November 29, 2018 • 57 mins
17. In this episode, we invite Dr. Vonda Pelto to the program. If you recall from episode one, I describe how my investigative journey first began on this case at Dr. Pelto’s Southern California home. It was early December of 2015, and I was commissioned to report and write a profile piece on Dr. Pelto who enjoyed a colorful career as a psychologist with an office in the Los Angeles Men’s County Jail. It was there, she treated her patients who just happened to be some of the most prolific serial killers that terrorized Los Angeles residents back in the eighties. After our interview, Dr. Pelto included me in a small gathering of her neighbors for a Christmas celebration at the house. On that evening, I met local theatre owners Jeff and Nancy Hathcock, where Daniel Wozniak performed as the lead for their musicals. It was also the same location where Daniel killed and dismembered his first victim Sam Herr in the attic of their Liberty Theatre. From that moment, I never returned home, and thus began my odyssey in uncovering the details of this case. We now welcome Dr. Pelto.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Please be advised this story contains adult content and graphic language.
And the thing of it happens with most serial killers
is that they begin oftentimes killing the person in a
very simple way, shooting them or strangling or cutting them.
So then they devised ways to torture them in order
(00:24):
to have more excitement out of it, because, let's face it,
just killing somebody's real boring. Welcome to Sleuth. I'm Linda Sawyer.
(00:44):
In this episode, we invite Dr von der Pelto to
the program. If you recall from episode one, I describe
how my investigative journey first began on this case at
Dr Pelto's southern California home. It was early to member
and I was commissioned to report and write a profile
piece on Dr Pelto, who enjoyed a colorful career as
(01:08):
a psychologist with an office in the Los Angeles Men's
County Jail. It was there she treated her patients, who
just happened to be some of the most prolific serial
killers that terrorized Los Angeles residence back in the eighties.
After our interview, Dr Pelto included me in a small
gathering of her neighbors for a Christmas celebration at the house.
(01:32):
On that evening, I met local theater owners Jeff and
Nancy Hathcock, where Daniel Wozniak performed as the lead for
their musicals. It was also the same location where Daniel
killed and dismembered his first victim, Sam Hare, in the
attic of their Liberty Theater. From that moment I never
(01:53):
returned home, and thus began my odyssey in uncovering the
details of this case. I want to welcome you, Vanda,
to Sleuth today. You certainly are someone that's been long
time now in my past, and we started together when
when I did that profile piece on you, and it
all began from there, right long time ago. Now I know,
(02:13):
it's like when you have to start counting on. We're
going to be December eighteen very soon, right, So it's
been a three year odyssey. One of the reasons why
I wanted you to come in and talk to us
today was because, of course, of your psychological background that
you have, and certainly your your history of having very
(02:36):
interesting clients. Why don't you share with our audience some
of those clients and some of some of that background.
I was very fortunate that I was brand new PhD
and hired into the l A County Men's Dale back
in the very early eighties, and at that time we
had such a rash of serial killers. I don't know
(02:59):
if it was contagious or if it was in the water.
Some of my clients were the trash bag murderers and
Douglas Clark, the Sunset Killer, and then the Freeway killers.
There were five of them and I saw all but four,
and then the Hillside Stranglers, Ken Bianchi and Angelo Buono
(03:20):
and John Holmes, the famous porn star. I want to
talk about the Hillside Stranglers for a moment because you
had mentioned in the profile piece I had done with
you several years back that there was this symbiotic relationship
that they had that you felt as if that was
part of sort of maybe why they decided to kill,
(03:43):
because together they became this combustible relationship that ignited this
desire and need to kill. Oftentimes I felt the same
about Daniel Wozniak and Rachel Buffett. I feel that after
all the interviews and research I've done, that I don't
believe Daniel Wazniak would have killed if you never met Rachel,
and I'm not alone in that feeling. The customs of
(04:04):
police feel the same, and I'd like you to talk
about what it is about that those types of relationships
that that basically draw them to to to do such dark,
evil crimes. It's kind of like Bonnie and Clyde in
a way. It's the same with really the two Hillside stranglers.
(04:25):
Bianchi was never killing until he met his cousin Angelo,
and their first killing was as a result of being
angry at a prostitute and to get back at her
for betraying him and stealing money from Angelo Buono, the
cousin Uh they decided to kill her and to set
(04:48):
an example to any other prostitutes. But without the two
of them it would not have worked. And Angelo said
that kim be a key was he was the very,
very handsome, attractive man, and he could get the women
to come along to Angelo's place. Angelo's place was in
(05:13):
upholstery shop in Los Angeles, and so Ken would go
out cruising and find an attractive woman, bring her back
to Angelo's place, and then they would rape her for
as long as they wanted to and then kill her.
So you're saying that alone, they didn't have the desire
(05:35):
but together, like two pieces of the puzzle, they they
clicked and then off they went. They needed each other
to in order to perform these acts exactly. And the
thing that happens with most serial killers is that they
begin oftentimes killing the person in a very simple way,
(05:55):
maybe shooting or like the Freeways, strangling them. But as
with Ken and Angelo, they got bored with just shooting
them or strangling them or cutting them, so then they
devised ways to torture them in order to have more
excitement out of it, because, let's face it, just killing
(06:16):
somebody's real boring. So they did get a high out
of it, absolutely they did. It was lots of fun.
That whole idea of getting a high from killing and
doing it in such a way that gave them that
jolt is something that I think also could be looked
at with this case. Because Chris Williams, who was a
(06:38):
new friend of theirs, who had loaned them the money
because they were getting evicted the week of the murders.
They were getting evicted on Tuesday, and Chris Williams had
met them fairly recently and decided he liked them and
they were nice, and so he wanted to help them,
and he gave them a bit of money to stave
off the eviction. It was two thousand dollars actually, and
he got that from a charity that was thrown for
(07:00):
him because he didn't have any health insurance and so
he had some health issues and he thought, you know,
these people raised almost ten thousand dollars for me. I'm
going to pay it forward and help these people. And
and his whole thing was, I just wanted to make
sure I got it back. So I came up with
this loan shark story. Right, I need the money back
by Friday. I'll give you four days kind of thing.
And so that's why the murders were committed on that
(07:21):
Friday because of this loan shark deadline. But one of
the reasons why I'm sharing with you this is because
Chris Williams had been with them the night before and
they were having a little barbecue barbecue sausages on their
deck after one of the nine performances that Daniel and
Rachel were in, and he said that he will never
(07:41):
forget this scene as long as he lives. Dan was
out in the deck and he started reciting word for
word the role that Matt Damon had played in The
Talented Mr. Ripley. It's a movie that was written by
Patricia high Smith, who was a sort of Edgar Allan
Poe type. You know, she was the Stephen, the Stephen
King of Europe, and she wrote this movie about a
(08:05):
young man who was conning people and stealing people's identities
and when they found out who he was, he ultimately
would kill the person. So he loved being in this
world to pretend. And this was Daniel's favorite role. So
Dan was on this deck. He was reciting word for
word this characters part and he started singing and when
(08:27):
he stopped, Chris Williams looked at him and said, oh
my gosh, like, how do you know that so well?
And he said, he's me. That's my favorite part of
all time. At that moment, when he's singing this ari
from from this movie, Sam leans over his deck. He's
two decks up right, he lives two apartments up, two
floors up from Dan, and he leans over and basically
(08:51):
acknowledges Dan for this beautiful song he's singing and say, hey, dude,
you know you're doing a great job, but knock it down.
If not, you know, we're all trying to sleep. I
gotta help you in the morning, right, and he goes, Sam,
you want to come down and say I's like no, no, no,
but I'll see in the morning. And the morning was
when Sam was lured to the attic and ultimately killed.
So that whole scene for Chris, he said, for him,
(09:14):
he sensed this need that Daniel had to feel what
it was like to to kill based on this role.
That was something he embodied. And I'm wondering how you
feel about that scene and what what does it How
does that strike you. Oftentimes people have fantasies about killing
William Bonnon, the freeway killer, was a truck driver, and
(09:37):
all day long he would fantasize about who he was
going to pick up and where he was going to
kill him and how he was going to do it.
And so I would guess that Dan was having some
of these same kind of fantasies, but until he hooked
up with Rachel, he didn't go through with it. He
(10:00):
was extremely dependent upon her, and he has many of
the qualities of a borderline personality, where they're very dependent
upon somebody else and they are easily manipulated because they
have this huge tremendous fear of abandonment. And so once
(10:22):
he got involved with Rachel, this beautiful woman, and from
what I understand, Dan had had very little dating experience
or sexual experience with a woman. So when Rachel was
interested in him, he had to do everything he could
(10:43):
do to keep her, and he certainly did. Yes, he
did what she needed. And so that's where that diagnosis
of potentially borderline personality. Although we should tell our listeners
he was never your patient and you never met him,
but you certainly listened to some phone calls of his
(11:03):
between himself and and Rachel, as well as learning from
some of the other interviews that I've had exactly history exactly.
But the borderline personality, that's that's very interesting because again
it involves another person to take you to those new heights,
to take you to that level of evil that you
never thought existed in your personality before. In fact, he
(11:25):
said to police when they said, what did you feel
like when you were cutting off Sam's head, and he said,
I was smiling and laughing, And they said smiling and laughing? Why?
And he said, because I just never imagined myself in
this place, like I never imagined myself doing something like this.
Maybe didn't imagine himself cutting a hat off, but I
(11:48):
think he imagined and killing someone. Something else about him
he had a lot of anti social tendencies, also being
able to steal money from other people, um being able
to not pay their debts, changing his name or his
(12:12):
persona to fit in with Rachel or fit in with
anyone he's conning. He actually that's very interesting because he
told Chris Williams, when Chris Williams brought up this whole
loan shark thing. He had said to Chris Williams prior
to that conversation that he was a fellow pison, you know,
and he would do the Italian accent. He wasn't Italian
at all, but he like a chameleon. He became that
(12:36):
in order to fulfill the con and he was an
actor and she was an actress. So this fit very
nicely with the two of them. One of the other
activities that I learned that the two of them shared
together Rachel and Dan, were that they would actually play
a game and try to come up with scenario on
(13:00):
how they would kill someone and get away with it.
Different Like, they plot out these plans of how they
would do it, and how they would get away scott free,
which to me, that's a very odd hobby, and it
had to be mutual, and had it not been mutual,
they would not have planned to get married. Something I
(13:23):
thought in listening to the phone calls was I didn't
see any kind of remorse at all. It was all
simply about how was he going to get away with
what he had done? But I didn't hear sorry that
he killed these two people. And I didn't hear anything
(13:46):
from Rachel either saying oh my god, Dan, what did
you do? I didn't hear any shock, which led me
to believe she already knew. But something extremely strange was
how she was so insistent in one of the first
phone calls that she contact the detective and tell the
(14:11):
detective that Tim had evidence. And I thought for her
being his fiancee, uh Dan's fiance and then to insist
upon calling the detective and saying, hey, guess what, dude, um,
Tim has some evidence. Why I thought this woman doesn't
(14:36):
love Dan? Well, there was many indications that she didn't
love Dan, and in fact her own words, she said
I was never over the top about him, but I
was okay with that I mean the night Dan was
arrested from his bachelor party. She was brought in for
questioning very early the next morning, and she said to
detectives that, you know, he wasn't a very good lover.
