October 31, 2025 • 41 mins
On Halloween night, 2001, a bright Penn State student named Cindy Song vanished into the cold air of rural Pennsylvania after a night out with friends.
Only a few scattered clues would ever surface, each stranger than the last.
What happened that night has haunted her friends, detectives, and an entire community for over two decades. In this episode of Unexplained, we go back to that night - and to the darkness that followed.
Written by Richard MacLean Smith and James Connor Patterson
Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Halloween, that time of year when, for those in the
northern hemisphere, the air is full of mischief and the
skies have darkened so perceptibly that we can almost feel
the quickening hand of winter laying ice upon our necks.
Some of us celebrate by going trick or treating with
our kids. Others might dress up in elaborate fancy dress
(00:33):
or in the image of whatever current bogey man has
gripped the zeitgeist to shock our friends at parties. More
still will probably end up sitting at home watching scary movies,
listening to podcasts, or, for the braver among us, participating
in a seance or two. It's the time of year
(00:53):
when the veil between this world and the next is
said to be at its thinnest, when spirits walk the earth,
displaced and restless, to knock on doors and reminders of
their absence. Alloween or All Hallows Eve, has its roots
in the ancient Celtic festival of Sowin, a feast marking
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the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter.
As part of the festival, offerings of food and drink
were left out to honor and appease the dead, ensuring
their good will and protection through the dark months ahead.
Strict adherence to the ritual was paramount lest the ace
she or fairy folk punish the human population of the
(01:38):
land with visitations, spoiled yields, disappearances, and even death. The
act of dressing up or guising is thought to have
begun more than two thousand years ago, with people adorning
animal hides and garish masks in an effort to blend
in with any malevolent spirits that might appear from the
(02:01):
other world. The idea being that if the spirits couldn't
see the human underneath the disguise, they would simply let
them be. Should you fail to dress up or maintain
the disguise at just the wrong moment, however, there was
no telling just what might happen. You're listening to Unexplained
(02:23):
and I'm Richard McLean Smith. It was Halloween night in
two thousand and one. In the early hours of November one,
Down at the Player's Nightclub in State College, Pennsylvania, a
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Halloween party was in full swing. The club on West
College Avenue, located just a stone's throw from the central campus,
was a popular hangout for college kids from Penn State University.
Among the crowd of revelers that night, dying up dance
floor with a warm, alcoholic buzz with twenty one year
(03:04):
old seniors Stacy Pack, Lisa Kim, and Hyung Jong Song,
also known as Cindy the Trio. Like most of everyone
else there were in fancy dress for the occasion, Cindy
had opted for a simple bunny costume, complete with ears
and bushy tail. All three young women had met through
(03:27):
the close knit Korean Undergraduate Student Association and had soon
become inseparable. The Player's nightclub was one of their favorite hangouts.
They could often be found there most Thursday nights, as
Cindy wasn't working her weekly shift at the university's laptop library.
That night had been an especially fun occasion for them.
(03:49):
It wasn't just the buzz of it being Halloween and
how such nights seemed to charge the air with just
that little bit more electricity. It was Cindy herself, or
rather the old Cindy. For the best part of a month,
Cindy had been carrying the weight of a broken heart.
(04:09):
She and her ex had been seeing each other for
six months and even shed an apartment together before he
abruptly called the whole thing off and moved out. For
the Korean student, so far from home with no close
family to turn to, it had been a difficult few weeks,
but slowly the bright smile for which she had become
(04:31):
renowned on campus was returning. That night, down at the
Player's nightclub, it seemed as though she was finally back
to her usual self. Shortly before two a m. With
the night club about to close, Stacy suggested they head
to another party at a friend's place in the university's
park Hill apartment complex, a short drive away along East
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Beaver Avenue. The three young women, joined by another friend,
emerged from the club moments later and stepped out into
the chill autumn air up above a large waxing gibbus
dissolved intermittently between passing clouds as they clambered into Stacy's car.
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The party at park Hill was petering out by the
time Cindy and her friends arrived. After another hour or so,
they decided to call it a night. Around three thirty am. Stacy, Lisa,
and Cindy stepped back out into the chilly morning air,
bundled back into Stacy's car, and set off towards Cindy's apartment.
(05:46):
As the car made its way through town, they passed
the occasional eerily costumed straggler swaying drunkenly on the sidewalk,
like a lost extra from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But
before long they were heading out beyond the crowded bars
and well lit downtown streets, to where the roads grew quieter,
(06:07):
the houses further apart. Inside the car, the girl sat
in a kind of dreamy silence, half drunk, half tired,
watching the spindly silhouettes of the trees as they passed,
in that strange early morning calm that comes after hours
of noise and dancing. The smell of smoke, cheap vodka,
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and perfume hung in the air Up above. The moon
seemed to follow them, sliding silently between drifting clouds, keeping
pace over the rooftops and empty sidewalks. Finally, they arrived
at Cindy's apartment, just off West Clinton Avenue. The College
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Park complex where Cindy lived was purpose built student accommodation,
comprising a dozen or so buildings, each with about twelve apartments,
and so A light, misty rain was falling as they
pulled up Stacy and Lisa said their goodbyes to Cindy
as she stepped out of the car. The complex was
(07:12):
deadly silent, with not another soul in sight as they
waved her off. They watched on for a moment as
she drew closer to her door, Then, eager to get
to bed themselves, Stacy started up the engine and drove off.
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It was sometime in the afternoon the following day that
Yong Chu Kim, also known as Katherine, Cindy Song's flatmate,
returned home. Katherine had missed the previous night's celebrations, having
been away in Philadelphia. She and Cindy had made plans
to hang out that afternoon, and she was looking forward
to catching up on any gossip from the party. When
(07:57):
Catherine arrived, she found the front door locked from the outside,
so it wasn't a huge surprise to find no sign
of Cindy inside, But as the afternoon turned to evening,
Cindy was still yet to appear. Text to Cindy's phone
went unanswered, but Catherine wasn't immediately concerned. There were countless
(08:19):
places she could have been. Perhaps she'd hooked up with
someone the night before, she thought, or had picked up
a last minute shift at one of her two jobs,
but when there was still no sign of her the
following morning, Catherine began to worry. Weirdly, Stacy and Lisa
hadn't heard from them either, since they'd last seen her
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two nights before. It was around this time that Catherine
spotted the fake eyelashes Cindy had warned for Halloween on
her bedside table, suggesting she had at least made it
back inside the apartment after Stacy dropped her off. Catherine
also found a bag that Cindy had used that night,
(09:00):
containing a change of clothes and something else too, her
mobile phone. It had been in the apartment the whole
time that Catherine had been trying to contact her. Now
Cyndy's friends were really starting to panic. Calls were made
to the laptop library and the Korean restaurant where Cindy
(09:20):
also worked. Her ex boyfriend and Cindy's aunt, Young Kim,
who lived in Virginia, were also contacted, but neither had
spoken to her recently. It appeared incredibly that at some point,
after being dropped off by Stacy and her flatmate, returning
the following day, she had completely vanished off the face
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of the earth. When there was still no word from
her by the morning of Sunday, November fourth, Stacy contacted
the Ferguson Township Police Department and reported Cindy missing. Yon
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Jong Song or Cindy, who like many of her Korean friends,
took an anglicized name to ease her transition into America,
was born and raised in Seoul. After moving to the
United States in the mid nineteen nineties, she lived with
her aunt Young Kim in Springfield, Virginia. After graduating high school,
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she enrolled at Pennsylvania State University, where she majored for
a bachelor's degree in integrative arts. Her ambition must to
one day be a successful graphic and fashion designer. Though
things had been hard initially moving to a whole new
country and culture, by two thousand and one America felt
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very much like a second home. She had a close
knit circle of friends and an active social life, and
often took to her personal penn State web page to
share her various loves like Van Goch and Ben and
Jerry ice cream, or to proudly promote things that her
friends had been working on. She enjoyed running and swimming,
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but disliked fakers and selfish people. Fun, she said, was
anything except hardcore drugs. When police first arrived at her
apartment to investigate, they began by questioning her friends about
her last known movements. All shared what they knew, which
in essence wasn't much. Cindy had been in good spirits
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that night, they said, Stacy had dropped her off at
her apartment, and though she hadn't seen her enter the property,
the fact they later found her fake eyelashes, bag and
phone inside was clear evidence that she had made it home.
