Anthony Garafolo was on a two-week vacation from his job as a correctional officer at the New York State Department of Corrections, and he wanted a little alone time.
His children were out of the house, his wife had gone to work, and Anthony was able to catch up on some time for himself. He decided that this day,
Tuesday, April 22, was the perfect day for his first boat ride of the season.
It was just a quiet little nice day, said Anthony, a 47-year-old Coxsackie man, in a later interview.
Anthony had ridden in other boats before, sometimes as a fisherman, but this time was special. He did not plan to fish, or travel to any specific location. According to Anthony, he just wanted to have lunch on the river.
He had almost gone out the night before, right after he bought dock space at a Coxsackie boat launch for the very first boat he has ever owned.
`I’m just a new boater,` Anthony said. `I just got my boat at the end of last summer.`
But by the time he had gotten the boat in the water, the sun had begun to set, and Anthony thought he better save the trip for the next day.
And after he picked up a sub at a local deli and stripped off his shirt to beat an eager April sun, he started down the Hudson River on his new 18-foot bay liner ` a boat so new it didn’t even have a name yet.
Four months before Anthony set down the Hudson, a former State University of New York at Plattsburgh student named Joshua Szostak went out for a night of celebration with a group of friends, one of whom was celebrating a 21st birthday.
Joshua, 21 himself, went out in baggy jeans, a T-shirt and a Southpole black hooded sweat shirt with a skull and crossbones on the front. Around his neck hung a silver chain with a cross.
Josh’s last stop on Dec. 23 was the Bayou CafE in downtown Albany.
As the night was coming to an end, Josh’s friends couldn’t find him when it was time to leave.
A few days later, when Josh’s parents, Bill and Marybeth, reported their son missing, Josh could only be seen alive, for the very last time, through the lens of a surveillance camera, which recorded him walking, alone, at the corner of North Pearl and State streets, around midnight.
Growing up with two younger sisters, Beth and Christina, Josh became familiar with being looked up to. At 10 years old, he became the president and CEO of a company called Jin Inc., and later, in his college years, became a radio personality known as `The Stag` for the college radio station, 93.9 FM WQKE, The Quake.
Joshua Szostak was not just any name. People knew who he was.
Slowly putting through the mountain range on that surprisingly warm spring afternoon, Anthony Garafolo noticed a large object in the water.
`I thought it might be the log or something, as I got closer I looked at it and it didn’t really look like a log, so I circled it,` said Anthony. `I wanted to kind of be sure that it wasn’t a mannequin or some kind of dummy.`
But on his second trip around the object, Anthony knew it was not a log. It was not a mannequin. It was not a dummy.
The object peacefully floating aside Anthony’s boat was the body of Joshua Szostak.
After calling the police, Anthony sat in his boat and waited. He used his time to reflect upon his family and the family of the boy who lay lifeless before him.
`I reflected that this was somebody’s loved one, and that I was going to stay with him until help came,` said Anthony. `I just felt that the right thing to do was to stay with him until the proper help came. He was fully intact and dressed, but I was sure there was no hope.`
So he waited. Just Anthony, his boat, and the boy floating nearby in the water.
Days after Joshua Szostak disappeared, his cell phone was found near the site of a vehicle theft in a Department of Environmental Conservation parking lot. The car was abandoned, with no trace of its driver.
Patrick Anastasi, a private investigator, was hired by Szostak family.
According to Anastasi, `Obviously there are still a lot of unanswered questions in regards to how Josh ended up in the water.`
Anastasi said he agrees with the family in that it is completely out of character for Josh to end up the way he did.
`So we’re just going to follow up on leads,` he said.
When the police arrived at the spot on the Hudson River where Anthony waited, it was 3:15 p.m. Detective James Miller, a spokesman for the Albany Police Department, said that day that the body was believed to be Josh based on personal items that were found on his person. Miller would not disclose what those personal items were.
A friend of Josh Szostak’s, Kaitlyn Geiger, a State University of New York at Plattsburgh student majoring in political science, said Josh was a well-liked and well-known guy.
`He was a really nice, laid-back guy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. It is so tragic,` she said, `He liked to enjoy himself and have a good time.`
Also in his time at SUNY Plattsburgh, Josh became close with members of the fraternity Zeta Beta Tau, some of whom later became personally involved in fundraising and search efforts for their friend.
Academically, Josh was working toward a journalism degree, which would allow him to pursue his ultimate career goal: to become a foreign conflict correspondent.
At the time when Josh went missing, he was taking a semester off and working as a cashier at Hannaford supermarket at Latham Farms.
According to Josh’s Web page on Facebook, a social networking Web site, a few of his favorite musicians included Eminem, Tupac, Elton John, James Taylor and Bob Marley.
`Pretty much everything that is music, I love,` he posted on the site. `I have like 1,600 CDs.`
He also enjoyed politics, labeling his political views as `liberal` and following U.S. Congressman Michael McNulty.
After the police had come and gone, Anthony spent a great deal of his afternoon reading up on the person he had found, who had been missing for 122 days.
`I had heard of Josh,` said Anthony. `I knew that he had disappeared before Christmas. By now, of course, I found out who he was, and I found out more about Josh. When I look at pictures of Josh, I feel more connected now.`
Anthony says he will always be connected. If he had not decided to take his boat out that day, he might have never been the person who brought the conclusion to a tragic story.
Around 5 p.m., Anthony docked his boat and returned home, to be greeted by his three children and his wife. The family discussed the day’s events over dinner, which was interrupted by several phone calls from relatives and friends who had heard that Anthony was the man who had discovered Josh’s body in the river.
When the calls ceased and Anthony was finally faced with silence, his long day ended and he drifted off to sleep.
At 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 23, Dr. Jeffrey Hubbard, pathologist for the Albany County Coroner’s Office, disclosed autopsy results that concluded Joshua Szostak drowned accidentally.
The Albany Police Department said they would be closing the case, as a cause of death was determined accidental drowning.
The family requested a second autopsy, performed nearly a week later by Dr. Michael Baden, chief medical examiner of New York City, who has worked on high-profile cases revolving around O.J. Simpson, John Belushi and Phil Spector.
`I found out a lot about Josh and where he went to school, and I can kind of see what he looks like and find out a little bit about him,` said Anthony Garafolo. `I kind of know who he is in a way now. It’s hard just to not have curiosity about him now.`
As Anthony took his boat out later that week on Thursday, April 24, Josh’s classmates sat in disbelief as they read the tale of a peer who had disappeared one fateful night, via their computer screen through an e-mail sent by SUNY Plattsburgh President John Ettling.
`We mourn as a community the tragic loss of one of our students,` wrote Ettling, `and hope that Josh’s family will now be able to find some closure on what has surely been a very difficult time.`
`One of the things I have learned about Josh,` said Anthony, `more now that I’ve been reading up on him, was that one of his favorite sayings was ‘peace.’ I hope that’s what happens now. That’s what this is all about bringing peace to this whole thing.`
Though a stream of reporters have been contacting him, Anthony said he is on the verge of stopping his interviews. At this point, he said, everybody just wants to know the gory details. But while countless people of the media have talked to him, Anthony said not one has delivered through their stories the message he wants to express most:
That through the entire finding, and as the weeks go on, Anthony’s thoughts and prayers have, and always will be, with the family.
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