Killer in the Walls: The Crimes of Daniel LaPlante

Happy September

“I do what to sing this time last time I didn't”

I feel alive. Oh, yeah. I feel powerful. I feel I feel like we put practical magic on in the studio today.

I just had it play and it was gorgeous. Well, we did our shit like it's 70 degrees. Yeah, barely. It's raining. It's gloomy. We got yummy drinks this morning. We have good breakfast. We saw a dog. I yelled at that dog that I loved it and that I hope it had a great fucking day. It's true and I'm having a great day And we got cake because it's Caleb's birthday. It is Caleb's birthday. Caleb of horror soup and scream fame. How yeah, if you see him in the streets Say happy birthday Mitch. Well, late at happy birthday. This is birthday. Today you missed it. Yeah, so say

Hope your birthday was great. Hope your birthday was swell. Big fella. Yes, so we're gonna eat cake with him when we record scream later Not marble cake because it came to my attention today that the two other people in this office don't like marble cake

“No, I hate marble cake. I ordered a cake and I was like you guys like marble right and they're both eight and an only and we're like what?”

Yeah, and I thought they were fucking with me now. Where do you guys stand on marble cake? Let us know. I just have never

liked it. I don't get it. I think you get the best of both worlds. See, I don't Here's my thing. Whole last one thing. Don't have us to see. I feel like marble cake is fooly half-assing half-assing both. I don't think it's so young. You're never getting a full bite of one flavor. And if you are, it's usually shitty of that flavor to be quite honest. I've never had a marble cake where I was like, wow, this is good cake. Like, maybe it's just like, no, this is shitty.

Yeah, but he's not a snowy stand. Yeah, I just feel it. Just from this room today that I'm in the snow. No, I think you might be in the majority. I think it's fairly beloved, but I don't know.

I've never made a marble cake. I just assume most of my views are in the strange category,

so I just could be around. Well, a lot of them are. I think a full chocolate cake is where it's at or a full vanilla cake. I mean, I'm down for both those two. Make it like put your whole tentos down into that flavor.

“Here's the thing about my thick-ass cake, it's cake. I like all cake. I like, I like,”

I like the velvet cake. I like cookies and cream cake. I like marble, I could name you a bunch of cakes. Yeah, I'm very picky. Let me cake. Oh, come on. Yeah. Make sure you're doing the cake right for me. Good to know. I'll never make you a marble cake on everything. Well, what would you do? I would be, I would eat it. Thank you for it, because you put time and effort into it. Wow. But now I know, so that would be such a dick move. That was like a dapper now.

You look like a cookie. Um, so yeah. Yeah, for the burn months and cake already decorating for Halloween. I'm already ready for it. I'm going to rewatch widows bay. That's my next thing. I told Drew today that if he didn't get my Halloween decorations out of storage, that I would fight him to the death when I got home from work. And he said, clearly, you haven't been looking at the doorbell cameras in there. They were. And I said, oh my god.

I'm so excited to decorate. Yeah. I feel good. I feel I feel alive. Yeah. My seasonal depression is leaving slowly, but I have reverse seasonal depression. Yeah. So I feel good, valid. I feel good today. I feel powerful. I did something really weird and powerful earlier than I didn't even mean to. I wish we could talk about it. Yeah. It's crazy. But it was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced in my life. But it shows you that I come into my true power in the fall.

Even. I know his life. Oh, yeah. What? But yeah. It's fall. Uh, but today on this, the first day of the Vermont on this birthday, uh, we're going to be doing the crimes of Daniel Lepland. Now you may be like wait a minute. This sounds a little familiar. We, we did a mini morbid. Yeah, I was going to first mini morbids way back. It had to have been like 2018, 2019 maybe. I got a solid five pages put together. Yeah. Like it was a mini morbid. Yeah. So we didn't really get into like the, you know,

the mini degree. And it's been a long time. It's kind of got buried in the archives. So we wanted to do like another look at this case because this case is a crazy case. It is fucked up. So this will have a little bit more of the details that a mini morbid normally wouldn't send me to that. And it's a crazy one. It's also a Massachusetts case, which is it is? Yeah. I forgot that. Yeah,

that's almost 10 years ago that we covered that up. Yeah. So and again, like we just didn't go

“deep into it. No. So we went deep into it this time in Holy All. Fun. So let's get into a”

shall we? Let's. So this goes back to early 1986. Frank Bowen's wife lost, unfortunately, her long battle with cancer. So he was left alone to raise their two teenage daughters, Tina and Karen. Yeah. This was at their home in pepperal Massachusetts. That's a small town near the New Hampshire border for those who don't know. As the soul income now for the family, Frank took whatever shifts he could with the bus company he worked for. He just worked his ass off to

make sure the kids had everything they needed. But he often had to work at night, which left the girls home alone in the house. Yeah. Again, their teenagers. It's not like he was leaving children. Also the 80s. So Tina, one afternoon, got a call from a boy who said his name was Danny LaPlan. Yeah. Danny told Tina he actually went to a different high school than her, but he had gone to her high school or I think it was like he'd gotten her phone number because

a friend of his had gone to her high school and thought that they would maybe hit it off. Weird.

“This is the 80s. Oh, okay. Fair. This is the only way of communicating. If you want again,”

touch with someone or you want to start anything, you have to call. I literally just said earlier, like the baby two minutes ago. This is the 80s and then you're like, this is the 80s and I'm like, you're like, oh, yeah. Right. Right. Now, over the phone, Tina said the Danny seemed charming. He seemed nice. Like someone you would want to get to know and why not? Right. So almost immediately the two started talking daily. And, you know, they were like really hitting it off too. And for

Tina, the relationship with Danny was her first and she was just really excited about it.