A more thorough inspection of the apartment revealed no signs
of a struggle inside or outside. Nothing of Cindy's, as
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far as anyone could tell, appeared to be missing, except
for her keys and wallet, which contained her ID and
credit cards. Detective Brian Sprinkle, who led the case, wanted
to keep an open mind, hoping that maybe she'd just
left spontaneously for some time away, but certain details made
(12:13):
him wonder if she'd done something far more drastic. Cindy's
friends said she'd been in good spirits the night she disappeared,
but in reality things were a little more complicated. Although
she'd been doing better in recent days, She'd also been
taking medication and seeing a therapist to help get over
(12:34):
her break up. Cindy's home in America outside of university
was her aunt Young Kim's house in Springfield, Virginia. As
her aunt quietly explained to the police, the last time
she'd seen Cindy, she seemed unusually quiet and distant. Cindy's mum, Benson,
(12:54):
back in South Korea, who Cindy was much more open
with than her aunt, was horrifying to learn that her
daughter was missing. She too, recounted how devastated Cindy had
seemed after the break up. Then police discovered this on
Cindy's personal Penn State web page, written just a week
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before she disappeared. Sad but happy, crying but laughing, ugly
but pretty, hungry but full, hurt but fine, weak but strong.
I pretend and this is me. Despite the mounting evidence
(13:39):
that Cindy might have killed herself, in truth, the idea
never really sat right. The more detective Sprinkle learned about her,
the more out of character it seemed. She was studious
and a reliable employer. The owner of the Sole Garden
restaurant where Cindy worked part time as a server was
(14:00):
effusive about her dependability and work ethic. She even dropped
in occasionally on her days off to spend time with
the owner's young children and to do something without even
leaving a note. It just didn't fit. When officers searched
Cindy's apartment, they found tickets for a Britney Spears concert
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due the following week that she'd been hugely excited about.
Pinned to her wall. Alongside that was a letter and
resume she'd been working on for a graphic design internship
that she was hoping to get onto the following year. Perhaps,
then wandered Detective Sprinkle, maybe she really had just simply
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run away and wanted to be alone for a short time.
But as the days went by, that supposed alone time
just got longer and longer, and Cindy didn't come back.
To Detective Brian Sprinkle and many of his colleagues, it
was beginning to look like something altogether different had happened.
(15:04):
Across the road from Cindy's apartment was the twenty four
Hour Giant Supermarket. It was often used by students on
a late night essay binge looking for refreshments, or indeed
by anyone who might just be looking for snacks to
stave off a hangover in the early hours of the morning.
That Cindy appeared to have left the flat only with
(15:26):
her wallet and keys could imply that she merely left
to go to the store with the full intention of
coming home immediately after. After all, what would she need
her phone for on a quick dash to the shops
at five am in the morning. If this is what happened,
there were only a few likely possibilities for what had happened.
(15:49):
She'd been the victim of a hidden run that someone
had tried to cover up, or she'd been deliberately attacked
or abducted and possibly murdered. On her student web page,
Cindy listed her strong qualities as creativity, responsibility, and her
unbounding energy. Under weaknesses, she said that she was too gullible.
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Others agreed she had a tendency to naively assume the
best of everyone. Perhaps some wondered she'd been approached by
someone on her way back from the supermarket asking for help,
and Cindy had stopped to speak with them, only for
them to then attack her. Either way, all speculation was useless.
(16:37):
What the police needed was evidence something to point to
a crime being committed. Just over a week after Cindy disappeared,
the first search teams assembled outside Cindy's apartment block while
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the heavy hum of a police search helicopter buzzed overhead.
Numbering about twenty to thirty people, the team was compiled
from members of the Ferguson Township Police, as well as
Center County and Elk County Search and Rescue departments. They
focused first on the wooded area and bike paths immediately
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to the west of Cindy's apartment, but eventually stretched across
to Brier Green on the eastern edge of town. Teams
worked methodically plodding along under colorless skies as they searched
for a body, jewelry, clothing, bank cards, or anything else
belonging to Cindy. Search docs yanked at their leads, eagerly
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sniffing at whatever patch of undergrowth they could find. CCTV
from the Giants Superstore was investigated, and Cindy's email and
bank cards were monitored. Cindy's ex boyfriend and others were
questioned over their possible involvements while all over town. Cindy's
face with her characteristically bright smile peered out from posters
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and leaflets with requests for any information. They detailed Cindy's particulars.
Twenty one year old Asian female, black hair, brown eyes,
height around five foot two, last seen in the early
hours of November first, wearing a rabbit costume consisting of
a pink sleeveless shirt with a rabbit imprinted on the front,
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a white tennis skirt with a cotton bunny tail attached
to the back, brown sweded knee high boots, rabbit ears,
and a red knee length hooded parker, but all of
it was to no avail. The CCTV footage had already
been taped over by the time the police got to it.
(18:49):
Cindy's e mail and bank carts remained inactive throughout. All
potential suspects were eliminated, and the search teams found nothing.
After three solid weeks of investigating, Detective Brian Sprinkle and
the Ferguson Township Police Department had failed to find one
single clue as to what might have happened to Cindy.
(19:14):
Due to complications with Cindy's father's health, it wasn't until
late November that Cindy's mother Pensun and brother Kihor were
finally able to fly out to the States to do
what they could to help for Cindy's mother, especially already
enduring a life away from her daughter on the other
side of the world. It's impossible to articulate the sadness
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she must have felt as she sat for the first
time on her daughter's bed, surrounded by all her things,
feeling for all the world as though she might step
through the door at any minute. They were adrift on
a sea of grief. Cindy's brother vowed that they would
stay in town until Cindy's case was resolved. As November
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turned to December, the nightmare showed no sign of ending.