You know, he had a small penis, you know, and
(14:59):
and and and this is two days before she's supposed
to marry the guy. So, I mean, they all thought
that was so strange. And again the same thing when
they brought her in. They actually brought her into the
room because detective one of the detectives said to me,
we just didn't think she would believe what we were
going to tell her. We wanted to see her reaction
when he was sharing with her the details of what
(15:22):
he was saying. And they said it was because of
her complete lack of reaction or shock or like you say,
any kind of sense of remorse or oh my god,
just the horror right of what he was talking about.
They saw none of that, and so they felt that
was this first indication that she was probably part of
(15:43):
the plan and knew everything. Yeah, I totally agree, Otherwise
she would have said well on the phone too. I
it sounded to me listening to the phone call like
she had almost been coached before the phone call to
make leading questions to get him to tell her on
(16:06):
the telephone a confession on the telephone, and they certainly
knew it was being recorded. And I thought, Wow, how
can this woman who supposedly love him keep saying, well,
just tell me what you did, Dan, Just tell me,
just tell me what you did. And I thought, if
he was going to try to plead that he was innocent,
(16:29):
she was setting him up. Interesting. One of the things
that I want to to share with you about that
one phone call where you mentioned that she's saying, you know,
I ran into Tim, and Tim has this evidence and
I have to tell the police because the calls being
recorded before they think I'm trying to cover it up.
There there's a scenario that you're not aware of that.
(16:51):
In fact, in that car sitting next to her in
the passenger seat was a woman by the name of
Violet Randolph, and Violet Randolph was driving around with her
that day because Rachel went to the Woznia come to
tell Darryl and Marianne about Daniels in jail and this
is what's happening. And as they were leaving the house,
Tim drove up with his girlfriend at the time, Lisa
(17:13):
guledge and it was there she got out, went over
to the so the car where Tim was, and Tim
she told him that Dan was arrested, and he then
shared with her, you know I have this evidence. I
have the bag, I have the gun. And she's putting
her hands up on her ears. No, no, no, I
don't want to hear any of this. And so when
Rachel got back in the car, it was violent that said,
what are you gonna do about this? I mean, what
(17:36):
is it true? Does he have evidence? And she's like, yes,
he has the gun, and she said, you have to
call police. You have to tell him before that gun disappears.
And she's like no, no, and and Violet's like, if
you don't do it, I'm gonna do it because you
know I have to do it. So she's picking up
her phone to dial her mother to get Detective Morales's number,
and at that point Dan calls in from the holding
(17:58):
cell and that's when she's Babe, you know I have
to do it. You're you're dead already, like he said,
if no, no, no, if you do that, I'm dead,
and she says, you're dead already. I think at that moment,
She's like, Okay, you're on the hook. I gotta get
myself off here. You know, I gotta make sure I
walk away clean, and if you love me, you'll let
that happen. I totally agree. I thought the whole time
(18:19):
she was really covering her behind and really setting him
up and knowing how easily he was manipulated. I think
she believed and new he would never squeal on her.
That's one of the questions a lot of people ask
me about this case. Why after all these years she's
(18:40):
moved on, she's engaged to someone else. Why haven't you
given her up? And part of that reason I found.
In fact, Tim Waznik himself told me that if Rachel
speaks and if he goes down, she's going down too.
Like they're both connected. They both spent a week together
after Dan was arrested when he finally confessed to the murders,
(19:02):
Rachel spent a week in a hotel room with Tim
and Lisa Goledge and they were lighting up. In fact,
him said to me, she was absolutely an expert, brilliant
at lighting a bowl of crystal meth. I don't even
know if that's how you say because I know nothing
about that stuff. But he said, it's it's a kind
of an intricate pipe, and you pretty much if you're
(19:23):
lighting it up and using it, you have to know
what you're doing, right, So he of course knew what
he was doing, and watching her, he said she was
an expert, and they sort of just went into this
crystal meth fog all week, and uh, I guess that's
probably where they basically made their pact. Sure sounds like that.
I would like to speak more about the calls, because
(19:45):
I know that you've listened to there were three calls
that of all the calls, they were the most significant
calls because they were the lengthist and they were the
most I don't know telling if you will, and you
did listen to those calls, and I'd love to know
more of your perspective and analysis of those calls and
what you gathered from them. I think one of the
things that I was most surprised about, particularly the first call,
(20:11):
was that Rachel wasn't saying we're going to get you
a good attorney. Have you talked to attorney? Don't say anything,
because we all watched TV and we all know you're
not supposed to confess to anything without an attorney. But
I never heard those words out of her mouth encouraging
(20:31):
him to do that. And he seemed like such a dependent,
kind of weak can I say, Mamma's boy? And Rachel
was kind of mama to him, and so he was
(20:52):
very dependent upon her to give him some guidance and
she didn't. She just pushed him and pushed him to confess.
Editor's note. For access to all the jail house calls
between Daniel Wazniak and Rachel Buffett that occurred on May,
(21:13):
go to our Facebook page at Facebook dot com Backslash
Sleuth podcast. He he mentioned to her in the calls
that his life really unraveled when he disconnected from his family,
and she asked him, why why did you break from
your family? And I think she knew because he would
(21:33):
share with her emails from his mother. His mother was
very blunt about her feelings about Rachel, that she was uneducated,
she came from a poor family, she wasn't good enough
for him, and she had quite a long list, actually,
and I think that Rachel knew what the disconnect was.
But he went on to describe in these calls that
he was starting to hear voices. He got to the
(21:55):
point he didn't like confrontation, and he was getting to
the point where he was ready to confront and contemplating
killing his own parents. Who knows, I mean, I often
wonder because he did share a very similar story to
Steve Hair. Because Steve Hare was very frustrated he wasn't
getting enough information from the coast to Masa police at
the time, understandably, so they were doing an investigation, but
(22:18):
he wanted to know everything. His only form of peace
was for him to get any details he could about
what happened to his son. So he went to the
horse's mouth. He went to Dan, and Dan met with him,
and one of the things he did say to him
was that Sam was not his first target. And he
told them and it was very kind of eerie because
every time Marian Wozniak would come to visit Dan, she
(22:39):
would come with a bible. And then when Dan met
with Steve Hair, he came with his bible. And as
he's telling, because Steve wants to know who who was
your first target, and he opens up his bible and
takes the little golf pencil that was there and he
writes in the very Bible that he praised with his mother,
my parents, he writes, Oh my god, Oh my god.
(23:01):
So he had had he had had fantasies for a
long time about killing someone. It hated his parents, and
that was during the time he was dating her. But
again Marian was rejecting her. He never could bring her
to the house, He can never incorporate her and family holidays.
He had to lie. The lies, from what I understand,
(23:22):
especially from his high school and college friends, began based
on the fact that he had to lie to his
mother in order to have a normal young man's life,
in order to go date or go party or do whatever.
The lies were centered around that social activity because she
wanted him at home. She didn't want him going out
(23:43):
with other women that weren't appropriate. Sounds like she was
very possessive of him and very domineering, and that's probably
why he hooked up with Rachel, because she was also
very domineering and mothering and controlling. All of their friends
(24:04):
say that she definitely wore the pants. She was the
one that called the shots, She was the one in charge.
He didn't do anything without her knowledge or her approval.
So you'd said earlier, I think that the two of
them had discussed killing someone, Rachel and Dan, and so
it was very easy to see him slide in to
(24:27):
killing these two people that he considered very very good friends.
And he didn't have any problem. But I I do
recall to he needed the money so they could get married. Well,
that's what instigated. The first thing was when he was
arrested a couple of weeks before the murders. He was
arrested for an outstanding du I warn't and ironically it
(24:49):
was Costa Mesa that arrested him. He didn't have the money,
they didn't have the bail to get out, so Rachel
enlisted a mutual friend, a neighbor in the complex, a
gentleman by the name of of Barnhart, and he started
calling around trying to collect the money, because after all,
Dan was going to be in a performance that following
night and he was the lead, so they had to
get him out right. So they started calling around and
(25:11):
one of the people they called was Sam Hair and
Sam said, I am not participating. I'm not contributing. I
barely know them well enough to put in money. You know.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to do it. And
When they hung up the phone with him, Dave turned
to Rachel and said, and he's the one that has
more money than all of us, right, So so already
they were kind of upset with Sam. And then finally
(25:32):
they raised enough money got got Dan out, and they
went to that afternoon after he was released. In the morning,
they got they went to the hot tub in the
complex and Sam was there and Dan starts complaining, oh
my gosh, I never want to go to jail again.
That was horrible spending that night. It was just it's
just not for me. And I'm so glad I don't
ever ever want to go there again. And Sam responds, dude,
(25:55):
are you kidding me? Like I spent two years in
Men's County jail when I was facing my own murder charge,
and they that was like what, Like they couldn't believe it.
So together, I think they started zeroing in on Sam
Harre at that point as their possible target. And then
the Tuesday before the murders, they had their eviction notice.
(26:18):
Chris came in with some money, but they didn't have
all of it, and ultimately Sam offered to help with
the rest of it. So Sam and Dan went to
Sam's bank and he took out the money from the
A t M. Dan was over his shoulder, caught him
putting the pin number in, saw the gigantic total and
Sam's account and that was it. That was it, that
(26:39):
he was it. He was the one, right, he was
the one they were going to go after he came back.
And I think you know told Rachel about that, because
he mentions in the call that he saw the total
and how he got the pin and uh and he
was the one. So here is this kid trying to
help him, right, he goes in and gets the hash
(27:00):
years checked with all the money from the bank, He
sees the pen and he and he was their target,
which was amazing that he could turn on somebody. And
the Julie also, although I guess that's how he had
to set Sam up. Well, it's interesting you mentioned Julie
(27:21):
because that's where police and I believe Rachel's influence really
stepped up because I had found out from Dave Barnhart,
the gentleman I just mentioned earlier that helped raise the
bailed money for day when Dan was arrested for that
outstanding d y. Dave Barnhart had a major crush on
Rachel Buffett Major and they flirted. I mean oftentimes Rachel
(27:47):
would flirt right in front of Dan. They had this
these parties that they called Taco Tuesdays, and she would
be sitting on Dave's lap and say, watch, I'm gonna
make Dan kiss that guy and he's gonna do it
for me, or else I won't go home with him.