Now, after a few weeks of daily phone calls, Danny finally mustard up the courage to ask Tina on a date. And the two made plans to meet at a local ice cream shop, which should be like a very adorable. Yeah, a date. One, you know, and Tina couldn't wait to finally meet Danny in person. And he had also said he had claimed that he was like a football player and super popular. And like

“he's an illusion. He's not like the dream guy for like a teen. You know what I mean?”

But so she gets to the ice cream shop and the image of Danny that she had built in her head was different shattered, I would say. Okay. Rather than a handsome football player who was like outgoing and excited to meet her, Danny was very disheveled and unkempt. He did not look like a football player. You know, and he just wasn't the same in person. And she was like, oh, this is not the same. Would so she, you know, she kind of felt like she'd been lied to because she had, yes.

She had led her to believe certain things about himself and we've also seen that fish. Again, catfish, he pulled an Angela. So she was disappointed and frankly, she was uncomfortable. Yeah. This guy is lied to you. You don't want to start anything about a lie. And now you feel weird about it. Like, that's weird. So after an hour or so, she was like, I'm pretty good with going home now. Like, she was just like, I don't want to do something. Which is 100% her rights. Absolutely.

If you are not into someone on a first date, you can in that date five seconds into the

date. It doesn't fucking matter when it's called free will. Exactly. Now, for a few weeks, Danny had been, you know, a pleasant distraction from the pain of her mother's recent death. We kind of brought her into something a little exciting and something she could actually be happy about. But after that really awkward afternoon, date, she didn't see Danny again. And she was just like kind of thrown back into dealing with the grief of losing her mother. Now, one after noon,

a few weeks after that disastrous date with Danny, Tina and Karen decided, you know what, we want to try to talk to her mom. So they held the sands. They did like a little, like, we each aboard kind of situation. They wanted to just talk to their mom. Yeah, teenage girls who just lost her. I would do the same thing. So down in the basement, they set up candles. They did like the whole thing. And they were just trying to talk to their mother spirit.

And they were like, you know, at this was kind of unsuccessful. Nothing really happened. But almost immediately after the sands, strange things started happening in the bow and household. One night while Tina and Karen were watching TV, they heard loud knocking. That sounded like it was coming from the front of the house. So assuming someone was knocking at the front door, Tina went to see who was there. But no one was there.

Now the next night, the noise is continued. And it occurred to Tina and Karen that the sands maybe it was successful. Maybe this is what this is. And they were like, wow, like, maybe this is some form of communication, which literally shatters my heart. Yeah, that breaks my heart into tiny little pieces. Because it wasn't just knocking. There were other inexplicable things

Objects would be moved or, like, misplaced completely. The TV channels would change. Like,

“sometimes seemingly on their own, um, uh, reporter Jeffrey Higgins said the two girls believed”

they'd contacted their mother. Yeah. They thought their mother's ghost was doing these things to somehow communicate with them. Oh. Now, Tina and Karen may have believed they'd successfully made contact with their mother. But it didn't make them feel better because it didn't feel like their mom. Yeah. So maybe they were like, we've made contact with something. But it's not all right. Yeah, because then the knocking on the walls and other forms of communication,

seemingly, or things happening, they said it felt often aggressive and, like, vaguely threatening. Yeah, which was not their normal energy. Um, they also started to sense that whatever was communicating them was somehow also watching them. Ew. And again, if this was their mother's ghost, it didn't make sense that she would take food and drinks from their refrigerator. No, which would happen. Oh, no one was home. There would be food or drinks gone from their refrigerator.

This would fuck me up on a level that I can't even explain. Oh, yeah. After more than a month of noises and missing objects, month, um, they decided to tell their dad what was going on. And after hearing the story, Frank, you know, like, kind of broke its heart. He assumed the girls were just still really wrestling with the grief of losing their mother. And they were like,

“he was like, I think this is just them really wanting to hear this or experience this or maybe”

it's just like, it's an old house probably just noises. Um, Higgins said their, the reporter said

their father Frank never heard any of the taps, but he was working a lot. He just thought these

were two teenage girls reaching out desperately and trying to contact their mother. And their imaginations were getting the best of them, which is a reasonable thing to do. Yeah, absolutely. The noises and other inexplicable experiences continued though for several weeks. They would get louder. They were getting more aggressive with each time they would happen. And in time, the girl started to think, okay, I don't think this is our mom at all. Like, this is, and I don't even know

what this is, but we got to do something about that. And that was confirmed one night in the fall of 1986. It was just a typical evening at their house. And Frank was at work, Tina and Karen were home. They were watching TV and they heard the familiar knocking. And this time, though, it didn't

“sound like it was coming from the walls or from the basement. Ew. Determined to figure this out,”

Tina grabbed a flashlight, which also, that was, yeah. With Karen right behind her, they descended

into the dark basement. And at first, it looked like nothing was different in there. But as Tina

swept the flashlight across the room, she saw it on the wall across from the stairs, written what looked to be blood was a message. It said, I'm in your room. Come find me. Ew. Yeah. Oh, I just got chills as someone who has been a teenage girl before. That is the shit that is nightmares are made of. You can't even conceive of that. No. Being home alone without your dad in the house, as a teenage girl, down to speaking from my own experience. Yeah. Hearing noises in the basement,

and then going down there and seeing written in what looks to be blood, I mean, your room come find me. That's an urban legend. So that's not even what? That is the movie urban legend. So obviously, fucking terrified the girls did exactly what they should. They called their dad at work. And they were like, this is what we just found. So he comes right home and called the police immediately. And when an officer arrived, he and Frank went and searched the house in the basement.

