investigation reveal about the night he went missing?
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 ribcage 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. 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 a.m., 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 Wojtek's description.
So with that, a bee on the lookout was sent out to surrounding departments. 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 Wojtek'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 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 Sean were there. She said that while, in her opinion, Sean 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.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was found during the search for Wojciech?
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 Sean 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.
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. 1 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.
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 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.
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Chapter 6: What insights did Wojciech's family provide about his state of mind?
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 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 canine team with several dogs come in to search the area. We had officers on the ground. There's a campground nearby, which is pretty vacant in the winter, so we had to search that. It'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 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 13th.
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 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 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.
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Chapter 7: Were there any suspicious activities surrounding Wojciech's disappearance?
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 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 otherwise.
We were notified by the Wilbraham Police Department that Ms. Anna Fudali 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, although it was spelled wrong.
The police investigated in Wilbraham, asked if there were no signs anybody broke into the residence. They did secure these two yellow post-it notes as evidence. One just said, I'm M-I-S-E, M-I-S-E, love, and it looks like it says W-O-I-T-E, possibly K, which she felt was Wojtek spelled wrong. And then the second post-it note appeared to have said, and I am at the bet, 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 Wojtek, 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 Wojtek. 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. 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. Fodali swears that she was out when she got back there on the refrigerator.
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Chapter 8: What leads emerged in the search for Wojciech?
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 himself, it's really hard for them 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's going to be found. You know what I mean?
Unless you can, you know, kind of walk the path. I've never personally done that. And just trace, you know, okay, he left this house and this is where people say they saw him. 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 until closer to 10 a.m. on December 6th. 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. Voytek'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. Voytek, 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 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 there's human remains located within the general area, we're in contact with the medical examiner's office to see if they could be voitexed.
The hard part for me is knowing Wojtek'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.
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