And that's what she do. She'd set him up and say,
you have to kiss so and so or you I'm
not sleeping with you tonight. And it was a joke
and he would do it in front of everybody at
(28:08):
this party and make him the clown. And but that
it was anything to just make her happy. Yeah, he
it was his dependence, his fear of losing her. I
can certainly understand he needed her so much that he
was willing to kill in order to get the money
in order to make her happy. And when it came
(28:30):
to Julie, I think the reason that Julie became part
of the plan was that she was not only like
a prop in their play, but she was also someone
that I believe Rachel might have been a bit jealous
of because two nights earlier, Dave Barnhard had consummated a
relationship with Julie. I think he got tired of waiting
(28:52):
around for anything to really happen with Rachel. Although Rachel
still wanted the attention, still wanted to believe she was
the only one that he was in it in he
was separately having this ongoing friendship that turned into more
with Julie, and I believe he might have said I'm
past you now like I'm onto Julie, and that might
have instigated the whole reason why they needed Julie as
(29:14):
part of this plan. Well, I can see Rachel because
just from observing the phone calls, that she was extremely
narcissistic and insecure, even though she was a beautiful woman.
And I can easily see seeing all of those texts
(29:38):
on that telephone that she probably suspected her that he
was going to two time or leave her. Oh you're
saying that you Dan, Yeah, I'm thinking yeah, the I
don't really I don't really remember Dan Bernhardt. Dave barne
(30:00):
Heart is just a Dave Barnhard was a person that
lived in Camden, Martinique and he went to the Orange
Coast College across the street, and he was very close
with Sam, and he also but he was very interested
in Rachel. I mean, he was hot for her. He
wanted her, but she wasn't necessarily giving allegedly, she wasn't
(30:20):
giving much up to him. Right, But she loved to
Dave today. But she but she loved the attention, She
loved the pursuit, She loved the power she had over men. Right,
she loved so I My theory is that she found
out about Dave Barnhard's budding relationship with Julie and it
(30:43):
had just happened two nights before, and she was jealous.
And then she sees these texts that Dan is sending
to her as Sam. Right, he's pretending to be Sam
because it's on Sam's phone, And she sees him saying, Oh,
I'm just with my neighbor Dan, I'm helping him move
furniture in the theater, and she goes, you dummy, you
just put yourself as the last person to be with
Sam before he was murdered at the theater. So now
(31:06):
she's got to go kind of thing or she's part
of the plan now to make it look like Sam's
on the run. And they had this jealous love thing
that you know, went awry and he killed her in
the apartment because she wouldn't sleep with them or something.
That was what the theory was, and that that whole
thing began once Dan came back to the apartment and
gave Chris Williams the first installment of money. I mean
(31:27):
that was at that point he was back reconnected with Rachel,
and all of a sudden, the text started heightening, the
loring started to heighten in those texts to Julie. Yeah,
I thought that that probably Rachel and Dan put a
plot together to kill Julie in order to blame Sam
(31:50):
for the murders, and that Sam had taken off. So
my supposition was that Rachel and Dan came up with
that idea. So I don't I don't know so much
about jealousy, although that certainly could be a component, and
she wouldn't mind seeing Julie out of the picture. But
(32:14):
I thought that those two decided, we can put this
on Sam. It will explain his absence because he killed Julie, right,
And that's basically what Dan said to police when he
confessed that that was what the plan was. That Sam
was on the run, run, and and you know, he
was trying to escape justice after what he did to Julie. Yeah,
(32:39):
but I can certainly see that Rachel wouldn't have. Rachel
had no verbiage of being guilty or feeling remorse for
Dan killing these two people. So I can easily see
(33:00):
that her self sinnered. Nous could have made her very
angry at Julie, feeling that she wasn't number one to
both Dave and Dan anymore. And she had sent a
Facebook message back to Julie. I guess Julie earlier that
day sent a Facebook message to Rachel saying, oh, I
(33:22):
ran into Dan last night when I was having dinner
with Sam and Ruben and a bunch of people, and
he mentioned you're getting married next week in congratulations and Rachel.
At eleven fifteen that same day, that Friday night, after
Sam was already murdered and Julie was about to be murdered,
she said to Julie, Oh, you know, thank you so much.
(33:44):
When everything calms down, Uh, we'll enjoy some summer sunshine
at the pool, and look forward to seeing you then.
And this was at eleven fifteen. Now she told police
that she was in bed and on her laptop. She
sent that message in bed, But I found out later
that she had told another person, this gentleman by the
(34:06):
name of Daniel Hulkyard, that in fact, Dan was over
her shoulder when she was sending that message forty five
minutes later upstairs Daniel. We don't know if Rachel was there.
We might suspect, but we don't know for sure, But
that Daniel met Julie at the door, at Sam's door
twelve midnight and brought her inside and then she was killed.
(34:27):
So I just thought that was interesting because it's again
her lies and inconsistencies with her stories as well, having
Dan over her shoulder means they're in cahoots, right they right?
So does that call collusion? Another good Sea word? I
think we have one more we could come up with.
(34:48):
But yeah, I think that all of that plays apart,
and certainly she seems there's there's so many reasons to
believe that she was in on the planning. One of
the things that she had said to police that again
that morning, like Daniel was arrested May twenty six, Wednesday night,
and early that Thursday morning, they did bring Rachel in
(35:10):
and and one of the things she she said several
things that made you wonder about her involvement, one of
which was, you know, did you check into Sam's past,
because that's they were using that, right, it's a reason
for him to be really the bad guy. I mean,
here's the real reason why he's probably on the run
and did this, because he's been charged with murder before, right, right,
(35:32):
and so they she brought that up. And then she
also said that when Dan came back with the money,
I think he either gave it to Sam outside the
apartment or maybe it was one of the loan sharks
when she was sitting at the table when Dan gave
physically gave the money to Chris Williams. But she didn't
tell the police to cry about Chris Williams. She thought
Chris Williams would never crop up, and certainly she knew
(35:55):
at that point Sam was dead, so he couldn't he
couldn't he contradict what she said right to me, that's
one of the most telling statements that she was part
of the plan. Seeing Dan or you know, the way
I saw him from the phone calls and everything, that
he would have done anything. But I don't think that
(36:18):
he was somebody who had the strength or maybe the
intelligence to do it all by himself. He's never been
able to hold a job, not successful with relationships, was
willing to marry this woman, whom he had to know
at some level really didn't love him, but he was
(36:40):
so dependent it was okay. But I just don't see
him as a person who could have thought this all
out all by himself. And it's funny that you mentioned
that because one of my other interviews were with a
couple by the name of John and Kristen Spath. They
were the parents of a girl by the name of
(37:02):
Brittany Boudrey, who was Dan's girlfriend prior to Rachel and
the longest relationship he had almost two years. He was
part of their family. He went on holidays with them,
he went on cruises with them. In fact, the Wozniaks
would go on holidays with the Spath But as soon
as Marian Wosniak found out about Brittney's real age, she
(37:26):
cut all ties to the family. I guess she felt
like the difference in age because he was seventh older
than seventeen and she was still fifteen, and that just
freaked Maryann out. Of course, Daniel had lied about that,
so she had known until that point the Spath didn't
understand why she all of a sudden like dropped them
like and was actually kind of rude to them socially
(37:48):
when they would see each other, and so that whole relationship.
While it ended because of Mary Anne, he still needed
them and wanted them, and he still felt as if
the Spa asked for his family. In fact, he felt
like John Speth was really more like his father figure.
He would call Kristen his mom, and John Spath is dead.
(38:08):
On the weekend of the murders, when the murders took place,
that's Sunday, Dan had gone down to see John Spath.
Kristen and her daughter were up. They were auditioning for
American Idol and she was doing really well. She was
getting through a couple of rounds. So John was by
himself and Dan said, why don't I come down. I'll
(38:29):
bring some stogies, will grill up some steaks, and so
he did, and he then John said it was just
the oddest conversation because he was telling me, I wish
I could be more like you. I'm terrible with confrontation,
even though I'm a big guy and people think I
can handle myself and protect myself I've always been controlled
(38:53):
by women, and I am wondering if I'm marrying the
wrong girl. You protect your family, you. I wish I
could be more like you, strong like you. And and
I said, John, you realize he was trying to confess
to you. It was it came close to he was.
It was just the oddest, strangest And I told him
that if he felt she was the wrong girl, And
(39:15):
if you're feeling that now, you know nobody's going to
care if you if you end it now, And I said,
I said to John that you know that was the
weekend of the murders. He was doing something. He was
doing what he was doing for for this love of
this empty person that he probably recognized was not too
good for him. At this point. It sure sounds that
(39:35):
way that he was. It sounds like they were already
planning these murders or at least the sam to get
the money. But it sounds like he was trying to
pull away from that because he knew it wasn't right.
And also Rachel found the sex tape. There was a
(39:55):
sex tape that that and it was with Brittany Boudre,
his form her girlfriend, and they had had sex and
it was filmed and dated during the time that Rachel
was already engaged to Dan. So when she found that,
she found that, and it was actually next to um
Darryl's gun because they had a safe in the apartment.
Dan and Rachel had a little, small, little safe and
(40:18):
the gun and the sex tape were in the safe,
and she had found and I would say if she
found the sex tape, she had to have found the
gutten right, I mean, so what what does that tell you?
That there's all of a sudden a gun in your house?
What's it doing there? And why is there this gun
cleaning kit on top of the safe? All these indications
probably were a good hint that there was some murdering
(40:39):
about going on. Happened, right, So anyway, she she found
this tape, and this this had happened just a few
weeks before the murders. So the whole idea of I'm
going to leave you was all of a sudden really
a subject that he had to convince her not to.
And so the way he convinced her not to leave
him was to say, look, I taped this because I
(41:02):
was going to extort money from the family. I taped
it as a tool, as a weapon to get this
money out of them, And so she thought, oh okay,
like that was fine as long as you get money.
As long as you get money to take care of
me money honey. Yeah, yeah, exactly, because I want to
go on a cruise from my honeymoon. Yes, yes, I
(41:24):
don't love you all that much, but boy I could.
You're sure use a nice trip, nice cruise, right, even
if your penis is small. That's right, I'll make do.
There's always the captain. There's a follow up visit that
the Spaths had that I want to share with you
(41:45):
that happened after Dan was arrested and after he confessed
to the murders. Wait wait, wait you the spouse Spaths again,
the parents of Brittany, of the girl that when the
spouse Sorry, sorry, okay. So there's another follow up visit
that the Spaths had that I'd like to share with you.
(42:06):
That happened three days after Dan was arrested on a Wednesday.