But when the officer looked at the message on the wall, he said, it wasn't blood. It was ketchup. Okay. But it was supposed to look. I mean, still. Yeah. I could understand why you would think that. And obviously, you know, the fact that it wasn't, so again, this is the 80s. Yeah. In the 80s, we don't believe women. Yeah, we don't believe anybody. So like, because it was ketchup and not blood, they just kind of thought, so Frank wasn't like explained to the officer.

He was like, my wife did just recently pass away. We're all struggling to adjust to it. Like, they, they have been hearing noises. They have thought that there was ghosts. They have thought they may have been contacting her. So the police officer was kind of like, yeah, that's probably just kids imagination. They probably did it. Maybe to get a little attention because you're working a lot. Yeah. And Frank thought that too. He was like, I have to work so much. I wonder if they're like,

all trying to get me home kind of thing. And like, so he wasn't met. He was just like, oh, I feel bad. Like, he's a good dad, too. So like, really like giving a shit. And thinking, like, okay, maybe this is on me. Like, you know, he'd be like, maybe me, which is not the bar Islam. Like, it's so cool that it's a daddy gave it to me. He gave a shit. But he was working so hard just to support them. And he's thinking, okay, this thing I have to do, maybe I'm actually like,

But after the whole basement thing, things at the bone house seemed to calm down. There weren't

“any noises for a little while. That all came to an explosive end on the night of December 8th.”

Frank can take in the girls out to dinner. And they'd also take in Tina's friend, Kathleen, with them to dinner. Nice. Kathleen Nap per name was, and after dinner, they arrived back at the house, and Frank could immediately tell that something wasn't right. Oh, that was. Not only were there some valuable items clearly missing, but it also looked like someone had used the toilet or they were gone. So convinced, obviously, someone has broken into the house. Frank started searching the house

to make sure the intruder wasn't still there. Anyone from room to room, and then when he got to Tina's bedroom, he opened the closet door and he was surprised to find a man standing in front of him in Tina's closet. No, thank you. With a hatchet in one hand, and a pipe wrench in the other. Fantastic. So later Frank would describe the man as being in his, what he thought was his early 20s. Okay.

And Tina told police he was about six feet tall at least. Okay. But their descriptions varied somewhat from one another. What they all agreed on, though, was that the man had painted his face with ketchup and mayonnaise in a pattern that looked like war paint. His hair was spiked in multiple directions, and he was wearing what they all described as a, quote, hairy jacket. A hairy jacket.

“Yes. The fuck is a hairy jacket? I assume like a fur coat. Maybe why wouldn't you just say fur coat?”

I don't know. I don't know. It's, it's called to be different. I don't know. A hairy jacket. A hairy jacket. Even ketchup and mayonnaise all over your face. That's fun. Yeah. Man, this is good to your hair. I don't know about your skin. Disgusting. And to find that in your daughter's closet, holding a hatchet in a pipe brand. And the dad is an armed. Like what the fuck? What happened? So yeah. I don't even remember. I'm like,

what happened? It happens. The man advanced on Frank and rounded all them up together. Oh, fuck. And then because he has two weapons. Yeah. And he's threatening the girls. He threatened it like, so they're just trying to, like, hold them. They're still off guard. Then any quote, very calm manner. He ordered them all into one of the other bedrooms. So he was like

“wrangling them into a bedroom. But thinking quickly, Frank managed to slam the door to the bedroom”

once they were all inside, leaving him out the outside. Like he was able to like push him out of the bedroom. Good. Good. Good. So temporarily safe in the bedroom. Tina crawled out the window and climbed down the side of the house. And then ran to the neighbor's house and called police. That was a alert number two. Yeah. In a small town like pepperil, they don't really get a lot of calls like this wild that this was in pepperil. Right. So they did the dispatcher was like,

holy shit. People are being held hostage in a home. Like what the fuck? So the police got their lickety split because like, they're not doing anything else. So they got their right away. And the officers were relieved to find Frank in the girls in the house unharmed. Unfortunately, after thoroughly searching the house, which included at least one K9 officer, they found nothing. They he was no longer there. He just fled the scene. Okay. Now, although the intruder was gone,

the family was understandably very shaken up and uncomfortable with the idea of staying in that house that night. They said, we're going to the holiday in the so Frank booked a room at a hotel nearby where they would stay for a few days while everything was investigated. Two days after the home invasion on December 10th, Frank went back to the house just to get some more of their stuff.

And when he pulled into the driveway, he said he looked up at the house and standing in the second floor

window. He saw the silhouette of a man looking at him. Oh, why is this mother fucker just like hanging on the empty house? Assuming it was the intruder, Frank ran to the neighbors house and called the police again. So moments later, a pepperil police officer Stephen Bezanson arrived at the house. And he was skeptical about what France Frank had reported, which I'm like, maybe don't why were you skeptical? Like, they didn't lie about this before. Yeah. So, uh, Bezanson said, I could tell

as I drove up, he was very upset. He's pointing at the house. I said to myself, here we go, he's going to say, saw the guy at the window. Because this is now the third time they've come and not found anything. But I'm like, but still, do you think he's just like making this shit? Like, why would he make this shut up? Yeah. And also, what else are you doing? So with his gun drawn, he entered the house cautiously announcing himself and banning anyone else make themselves known.