Around one thirty am in the morning of Friday, December seventh,
police received an anonymous phone call from a woman claiming
she had some vital information relating to Cindy's case. Police
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tracked the call back to a phone line located downtown
on East College Avenue, but they never heard from the
caller again. Penn State University put up a twenty seven
thousand dollar reward for any information that would lead to
a breakthrough in the case, but as two thousand and
one came to an end, no one came forward with
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anything useful for Cindy's family. The lack of movement in
the case was devastating. After a further month of nothing,
they conducted a press conference accusing Ferguson Township PD of
fail to commit sufficient time and attention to Cindy's disappearance.
On New Year's Day two thousand and two, thirteen year
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old Alicia Kazakivich was abducted from her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After a fevered search was mounted for her, involving fifty
FBI agents, Alicia was eventually found alive three days later,
chained up at the home of her abductor. Cindy's family
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wanted to know why it was that the disappearance of Alicia,
who was white, had merited such a profoundly different response
to Cindy's disappearance, for whom it took the police a
whole week before they began searching for her in earnest.
Though Alysia was a minor compared to the more self
reliant and autonomous twenty one year old Cindy, who had
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possible reasons to electively disappear, there was some considerable justification
to the anger. The police department's response was to cut
off all communication with Cindy's family. Either way, none of
it brought Cindy home. Then, on February thirteenth, the police
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received a possible tip off. It came from a woman
in Philadelphia, nearly two hundred miles from where Cindy was
last seen. The caller claimed she'd spotted someone that looked
like Cindy in a car in the city's Chinatown district.
The young woman appeared distressed and even called out for
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help before the man she was with quickly intervened, telling
the witness to get lost. According to investigators, however, the
witness's story changed so many times following her initial testimony
they couldn't verify her statements in any meaningful way. Several
attempts were made to identify the man, who was described
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as having an olive or light brown skin complexion and
medium length hair, but nothing came of it. Detective Sprinkle
described Cindy's disappearance as the most baffling case he'd ever
been involved with. By May two thousand and two, he
was at a complete loss and just about ready to
(23:17):
accept any kind of help. Back in September, two thousand
and one, nineteen year old Penn State student Ryan Buell
established the Penn State Paranormal Research Society. The twenty five
member strong group had been in discussions with self described
psychic Carla Barron about giving a talk to the organization
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when it occurred to Buell that maybe she could help
the investigation. Detective Sprinkle felt he had nothing to lose.
Carla Barron was based in Los Angeles, but had a
(24:04):
connection with Pennsylvania, having graduated from lock Haven High School,
about forty miles north from where Cindy disappeared. With her
own radio show, The Crystal Palace and regular appearances on MTV,
Barron claimed to have assisted in over fifty criminal cases
in Mexico and the United States, including the O. J.
(24:25):
Simpson and John Bennet Ramsey cases. Over a number of
phone calls with Detective Sprinkle in May, Barron made the
startling claim that she'd made contact with Cindy's spirit. There
were three to four men involved. She'd said they'd loaded
her into a vehicle with the intention of carrying out
(24:46):
a sexual assault. It wasn't very long before she crossed over,
she added solemnly. Over the next few weeks on the
phone to Sprinkle, Barren relayed a series of visions she
claimed to have regarding Cindy's disappearance. According to Baron, she'd
seen the image of an Asian word carved into a
(25:08):
tree in Two Deck Park, a small recreational ground right
next to Cindy's apartment complex. Another vision involved a wooded
area and water, as well as some kind of electrical
device lying close to a railroad crossing. She couldn't say
what any of it meant exactly, only that all of
(25:28):
it was linked to Cindy. In August, Sprinkle invited Baron
to come down to State College to investigate the area
for herself. Walking together through Two Deck Park, Carla found
herself drawn to one of the trees at the park's periphery.
Moving closer to it, Detective Sprinkle felt the hares stand
(25:51):
up on the back of his neck. An Asian word
had been carved into it. Later, the pair made their
way out to Curtain Village, the site of an old
iron works nestled away on the banks of Bald Eagle Creek,
about twenty miles north of State College. Although the works
had closed down in the nineteen twenties, the vacated buildings
(26:15):
remained Today, it's preserved as a kind of ghost town.
It was eerie enough out there in the pastoral silence,
surrounded by the old furnace stack, gristmill, and the long
abandoned grand iron Master's mansion house. Detective Sprinkle eyed it
all suspiciously, wondering if this was where Cindy had been taken,
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or if her body might even still be there. Having
found nothing untoward, Detective Sprinkle and Carla headed into the
surrounding trees until they stumbled upon a railroad crossing, where
right beside it was some kind of electrical device, just
as Carla claimed to have seen her visions. The detective
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was astounded, Though none of it led to anything concrete.
At that point in time, Detective Sprinkle remained convinced that
quote a good deal of the information Carla had provided
would help them crack the case. On the twenty first
of that month, Cindy's case was featured on an episode
(27:23):
of Unsolved Mysteries, leading to another bump of public interest.
A string of tips and apparent sightings followed, but once
again all of it came to nothing. Over time, with
no solid leads to bring investigators any closer to finding
an answer, interest in the case began to fade. It
(27:51):
was late March two thousand and three, eighteen months since
Cindy Song vanished into thin air, when Luzerne County Homicide
to Teensive Lieutenant Gary Kapitano got a call out of
the blue from an old friend. The man was calling
on behalf of his niece, Ellen Smarker, from Wilkes Barry,
a town about one hundred and forty miles east of
(28:14):
State College, who had fallen victim to a string of
recent burglaries. He wanted to know if Detective Capitano could
do him a favor and look into it. Happy to oblige,
Capitano had called Ellen and asked if she had any
idea who the perpetrators might be. She gave him two names,
Hugo Celenski and Paul Weekly. Ellen had grown up with Hugo,
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who had a string of prior charges of robbery. Paul
Weekly was his flatmate. As it happened, Weekly was at
that point in prison serving time for an unrelated robbery.
It seemed reasonable to think there was a good chance
he had also robbed Ellen's house, so Detective Capitano decided
to pay him a visit. Weekly thankfully agreed to talk
(29:02):
with him, alongside his attorney, Tom Cometta. Capitana was somewhat
surprised when Weekly quickly informed him that he couldn't possibly
have robbed Ellen's house on the night in question. That night,
he was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet while on federal probation,
and records showed he was home at the time. Why then,
(29:24):
thought the detective had. He agreed to speak to him,
as weeakly explained, then he wanted to inform on the
guys who actually did it, in the hope that his
present sentence would get reduced. When Detective Capitana agreed to
see what he could do, Weakley gave him two names,
Hugo Celenski and Patrick Russin. The detective duly noted them down,
(29:49):
then got up to leave. Then Weekly's attorney called him back.
Cap He said, there's more, sit down. What Poor Weekly
told him next was almost too grotesque to believe. He
claimed that Hugo Selenski had also murdered multiple people, possibly
(30:09):
as many as sixteen, and that their bodies were buried
on Selenski's property in the nearby Kingston Township. Among the dead,
Weekly set was a young woman he'd picked up from
State College, a woman who'd been wearing bunny ears when
she was abducted back in two thousand and one, Cindy Song.
