The Case of the Drowning Men (15 page)

ALBANY,
NEW YORK -
A
PRIL
22, 2008
:
“P
olice believe a body found in the Hudson River is that of Joshua Szosta
k. The 21
-
year-old
college
student at Plattsburgh
disappeared
two days before Christmas after spending the
evening
in downtown Albany
with his friends
.
”

- - -

By
the year
2007,
due to
the
harsh
new reality
of
the threat of
terrorism and a
steady
rise in
violent
crime,
surveillance cameras had become a fixture of life in the United States
. W
hereas
,
only
one
decade earlier
,
in
the last part of
the 20th century
,
this kind of
technology
w
as
n’t that common
place
.
Major b
anks
might have had
such devices
installed,
automatic-teller
machines
, toll booths on the interstate
,
large
commercial
enterprises
.

But
today
security systems
are
in use
everywhere
one goes
. I
n parking lots and supermarkets, restaurants,
government
buildings
, private homes,
town
squares
, the local
bar
…
people are
protecting themselves
now
.
Everybody’s c
landestinely w
atching
what’s going on
around them
, making a
visual
record of it, protecting their
most valuable
assets
.
Similarly
, when
ever
out and
abroad
themselves,
they’re
being protected
in this
manner
, too.
Or
watched
just as closely
.

Josh
ua
Szostak’s last hours of life
,
as he knew it
,
were captured on
hidden cameras
.
O
n
the night of
December 22, 2007
, he
wa
s shown, first, happily downing a few
drinks
with his friends
over the course of a few hours at a
North Pearl Street
establishment
in
downtown
Albany, New York called the Bayou
Cafe
.

There, h
e
was laughing and listening to music and
consumed t
hree
or four
beers in all
,
as judged
from
viewing
the
indoor surveillance
feed
filmed above
the bar
.

That’s not
a large quantity in the scheme of things
, as
any
one
who’s ever consumed alcohol
at a social gathering
would
know
.
Certainly not enough to make a man
of
Szostak’s
stature
—about six feet tall and 200 pounds—o
ver
ly
intoxicated
,
to the point of falling down
.

Around midnight,
Szostak
was
observe
d
with
a
male
acquaintance
making his way
through the crowd to go
out
doors
.
A
camera fixed from
right
across the street furnishe
d
a grainy account of what took place from there: The
two
young men
chat
ted
f
o
r a
brief
moment
in front of the Bayou
on the sidewalk
(left of center of the screen)
and then
the other male
politely
bid adieu
to
Szostak
and headed off,
leaving him
standing
outside
alone.

Szostak
seems all right
, though
.
Displaying no
problems
as yet
, although why
he
originally
left the bar
is
still
not
discernible
.
Perhaps
the place felt stuffy
and
he just needed
a breath of
fresh air
,
or
maybe
he
decided to go home
. Perhaps
he
just
wanted to call somebody and
it
was too loud
inside
to talk
on the phone
.

We
do
see him
suddenly
rummaging through
his clothes
, presumably
for
his cellphone
,
and
possibly
removing
an object that size
from
one of
his
pocket
s
.

In the meantime,
cars
cruise
past
him
coming
from both directions
,
an assortment of marked vehicles
mingled
among them
including a
couple of
taxi
s. Other
bar patrons
are
also
mill
ing
about
, standing
around
and behind
him
in pairs or
in
groups
as
pedestrians
cross
the street
to and from the bar
.
S
ome
couples
,
some
trios,
some
individual
s
as well
.

Frankly, i
t’s not very exciting footage so far, and n
othing
looks
too terribly
out of the ordinary
either
. Not
for a
Saturday
night
in the city
.
Until
Szostak
suddenly
lurche
s
forward
and
doubles over
as if in
pain,
stagger
s
to his feet once more, and
b
egins
struggling
inexpertly
to
pull
his coat
off.

Here we can
see
some
sign
s
of
physical
dis
comfort
, but we can’t tell what’s causing it
.
He
acts confused
now
,
too,
stumbling slightly as he
begins to
gravitate
away from the
front of the bar, moving in the video
tape
from the left side of the screen
slowly
toward the right and hesitating
on the sidewalk
for a few seconds
to once more wrestle with
his
coat
(
which
for a split second
almost
looks
like he has on
backwards)
.
Finally
,
with
the
coat
adjusted
proper
ly
,
he
exits the screen to the right.

Reportedly, h
is
car
was
parked
only
about a block
or
two
from the Bayou
Café that night
,
so it
is
safe to assume that’s where Szostak was going next.
For him to
end up at
the Hudson River
in the exact spot
where his cellphone was found
later
―
on the ground
at the Port of Albany
―
he would have had to
change direction
to get to the river
bank
and
then
continue walking
in his groggy condition
south along the river
,
for
at least
another
two miles
.

We know
for certain
he didn’t do that because
h
is im
age
was caught on
a
second
surveillance camera
only
a couple
of
minutes later at the intersection of
North Pearl
and State
Street
,
just
where
and when
he
’d
have been expected
to
arrive
if everything was normal
.

However, shortly after this sighting
,
something
clearly
must have gone wrong for
Szostak
,
because where he should have been
taped
by other cameras
along th
at
trek,
he wasn’t
.
N
or
did the Albany police find
any
further document
ary
evidence
showing
he
continued
on down Pearl
Street
beyond
the
State Street
intersection
,
or
that he
took
an alternate route
on foot
to some other destination
.