Ep. 18: All for the Audi

Hello and welcome to Crime on the Clarkfork, the true crime podcast that covers cases that happened in areas with populations of 15,000 or less. This month, Mackenzie tells you the case of Ildiko Frietas and her parents, Hildegard and Janos Vyoleski that were murdered in their home in the small community of Clark, Wyoming in 2013.

Transcript

Hi and welcome back to Crime on the Clarkfork, the true crime podcast where I tell you about big crimes that happen in small places with each case having occurred in areas with populations of 15,000 or less. My name is Mackenzie Spence and I am your host. If you listen on Spotify, can you do me a huge favor and turn on automatic downloads? This will help the algorithm recommend the show to others! If you want to be notified every time an episode goes live, you are also able to click the little bell button on the shows page and it will send you a notification! 

The sources for this episode are: Wikipedia, city-data.com, Cody Enterprise, KUSA, Nonstop Local Billings, CBS News, Powell Tribune, abc News, Gillette News Record, CNN

Clark, WY. 2013. Population: 300.

On March 2nd, 2013, a triple murder shook the tiny town of Clark, Wyoming. Clark is technically an unincorporated community and has no town services or central town-site and there are no stores in the community. Most people who live there like to be left alone and tend to work as farmers, ranchers, or are retired. Because Clark is just 30 miles from the towns of Cody and Powell, there are also a handful of residents that commute to work. There is an elementary school in Clark, but by the time students reach middle and high school, they have to travel to Powell, Wyoming or Belfry, Montana for school. With only 300 residents in Clark, it is easy to assume that this is a community where everyone knows everyone, which is why the triple murder that took place shook the small town and surrounding areas. 

On March 2nd, 2013, Tanner VanPelt and Stephen Hammer, both of whom were 19 years old at the time, arrived at 38 Big View Road in Clark. The two knocked on the door and a woman named Ildiko Freitas answered. Stephen knew Ildiko from his childhood as she and her parents were family friends with Stephen’s family. Recognizing Stephen, she invited him and Tanner into the house that she shared with her parents and the three began to have a friendly conversation.

Five days prior, on February 26th, Stephen and Tanner had broken into and robbed Cody Sports and Pawn in Cody, Wyoming, getting away with ten firearms which included two 9mm handguns. A few days later, the teens began to become paranoid that the Cody police were onto them, so they came to the conclusion that they needed to get out of the area, but to do that, they needed a car. They decided to borrow their roommate’s Ford Taurus and drove to Clark. When they made it to Clark, they stopped at a house and knocked on the door. When no one answered, they got back in the car, went to another house, knocked on the door, and when the owner answered, they asked for directions. It isn’t reported what directions they were looking for, but authorities do not believe the two were actually lost and are glad that the owner of that house wasn’t pulled into the murder spree that the teens then went on to have.

Eventually, Tanner and Stephen made it to Ildiko’s house, which Stephen knew from growing up in the area. When Ildiko invited them in, the boys told Ildiko that the reason they were there that day was because they needed her Audi sedan to escape to Denver, Colorado in an attempt to avoid the investigation into the theft of the handguns. 

Ildiko obviously declined allowing the two boys to take her car, which is when they pulled out the 9mms that they had stolen five days earlier to attempt to scare her into giving them her car. Friedas stood her ground, refusing to give the two boys her car, which unfortunately, is when the conversation became deadly. Tanner pointed the stolen gun at Ildiko’s head, pulled the trigger, killing her, and then proceeded to steal the keys to her Audi. At this time, the two boys heard a noise downstairs in the house, so Stephen took out his stolen 9mm and went to investigate. When he made it downstairs, he ran into Freita’s 70-year-old mother, Hildegard, who he shot at her eight times, until his gun was empty of bullets, striking her five separate times, two of which were fatal shots. Hearing the commotion, Tanner went downstairs, where he also fired additional shots at Hildegard, stating that it didn’t look like she was dead. Now, we know this is not true because Hildegard was killed by bullets that Tanner had shot before Stephen made it downstairs. After killing Hildegard, Stephen ran to the Taurus that the two had arrived in and Tanner went to the garage to steal Ildiko’ audi, which is why they were there in the first place. When Tanner entered the garage, he ran into Ildiko’ father, Janos Volgyesi. Before Janos could even turn around to look at him, Tanner shot him twice in the back, killing him. Janos and Hildegard didn’t live in the house with Ildiko, but rather lived in another house on the property. The only other person that lived there was Ildiko’s husband, John, who was out of town working in the oilfields.