(30:37):
The very next day after his astonishing claim, Detective Capitano
interviewed Poor Weekly more extensively. Weekly claimed that during the
summer of two thousand and two, he'd seen Selenski's dog
carrying a dismembered human arm around in its mouth. He
said he'd spotted the bodies of a woman and child
(30:58):
in a well while working on Selensky's water system, and
had seen bone fragments and a jawbone under the porch.
But it was the story about Cindy's Song that particularly
caught the investigator's attention. According to Weekly, Zelensky told him
in April two thousand and two that he and a
(31:18):
man named Michael Kokovsky had abducted a young woman from
State College, believing she was a sex worker. Krkovsky allegedly
said he had its way with her and kept her
at his Hunlock Creek home until she died. Weekly acclaimed
Kokovsky had kept the bunny ears song was wearing as
(31:39):
part of her Halloween costume as a souvenir. Michael Krkovski
was a pharmacist from Hunlock Creek who pleaded guilty to
running a prescription drug rink that netted at least eight
hundred thousand dollars and was about to be sentenced when
he and his girlfriend Tammy Fassett were reported missing in
(31:59):
men two thousand and two. They were both thirty seven
years old. Weekly informed police that Selensky had in fact
murdered Kikovski and Facet, fearing they might lead the police
to him after he allegedly discovered that Kokovsky had kept
Cindy's bunny ears. The following morning, June fifth, a team
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of investigators, along with Paul Weekly, made the short journey
along tree lined country lanes out to Hugo Selensky's seven
acre property on Mount Olivet Road. When they arrived, Selensky
was preparing to host a graduation party for one of
his sisters, with workmen setting up a tent for the
(32:41):
occasion in the yard. They handed him a warrant to
search his property. Selensky's face went pale as some officers
took him inside for questioning Weekly proceeded to lead the
others around the property, pointing out places where he claimed
the bodies had been buried. The investigators began to dig.
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It wasn't long before they found something. Located about twenty
feet from a corner of the house, close to a well,
were two sets of human remains in a shallow grave,
their wrists still bound together with zip ties, and the
excavation didn't stop there. Over the next few days, officials
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unearthed the badly charred remains of two more bodies, as
Weekly continued to direct them around the property, pointing out
places where he claimed to have seen bones. According to him,
Selensky had as many as twelve of his victims buried
in the garden. Selenski's girlfriend, Christina Strom, to whom the
(33:48):
property actually belonged, had lived there the entire time, with
no idea whatsoever that she did so, surrounded by dead bodies.
In the end, despite Weekly insistence there was more, after
thirty eight days of digging, the police only succeeded in
finding five sets of remains. After DNA analysis, two were
(34:11):
found to be pharmacist Michael Kokowski and its partner Tammy Fassett.
Another two were identified as twenty nine year old Frank
James and twenty three year old Addie assasss Keeler, alleged
drug dealers who Selenski had apparently killed back in May
two thousand and three before burning their bodies in a pit.
(34:33):
Although the fifth body was impossible to identify, its DNA
was not a match for Cindy's. A short time after
the gruesome discovery at Hugo Selenski's property, police searched Paul
(34:54):
Weekley's home. On his computer, they found a slew of
downloaded information about Cindy Song's disappearance from the Internet. It
appeared that Weekly had researched the case thoroughly before electing
to speak to the police about it. Detective Capitano knew
that Weekly wanted to share information in the hope of
(35:14):
reducing a prison sentence he was serving at the time.
What emerged over the next few weeks was an even
more disturbing picture. Weekly, who first met Selensky in prison
in the nineteen nineties, eventually admitted that it was in
fact he who had plotted with Selenski to kidnap Kokovsky
(35:35):
and his girlfriend Tammy, with the intention of extorting them
for money. In the end they had killed them both.
Weekly acknowledged under cross examination that he misled the authorities
early in the investigation because he wanted to pin it
all on Selenski. My stories had a lot of holes
in them, he said, I told numerous lies. On October sixth,
(36:00):
two thousand and three, Hugo Selenski was charged with two
counts of homicide in the deaths of James and Keeler,
and was also eventually charged with killing Kokovsky and Facet two. However,
it would take until January twenty fifteen, more than twelve
years after the bodies were discovered, before Selenski finally stood trial.
(36:22):
Paul Weekly, forty six years old, by then, avoided a
potential death sentence by pleading guilty to federal charges, having
already been sentenced to life in prison in June two
thousand and eight. In February twenty fifteen, Hugo Selenski was
sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Despite the hollowness of
(36:45):
Poor Weekly's accusation that Zelenski had been involved in Cindy
Song's murder, Detective Brian Sprinkle and his team back in
the Ferguson Township Police department remained haunted by his claims.
Could there really be more bodies on Selenski's property just
waiting to be uncovered? Might one of them be Cindy's.
(37:10):
In the end, investigators were never able to connect Hugo
Selenski to Cindy's disappearance, As State Police Sergeant Stephen Byron,
who was heavily involved in her investigation, put it, we
looked at everything. We haven't uncovered one piece of evidence
to corroborate this. In October two thousand and four, shortly
(37:39):
after Hugo Selenski and poor Weekly's arrests, frustrated at having
come to yet another dead end, Detective Brian Sprinkle turned
once more to self described psychic Carla barn This time,
Detective Sprinkle and Carla agreed to let ABC News film
her in action, almost exactly three years to the day.
(38:02):
Detective Sprinkle and ABC Primetimes John Kinyonis and his camera
crew watched on silently as Carla Baron sat at a
desk down at the Ferguson County Police Station and slowly
laid out a set of tarot carts. Placed above the
carts was a polaroid of Cindy's Song. Carla took a
(38:24):
deep breath, then settled her mind. She's telling me she's
in a different place now, she said. She now knows
why this happened to her. Detective Sprinkle leaned in closer,
hoping for more details, but nothing came. Then Carla spoke
into the air, Cindy, how did you lose your life?
(38:49):
The others in the room held their breath as Carla
appeared to be receiving more information. It was somebody obsessed
with her, she said. Detective Sprinkle jumped in. Is it
Zelensky or Kokowski? He said eagerly. Carla seemed to nod.
They were at the helm. She said, they were orchestrating,
(39:11):
but the main person she knew the person. Finally, Carla asked,
all right, Cindy, where are your remains? But no answer came.
If you're listening to this episode on its release, it
is twenty four years to the day that then twenty
one year old Heyon Jong Song, also known as Cindy,
(39:35):
disappeared without a trace. Today, twenty one binders remain in
the Ferguson County Police Station archives containing all materials relevant
to the case, one for each year of Cindy's life.
Perhaps someday they might yet yield an answer to this
tragic and beguiling mystery. Until then, just what exactly happened
(40:00):
to Cindy's song on that haunting Halloween night remains to
this day unexplained. This episode was written by Richard mclin
Smith and James Connor Patterson. Thank you as ever for
listening Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by
(40:24):
Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including
the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.
The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and
other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
(40:45):
you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or
a story of your own you'd like to share. You
can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and
reach your online through X and Blue Sky at Unexplained
Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained
(41:08):
Podcast
Halloween, that time of year when, for those in the
northern hemisphere, the air is full of mischief and the
skies have darkened so perceptibly that we can almost feel
the quickening hand of winter laying ice upon our necks.