He confessed on a Thursday. By that Saturday, Rachel comes
knocking on their door on the Spath store with brother Noah,
and she had about a fifth of vodka with her.
That was pretty well drunk literally in her hand. She's
bringing in the podka. So Kristen and Brittany, her daughter,
go out on the deck now again. Britney's the girl
(42:28):
in the sex tape, right, the former girlfriend. She goes
out on the deck with Rachel, and Noah sits in
the little family room area off the kitchen with John Spath,
the father, right, and John says, you know, of all
the times we've spent with Dan, I mean, he was
like a son to us. We traveled with him, he
practically lived here at times, we never saw a violent person.
(42:51):
We never saw a man that would be capable of
this kind of crime, you know, this, these kind of
murderous murder and dismemberment. It was just it boggled their minds, right,
They said someone else had to be involved. He couldn't
have done this alone. And Noah brings out this corn
pipe and John said to me, it wasn't even lit.
It was just this silly old corn pipe, like like
(43:12):
he was about to be Promphisorial, right, and said, oh,
I believe he's capable of it because we used to
sit around and play games about how we would kill
people and get away with it, and and you know,
that that that rental that they were in. I was
the co signer because he got they got evicted from
so many places their credit was pathetic that I had
to co sign. So he promised me. He said to me,
(43:35):
if he could get out four hundred dollars a day,
we would be fine and we would make the rent. Well.
When John told me that and John heard that, they
immediately called the authorities because they said, how would you
know these details about getting four hundred dollars a day?
Back then, you could only get four hundred dollars out
of your A t M per day. And that was
(43:56):
Dan's plan to get four hundred dollars a day out
of Sam's account, using Wesley right to get it out.
And so the idea that they knew about these plans
and that they had talked about these games together about
killing people and then he knew that kind of a
detail really made John and Kristen feel that Dan was
(44:17):
not alone in this plan. Yeah, that's sort of continuing
on your on your theory as well, that you based
on what you've heard and seen that it seems like
Dan was not capable of planning this himself. I don't
think so. It doesn't appear that he had that much
ability to think ahead about consequences, although he was smart
(44:43):
enough I guess to take the tools to the theater,
and that he picked up from Noah's house, that he
uh interesting interest with Tim in the car. Yeah, with
Tim in the car, And don't you think Tim might
have said, what are those four? Course he would have.
But don't forget he was the dude bringing the crystal
(45:04):
method like he he was part. He even said to
one of his high school friends, because this high school friend,
Bob Kristilla, who knew the WASNIAT there, you know, his
whole life, said if Dan is involved in drugs and
crystal meth, it's got your handprint all over it, Tim,
and I want to go down and talk to him.
And so Tim brought Bob down to Campton Martinique and
(45:28):
unfortunately he missed. Danny wasn't there at the time. But
Tim brought him around the apartment and said, by the way,
this is where I'm moving in. And Tim told Bob
he was moving into this walking closet. So he was
absolutely a huge part of their life, a huge part
of that weekend, and I could share more details, but
(45:48):
Tim was involved in pretty much every step of that week,
in the murder weekend. Yeah, so, I mean, there's no
question Dan's taking the hit. He's taking it alone. And
the reason why I think he's not giving Rachel up
is because that's would be connected to revealing Tim's role.
But it sure sounds like Tim had a role in it,
(46:09):
and that he had the weapons, and they he went
to the theater with Dan to drop all that stuff off,
maybe helped him carry it up the stairs, because that
was a lot of stuff to carry up those stairs
into that addict. And then he turns out to have
(46:30):
the bag full of the dirty, bloody clothes. And then
there was a crate. There was a crate with like,
you know, an axe, bloody axe and all these tools,
bloody tools, and that crate for a very long time
was in their apartment. And Rachel said to police that
morning that she was brought in and I talked about
(46:51):
after Dan was arrested. She said, for like a long time,
she didn't want to go in the bedroom. She slept
on the couch in the living room because of the
crate sitting there. You could suppose that you think maybe
she suspected something, maybe a little I mean Sam's key
car keys were on the counter, his laptop was on
their little shelf in the living room. I mean Dan
(47:14):
was doing these texts on a flip phone, which was
a very archaic phone, versus the phone that Dan had,
which was this new high tech phone that he had.
I mean, wouldn't you say whose phone is that? Who's
whose phone are you on? Absolutely tell us if there's
anything more that you'd like to share about your hypotheses
(47:36):
or if you wanted to talk about any kind of diagnosis.
Again that you have not ever met Dan, But what
you suppose, well, I certainly see that he meets many
of the criteria for being an anti social personality. His
ability to steal, his ability to can other people, his
(47:58):
total lack of room morse, his long history of d
U I s and conning and those all meet the
criteria for antisocial. But then his high dependence upon this
woman makes him also have different features of borderline. That
(48:24):
they have this horrible fear, persistent fear of being abandoned.
They will do anything in order to keep the other
person there dependent upon in their lives, and I think
in this situation even to kill so they cross any
(48:45):
socio barrier more morality wise or legally. They there is
no boundary and they don't learn from their mistakes. And
that's certainly obvious with Dan that he continued to still
people to consteal to steal. I mean they stole their food,
their alcohol, they stole their furniture, they stole on almost
(49:09):
a daily basis. I didn't pay their rent. I mean,
it's a very sociopathic on some level. I feel like
he was relieved when he got in jail because everything
was covered at that point. I have I had that
same fantasy that it was a relief to be away
because he seemed to lack internal control. He needed external control,
(49:34):
and in the jail you have lots of external control.
But it doesn't sound like in his childhood and growing
up with this overly controlling mother, he learned any internal control.
And you mentioned about the family. You said that there
was a dynamic that you wondered about as far as
(49:55):
the middle brother, Tim and his relationship and feelings towards Daniel. Well,
it's hard when you are being the favorite child, the baby,
and the child many years and then all of the
sudden to be usurped by a younger brother. And of
course mama doted on the younger, this brand new baby,
(50:18):
and now then Tim was old and kind of forgotten.
So I'm sure there was a lot of rivalry between
the two men. So do you feel like that rivalry
could have instigated some kind of a setup of Dan, well,
of of Dan. I was thinking also the setup of
(50:42):
Tim that Rachel was so eager, and I would guess
that was Dan and Rachel so eager to involve Tim
and giving him the bloody package of evidence, the evidence
and the instruments. Yes, and as the prosecutor called it,
the cornucopia of benovidence. Yes, perfect and so, and then
(51:06):
her being very eager to tell the detective, oh, yes,
Tim has evidence. And so it seemed to me that
it was the other way around, that it was she
and Dan who set Tim up. You know, Tim, I've
(51:26):
heard the prosecutor say it was just another victim of
Dan Wozniak, like Sam and Julie, and it really ruffled
me because it couldn't be farther from the truth. But
they did not go after him. And the reason they
didn't go after him was because the prosecutor was concerned
about the defense attorney coming up with a mental illness argument.
(51:51):
And I'm wanted to ask you when you heard Dan
on those calls saying he was starting to hear voices
and he's crazy, and he oh, he's crazy. When Rachel
starts yelling at him, telling him he's crazy and that
he should be in a mental institution, do you feel,
based on what you heard, that that would have been
(52:11):
a legitimate legal argument, because from what I heard from
the defense attorney that in no way would he have
been able to present a mental illness argument that legally
he didn't meet that criteria. I'd love to know your opinion.
I don't believe he meant the criteria either. Um he
(52:33):
and I think the whole thing about he heard voices
reminded me of kin Bianchi trying to the Hillside Strangler,
of his trying to get away with it, saying he
was a multiple personality. And I had the same feeling
about Dan that he and Rachel have kind of concocted
(52:54):
this thing all of a sudden in the phone calls,
she said, well, you're crazy, you know, and and then
his saying to her, well, what do you think, Rachel?
Should I go for try to get in the middle
hospital or should I go to jail like he can
check a box or prison. It doesn't work, doesn't have
(53:15):
to work, be more crazy. So I can certainly understand
why the defense attorney didn't try for that. He no,
So therefore then there really was no reason to give
Tim a plea deal. It was just this, this need this,
you know, prosecute at all costs for for the capital
(53:37):
case that this prosecutor wanted and needed that he that
he offered that, and which is which is really unfortunate
because based on my interviews and research and knowledge of
Tim's role, he should not have been offered anything. Well,
and the other thing is Dan was a tall man,
wasn't me and well built ken. Can you visualize he
(54:02):
all by himself carrying all those body parts down that
skinny little uh ladder that went up into the attic
in the theater. I can't. I can't imagine either thing
him getting the tools up there all by himself, or
he is getting the body parts down all by himself. Well,
(54:25):
that's another thing. From what I gathered, Dan didn't realize
Sam was Sam was a meaty guy. He was a stocky,
well built guy. And from what I understand from Tim,
the tools were ridiculous. They were just not the appropriate
tools for the dismemberment. They were poor quality. And so
the struggle was that he or they, depending on on
(54:47):
what theory you look at, uh couldn't cut up the
body to the extent they had to leave most of
the body there. And and allegedly one of the theories
was that he was going to take the body parts
and throw them in this incinerator that was in the
medical hospital right behind the theater, because as you know,
the Joint Forces Base was a military base, and there
(55:10):
was a military hospital with a crematorium and an incinerator,
and Jeff Hathcock had given Dan a tour of it,
so he knew it was there. Because Dan had this
fascination with the maccabb He loved Halloween. He would go
up in the attic of the theater and scare the
kids when they were rehearsing on stage at the theater.
He actually did sort of live out this real life
(55:32):
Phantom of the opera, right, which is what I've said
about this case. And so the idea that he was
maybe thinking of burning the body, which is a theory
I have based on a conversation I had with her
boyfriend after subsequent to Dan, who she confessed that too,
that I had told him to burn the body. Her
(55:54):
her Rachel Rachel, Her Rachel Rachel had it was in
a drunken stupor, but she all of a sudden, out
of the blue, like starts gets She had her head
on his lap. He was driving home from they were
they had performed in this karaoke bar whatever, and they
were driving home and she kind of took up her
hand and like started pounding on his chest, and she said,
(56:17):
I told you to burn the body. I told you
to She said at once, I told you to burn
the body. And he said it was like he was
frozen in time. He said, it was clear that she
thought he was Dan, and so he shared that with me.
I'm sure and and and Rachel and Dan were at
the theater two nights before the murder. And I have
witnesses telling me confirming that. And it was so odd.
(56:39):
Why were they there. They had no reason to be there.