And he had barely taken 10 steps inside when he saw the first floor was a disaster. Oh, yeah,

And I see it's through a picture, a family picture. My God, written on it in magic marker,

“I'm still here. Come find me. Oh, he said, now the hair goes up on the back of my head. On another wall,”

there was a second picture pinned to the wall with a knife, a kitchen knife. And it too had a message

written in magic marker. I'm going to kill you all. Oh, my God. Yeah. In the police officer found this. This is next level, shit. Yeah. After finding all of this, Bezanson called for backup. And within two minutes, he was joined by a chief David Young in Sergeant Jim Scott. They all started searching the home, searching each floor, the basement everywhere. And despite a second thorough search, the three officers failed to find anyone in the house in Bezanson recalled thinking to himself,

that bastard is still here. We're missing something. Yeah. And he was. They were. Now, as he took one last look around the second floor of the house, because he said, he's here. I know it. Like he was like, I know he didn't leave. Bezanson spotted a small door

in the bathroom that provided access to the pipes. And he said, I'm thinking, son of a bitch,

there's enough room back there for someone to hide. So he shines his flashlight into the crawl space and landed right on the intruder's face. Oh, my God. He said, I pulled my pistol and said, I got the son of a bitch right here, but he didn't move. I told him, let me see your hands or I'll splatter your brains all over that wall. You know, he said, Massachusetts. That is the most Massachusetts arrest. It was like day. Put your hands in the air, cad. And you're not going to make

you breathe forever. To the son of a bitch. We love son of a bitch over here. Like he said, son of a bitch. Why is that same thing? It's all enough. Now, the intruder did it. He was as he was told. And two peasants in surprise when he came out of the crawl space, it was not an adult man,

but a teenage boy, a boy who would quickly be identified as Tina Bowens one time friend,

like the long distance friend to they went out once, 16 year old, Danny Lippland, 16 years old, hiding in the wall. Yes. What struck the officer's most about him wasn't how young he was, which was crazy, but it was how eerily calm he was. He was, he was, and said, he was not afraid. He looked out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't afraid to have a gun stuck next to his head. Jesus. Yes. Now, during their search of the house, pepperal officers discovered that Leplant

had been effectively living in the walls of the Bowens house. Some of which allowed just a few inches of space to move for several months. That is insane. Presumably, since the knocking and the walls began in June, y'all. Now, this is December. He's been in there since literally half a fucking year. From his various positions in the walls, he was able to see through vents and would coordinate his activity to coincide with times when Frank was at work. This is my worst nightmare.

“That's why he never heard it, but his daughter did. In the late evenings, when he was”

sure the Bowens were asleep, he would emerge from the hiding place in the walls and take food and drink out of the refrigerator and move the family's belongings around just to fuck with them. Also, that's why I have motion detectors. Yeah, because the walls, it takes two to even, like, what if somebody comes down for a glass of water? Like, he just didn't give a fuck. Oh, he was ready to raise a pair of that. That is brazen. Now, when the news of the home invasion

and what Plantville plants arrest, typical news, everyone in pepperal and the surrounding towns were fucking shocked. Yeah. I was living in the walls. So I did not know. This was going on. About your parents were. Like, that my parents were. And at local attorney Patricia Wagner said, he was in a sense holding these people hostage. Nobody would have thought some guy would be living in their walls. No. Also, why did I just call him on pepper your parents? I thought that was

funny too. But I let it go. Very excited. Yeah. And I was like, why didn't you, you're parents? Your fucking parents were probably worried about it. I don't know those. That was homies. I got to ask them about it. Yeah. I should have. We just saw them. I know. But a lot of people who knew Danny weren't entirely surprised that he does something so bizarre and violent. Imagine knowing somebody that you wouldn't be shocked. You really found out they lived in

someone's walls for six months and showed up at a hairy jacket. Do you know I'm not a hairy jacket? I still have so many questions about that. Yeah. Can you think of one person where you wouldn't be shocked if they lived in somebody's walls for six months? I'm trying. Like, I'm genuinely trying. Thankfully, no. Yeah. I don't think I can't. I really can't think of something. No, I really can't. That has that kind of patience to be honest. Yeah, truly. That's so fucked. That's my worst fear.

“That's how we stayed in a hotel together on the first minute of your book tour. When I didn't sleep,”

I was totally convinced somebody was watching me from here. Yeah. And I was like, Holy shit. My biggest fear. That is scary. Well, apparently, one neighbor told her a reporter. When you saw Danny,

That's scary. Trouble maker. Okay. Yeah. Living in walls. Not okay. Like, that didn't shock you. Other neighbors and peers later described him as strange and disturbed. From an early age, he learned to rep in the neighborhood as a problem child who frequently acted out. Jill, Jill Gary, who was one of the neighbors of the little plants told her a reporter that when Danny was seven years old, seven. She and her husband hired him to help them in the green house.

Like, paying him like a little bit of money to clean out the stones in the field, fields where they grew pumpkin and squash. Oh, hell, yeah. That's so New England. But when she went to check on him a few hours later, she had smashed all the pumpkins and squash in their field. What a son of a bitch. I'd be fucking pissed. Oh my god. Like, so pissed. Yeah. Now, Danny, Danny said, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny's tendency to act out and be destructive was as far as

most of the people in Pepperil could tell, perfectly in keeping with his family's reputation in town.

“I can't remember anything about his family. I was just sitting here wondering about that.”