Some of us celebrate by going trick or treating with
our kids. Others might dress up in elaborate fancy dress
(00:33):
or in the image of whatever current bogey man has
gripped the zeitgeist to shock our friends at parties. More
still will probably end up sitting at home watching scary movies,
listening to podcasts, or, for the braver among us, participating
in a seance or two. It's the time of year
(00:53):
when the veil between this world and the next is
said to be at its thinnest, when spirits walk the earth,
displaced and restless, to knock on doors and reminders of
their absence. Alloween or All Hallows Eve, has its roots
in the ancient Celtic festival of Sowin, a feast marking
(01:15):
the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter.
As part of the festival, offerings of food and drink
were left out to honor and appease the dead, ensuring
their good will and protection through the dark months ahead.
Strict adherence to the ritual was paramount lest the ace
she or fairy folk punish the human population of the
(01:38):
land with visitations, spoiled yields, disappearances, and even death. The
act of dressing up or guising is thought to have
begun more than two thousand years ago, with people adorning
animal hides and garish masks in an effort to blend
in with any malevolent spirits that might appear from the
(02:01):
other world. The idea being that if the spirits couldn't
see the human underneath the disguise, they would simply let
them be. Should you fail to dress up or maintain
the disguise at just the wrong moment, however, there was
no telling just what might happen. You're listening to Unexplained
(02:23):
and I'm Richard McLean Smith. It was Halloween night in
two thousand and one. In the early hours of November one,
Down at the Player's Nightclub in State College, Pennsylvania, a
(02:44):
Halloween party was in full swing. The club on West
College Avenue, located just a stone's throw from the central campus,
was a popular hangout for college kids from Penn State University.
Among the crowd of revelers that night, dying up dance
floor with a warm, alcoholic buzz with twenty one year
(03:04):
old seniors Stacy Pack, Lisa Kim, and Hyung Jong Song,
also known as Cindy the Trio. Like most of everyone
else there were in fancy dress for the occasion, Cindy
had opted for a simple bunny costume, complete with ears
and bushy tail. All three young women had met through
(03:27):
the close knit Korean Undergraduate Student Association and had soon
become inseparable. The Player's nightclub was one of their favorite hangouts.
They could often be found there most Thursday nights, as
Cindy wasn't working her weekly shift at the university's laptop library.
That night had been an especially fun occasion for them.
(03:49):
It wasn't just the buzz of it being Halloween and
how such nights seemed to charge the air with just
that little bit more electricity. It was Cindy herself, or
rather the old Cindy. For the best part of a month,
Cindy had been carrying the weight of a broken heart.
(04:09):
She and her ex had been seeing each other for
six months and even shed an apartment together before he
abruptly called the whole thing off and moved out. For
the Korean student, so far from home with no close
family to turn to, it had been a difficult few weeks,
but slowly the bright smile for which she had become
(04:31):
renowned on campus was returning. That night, down at the
Player's nightclub, it seemed as though she was finally back
to her usual self. Shortly before two a m. With
the night club about to close, Stacy suggested they head
to another party at a friend's place in the university's
park Hill apartment complex, a short drive away along East
(04:55):
Beaver Avenue. The three young women, joined by another friend,
emerged from the club moments later and stepped out into
the chill autumn air up above a large waxing gibbus
dissolved intermittently between passing clouds as they clambered into Stacy's car.
(05:22):
The party at park Hill was petering out by the
time Cindy and her friends arrived. After another hour or so,
they decided to call it a night. Around three thirty am. Stacy, Lisa,
and Cindy stepped back out into the chilly morning air,
bundled back into Stacy's car, and set off towards Cindy's apartment.
(05:46):
As the car made its way through town, they passed
the occasional eerily costumed straggler swaying drunkenly on the sidewalk,
like a lost extra from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But
before long they were heading out beyond the crowded bars
and well lit downtown streets, to where the roads grew quieter,
(06:07):
the houses further apart. Inside the car, the girl sat
in a kind of dreamy silence, half drunk, half tired,
watching the spindly silhouettes of the trees as they passed,
in that strange early morning calm that comes after hours
of noise and dancing. The smell of smoke, cheap vodka,
(06:29):
and perfume hung in the air Up above. The moon
seemed to follow them, sliding silently between drifting clouds, keeping
pace over the rooftops and empty sidewalks. Finally, they arrived
at Cindy's apartment, just off West Clinton Avenue. The College
(06:50):
Park complex where Cindy lived was purpose built student accommodation,
comprising a dozen or so buildings, each with about twelve apartments,
and so A light, misty rain was falling as they
pulled up Stacy and Lisa said their goodbyes to Cindy
as she stepped out of the car. The complex was
(07:12):
deadly silent, with not another soul in sight as they
waved her off. They watched on for a moment as
she drew closer to her door, Then, eager to get
to bed themselves, Stacy started up the engine and drove off.
(07:34):
It was sometime in the afternoon the following day that
Yong Chu Kim, also known as Katherine, Cindy Song's flatmate,
returned home. Katherine had missed the previous night's celebrations, having
been away in Philadelphia. She and Cindy had made plans
to hang out that afternoon, and she was looking forward
to catching up on any gossip from the party. When
(07:57):
Catherine arrived, she found the front door locked from the outside,
so it wasn't a huge surprise to find no sign
of Cindy inside, But as the afternoon turned to evening,
Cindy was still yet to appear. Text to Cindy's phone
went unanswered, but Catherine wasn't immediately concerned. There were countless
(08:19):
places she could have been. Perhaps she'd hooked up with
someone the night before, she thought, or had picked up
a last minute shift at one of her two jobs,
but when there was still no sign of her the
following morning, Catherine began to worry. Weirdly, Stacy and Lisa
hadn't heard from them either, since they'd last seen her
(08:39):
two nights before. It was around this time that Catherine
spotted the fake eyelashes Cindy had warned for Halloween on
her bedside table, suggesting she had at least made it
back inside the apartment after Stacy dropped her off. Catherine
also found a bag that Cindy had used that night,
(09:00):
containing a change of clothes and something else too, her
mobile phone. It had been in the apartment the whole
time that Catherine had been trying to contact her. Now
Cyndy's friends were really starting to panic. Calls were made
to the laptop library and the Korean restaurant where Cindy
(09:20):
also worked. Her ex boyfriend and Cindy's aunt, Young Kim,
who lived in Virginia, were also contacted, but neither had
spoken to her recently. It appeared incredibly that at some point,
after being dropped off by Stacy and her flatmate, returning
the following day, she had completely vanished off the face
(09:41):
of the earth. When there was still no word from
her by the morning of Sunday, November fourth, Stacy contacted
the Ferguson Township Police Department and reported Cindy missing. Yon
(10:03):
Jong Song or Cindy, who like many of her Korean friends,
took an anglicized name to ease her transition into America,
was born and raised in Seoul. After moving to the
United States in the mid nineteen nineties, she lived with
her aunt Young Kim in Springfield, Virginia. After graduating high school,
(10:25):
she enrolled at Pennsylvania State University, where she majored for
a bachelor's degree in integrative arts. Her ambition must to
one day be a successful graphic and fashion designer. Though
things had been hard initially moving to a whole new
country and culture, by two thousand and one America felt
(10:46):
very much like a second home. She had a close
knit circle of friends and an active social life, and
often took to her personal penn State web page to
share her various loves like Van Goch and Ben and
Jerry ice cream, or to proudly promote things that her
friends had been working on. She enjoyed running and swimming,
(11:07):
but disliked fakers and selfish people. Fun, she said, was
anything except hardcore drugs. When police first arrived at her
apartment to investigate, they began by questioning her friends about
her last known movements. All shared what they knew, which
in essence wasn't much. Cindy had been in good spirits
(11:28):
that night, they said, Stacy had dropped her off at
her apartment, and though she hadn't seen her enter the property,
the fact they later found her fake eyelashes, bag and
phone inside was clear evidence that she had made it home.