They weren't in the show that they were rehearsing at
the time. So all of these details sort of loose
the ends, lots of luce, the ends that we're hopefully
tying up at the end of this podcast, well, I
want to thank you so much for being here today
on Sleuth, thank you for having me, and thank you
for sure. Next time on Sleuth, we're going to surprise
(57:15):
you with a guest who I like to call my
deep throat. She's come forward since Sleuth has been published,
with revelations that will astonish you more than any other
episode you've heard to date. After three years of digging
and sleuthing on this case, we are finally able to
reveal the definitive pieces of this murderous puzzle. You will
(57:38):
not want to miss a single minute. If you enjoyed
this episode of Sleuth, share it with a friend and
be sure to leave a rating or review. Follow Sleuth
on I Heart Radio, or subscribe wherever you listen to
podcasts so that you never miss an episode
Please be advised this story contains adult content and graphic language.
And the thing of it happens with most serial killers
is that they begin oftentimes killing the person in a
very simple way, shooting them or strangling or cutting them.
So then they devised ways to torture them in order
(00:24):
to have more excitement out of it, because, let's face it,
just killing somebody's real boring. Welcome to Sleuth. I'm Linda Sawyer.
(00:44):
In this episode, we invite Dr von der Pelto to
the program. If you recall from episode one, I describe
how my investigative journey first began on this case at
Dr Pelto's southern California home. It was early to member
and I was commissioned to report and write a profile
piece on Dr Pelto, who enjoyed a colorful career as
(01:08):
a psychologist with an office in the Los Angeles Men's
County Jail. It was there she treated her patients, who
just happened to be some of the most prolific serial
killers that terrorized Los Angeles residence back in the eighties.
After our interview, Dr Pelto included me in a small
gathering of her neighbors for a Christmas celebration at the house.
(01:32):
On that evening, I met local theater owners Jeff and
Nancy Hathcock, where Daniel Wozniak performed as the lead for
their musicals. It was also the same location where Daniel
killed and dismembered his first victim, Sam Hare, in the
attic of their Liberty Theater. From that moment I never
(01:53):
returned home, and thus began my odyssey in uncovering the
details of this case. I want to welcome you, Vanda,
to Sleuth today. You certainly are someone that's been long
time now in my past, and we started together when
when I did that profile piece on you, and it
all began from there, right long time ago. Now I know,
(02:13):
it's like when you have to start counting on. We're
going to be December eighteen very soon, right, So it's
been a three year odyssey. One of the reasons why
I wanted you to come in and talk to us
today was because, of course, of your psychological background that
you have, and certainly your your history of having very
(02:36):
interesting clients. Why don't you share with our audience some
of those clients and some of some of that background.
I was very fortunate that I was brand new PhD
and hired into the l A County Men's Dale back
in the very early eighties, and at that time we
had such a rash of serial killers. I don't know
(02:59):
if it was contagious or if it was in the water.
Some of my clients were the trash bag murderers and
Douglas Clark, the Sunset Killer, and then the Freeway killers.
There were five of them and I saw all but four,
and then the Hillside Stranglers, Ken Bianchi and Angelo Buono
(03:20):
and John Holmes, the famous porn star. I want to
talk about the Hillside Stranglers for a moment because you
had mentioned in the profile piece I had done with
you several years back that there was this symbiotic relationship
that they had that you felt as if that was
part of sort of maybe why they decided to kill,
(03:43):
because together they became this combustible relationship that ignited this
desire and need to kill. Oftentimes I felt the same
about Daniel Wozniak and Rachel Buffett. I feel that after
all the interviews and research I've done, that I don't
believe Daniel Wazniak would have killed if you never met Rachel,
and I'm not alone in that feeling. The customs of
(04:04):
police feel the same, and I'd like you to talk
about what it is about that those types of relationships
that that basically draw them to to to do such dark,
evil crimes. It's kind of like Bonnie and Clyde in
a way. It's the same with really the two Hillside stranglers.
(04:25):
Bianchi was never killing until he met his cousin Angelo,
and their first killing was as a result of being
angry at a prostitute and to get back at her
for betraying him and stealing money from Angelo Buono, the
cousin Uh they decided to kill her and to set
(04:48):
an example to any other prostitutes. But without the two
of them it would not have worked. And Angelo said
that kim be a key was he was the very,
very handsome, attractive man, and he could get the women
to come along to Angelo's place. Angelo's place was in
(05:13):
upholstery shop in Los Angeles, and so Ken would go
out cruising and find an attractive woman, bring her back
to Angelo's place, and then they would rape her for
as long as they wanted to and then kill her.
So you're saying that alone, they didn't have the desire
(05:35):
but together, like two pieces of the puzzle, they they
clicked and then off they went. They needed each other
to in order to perform these acts exactly. And the
thing that happens with most serial killers is that they
begin oftentimes killing the person in a very simple way,
(05:55):
maybe shooting or like the Freeways, strangling them. But as
with Ken and Angelo, they got bored with just shooting
them or strangling them or cutting them, so then they
devised ways to torture them in order to have more
excitement out of it, because, let's face it, just killing
(06:16):
somebody's real boring. So they did get a high out
of it, absolutely they did. It was lots of fun.
That whole idea of getting a high from killing and
doing it in such a way that gave them that
jolt is something that I think also could be looked
at with this case. Because Chris Williams, who was a
(06:38):
new friend of theirs, who had loaned them the money
because they were getting evicted the week of the murders.
They were getting evicted on Tuesday, and Chris Williams had
met them fairly recently and decided he liked them and
they were nice, and so he wanted to help them,
and he gave them a bit of money to stave
off the eviction. It was two thousand dollars actually, and
he got that from a charity that was thrown for
(07:00):
him because he didn't have any health insurance and so
he had some health issues and he thought, you know,
these people raised almost ten thousand dollars for me. I'm
going to pay it forward and help these people. And
and his whole thing was, I just wanted to make
sure I got it back. So I came up with
this loan shark story. Right, I need the money back
by Friday. I'll give you four days kind of thing.
And so that's why the murders were committed on that
(07:21):
Friday because of this loan shark deadline. But one of
the reasons why I'm sharing with you this is because
Chris Williams had been with them the night before and
they were having a little barbecue barbecue sausages on their
deck after one of the nine performances that Daniel and
Rachel were in, and he said that he will never
(07:41):
forget this scene as long as he lives. Dan was
out in the deck and he started reciting word for
word the role that Matt Damon had played in The
Talented Mr. Ripley. It's a movie that was written by
Patricia high Smith, who was a sort of Edgar Allan
Poe type. You know, she was the Stephen, the Stephen
King of Europe, and she wrote this movie about a
(08:05):
young man who was conning people and stealing people's identities
and when they found out who he was, he ultimately
would kill the person. So he loved being in this
world to pretend. And this was Daniel's favorite role. So
Dan was on this deck. He was reciting word for
word this characters part and he started singing and when
(08:27):
he stopped, Chris Williams looked at him and said, oh
my gosh, like, how do you know that so well?
And he said, he's me. That's my favorite part of
all time. At that moment, when he's singing this ari
from from this movie, Sam leans over his deck. He's
two decks up right, he lives two apartments up, two
floors up from Dan, and he leans over and basically
(08:51):
acknowledges Dan for this beautiful song he's singing and say, hey, dude,
you know you're doing a great job, but knock it down.
If not, you know, we're all trying to sleep. I
gotta help you in the morning, right, and he goes, Sam,
you want to come down and say I's like no, no, no,
but I'll see in the morning. And the morning was
when Sam was lured to the attic and ultimately killed.
So that whole scene for Chris, he said, for him,
(09:14):
he sensed this need that Daniel had to feel what
it was like to to kill based on this role.
That was something he embodied. And I'm wondering how you
feel about that scene and what what does it How
does that strike you. Oftentimes people have fantasies about killing
William Bonnon, the freeway killer, was a truck driver, and
(09:37):
all day long he would fantasize about who he was
going to pick up and where he was going to
kill him and how he was going to do it.
And so I would guess that Dan was having some
of these same kind of fantasies, but until he hooked
up with Rachel, he didn't go through with it. He
(10:00):
was extremely dependent upon her, and he has many of
the qualities of a borderline personality, where they're very dependent
upon somebody else and they are easily manipulated because they
have this huge tremendous fear of abandonment. And so once
(10:22):
he got involved with Rachel, this beautiful woman, and from
what I understand, Dan had had very little dating experience
or sexual experience with a woman. So when Rachel was
interested in him, he had to do everything he could
(10:43):
do to keep her, and he certainly did. Yes, he
did what she needed. And so that's where that diagnosis
of potentially borderline personality. Although we should tell our listeners
he was never your patient and you never met him,
but you certainly listened to some phone calls of his
(11:03):
between himself and and Rachel, as well as learning from
some of the other interviews that I've had exactly history exactly.
But the borderline personality, that's that's very interesting because again
it involves another person to take you to those new heights,
to take you to that level of evil that you
never thought existed in your personality before. In fact, he
(11:25):
said to police when they said, what did you feel
like when you were cutting off Sam's head, and he said,
I was smiling and laughing, And they said smiling and laughing? Why?
And he said, because I just never imagined myself in
this place, like I never imagined myself doing something like this.
Maybe didn't imagine himself cutting a hat off, but I
(11:48):
think he imagined and killing someone. Something else about him
he had a lot of anti social tendencies, also being
able to steal money from other people, um being able
to not pay their debts, changing his name or his
(12:12):
persona to fit in with Rachel or fit in with
anyone he's conning. He actually that's very interesting because he
told Chris Williams, when Chris Williams brought up this whole
loan shark thing. He had said to Chris Williams prior
to that conversation that he was a fellow pison, you know,
and he would do the Italian accent. He wasn't Italian
at all, but he like a chameleon. He became that
(12:36):
in order to fulfill the con and he was an
actor and she was an actress. So this fit very
nicely with the two of them. One of the other
activities that I learned that the two of them shared
together Rachel and Dan, were that they would actually play
a game and try to come up with scenario on
(13:00):
how they would kill someone and get away with it.
Different Like, they plot out these plans of how they
would do it, and how they would get away scott free,
which to me, that's a very odd hobby, and it
had to be mutual, and had it not been mutual,
they would not have planned to get married. Something I
(13:23):
thought in listening to the phone calls was I didn't
see any kind of remorse at all. It was all
simply about how was he going to get away with
what he had done? But I didn't hear sorry that
he killed these two people. And I didn't hear anything
(13:46):
from Rachel either saying oh my god, Dan, what did
you do? I didn't hear any shock, which led me
to believe she already knew. But something extremely strange was
how she was so insistent in one of the first
phone calls that she contact the detective and tell the
(14:11):
detective that Tim had evidence. And I thought for her
being his fiancee, uh Dan's fiance and then to insist
upon calling the detective and saying, hey, guess what, dude, um,
Tim has some evidence. Why I thought this woman doesn't
(14:36):
love Dan? Well, there was many indications that she didn't
love Dan, and in fact her own words, she said
I was never over the top about him, but I
was okay with that I mean the night Dan was
arrested from his bachelor party. She was brought in for
questioning very early the next morning, and she said to
detectives that, you know, he wasn't a very good lover.