After murdering Janos, Tanner hopped into the black Audi and drove off at 11:01am. Both Stephen and Tanner stopped at an irrigation ditch in the town of Clark and disposed of the 9mms that they used in the murders. A neighbor who kept an eye on traffic that went up and down the dead-end road that he and Ildiko’s home were on had seen the two young men go into the house earlier that day and then, not more than 20 minutes later, saw them speeding off in two separate vehicles as the family’s white dog chased them down the road. At 11:27am, less than an hour after the murders and robbery, a neighbor went to Ildiko’s home to check on the family because they had found the dog wandering around. They noticed that the garage door was left open and unfortunately, they stumbled onto the gruesome scene of Janos in the garage and immediately called 911. Janos was found in the garage, laying in the fetal position, with blood coming out of his mouth, Hildegard was found near the bottom of the stairs and had sustained a bullet wound to her left cheek, and Ildiko was still alive, despite the bullet wound in her head. When first responders arrived, they attempted to save Ildiko, who was moaning in a pool of her own blood, but unfortunately, she died at the scene. 

Luckily, they were able to describe the vehicles to police. It didn’t take long for Tanner and Stephen to be pulled over at the intersection of Road 1AB and Wyoming Highway 120. Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper, Dan Walker, was the one that pulled the boys over at 12:41pm that day. Stephen jumped out of the vehicle that he had been driving and got into the black Audi that Tanner was in, but they quickly surrendered. They got out of the car, laid on the asphalt with their hands up until backup arrived for Walker. When more police officers arrived at the scene, Tanner and Stephen were placed in separate police cars and taken away. 

That night, Thomas Volgyesi, the son of Hildegard and Janos and the brother of Ildiko, received a call that his sister, mother, and father were all murdered. 

Ildiko grew up in Bakersfield, CA and eventually went to college at the University of Wyoming. After graduating from college, she moved to Clark, WY with her husband. She had worked as a nurse at West Park Hospital in Cody, WY for a while, but after living in Clark for 6 or 7 years, the couple decided that they were ready to move, so they purchased a home in Loveland, CO that needed some renovations done, so the couple decided to stay in Clark until the renovations were done and they were planning to move to their new home not long after Ildiko was murdered. She also loved animals and people, especially her parents, Hildegard and Janos. Hildegard and Janos were both born in Germany and had immigrated to the United States decades before their murder. When Ildiko and John moved from California to Clark, they followed to be closer to their daughter and to escape the hustle and bustle of life in California. Hildegard was known as a woman who was incredibly sweet, a ray of sunshine, and was always laughing. 

When the boys were arrested, both were questioned by authorities. During questioning, Stephen waived his right to remain silent and told the authorities that he was, “sorry for shooting that lady, we had not planned it to go down this way.” He also told them that he wasn’t planning on the encounter to get violent, but after Tanner pulled his weapon and shot and killed Ildiko, he didn’t know what else to do. He also realized that the authorities most likely knew that the guns that they had used were ones that had been stolen from the pawn shop in Cody. Due to this, he told investigators that the reason they needed Ildiko’s car was because they needed to flee to Denver because they were afraid they were going to get arrested for theft. During Tanner’s questioning, he told investigators about the murders, including the murder of Janos. When the investigator asked for clarification on why he shot Janos in the back, Tanner responded that he shot him in the back twice because he wasn’t going to just shoot him in the legs. This statement, to me, shows that Tanner was out to kill, not just to steal the car. Through the questioning of the boys, authorities managed to get them to reveal where they disposed of the two guns. The irrigation pipe that they had hidden the guns in was several miles from Ildiko’s home. The police also used a search warrant to search Tanner and Stephen’s apartment and it was there that they sound the other eight stolen firearms and some ammunition.