A more thorough inspection of the apartment revealed no signs
of a struggle inside or outside. Nothing of Cindy's, as
(11:53):
far as anyone could tell, appeared to be missing, except
for her keys and wallet, which contained her ID and
credit cards. Detective Brian Sprinkle, who led the case, wanted
to keep an open mind, hoping that maybe she'd just
left spontaneously for some time away, but certain details made
(12:13):
him wonder if she'd done something far more drastic. Cindy's
friends said she'd been in good spirits the night she disappeared,
but in reality things were a little more complicated. Although
she'd been doing better in recent days, She'd also been
taking medication and seeing a therapist to help get over
(12:34):
her break up. Cindy's home in America outside of university
was her aunt Young Kim's house in Springfield, Virginia. As
her aunt quietly explained to the police, the last time
she'd seen Cindy, she seemed unusually quiet and distant. Cindy's mum, Benson,
(12:54):
back in South Korea, who Cindy was much more open
with than her aunt, was horrifying to learn that her
daughter was missing. She too, recounted how devastated Cindy had
seemed after the break up. Then police discovered this on
Cindy's personal Penn State web page, written just a week
(13:15):
before she disappeared. Sad but happy, crying but laughing, ugly
but pretty, hungry but full, hurt but fine, weak but strong.
I pretend and this is me. Despite the mounting evidence
(13:39):
that Cindy might have killed herself, in truth, the idea
never really sat right. The more detective Sprinkle learned about her,
the more out of character it seemed. She was studious
and a reliable employer. The owner of the Sole Garden
restaurant where Cindy worked part time as a server was
(14:00):
effusive about her dependability and work ethic. She even dropped
in occasionally on her days off to spend time with
the owner's young children and to do something without even
leaving a note. It just didn't fit. When officers searched
Cindy's apartment, they found tickets for a Britney Spears concert
(14:20):
due the following week that she'd been hugely excited about.
Pinned to her wall. Alongside that was a letter and
resume she'd been working on for a graphic design internship
that she was hoping to get onto the following year. Perhaps,
then wandered Detective Sprinkle, maybe she really had just simply
(14:40):
run away and wanted to be alone for a short time.
But as the days went by, that supposed alone time
just got longer and longer, and Cindy didn't come back.
To Detective Brian Sprinkle and many of his colleagues, it
was beginning to look like something altogether different had happened.
(15:04):
Across the road from Cindy's apartment was the twenty four
Hour Giant Supermarket. It was often used by students on
a late night essay binge looking for refreshments, or indeed
by anyone who might just be looking for snacks to
stave off a hangover in the early hours of the morning.
That Cindy appeared to have left the flat only with
(15:26):
her wallet and keys could imply that she merely left
to go to the store with the full intention of
coming home immediately after. After all, what would she need
her phone for on a quick dash to the shops
at five am in the morning. If this is what happened,
there were only a few likely possibilities for what had happened.
(15:49):
She'd been the victim of a hidden run that someone
had tried to cover up, or she'd been deliberately attacked
or abducted and possibly murdered. On her student web page,
Cindy listed her strong qualities as creativity, responsibility, and her
unbounding energy. Under weaknesses, she said that she was too gullible.
(16:15):
Others agreed she had a tendency to naively assume the
best of everyone. Perhaps some wondered she'd been approached by
someone on her way back from the supermarket asking for help,
and Cindy had stopped to speak with them, only for
them to then attack her. Either way, all speculation was useless.
(16:37):
What the police needed was evidence something to point to
a crime being committed. Just over a week after Cindy disappeared,
the first search teams assembled outside Cindy's apartment block while
(16:57):
the heavy hum of a police search helicopter buzzed overhead.
Numbering about twenty to thirty people, the team was compiled
from members of the Ferguson Township Police, as well as
Center County and Elk County Search and Rescue departments. They
focused first on the wooded area and bike paths immediately
(17:18):
to the west of Cindy's apartment, but eventually stretched across
to Brier Green on the eastern edge of town. Teams
worked methodically plodding along under colorless skies as they searched
for a body, jewelry, clothing, bank cards, or anything else
belonging to Cindy. Search docs yanked at their leads, eagerly
(17:41):
sniffing at whatever patch of undergrowth they could find. CCTV
from the Giants Superstore was investigated, and Cindy's email and
bank cards were monitored. Cindy's ex boyfriend and others were
questioned over their possible involvements while all over town. Cindy's
face with her characteristically bright smile peered out from posters
(18:05):
and leaflets with requests for any information. They detailed Cindy's particulars.
Twenty one year old Asian female, black hair, brown eyes,
height around five foot two, last seen in the early
hours of November first, wearing a rabbit costume consisting of
a pink sleeveless shirt with a rabbit imprinted on the front,
(18:28):
a white tennis skirt with a cotton bunny tail attached
to the back, brown sweded knee high boots, rabbit ears,
and a red knee length hooded parker, but all of
it was to no avail. The CCTV footage had already
been taped over by the time the police got to it.
(18:49):
Cindy's e mail and bank carts remained inactive throughout. All
potential suspects were eliminated, and the search teams found nothing.
After three solid weeks of investigating, Detective Brian Sprinkle and
the Ferguson Township Police Department had failed to find one
single clue as to what might have happened to Cindy.
(19:14):
Due to complications with Cindy's father's health, it wasn't until
late November that Cindy's mother Pensun and brother Kihor were
finally able to fly out to the States to do
what they could to help for Cindy's mother, especially already
enduring a life away from her daughter on the other
side of the world. It's impossible to articulate the sadness
(19:37):
she must have felt as she sat for the first
time on her daughter's bed, surrounded by all her things,
feeling for all the world as though she might step
through the door at any minute. They were adrift on
a sea of grief. Cindy's brother vowed that they would
stay in town until Cindy's case was resolved. As November
(20:00):
turned to December, the nightmare showed no sign of ending.