You know, he had a small penis, you know, and
(14:59):
and and and this is two days before she's supposed
to marry the guy. So, I mean, they all thought
that was so strange. And again the same thing when
they brought her in. They actually brought her into the
room because detective one of the detectives said to me,
we just didn't think she would believe what we were
going to tell her. We wanted to see her reaction
when he was sharing with her the details of what
(15:22):
he was saying. And they said it was because of
her complete lack of reaction or shock or like you say,
any kind of sense of remorse or oh my god,
just the horror right of what he was talking about.
They saw none of that, and so they felt that
was this first indication that she was probably part of
(15:43):
the plan and knew everything. Yeah, I totally agree, Otherwise
she would have said well on the phone too. I
it sounded to me listening to the phone call like
she had almost been coached before the phone call to
make leading questions to get him to tell her on
(16:06):
the telephone a confession on the telephone, and they certainly
knew it was being recorded. And I thought, Wow, how
can this woman who supposedly love him keep saying, well,
just tell me what you did, Dan, Just tell me,
just tell me what you did. And I thought, if
he was going to try to plead that he was innocent,
(16:29):
she was setting him up. Interesting. One of the things
that I want to to share with you about that
one phone call where you mentioned that she's saying, you know,
I ran into Tim, and Tim has this evidence and
I have to tell the police because the calls being
recorded before they think I'm trying to cover it up.
There there's a scenario that you're not aware of that.
(16:51):
In fact, in that car sitting next to her in
the passenger seat was a woman by the name of
Violet Randolph, and Violet Randolph was driving around with her
that day because Rachel went to the Woznia come to
tell Darryl and Marianne about Daniels in jail and this
is what's happening. And as they were leaving the house,
Tim drove up with his girlfriend at the time, Lisa
(17:13):
guledge and it was there she got out, went over
to the so the car where Tim was, and Tim
she told him that Dan was arrested, and he then
shared with her, you know I have this evidence. I
have the bag, I have the gun. And she's putting
her hands up on her ears. No, no, no, I
don't want to hear any of this. And so when
Rachel got back in the car, it was violent that said,
what are you gonna do about this? I mean, what
(17:36):
is it true? Does he have evidence? And she's like, yes,
he has the gun, and she said, you have to
call police. You have to tell him before that gun disappears.
And she's like no, no, and and Violet's like, if
you don't do it, I'm gonna do it because you
know I have to do it. So she's picking up
her phone to dial her mother to get Detective Morales's number,
and at that point Dan calls in from the holding
(17:58):
cell and that's when she's Babe, you know I have
to do it. You're you're dead already, like he said,
if no, no, no, if you do that, I'm dead,
and she says, you're dead already. I think at that moment,
She's like, Okay, you're on the hook. I gotta get
myself off here. You know, I gotta make sure I
walk away clean, and if you love me, you'll let
that happen. I totally agree. I thought the whole time
(18:19):
she was really covering her behind and really setting him
up and knowing how easily he was manipulated. I think
she believed and new he would never squeal on her.
That's one of the questions a lot of people ask
me about this case. Why after all these years she's
(18:40):
moved on, she's engaged to someone else. Why haven't you
given her up? And part of that reason I found.
In fact, Tim Waznik himself told me that if Rachel
speaks and if he goes down, she's going down too.
Like they're both connected. They both spent a week together
after Dan was arrested when he finally confessed to the murders,
(19:02):
Rachel spent a week in a hotel room with Tim
and Lisa Goledge and they were lighting up. In fact,
him said to me, she was absolutely an expert, brilliant
at lighting a bowl of crystal meth. I don't even
know if that's how you say because I know nothing
about that stuff. But he said, it's it's a kind
of an intricate pipe, and you pretty much if you're
(19:23):
lighting it up and using it, you have to know
what you're doing, right, So he of course knew what
he was doing, and watching her, he said she was
an expert, and they sort of just went into this
crystal meth fog all week, and uh, I guess that's
probably where they basically made their pact. Sure sounds like that.
I would like to speak more about the calls, because
(19:45):
I know that you've listened to there were three calls
that of all the calls, they were the most significant
calls because they were the lengthist and they were the
most I don't know telling if you will, and you
did listen to those calls, and I'd love to know
more of your perspective and analysis of those calls and
what you gathered from them. I think one of the
things that I was most surprised about, particularly the first call,
(20:11):
was that Rachel wasn't saying we're going to get you
a good attorney. Have you talked to attorney? Don't say anything,
because we all watched TV and we all know you're
not supposed to confess to anything without an attorney. But
I never heard those words out of her mouth encouraging
(20:31):
him to do that. And he seemed like such a dependent,
kind of weak can I say, Mamma's boy? And Rachel
was kind of mama to him, and so he was
(20:52):
very dependent upon her to give him some guidance and
she didn't. She just pushed him and pushed him to confess.
Editor's note. For access to all the jail house calls
between Daniel Wazniak and Rachel Buffett that occurred on May,
(21:13):
go to our Facebook page at Facebook dot com Backslash
Sleuth podcast. He he mentioned to her in the calls
that his life really unraveled when he disconnected from his family,
and she asked him, why why did you break from
your family? And I think she knew because he would
(21:33):
share with her emails from his mother. His mother was
very blunt about her feelings about Rachel, that she was uneducated,
she came from a poor family, she wasn't good enough
for him, and she had quite a long list, actually,
and I think that Rachel knew what the disconnect was.
But he went on to describe in these calls that
he was starting to hear voices. He got to the
(21:55):
point he didn't like confrontation, and he was getting to
the point where he was ready to confront and contemplating
killing his own parents. Who knows, I mean, I often
wonder because he did share a very similar story to
Steve Hair. Because Steve Hare was very frustrated he wasn't
getting enough information from the coast to Masa police at
the time, understandably, so they were doing an investigation, but
(22:18):
he wanted to know everything. His only form of peace
was for him to get any details he could about
what happened to his son. So he went to the
horse's mouth. He went to Dan, and Dan met with him,
and one of the things he did say to him
was that Sam was not his first target. And he
told them and it was very kind of eerie because
every time Marian Wozniak would come to visit Dan, she
(22:39):
would come with a bible. And then when Dan met
with Steve Hair, he came with his bible. And as
he's telling, because Steve wants to know who who was
your first target, and he opens up his bible and
takes the little golf pencil that was there and he
writes in the very Bible that he praised with his mother,
my parents, he writes, Oh my god, Oh my god.
(23:01):
So he had had he had had fantasies for a
long time about killing someone. It hated his parents, and
that was during the time he was dating her. But
again Marian was rejecting her. He never could bring her
to the house, He can never incorporate her and family holidays.
He had to lie. The lies, from what I understand,
(23:22):
especially from his high school and college friends, began based
on the fact that he had to lie to his
mother in order to have a normal young man's life,
in order to go date or go party or do whatever.
The lies were centered around that social activity because she
wanted him at home. She didn't want him going out
(23:43):
with other women that weren't appropriate. Sounds like she was
very possessive of him and very domineering, and that's probably
why he hooked up with Rachel, because she was also
very domineering and mothering and controlling. All of their friends
(24:04):
say that she definitely wore the pants. She was the
one that called the shots, She was the one in charge.
He didn't do anything without her knowledge or her approval.
So you'd said earlier, I think that the two of
them had discussed killing someone, Rachel and Dan, and so
it was very easy to see him slide in to
(24:27):
killing these two people that he considered very very good friends.
And he didn't have any problem. But I I do
recall to he needed the money so they could get married. Well,
that's what instigated. The first thing was when he was
arrested a couple of weeks before the murders. He was
arrested for an outstanding du I warn't and ironically it
(24:49):
was Costa Mesa that arrested him. He didn't have the money,
they didn't have the bail to get out, so Rachel
enlisted a mutual friend, a neighbor in the complex, a
gentleman by the name of of Barnhart, and he started
calling around trying to collect the money, because after all,
Dan was going to be in a performance that following
night and he was the lead, so they had to
get him out right. So they started calling around and
(25:11):
one of the people they called was Sam Hair and
Sam said, I am not participating. I'm not contributing. I
barely know them well enough to put in money. You know.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to do it. And
When they hung up the phone with him, Dave turned
to Rachel and said, and he's the one that has
more money than all of us, right, So so already
they were kind of upset with Sam. And then finally
(25:32):
they raised enough money got got Dan out, and they
went to that afternoon after he was released. In the morning,
they got they went to the hot tub in the
complex and Sam was there and Dan starts complaining, oh
my gosh, I never want to go to jail again.
That was horrible spending that night. It was just it's
just not for me. And I'm so glad I don't
ever ever want to go there again. And Sam responds, dude,
(25:55):
are you kidding me? Like I spent two years in
Men's County jail when I was facing my own murder charge,
and they that was like what, Like they couldn't believe it.
So together, I think they started zeroing in on Sam
Harre at that point as their possible target. And then
the Tuesday before the murders, they had their eviction notice.
(26:18):
Chris came in with some money, but they didn't have
all of it, and ultimately Sam offered to help with
the rest of it. So Sam and Dan went to
Sam's bank and he took out the money from the
A t M. Dan was over his shoulder, caught him
putting the pin number in, saw the gigantic total and
Sam's account and that was it. That was it, that
(26:39):
he was it. He was the one, right, he was
the one they were going to go after he came back.
And I think you know told Rachel about that, because
he mentions in the call that he saw the total
and how he got the pin and uh and he
was the one. So here is this kid trying to
help him, right, he goes in and gets the hash
(27:00):
years checked with all the money from the bank, He
sees the pen and he and he was their target,
which was amazing that he could turn on somebody. And
the Julie also, although I guess that's how he had
to set Sam up. Well, it's interesting you mentioned Julie
(27:21):
because that's where police and I believe Rachel's influence really
stepped up because I had found out from Dave Barnhart,
the gentleman I just mentioned earlier that helped raise the
bailed money for day when Dan was arrested for that
outstanding d y. Dave Barnhart had a major crush on
Rachel Buffett Major and they flirted. I mean oftentimes Rachel
(27:47):
would flirt right in front of Dan. They had this
these parties that they called Taco Tuesdays, and she would
be sitting on Dave's lap and say, watch, I'm gonna
make Dan kiss that guy and he's gonna do it
for me, or else I won't go home with him.