Now, this is just a reporter for the Boston Globe said his family is far from popular,

living in a rundown house that has always seen more at home to Barnyard animals in junk. Oh,

that said, not one. You can't really judge people by their home. I don't think we had somebody in our town who lived in a crazy ass house. And he was the nice and he was a very kind person and like super philanthropic and super he gave all this money to like other things. He was also rich as fuck, which was crazy. Exactly. But he just didn't care to take care of his own stuff. He just wanted to help other people. He's really done immediately judge people like that. Just saying. I'm not saying

that's the case here. I'm just saying like, you know, you know, and then there was that other house and that guy was really nice. Really nice. That's the thing. I've seen two situations where that where you can't really judge the book by the conversation. Yeah, I'm just saying neither of those houses exist anymore. No, I don't. No, I don't. Weird. But in that said, not everyone thought very poorly, especially of Danny's mother, Elaine Moore and his stepfather. Local attorney Robert Kc's

said they're both salt to the earth kind of people. Oh, really? So there's like very conflict. It might just be people judging based off of what they see. Yeah, like a book based on the cover. Or you just don't know. Yeah. That's just like two sides of it. Interesting. But the time he was

10 or 11. I mean, clearly Danny was a fucking wreck. Like he was a problem. Yeah. But that's not always

do entirely to one thing. Right. You know what I mean? So by the time he was 10 or 11,

“Danny's behavior turned criminal at 10 or 11. I think it was criminal at 7 years. Yeah,”

smashing pumpkins in 1981, the local general store was broken into and police strongly suspected 11 year old Danny and a friend of committing the crime. Yeah. But there was no direct evidence linking them so they couldn't do anything. Oh, be any at 11. Yeah. In the summer of 1985, before I was born. Oh, just just before. Yeah. Danny's mother enrolled him at St. Bernard's high school. A private Catholic high school about a half hour away in Fitchburg. She said, "John will save you."

Yeah, best. She said, "Stu, Fitchburg is a mess." She said, "Danny joined the football team, ran track and got mediocre grades." But he struggled to make friends. Okay. And again, it looks like the parent they were trying. Yeah. It sounds like a pac, a classmate, Patrick.

Um, but I think it's McGigan. McGigan. I like it. Told her a porter. The guy never really was

all that friendly. He never liked to go to parties. He never really talked much and a lot of the other students describe him as a loner who mostly kept to himself. After one year at St. Bernard's, he withdrew from school in June 1986, which was when he reached out to Tina Bowen. It's unclear whether he had known Tina from a previous school year. But he was clearly interested in her and got her number from the phone book in place the call. Okay. So he might have known her because he

“remember he went to St. Bernard's after, like he transferred there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he might have gone”

to a school. He could have gone to the school. Even though he said he didn't. Exactly. And she might not have noticed him because he's once he was younger. He's him. When she rejected him after their first date, he was unable to simply let their rejection go and he became obsessed. With her and eventually started hiding in the walls of her home to torment her entire family as punishment for her rejection. Oh my god, do you know what I was going to say? I wonder if you

like followed her home after after the date, but back in the day wasn't your address in the phone book too. Yeah, they just sent you a giant book. Why? Did everyone send her things? That was a good idea. Because you know what? It's like, you know what? It's like something's happened. A thing like, like these things obviously happened, but they felt few and far between, you know, like it just didn't feel that scary. Yeah. Like now it's just like scary thing in the world. If anybody knows

armed assault in a dwelling, breaking an entering, malicious injury to a property, and armed

“burglary. And the last charge was relating to the jewelry and personal items he'd stolen from the house.”

Gotcha. Under the circumstances, he was booked at the pepperal police station and then transferred to the state psychiatric hospital in Bridgewater for a psychiatric evaluation. Now because of his age, he was a minor. The contents of the court proceedings related to this whole thing are not available to the public. That's a good point. So the outcome of the psychiatric evaluation and any other info about Danny's mental health are unavailable at the time. That would pay money to read about that.

What is known is that Danny was eventually transferred from Bridgewater State Hospital to a juvenile detention center, which tells you a little bit about what's going on. There were many good findings in October 1987 after spending 10 months in a juvenile facility,

awaiting details about his trial. The judge set the bail at $10,000. And after taking out a second

mortgage on their home, a lane more was able to afford the bail. And Danny was released into her custody. Oh, wow. Yeah. After a decade of Danny's bad behavior, the residents of pepperal were not pleased that he had returned home. Yeah, out on these streets. Yeah, neighbor Darlene Mahoney told her a reporter. You'd see him walk out there by himself. And she gestured to the woods behind his house. And she said that's the only place you'd see him. The woods. The fog. Yeah. The thing was,

Danny wasn't just spending time in the woods. He was wandering the neighborhood, checking for unlocked doors because he's going to go live in somebody else as well. He's not going to stop what he was doing. On the afternoon of October 14th, someone broke into the home of Raymond Pendell and stole

two 22 caliber pistols in a large amount of cash. Oh, my God. A few weeks later, Danny's parents

found one of the pistols. And it's holster in his laundry basket. It's also like, dude, I, like, I don't know what I would do if my kid was accused of this. I can't imagine that. But it's a danger to other people. And if you're gunna bail him out, okay. Like, that's a whole argument in and of itself. But you better have eyes on this mother, fucker. If you're bailing him out, well, that's a thing. That's your responsibility. I don't, again, I'm not saying I know what I would

do with these situations. But from my, by place right here, I'm sorry if you terrorize an entire family for six months and say you're going to kill them all and try to hurt them and literally