Around one thirty am in the morning of Friday, December seventh,
police received an anonymous phone call from a woman claiming
she had some vital information relating to Cindy's case. Police
(20:25):
tracked the call back to a phone line located downtown
on East College Avenue, but they never heard from the
caller again. Penn State University put up a twenty seven
thousand dollar reward for any information that would lead to
a breakthrough in the case, but as two thousand and
one came to an end, no one came forward with
(20:45):
anything useful for Cindy's family. The lack of movement in
the case was devastating. After a further month of nothing,
they conducted a press conference accusing Ferguson Township PD of
fail to commit sufficient time and attention to Cindy's disappearance.
On New Year's Day two thousand and two, thirteen year
(21:08):
old Alicia Kazakivich was abducted from her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After a fevered search was mounted for her, involving fifty
FBI agents, Alicia was eventually found alive three days later,
chained up at the home of her abductor. Cindy's family
(21:28):
wanted to know why it was that the disappearance of Alicia,
who was white, had merited such a profoundly different response
to Cindy's disappearance, for whom it took the police a
whole week before they began searching for her in earnest.
Though Alysia was a minor compared to the more self
reliant and autonomous twenty one year old Cindy, who had
(21:51):
possible reasons to electively disappear, there was some considerable justification
to the anger. The police department's response was to cut
off all communication with Cindy's family. Either way, none of
it brought Cindy home. Then, on February thirteenth, the police
(22:12):
received a possible tip off. It came from a woman
in Philadelphia, nearly two hundred miles from where Cindy was
last seen. The caller claimed she'd spotted someone that looked
like Cindy in a car in the city's Chinatown district.
The young woman appeared distressed and even called out for
(22:32):
help before the man she was with quickly intervened, telling
the witness to get lost. According to investigators, however, the
witness's story changed so many times following her initial testimony
they couldn't verify her statements in any meaningful way. Several
attempts were made to identify the man, who was described
(22:55):
as having an olive or light brown skin complexion and
medium length hair, but nothing came of it. Detective Sprinkle
described Cindy's disappearance as the most baffling case he'd ever
been involved with. By May two thousand and two, he
was at a complete loss and just about ready to
(23:17):
accept any kind of help. Back in September, two thousand
and one, nineteen year old Penn State student Ryan Buell
established the Penn State Paranormal Research Society. The twenty five
member strong group had been in discussions with self described
psychic Carla Barron about giving a talk to the organization
(23:42):
when it occurred to Buell that maybe she could help
the investigation. Detective Sprinkle felt he had nothing to lose.
Carla Barron was based in Los Angeles, but had a
(24:04):
connection with Pennsylvania, having graduated from lock Haven High School,
about forty miles north from where Cindy disappeared. With her
own radio show, The Crystal Palace and regular appearances on MTV,
Barron claimed to have assisted in over fifty criminal cases
in Mexico and the United States, including the O. J.
(24:25):
Simpson and John Bennet Ramsey cases. Over a number of
phone calls with Detective Sprinkle in May, Barron made the
startling claim that she'd made contact with Cindy's spirit. There
were three to four men involved. She'd said they'd loaded
her into a vehicle with the intention of carrying out
(24:46):
a sexual assault. It wasn't very long before she crossed over,
she added solemnly. Over the next few weeks on the
phone to Sprinkle, Barren relayed a series of visions she
claimed to have regarding Cindy's disappearance. According to Baron, she'd
seen the image of an Asian word carved into a
(25:08):
tree in Two Deck Park, a small recreational ground right
next to Cindy's apartment complex. Another vision involved a wooded
area and water, as well as some kind of electrical
device lying close to a railroad crossing. She couldn't say
what any of it meant exactly, only that all of
(25:28):
it was linked to Cindy. In August, Sprinkle invited Baron
to come down to State College to investigate the area
for herself. Walking together through Two Deck Park, Carla found
herself drawn to one of the trees at the park's periphery.
Moving closer to it, Detective Sprinkle felt the hares stand
(25:51):
up on the back of his neck. An Asian word
had been carved into it. Later, the pair made their
way out to Curtain Village, the site of an old
iron works nestled away on the banks of Bald Eagle Creek,
about twenty miles north of State College. Although the works
had closed down in the nineteen twenties, the vacated buildings
(26:15):
remained Today, it's preserved as a kind of ghost town.
It was eerie enough out there in the pastoral silence,
surrounded by the old furnace stack, gristmill, and the long
abandoned grand iron Master's mansion house. Detective Sprinkle eyed it
all suspiciously, wondering if this was where Cindy had been taken,
(26:40):
or if her body might even still be there. Having
found nothing untoward, Detective Sprinkle and Carla headed into the
surrounding trees until they stumbled upon a railroad crossing, where
right beside it was some kind of electrical device, just
as Carla claimed to have seen her visions. The detective
(27:02):
was astounded, Though none of it led to anything concrete.
At that point in time, Detective Sprinkle remained convinced that
quote a good deal of the information Carla had provided
would help them crack the case. On the twenty first
of that month, Cindy's case was featured on an episode
(27:23):
of Unsolved Mysteries, leading to another bump of public interest.
A string of tips and apparent sightings followed, but once
again all of it came to nothing. Over time, with
no solid leads to bring investigators any closer to finding
an answer, interest in the case began to fade. It
(27:51):
was late March two thousand and three, eighteen months since
Cindy Song vanished into thin air, when Luzerne County Homicide
to Teensive Lieutenant Gary Kapitano got a call out of
the blue from an old friend. The man was calling
on behalf of his niece, Ellen Smarker, from Wilkes Barry,
a town about one hundred and forty miles east of
(28:14):
State College, who had fallen victim to a string of
recent burglaries. He wanted to know if Detective Capitano could
do him a favor and look into it. Happy to oblige,
Capitano had called Ellen and asked if she had any
idea who the perpetrators might be. She gave him two names,
Hugo Celenski and Paul Weekly. Ellen had grown up with Hugo,
(28:38):
who had a string of prior charges of robbery. Paul
Weekly was his flatmate. As it happened, Weekly was at
that point in prison serving time for an unrelated robbery.
It seemed reasonable to think there was a good chance
he had also robbed Ellen's house, so Detective Capitano decided
to pay him a visit. Weekly thankfully agreed to talk
(29:02):
with him, alongside his attorney, Tom Cometta. Capitana was somewhat
surprised when Weekly quickly informed him that he couldn't possibly
have robbed Ellen's house on the night in question. That night,
he was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet while on federal probation,
and records showed he was home at the time. Why then,
(29:24):
thought the detective had. He agreed to speak to him,
as weeakly explained, then he wanted to inform on the
guys who actually did it, in the hope that his
present sentence would get reduced. When Detective Capitana agreed to
see what he could do, Weakley gave him two names,
Hugo Celenski and Patrick Russin. The detective duly noted them down,
(29:49):
then got up to leave. Then Weekly's attorney called him back.
Cap He said, there's more, sit down. What Poor Weekly
told him next was almost too grotesque to believe. He
claimed that Hugo Selenski had also murdered multiple people, possibly
(30:09):
as many as sixteen, and that their bodies were buried
on Selenski's property in the nearby Kingston Township. Among the dead,
Weekly set was a young woman he'd picked up from
State College, a woman who'd been wearing bunny ears when
she was abducted back in two thousand and one, Cindy Song.
