COMMENTARY
Donn Esmonde: $10,000 for the truth on Amanda
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Maybe this is what it takes. Maybe now we are speaking the universal language. Conscience and morality may be alien concepts to some people, but cash is an entity that everyone understands. Money not only talks; money gets people to talk.
That is what a local businessman is banking on. He called me Wednesday with a simple proposition: a $10,000 reward to anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the presumed killer of Amanda Wienckowski.
The frozen, naked body of the blond, blue-eyed 20-year-old woman was found in January, stuffed in a garbage tote near Spring and Clinton streets. It was across the street from a house where she had been dropped off a month earlier, perhaps for a sexual encounter.
Amanda’s hair had been chopped off, she was bruised, and an autopsy found a date-rape drug among the cocktail of narcotics in her body. The medical examiner declared her death an accidental overdose, a finding that Amanda’s parents and others have trouble swallowing. Buffalo police consider it an open case.
Amanda is gone. The mystery remains. She did not chop off her hair and jump into a garbage tote naked on her own. Whether or not she was killed, somebody put her there. Somebody knows what happened.
A local businessman wants to open the mouth of anyone with information. He is pledging $10,000 to the cause, if the cause of death was murder.
“It will be hard to prove she was killed without a witness,” said the businessman, who wants to remain anonymous but has the means to make good on the promise. “Maybe this will flush somebody or something out.”
Anyone with information should call the Buffalo police confidential tip line at 847-2255.
Hers is a classic tale of good-girl-gone- bad, with an awful ending. Amanda devolved from a dance-addicted kid in Kenmore to a trick-turning heroin addict. Her mother, Leslie Brill, said she was taking an anti-addiction drug, working at a bar and headed back to college when she made a fatal mistake.
A guy living at the house she was dropped off at, Antoine Garner, was later charged with raping a woman a month before Amanda disappeared. Police called Garner—who denies knowing anything about her disappearance—a “person of interest” in the case.
Maybe she overdosed and was left in the tote by lowlifes who did not want to call the cops and deal with the blowback. More likely—based on evidence of abuse and the five weeks between drop-off and discovery—she was held against her will, used and abused, accidentally or purposely killed, and discarded.
Amanda was no angel. But I think that any caring parent can sympathize. We all know there are usually bumps on the journey from teenager to adult. Every parent holds their breath and hopes that any misstep is merely a detour, not a turn onto the road to ruin.
Seeing her parents on the TV news is what moved the businessman to act.
“It just hit me, seeing her mother [crying],” he said. “It just seemed like they are all alone, nobody wants to help them. [Amanda] was a kid, she was 20 years old. What kid doesn’t make mistakes?”
Amanda’s mother said the family is about halfway to the goal of raising at least $15,000 to pay for an independent autopsy that they hope will uncover evidence of foul play. Donations can be made at Bank of America branches. When I told her Wednesday about the reward offer, she nearly jumped through the phone.
“Oh, my God, I can’t believe somebody would do that for us,” Brill said. “I’m in shock, that is so wonderful.”
Nothing will bring Amanda back. Maybe this will bring her justice.
desmonde@buffnews.com
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