“break into their house, like, like to hold them hostage with their father and like you should stay”

jail. I'm sorry. I love you. But you are paying for what you did. And that's, and it's like, and also your dangerous. I be scared for my own safety. That's something you just have to come to terms with. It's not going to be easy. And you can say I still love you. I still support you as a human being. But you are dangerous to other people. And I can't have this happen to somebody with me. It's my responsibility. Allowing you to be out. And that's what I'm saying. I'm like,

dude, is your responsibility to, again, keep eyes on it. And you can't have that kind of responsibility. Like, not what you're doing with somebody like that, even if it is your child. Like, he's obviously dangerous. Yeah. He's, you're not going to be able to have eyes on him all the time. It's just not going to work. It's not real. So you need to, you know, it sucks. The whole thing sucks. I feel for these people. But, um, so they did confront him. And he claimed that he

did obtain the gun a year earlier. Uh, that was despite having been underage and unemployed at the time that he claimed to have obtained the gun. No, I don't know. I was 15. His parents accepted the excuse, but they took the weapon away. In the weeks that followed the breakings and thefts around pepperal continued greatly enough. On November 16th, Danny broke into the home of his neighbors Andrew and Priscilla Gustafson who lived directly behind him. It was about a quarter mile through

the woods. Among other things, he stole a cordless telephone to telephone cable boxes and remote controls and several silver coins. Later, when he was interviewed by police, Danny's brother, Stephen told investigators he saw Danny with silver coins similar to those reported missing, including a statue of Liberty coin in a box. Okay, fancy one. About a week after the break, breaking at the Gustafson home, Danny approached his brother, Stephen, and Stephen's friend,

Michael Polowski, and asked whether either of them could get him 22 caliber bullets. I really, uh, you're on bail, so no. And I feel like, why? Yeah.

“I don't even want to know why. No, you're on bail. They said, why?”

And he said he, quote, wanted to make a large bullet and sell it. What? I feel like so. What? Now apparently, Michael Polowski, the friend, was unaware of the whole stolen gun situation because I was like, they kept it in the family. Yeah. So he had no idea that

He's like, like, I don't know. He's like, you're going to cut me in on the sales like those

“while. So he was like, sure. And a few days later, he provided him with a handful of bullets from a”

box that he had himself. Okay. And in the week that followed Danny practiced loading and unloading the guns. On the evening of December 1st, Andrew Gustafson returned home from work a little past 5pm. He was typically greeted at the door by his children five-year-old William and seven-year-old Abigail. And he said it was empty and quiet in there. So immediately, he's like, what is going on? So he's wondering how they upstairs. So he went upstairs and checked the primary bedroom where he discovered

the body of his wife, Priscilla. She had a pillow over her face with two bullet holes torn through it. So panicked, he called the police to report the murder and screamed at the dish, but this battery I don't know where my children are. Within minutes, officers from towns and in pepperal were at the scene, not entirely certain what to expect from this old thing. Officer George Ahoh,

one of the officers said, Officer Johnson and I went inside to search. First, we went upstairs where

the wife was and she was under back with a pillow over her face. You could see she had been shot through the pillow. After confirming that Priscilla was unfortunately deceased, Ahoh and Johnson began searching house for the children. Ahoh recalled, I went into the upstairs bathroom. The shower curtain was

“pulled shut. I opened the shower curtain and there was a blonde hair little boy I believe lying”

face down. We searched downstairs. We found the daughter in the tub. There was still water in it. Oh my god. He drowned both the children. By the way, yep. Outside Ahoh informed Andrew Gustafson that they had unfortunately found his children deceased and then he called for additional officers in crime scene text to come. In the bedroom, a technician from the Department of Public Safety found a portion of a broken condom on the floor, as well as Seaman on the bed spread. In the closet,

they found, quote, a nodded brown sock dampened with saliva, consistent with having been used as a gag. There were also seven ligatures crafted from a necktie, stockings and pantyhose. In the kitchen, detectives found an open, nearly full bottle of beer sitting on the counter and, quote, several pieces of paper, which were torn from the pages of a pornographic magazine. Jesus Christ. And as if this

“couldn't get anywhere, they found out that Priscilla was pregnant. Yeah. So two children, three children,”

yep, technically, and an innocent woman killed in their home. Like horrific. He is a deranged mother father. Yeah. Now to state police detective Joe Lawless, which what a name for a detective is going to say, you got to be a criminal detective detective lawless. He'd been at the bone crime scene when Danny was arrested. He said the scene at the Gustafson House felt eerily familiar and his mind immediately went to Daniela plant. He said there were certainly, there certainly were some parallels

between the crime scenes. He lived almost directly behind the Gustafson's house. It was through a thick area of woods, but there were no other houses between them. The next day during a search of the woods behind the Gustafson House, investigators discovered a flannel shirt. The name played from their house in a pair of wet work gloves. When they were given the shirt to smell, the tracking dogs followed the scent to within three or four feet of the look-land home, I'm sure. That afternoon detectives

interviewed Danny at a local library and he claimed on the previous afternoon he'd been at home watching television and he didn't know anything about the murders and he didn't know anything about the previous break-ins. Wow. His albi was weak as fuck as fast and he wouldn't see you home watching TV and the investigators were suspicious. But when they returned to short time later with a warrant to search the house, Danny had fled interesting. So now they're all that certain

that Danny Leplant is the killer and the district attorney's office issued a warrant for his arrest. But he hasn't even gone on trial yet for now. And now they're going to have to find him, y'all. So the news that Danny was on the run set everyone in pepperal and Townsend and all the surrounding towns on edge. Select a woman Julia Stockwell told her a reporter. This is not supposed to happen in this kind of town. People are crushed, scared, and trying to figure out a way to deal

with it. Maybe this isn't supposed to happen anywhere. No. Among those most frightened were the bow and family. Yeah. They'd moved to New Hampshire since the home invasion, but they were

scared that they might be targeted by Danny's second time tracked down. Yeah. So Frank Bowen took the

dad? Well, police in the area set up roadblocks and mobilized a search team of officers from various agencies. They had sent dogs. They had a helicopter. During all this, Danny is just frantically planning his escape. With police everywhere, like in the air and on the ground now, Danny's options

were pretty limited. And it's unclear where he was on the first day of that whole like Manhattan.