(30:37):
The very next day after his astonishing claim, Detective Capitano
interviewed Poor Weekly more extensively. Weekly claimed that during the
summer of two thousand and two, he'd seen Selenski's dog
carrying a dismembered human arm around in its mouth. He
said he'd spotted the bodies of a woman and child
(30:58):
in a well while working on Selensky's water system, and
had seen bone fragments and a jawbone under the porch.
But it was the story about Cindy's Song that particularly
caught the investigator's attention. According to Weekly, Zelensky told him
in April two thousand and two that he and a
(31:18):
man named Michael Kokovsky had abducted a young woman from
State College, believing she was a sex worker. Krkovsky allegedly
said he had its way with her and kept her
at his Hunlock Creek home until she died. Weekly acclaimed
Kokovsky had kept the bunny ears song was wearing as
(31:39):
part of her Halloween costume as a souvenir. Michael Krkovski
was a pharmacist from Hunlock Creek who pleaded guilty to
running a prescription drug rink that netted at least eight
hundred thousand dollars and was about to be sentenced when
he and his girlfriend Tammy Fassett were reported missing in
(31:59):
men two thousand and two. They were both thirty seven
years old. Weekly informed police that Selensky had in fact
murdered Kikovski and Facet, fearing they might lead the police
to him after he allegedly discovered that Kokovsky had kept
Cindy's bunny ears. The following morning, June fifth, a team
(32:21):
of investigators, along with Paul Weekly, made the short journey
along tree lined country lanes out to Hugo Selensky's seven
acre property on Mount Olivet Road. When they arrived, Selensky
was preparing to host a graduation party for one of
his sisters, with workmen setting up a tent for the
(32:41):
occasion in the yard. They handed him a warrant to
search his property. Selensky's face went pale as some officers
took him inside for questioning Weekly proceeded to lead the
others around the property, pointing out places where he claimed
the bodies had been buried. The investigators began to dig.
(33:04):
It wasn't long before they found something. Located about twenty
feet from a corner of the house, close to a well,
were two sets of human remains in a shallow grave,
their wrists still bound together with zip ties, and the
excavation didn't stop there. Over the next few days, officials
(33:26):
unearthed the badly charred remains of two more bodies, as
Weekly continued to direct them around the property, pointing out
places where he claimed to have seen bones. According to him,
Selensky had as many as twelve of his victims buried
in the garden. Selenski's girlfriend, Christina Strom, to whom the
(33:48):
property actually belonged, had lived there the entire time, with
no idea whatsoever that she did so, surrounded by dead bodies.
In the end, despite Weekly insistence there was more, after
thirty eight days of digging, the police only succeeded in
finding five sets of remains. After DNA analysis, two were
(34:11):
found to be pharmacist Michael Kokowski and its partner Tammy Fassett.
Another two were identified as twenty nine year old Frank
James and twenty three year old Addie assasss Keeler, alleged
drug dealers who Selenski had apparently killed back in May
two thousand and three before burning their bodies in a pit.
(34:33):
Although the fifth body was impossible to identify, its DNA
was not a match for Cindy's. A short time after
the gruesome discovery at Hugo Selenski's property, police searched Paul
(34:54):
Weekley's home. On his computer, they found a slew of
downloaded information about Cindy Song's disappearance from the Internet. It
appeared that Weekly had researched the case thoroughly before electing
to speak to the police about it. Detective Capitano knew
that Weekly wanted to share information in the hope of
(35:14):
reducing a prison sentence he was serving at the time.
What emerged over the next few weeks was an even
more disturbing picture. Weekly, who first met Selensky in prison
in the nineteen nineties, eventually admitted that it was in
fact he who had plotted with Selenski to kidnap Kokovsky
(35:35):
and his girlfriend Tammy, with the intention of extorting them
for money. In the end they had killed them both.
Weekly acknowledged under cross examination that he misled the authorities
early in the investigation because he wanted to pin it
all on Selenski. My stories had a lot of holes
in them, he said, I told numerous lies. On October sixth,
(36:00):
two thousand and three, Hugo Selenski was charged with two
counts of homicide in the deaths of James and Keeler,
and was also eventually charged with killing Kokovsky and Facet two. However,
it would take until January twenty fifteen, more than twelve
years after the bodies were discovered, before Selenski finally stood trial.
(36:22):
Paul Weekly, forty six years old, by then, avoided a
potential death sentence by pleading guilty to federal charges, having
already been sentenced to life in prison in June two
thousand and eight. In February twenty fifteen, Hugo Selenski was
sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Despite the hollowness of
(36:45):
Poor Weekly's accusation that Zelenski had been involved in Cindy
Song's murder, Detective Brian Sprinkle and his team back in
the Ferguson Township Police department remained haunted by his claims.
Could there really be more bodies on Selenski's property just
waiting to be uncovered? Might one of them be Cindy's.
(37:10):
In the end, investigators were never able to connect Hugo
Selenski to Cindy's disappearance, As State Police Sergeant Stephen Byron,
who was heavily involved in her investigation, put it, we
looked at everything. We haven't uncovered one piece of evidence
to corroborate this. In October two thousand and four, shortly
(37:39):
after Hugo Selenski and poor Weekly's arrests, frustrated at having
come to yet another dead end, Detective Brian Sprinkle turned
once more to self described psychic Carla barn This time,
Detective Sprinkle and Carla agreed to let ABC News film
her in action, almost exactly three years to the day.
(38:02):
Detective Sprinkle and ABC Primetimes John Kinyonis and his camera
crew watched on silently as Carla Baron sat at a
desk down at the Ferguson County Police Station and slowly
laid out a set of tarot carts. Placed above the
carts was a polaroid of Cindy's Song. Carla took a
(38:24):
deep breath, then settled her mind. She's telling me she's
in a different place now, she said. She now knows
why this happened to her. Detective Sprinkle leaned in closer,
hoping for more details, but nothing came. Then Carla spoke
into the air, Cindy, how did you lose your life?
(38:49):
The others in the room held their breath as Carla
appeared to be receiving more information. It was somebody obsessed
with her, she said. Detective Sprinkle jumped in. Is it
Zelensky or Kokowski? He said eagerly. Carla seemed to nod.
They were at the helm. She said, they were orchestrating,
(39:11):
but the main person she knew the person. Finally, Carla asked,
all right, Cindy, where are your remains? But no answer came.
If you're listening to this episode on its release, it
is twenty four years to the day that then twenty
one year old Heyon Jong Song, also known as Cindy,
(39:35):
disappeared without a trace. Today, twenty one binders remain in
the Ferguson County Police Station archives containing all materials relevant
to the case, one for each year of Cindy's life.
Perhaps someday they might yet yield an answer to this
tragic and beguiling mystery. Until then, just what exactly happened
(40:00):
to Cindy's song on that haunting Halloween night remains to
this day unexplained. This episode was written by Richard mclin
Smith and James Connor Patterson. Thank you as ever for
listening Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by
(40:24):
Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including
the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.
The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and
other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
(40:45):
you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or
a story of your own you'd like to share. You
can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and
reach your online through X and Blue Sky at Unexplained
Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained
(41:08):
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