And that's what she do. She'd set him up and say,
you have to kiss so and so or you I'm
not sleeping with you tonight. And it was a joke
and he would do it in front of everybody at
(28:08):
this party and make him the clown. And but that
it was anything to just make her happy. Yeah, he
it was his dependence, his fear of losing her. I
can certainly understand he needed her so much that he
was willing to kill in order to get the money
in order to make her happy. And when it came
(28:30):
to Julie, I think the reason that Julie became part
of the plan was that she was not only like
a prop in their play, but she was also someone
that I believe Rachel might have been a bit jealous
of because two nights earlier, Dave Barnhard had consummated a
relationship with Julie. I think he got tired of waiting
(28:52):
around for anything to really happen with Rachel. Although Rachel
still wanted the attention, still wanted to believe she was
the only one that he was in it in he
was separately having this ongoing friendship that turned into more
with Julie, and I believe he might have said I'm
past you now like I'm onto Julie, and that might
have instigated the whole reason why they needed Julie as
(29:14):
part of this plan. Well, I can see Rachel because
just from observing the phone calls, that she was extremely
narcissistic and insecure, even though she was a beautiful woman.
And I can easily see seeing all of those texts
(29:38):
on that telephone that she probably suspected her that he
was going to two time or leave her. Oh you're
saying that you Dan, Yeah, I'm thinking yeah, the I
don't really I don't really remember Dan Bernhardt. Dave barne
(30:00):
Heart is just a Dave Barnhard was a person that
lived in Camden, Martinique and he went to the Orange
Coast College across the street, and he was very close
with Sam, and he also but he was very interested
in Rachel. I mean, he was hot for her. He
wanted her, but she wasn't necessarily giving allegedly, she wasn't
(30:20):
giving much up to him. Right, But she loved to
Dave today. But she but she loved the attention, She
loved the pursuit, She loved the power she had over men. Right,
she loved so I My theory is that she found
out about Dave Barnhard's budding relationship with Julie and it
(30:43):
had just happened two nights before, and she was jealous.
And then she sees these texts that Dan is sending
to her as Sam. Right, he's pretending to be Sam
because it's on Sam's phone, And she sees him saying, Oh,
I'm just with my neighbor Dan, I'm helping him move
furniture in the theater, and she goes, you dummy, you
just put yourself as the last person to be with
Sam before he was murdered at the theater. So now
(31:06):
she's got to go kind of thing or she's part
of the plan now to make it look like Sam's
on the run. And they had this jealous love thing
that you know, went awry and he killed her in
the apartment because she wouldn't sleep with them or something.
That was what the theory was, and that that whole
thing began once Dan came back to the apartment and
gave Chris Williams the first installment of money. I mean
(31:27):
that was at that point he was back reconnected with Rachel,
and all of a sudden, the text started heightening, the
loring started to heighten in those texts to Julie. Yeah,
I thought that that probably Rachel and Dan put a
plot together to kill Julie in order to blame Sam
(31:50):
for the murders, and that Sam had taken off. So
my supposition was that Rachel and Dan came up with
that idea. So I don't I don't know so much
about jealousy, although that certainly could be a component, and
she wouldn't mind seeing Julie out of the picture. But
(32:14):
I thought that those two decided, we can put this
on Sam. It will explain his absence because he killed Julie, right,
And that's basically what Dan said to police when he
confessed that that was what the plan was. That Sam
was on the run, run, and and you know, he
was trying to escape justice after what he did to Julie. Yeah,
(32:39):
but I can certainly see that Rachel wouldn't have. Rachel
had no verbiage of being guilty or feeling remorse for
Dan killing these two people. So I can easily see
(33:00):
that her self sinnered. Nous could have made her very
angry at Julie, feeling that she wasn't number one to
both Dave and Dan anymore. And she had sent a
Facebook message back to Julie. I guess Julie earlier that
day sent a Facebook message to Rachel saying, oh, I
(33:22):
ran into Dan last night when I was having dinner
with Sam and Ruben and a bunch of people, and
he mentioned you're getting married next week in congratulations and Rachel.
At eleven fifteen that same day, that Friday night, after
Sam was already murdered and Julie was about to be murdered,
she said to Julie, Oh, you know, thank you so much.
(33:44):
When everything calms down, Uh, we'll enjoy some summer sunshine
at the pool, and look forward to seeing you then.
And this was at eleven fifteen. Now she told police
that she was in bed and on her laptop. She
sent that message in bed, But I found out later
that she had told another person, this gentleman by the
(34:06):
name of Daniel Hulkyard, that in fact, Dan was over
her shoulder when she was sending that message forty five
minutes later upstairs Daniel. We don't know if Rachel was there.
We might suspect, but we don't know for sure, But
that Daniel met Julie at the door, at Sam's door
twelve midnight and brought her inside and then she was killed.
(34:27):
So I just thought that was interesting because it's again
her lies and inconsistencies with her stories as well, having
Dan over her shoulder means they're in cahoots, right they right?
So does that call collusion? Another good Sea word? I
think we have one more we could come up with.
(34:48):
But yeah, I think that all of that plays apart,
and certainly she seems there's there's so many reasons to
believe that she was in on the planning. One of
the things that she had said to police that again
that morning, like Daniel was arrested May twenty six, Wednesday night,
and early that Thursday morning, they did bring Rachel in
(35:10):
and and one of the things she she said several
things that made you wonder about her involvement, one of
which was, you know, did you check into Sam's past,
because that's they were using that, right, it's a reason
for him to be really the bad guy. I mean,
here's the real reason why he's probably on the run
and did this, because he's been charged with murder before, right, right,
(35:32):
and so they she brought that up. And then she
also said that when Dan came back with the money,
I think he either gave it to Sam outside the
apartment or maybe it was one of the loan sharks
when she was sitting at the table when Dan gave
physically gave the money to Chris Williams. But she didn't
tell the police to cry about Chris Williams. She thought
Chris Williams would never crop up, and certainly she knew
(35:55):
at that point Sam was dead, so he couldn't he
couldn't he contradict what she said right to me, that's
one of the most telling statements that she was part
of the plan. Seeing Dan or you know, the way
I saw him from the phone calls and everything, that
he would have done anything. But I don't think that
(36:18):
he was somebody who had the strength or maybe the
intelligence to do it all by himself. He's never been
able to hold a job, not successful with relationships, was
willing to marry this woman, whom he had to know
at some level really didn't love him, but he was
(36:40):
so dependent it was okay. But I just don't see
him as a person who could have thought this all
out all by himself. And it's funny that you mentioned
that because one of my other interviews were with a
couple by the name of John and Kristen Spath. They
were the parents of a girl by the name of
(37:02):
Brittany Boudrey, who was Dan's girlfriend prior to Rachel and
the longest relationship he had almost two years. He was
part of their family. He went on holidays with them,
he went on cruises with them. In fact, the Wozniaks
would go on holidays with the Spath But as soon
as Marian Wosniak found out about Brittney's real age, she
(37:26):
cut all ties to the family. I guess she felt
like the difference in age because he was seventh older
than seventeen and she was still fifteen, and that just
freaked Maryann out. Of course, Daniel had lied about that,
so she had known until that point the Spath didn't
understand why she all of a sudden like dropped them
like and was actually kind of rude to them socially
(37:48):
when they would see each other, and so that whole relationship.
While it ended because of Mary Anne, he still needed
them and wanted them, and he still felt as if
the Spa asked for his family. In fact, he felt
like John Speth was really more like his father figure.
He would call Kristen his mom, and John Spath is dead.
(38:08):
On the weekend of the murders, when the murders took place,
that's Sunday, Dan had gone down to see John Spath.
Kristen and her daughter were up. They were auditioning for
American Idol and she was doing really well. She was
getting through a couple of rounds. So John was by
himself and Dan said, why don't I come down. I'll
(38:29):
bring some stogies, will grill up some steaks, and so
he did, and he then John said it was just
the oddest conversation because he was telling me, I wish
I could be more like you. I'm terrible with confrontation,
even though I'm a big guy and people think I
can handle myself and protect myself I've always been controlled
(38:53):
by women, and I am wondering if I'm marrying the
wrong girl. You protect your family, you. I wish I
could be more like you, strong like you. And and
I said, John, you realize he was trying to confess
to you. It was it came close to he was.
It was just the oddest, strangest And I told him
that if he felt she was the wrong girl, And
(39:15):
if you're feeling that now, you know nobody's going to
care if you if you end it now, And I said,
I said to John that you know that was the
weekend of the murders. He was doing something. He was
doing what he was doing for for this love of
this empty person that he probably recognized was not too
good for him. At this point. It sure sounds that
(39:35):
way that he was. It sounds like they were already
planning these murders or at least the sam to get
the money. But it sounds like he was trying to
pull away from that because he knew it wasn't right.
And also Rachel found the sex tape. There was a
(39:55):
sex tape that that and it was with Brittany Boudre,
his form her girlfriend, and they had had sex and
it was filmed and dated during the time that Rachel
was already engaged to Dan. So when she found that,
she found that, and it was actually next to um
Darryl's gun because they had a safe in the apartment.
Dan and Rachel had a little, small, little safe and
(40:18):
the gun and the sex tape were in the safe,
and she had found and I would say if she
found the sex tape, she had to have found the
gutten right, I mean, so what what does that tell you?
That there's all of a sudden a gun in your house?
What's it doing there? And why is there this gun
cleaning kit on top of the safe? All these indications
probably were a good hint that there was some murdering
(40:39):
about going on. Happened, right, So anyway, she she found
this tape, and this this had happened just a few
weeks before the murders. So the whole idea of I'm
going to leave you was all of a sudden really
a subject that he had to convince her not to.
And so the way he convinced her not to leave
him was to say, look, I taped this because I
(41:02):
was going to extort money from the family. I taped
it as a tool, as a weapon to get this
money out of them, And so she thought, oh okay,
like that was fine as long as you get money.
As long as you get money to take care of
me money honey. Yeah, yeah, exactly, because I want to
go on a cruise from my honeymoon. Yes, yes, I
(41:24):
don't love you all that much, but boy I could.
You're sure use a nice trip, nice cruise, right, even
if your penis is small. That's right, I'll make do.
There's always the captain. There's a follow up visit that
the Spaths had that I want to share with you
(41:45):
that happened after Dan was arrested and after he confessed
to the murders. Wait wait, wait you the spouse Spaths again,
the parents of Brittany, of the girl that when the
spouse Sorry, sorry, okay. So there's another follow up visit
that the Spaths had that I'd like to share with you.
(42:06):
That happened three days after Dan was arrested on a Wednesday.
He confessed on a Thursday. By that Saturday, Rachel comes
knocking on their door on the Spath store with brother Noah,
and she had about a fifth of vodka with her.
That was pretty well drunk literally in her hand. She's
bringing in the podka. So Kristen and Brittany, her daughter,
go out on the deck now again. Britney's the girl
(42:28):
in the sex tape, right, the former girlfriend. She goes
out on the deck with Rachel, and Noah sits in
the little family room area off the kitchen with John Spath,
the father, right, and John says, you know, of all
the times we've spent with Dan, I mean, he was
like a son to us. We traveled with him, he
practically lived here at times, we never saw a violent person.