But on the second day, he looks like he fell right back into his old habits. Okay. What he knows best? Broken somewhere. On the afternoon of December 3rd, Lynn McGovern returned to our pepperil home a little before 2pm. And before she'd even stopped the car in the driveway, she had woman's intuition. And she said she was just struck with a distinct feeling that's something is wrong. Wow. She didn't even see anything. So she didn't even go in her house. In fact,

she walked back to the road. Got out of her car and just walked to the road and flagged down one of the pepperil officers who was assisting in the search of Danny and told him,

“I think someone's in my house. It should just be interesting to know women. She pulled in the”

driveway and she said, I just got this wave that like something's wrong. Don't go in that house. I would outtruster with my life. I would to a truster with my damn life would like Lynn. Yeah. If you're out there, I trust you. Lynn McGovern. I trust you. And what a bad bit to listen to that

intuition that it's not always easy to listen to because sometimes your brain will convince you like

don't be afraid. Don't be over dramatic. I do that all the time and it's never good. No, so don't do that. So she says, hey, I think someone's in my house. And the officer was like, I'll totally take a look, but he was like, I got it be pretty fast because they need me to get back to the search for Daniel will plan. She's like, I think you have found your daughter. Yeah. Paul McGovern, her husband, said as soon as they open the front door, they heard a thump upstairs.

The officer turned around and told his partner to turn off the cruiser and get help.

“Unfortunately, by the time the officers entered the house, Danny had jumped out the second”

story window, slid down the garage roof into the ground and then fled into it. A few hours later, 17 year old Jonathan Lang was at home alone when he heard a knock at the door. No, thank you. He looks out the front door and there's no one there. So he goes to the back door and he sees a teenage boy standing on the porch. And he later said, I just taped the news on the VCR. Stop it. And I recognized him instantly as Danny Leplant. Oh, my, imagine not mother fucker back step in

your home alone. So Leplant asked him whether the Langs had a dog. He literally says, do you have a dog? I mean, I have to fucking huge dogs will tear you apart. I say we have 17, in fact. And he must have seen the concern look on Langs face because he was horrified because seconds later, Leplant began begging to be led into the house. No. So Lang was like absolutely my dog or you. Absolutely not. So Danny flashed the pistol and

“screamed let me in and kept saying it. Like was screaming at this 17 year old let me in and like”

flashing a pistol fucking terrifying Lang still was like, go fuck yourself and instead ran to the phone and called the police and Danny flat again. Yeah. Now increasingly desperate for an escape route Danny next entered the home of Pamela McCella and held her at gunpoint. She entered her home and held her at gunpoint. She said he asked me if I knew who he was and I said yes. The plant then asked why there were so many police officers in town and she explained

they're looking for you. Hello. Now Panicked Danny forced McCella into her van and told him to her to drive him away. As they drove, McCella watched a plant out of the corner for I all while trying to formulate an escape plan because people from Massachusetts don't play. No, we don't

fuck around. We don't play. Finally, when she came to a stop sign, she slowed the van to about 15 miles

an hour and jumped from the driver side, Queen Chin, rolling down a small hill and landing on pavement. I'd rather get road burn than deal with Daniel Leplan. When she looked back to see where he was, she saw the van make a right hand turn. You have my van. Take that. Yeah. I can't another immediately reported the kidnapping to police and a helicopter managed to track the van from the air until an officer could arrive chasing the van through the streets of nearby and nearby

air the the town. The officer managed to get Leplan to pull this vehicle off to the side of the road. But Daniel immediately jumped out of the car and fled on foot in the direction of a lumber yard. So officers from multiple jurisdictions descended on this lumber yard and started search. During this whole thing, officer Scott Komo and Paul Barada spotted Danny hiding over an over overturned dumpster inside of it. Okay. Anywhere he belongs. Right, where he belonged in the

fucking trash. And they said, we just told him, you're not going to get out. And so he came out and

you're like, already you were fucked. Yeah. And then you just wrapped up a bunch of extra charges. Yeah. You just going going going. During his initial interview following his arrest, Danny insisted he had been home. He had been home watching MTV when the murders were committed.

“Then why are you running? He said, I had nothing to do with anything. Why are you running?”

Yeah. But he was charged with three counts of first degree murder to which he pleaded not guilty.