Officials are unsure how Tanner or Stephen knew about the Audi or why they decided to go to Ildiko’ house, other than Stepehn knowing her and her family when he was younger and lived in town. Tanner’s dad, Robb Vanpelt told the media that Tanner was not living with him at the time of the murders, but had never been in any serious trouble prior to this, which made the news of his son being wanted for murder seem like it was totally out of the blue. Tanner had also never had any serious discipline issues in high school. He graduated in 2011 from Cody High School and was never involved in athletics or after school clubs, but was also never in trouble either. Stephen had attended Cody High School his freshman year, but then transferred out of the school. Even so, the boys had stayed in touch and remained friends. A man named Bill Cody also spoke to the media about Tanner and Stephen stating that he had known the boys for several years, watching them both grow up. He said that he never would have expected for either of them to do something like this. While those that knew them growing up, as well as their families, didn’t see this coming, friends and acquaintances of the teens told the media that both boys were involved with drugs, including meth. 

When Tanner and Stephen were arraigned for their crimes, there were more than 30 people there to watch. The charges that the two teens were facing included eleven felonies that included murder, premeditated malice, aiding and abetting, use of a firearm in the commission of a crime, and committing murder during a robbery, to name a few. Both boys were appointed a public defender and as the teens did their pleas, the courtroom was completely silent. Tanner and Stephen didn’t speak much during their arraignment other than to answer the judge’s questions, which were mostly answered with yes or no unless the judge asked for clarification. They also spent a majority of this time looking down rather than at the judge or those in attendance. The judge ordered that the boys be held without bail until they would be able to go to trial due to the severity of the charges against them. Both teens plead not-guilty for the eleven felonies before being sent to Park County Detention Center where they were held until their trials.

At their sentencing, Ildiko’s brother, Thomas, made a victim impact statement, where he stated, “That lady you shot was my mother who was always laughing and kind. She was a 70-year-old woman and no threat to you. Yet you gunned her down like you were playing a video game.” he also stated, “how does one even begin to process the news that your loved ones are gone to murder? How could I even begin to take the loss of a loved one and multiply that by three? My whole family - the only family that I have ever known - just gone.” The teens both cried as they apologized for murdering Ildiko, Janos, and Hildegard. Tanner even went as far to say that he wished he could take it back and that he hopes that he could mentor people in prison. When it was John Freitas, Ildeko’s husband, took the stand to give his victim impact statement, he spoke about how he was not home on the day of the crime and had to find out by a phone call that his people were gone. He said, “My life is shattered and changed forever. I have an eternity of memories. What I miss the most, is the sound of Ildiko’s voice. That’s what made my day.”

The Park County Attorney, Bryan Skoric had agreed to push for life in prison for both of the boys in place of the death sentence, as long as it was okay with law enforcement and the victims’ family. Thomas, Ildiko’s brother, said that he believed that both Tanner and Stephen deserved the death penalty, but them dying would not be something that would bring him closure, so he agreed to life sentences instead. When the boys were given the option to pleading guilty for life-in-prison without the possibility of parole or the possibility of the death sentence, both teens agreed to plead guilty in the murders. In the end, Tanner was given three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole and Stephen was given one sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole and two additional life sentences. The reason for the difference in sentences was because Tanner had shot Ildiko, Hildegard, and Janos, whereas Stephen had only shot Hildegard, but had aided and abetted in the murder of Janos and Ildiko. 

Tanner has since come out stating that he had no explanation for what he and Stephen did that day in March 2013, “but the only thing that I know is that I have to live with it every day,” going on to further state that he wishes he could take it back. Stephen has also come out stating similar thoughts, including the fact that the actions that they took that day couldn’t be justified. “I can’t fathom what I’ve put you and everybody through. I wish more than anything I could take back what I’ve done,” he stated, talking to the family. In 2014, just one year after the murders, Stephen wrote a letter to the sentencing judge asking for a chance at parole, but this was shut down nearly immediately.

And that is the end of this case. As always, please give me 5-stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well as a review on Apple Podcasts. I am always looking for cases to cover, so if you have a case suggestion, please visit the link in the show’s instagram page, @CrimeontheClarkfork. I also post pictures from the cases I cover on my instagram page, so go give that a quick follow and let me know what your thoughts are on the case in the comments on instagram. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will catch you next time with more big crime in small places.