(42:51):
We never saw a man that would be capable of
this kind of crime, you know, this, these kind of
murderous murder and dismemberment. It was just it boggled their minds, right,
They said someone else had to be involved. He couldn't
have done this alone. And Noah brings out this corn
pipe and John said to me, it wasn't even lit.
It was just this silly old corn pipe, like like
(43:12):
he was about to be Promphisorial, right, and said, oh,
I believe he's capable of it because we used to
sit around and play games about how we would kill
people and get away with it, and and you know,
that that that rental that they were in. I was
the co signer because he got they got evicted from
so many places their credit was pathetic that I had
to co sign. So he promised me. He said to me,
(43:35):
if he could get out four hundred dollars a day,
we would be fine and we would make the rent. Well.
When John told me that and John heard that, they
immediately called the authorities because they said, how would you
know these details about getting four hundred dollars a day?
Back then, you could only get four hundred dollars out
of your A t M per day. And that was
(43:56):
Dan's plan to get four hundred dollars a day out
of Sam's account, using Wesley right to get it out.
And so the idea that they knew about these plans
and that they had talked about these games together about
killing people and then he knew that kind of a
detail really made John and Kristen feel that Dan was
(44:17):
not alone in this plan. Yeah, that's sort of continuing
on your on your theory as well, that you based
on what you've heard and seen that it seems like
Dan was not capable of planning this himself. I don't
think so. It doesn't appear that he had that much
ability to think ahead about consequences, although he was smart
(44:43):
enough I guess to take the tools to the theater,
and that he picked up from Noah's house, that he
uh interesting interest with Tim in the car. Yeah, with
Tim in the car, And don't you think Tim might
have said, what are those four? Course he would have.
But don't forget he was the dude bringing the crystal
(45:04):
method like he he was part. He even said to
one of his high school friends, because this high school friend,
Bob Kristilla, who knew the WASNIAT there, you know, his
whole life, said if Dan is involved in drugs and
crystal meth, it's got your handprint all over it, Tim,
and I want to go down and talk to him.
And so Tim brought Bob down to Campton Martinique and
(45:28):
unfortunately he missed. Danny wasn't there at the time. But
Tim brought him around the apartment and said, by the way,
this is where I'm moving in. And Tim told Bob
he was moving into this walking closet. So he was
absolutely a huge part of their life, a huge part
of that weekend, and I could share more details, but
(45:48):
Tim was involved in pretty much every step of that week,
in the murder weekend. Yeah, so, I mean, there's no
question Dan's taking the hit. He's taking it alone. And
the reason why I think he's not giving Rachel up
is because that's would be connected to revealing Tim's role.
But it sure sounds like Tim had a role in it,
(46:09):
and that he had the weapons, and they he went
to the theater with Dan to drop all that stuff off,
maybe helped him carry it up the stairs, because that
was a lot of stuff to carry up those stairs
into that addict. And then he turns out to have
(46:30):
the bag full of the dirty, bloody clothes. And then
there was a crate. There was a crate with like,
you know, an axe, bloody axe and all these tools,
bloody tools, and that crate for a very long time
was in their apartment. And Rachel said to police that
morning that she was brought in and I talked about
(46:51):
after Dan was arrested. She said, for like a long time,
she didn't want to go in the bedroom. She slept
on the couch in the living room because of the
crate sitting there. You could suppose that you think maybe
she suspected something, maybe a little I mean Sam's key
car keys were on the counter, his laptop was on
their little shelf in the living room. I mean Dan
(47:14):
was doing these texts on a flip phone, which was
a very archaic phone, versus the phone that Dan had,
which was this new high tech phone that he had.
I mean, wouldn't you say whose phone is that? Who's
whose phone are you on? Absolutely tell us if there's
anything more that you'd like to share about your hypotheses
(47:36):
or if you wanted to talk about any kind of diagnosis.
Again that you have not ever met Dan, But what
you suppose, well, I certainly see that he meets many
of the criteria for being an anti social personality. His
ability to steal, his ability to can other people, his
(47:58):
total lack of room morse, his long history of d
U I s and conning and those all meet the
criteria for antisocial. But then his high dependence upon this
woman makes him also have different features of borderline. That
(48:24):
they have this horrible fear, persistent fear of being abandoned.
They will do anything in order to keep the other
person there dependent upon in their lives, and I think
in this situation even to kill so they cross any
(48:45):
socio barrier more morality wise or legally. They there is
no boundary and they don't learn from their mistakes. And
that's certainly obvious with Dan that he continued to still
people to consteal to steal. I mean they stole their food,
their alcohol, they stole their furniture, they stole on almost
(49:09):
a daily basis. I didn't pay their rent. I mean,
it's a very sociopathic on some level. I feel like
he was relieved when he got in jail because everything
was covered at that point. I have I had that
same fantasy that it was a relief to be away
because he seemed to lack internal control. He needed external control,
(49:34):
and in the jail you have lots of external control.
But it doesn't sound like in his childhood and growing
up with this overly controlling mother, he learned any internal control.
And you mentioned about the family. You said that there
was a dynamic that you wondered about as far as
(49:55):
the middle brother, Tim and his relationship and feelings towards Daniel. Well,
it's hard when you are being the favorite child, the baby,
and the child many years and then all of the
sudden to be usurped by a younger brother. And of
course mama doted on the younger, this brand new baby,
(50:18):
and now then Tim was old and kind of forgotten.
So I'm sure there was a lot of rivalry between
the two men. So do you feel like that rivalry
could have instigated some kind of a setup of Dan, well,
of of Dan. I was thinking also the setup of
(50:42):
Tim that Rachel was so eager, and I would guess
that was Dan and Rachel so eager to involve Tim
and giving him the bloody package of evidence, the evidence
and the instruments. Yes, and as the prosecutor called it,
the cornucopia of benovidence. Yes, perfect and so, and then
(51:06):
her being very eager to tell the detective, oh, yes,
Tim has evidence. And so it seemed to me that
it was the other way around, that it was she
and Dan who set Tim up. You know, Tim, I've
(51:26):
heard the prosecutor say it was just another victim of
Dan Wozniak, like Sam and Julie, and it really ruffled
me because it couldn't be farther from the truth. But
they did not go after him. And the reason they
didn't go after him was because the prosecutor was concerned
about the defense attorney coming up with a mental illness argument.
(51:51):
And I'm wanted to ask you when you heard Dan
on those calls saying he was starting to hear voices
and he's crazy, and he oh, he's crazy. When Rachel
starts yelling at him, telling him he's crazy and that
he should be in a mental institution, do you feel,
based on what you heard, that that would have been
(52:11):
a legitimate legal argument, because from what I heard from
the defense attorney that in no way would he have
been able to present a mental illness argument that legally
he didn't meet that criteria. I'd love to know your opinion.
I don't believe he meant the criteria either. Um he
(52:33):
and I think the whole thing about he heard voices
reminded me of kin Bianchi trying to the Hillside Strangler,
of his trying to get away with it, saying he
was a multiple personality. And I had the same feeling
about Dan that he and Rachel have kind of concocted
(52:54):
this thing all of a sudden in the phone calls,
she said, well, you're crazy, you know, and and then
his saying to her, well, what do you think, Rachel?
Should I go for try to get in the middle
hospital or should I go to jail like he can
check a box or prison. It doesn't work, doesn't have
(53:15):
to work, be more crazy. So I can certainly understand
why the defense attorney didn't try for that. He no,
So therefore then there really was no reason to give
Tim a plea deal. It was just this, this need this,
you know, prosecute at all costs for for the capital
(53:37):
case that this prosecutor wanted and needed that he that
he offered that, and which is which is really unfortunate
because based on my interviews and research and knowledge of
Tim's role, he should not have been offered anything. Well,
and the other thing is Dan was a tall man,
wasn't me and well built ken. Can you visualize he
(54:02):
all by himself carrying all those body parts down that
skinny little uh ladder that went up into the attic
in the theater. I can't. I can't imagine either thing
him getting the tools up there all by himself, or
he is getting the body parts down all by himself. Well,
(54:25):
that's another thing. From what I gathered, Dan didn't realize
Sam was Sam was a meaty guy. He was a stocky,
well built guy. And from what I understand from Tim,
the tools were ridiculous. They were just not the appropriate
tools for the dismemberment. They were poor quality. And so
the struggle was that he or they, depending on on
(54:47):
what theory you look at, uh couldn't cut up the
body to the extent they had to leave most of
the body there. And and allegedly one of the theories
was that he was going to take the body parts
and throw them in this incinerator that was in the
medical hospital right behind the theater, because as you know,
the Joint Forces Base was a military base, and there
(55:10):
was a military hospital with a crematorium and an incinerator,
and Jeff Hathcock had given Dan a tour of it,
so he knew it was there. Because Dan had this
fascination with the maccabb He loved Halloween. He would go
up in the attic of the theater and scare the
kids when they were rehearsing on stage at the theater.
He actually did sort of live out this real life
(55:32):
Phantom of the opera, right, which is what I've said
about this case. And so the idea that he was
maybe thinking of burning the body, which is a theory
I have based on a conversation I had with her
boyfriend after subsequent to Dan, who she confessed that too,
that I had told him to burn the body. Her
(55:54):
her Rachel Rachel, Her Rachel Rachel had it was in
a drunken stupor, but she all of a sudden, out
of the blue, like starts gets She had her head
on his lap. He was driving home from they were
they had performed in this karaoke bar whatever, and they
were driving home and she kind of took up her
hand and like started pounding on his chest, and she said,
(56:17):
I told you to burn the body. I told you
to She said at once, I told you to burn
the body. And he said it was like he was
frozen in time. He said, it was clear that she
thought he was Dan, and so he shared that with me.
I'm sure and and and Rachel and Dan were at
the theater two nights before the murder. And I have
witnesses telling me confirming that. And it was so odd.
(56:39):
Why were they there. They had no reason to be there.
They weren't in the show that they were rehearsing at
the time. So all of these details sort of loose
the ends, lots of luce, the ends that we're hopefully
tying up at the end of this podcast, well, I
want to thank you so much for being here today
on Sleuth, thank you for having me, and thank you
for sure. Next time on Sleuth, we're going to surprise
(57:15):
you with a guest who I like to call my
deep throat. She's come forward since Sleuth has been published,
with revelations that will astonish you more than any other
episode you've heard to date. After three years of digging
and sleuthing on this case, we are finally able to
reveal the definitive pieces of this murderous puzzle. You will
(57:38):
not want to miss a single minute. If you enjoyed
this episode of Sleuth, share it with a friend and
be sure to leave a rating or review. Follow Sleuth
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