And was sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for what would be three weeks of extensive psychiatric evaluation to determine if you was confident. He stopped her back. At the time, Elaine Moore and her husband David, his parents stood by their son and protested his innocence. They said, you didn't do it. Okay. And I said, okay. Okay. David Moore told her reporter, you talked to anybody who knows him personally and they would say he couldn't do that. He's not violent. Oh. Okay. Based on the

motions put forth by LaPlanza Lawyer, it was increasingly clear that they were going for the insanity defense. But the middle sex county assistant district attorney was prepared for that to be in inevitability. Also, you don't run if you're insane. Yeah. And they started building a defense. Among other things, evidence of Danny's mental competence could be seen to the extent of which the

“crime had been orchestrated. And remember the pillow and the lengths to which he went to cover up his”

involvement, which included snipping the collection portion of the condom. So as to not believe, leave behind any fluids, although he inevitably did in the process. So he thought he was smart with that. Investigators also pointed to the fact that Priscilla had either been ordered to redress herself or he had redressed her afterwards. Oh, my. Yeah. On January 13, 1988, Daniel will plan a period before a judging Cambridge where he was indicted for the three murders, as well as 10 charges

related to the attack on the Bowen family, the previous year. And nine other charges related to Robert East committed in Townsend around the time of the murders. At the time, he was denied a bail and held at East Cambridge jail. Yeah. They saw how well bail worked before. After nearly 10 months of delays in pretrial hearings, the plans trial began in the fall of 1988. At the time of his arrest, the evidence against Danny was monumental and surmountable. But by the time the trial began,

the prosecutor had received also letters reportedly written by Danny to a friend. And in them, he wrote, among other things, they won't find the gun. I was alone. They got nothing on me. In

another letter, he wrote, they have no gun yet, and they'll never find it. They have a lot of

time they went to the trial. Investigators had found the gun, and it was in the glove compartment of an old Jeep on the Lapland property. Wow. Good hiding spot. Yeah. Some of the more compelling testimony came from Stephen Lapland's brothers, friend, their Michael Polowski. He was the one who provided the bullets that unfortunately Danny used to kill the Gustafson, or Priscilla Gustafson. Polowski was able to provide a sample of the bullets he'd given Danny, which allowed match to those

used in the murder. In a ballistic expert testified that the rounds had been fired from a 22 caliber pistol discovered on the Lapland family's property several months earlier. Yeah. On October 25th, near after nearly a month of testimony, the jury deliberated very briefly before coming out to find Lapland guilty on every single count. Judge Robert Barton said during

“sentence saying, "There's some that would say that you should receive the same sentence that”

you imposed on the Gustafson family." Yeah. That is death by literature hanging, but we have no death penalty in Massachusetts. Unfortunately. And this dead Barton sentence will plant two three consecutive life sentences with no parole, no commutation, and no furloughs. Good.

In simple terms, he was never to be released from prison. Never seen the Son again.

Danny has appealed to his conviction in various points over the years, but not have been successful. In 2017, when the plant petitioned the parole board to consider him for his eligibility, his case was rejected largely on the grounds that he appeared to have no remorse for his crime. Still. Wow. Yeah. Psychiatrist Dr. Fabian Sala said, "All of this was just a presentation to come across as somebody who is sad about something for which in my opinion he is

not because he like pretended to cry." It was an execution. He executed one person, went next executed a second person, and then he ended up executing a third person. We should call them children. Exactly. Two years later, in March 2019, Leplant took his case to the state's highest court, arguing that he should be eligible for parole due to legislation adopted in 2014, that said inmates convicted of murder as juveniles must be considered for parole after serving

a minimum of 30 years. The amount of times we run into that, the court rejected its claims,

Speaking on behalf of the justices, Justice David Lowry wrote, "The defendant's sentence is

“proportional both to the crimes he committed into his particular characteristics as an offender."”

Absolutely. Stay in prison. Good. That's where he belongs.

What? He's a monster. A straight-up monster. They would be wise to never consider.

Oh, they never should. He lived in people's walls, killed a pregnant woman, and her two children. Yeah. Like, no. You don't, you don't. And then one on the run, and kidnapped another person, and victimized how many others by breaking into their houses as well. Exactly. Like, he truly haunted the town of Pepperil in the surrounding areas. Yeah. In the surrounding town, like, and the poor, like, obviously, the Gustafsens, like, I can't

imagine the father and Drew, what he has gone through, him now, losing everything. Yeah, at once.

And just like, losing everything, like, your home as well, you could never stay there.

Oh, yeah. That's the thing. That's your life. You lost your life, essentially. Like, how do you, how do you live? I don't know. With that, like, or man, I feel so bad. And then the Bowen family, having to deal with, like, the terror that they were living with, the terror that they were living with, and then the PTSD that would come after that. Yeah. Your home is your safe space. And for that to be violated in that way, yeah.

“I can't imagine ever feeling safe again. Like, how do you get comfort?”

And make me, like, the opposite of a gorephobic. Yeah. I just want to be out all the time. Truly. Oh, honey, we need a fun fact out. We really do. My goodness. Yeah. I got one for you. It's about alligators. Alligators. Yeah. This fun fact says, please hold let me get it up. Alligators have 74 to 80 teeth at any time. And can go through 3000 teeth within a lifetime. Holy shit. Yeah. As their teeth were down,

new ones grow into a place, them. Damn. Isn't that like, you never have to go to the dentist.

Never. It's regenerated new fucking tooth. 3000 times. And the, and the sharks do that. Oh, they do? Yeah. I didn't know. I'm pretty sure they do that. I don't know how many, but I don't think they, like, indefinitely do it. I think they don't like let's rule it. Yeah.

“I think they have, like, several, but I don't know if it's an indefinite amount. How many?”

Not positive. Will sharks go through in a lifetime. Wow. They do even more. Really? Yes. They can go through 20,000 to 50,000 teeth. Sometimes they are to 200,000, depending on the species. Damn. And they don't have any roots. Wow. Like, they don't have that type of teeth out. So easily. Yeah. And they grow, like, new rows of teeth. Yeah. Yeah. It's not even just like, like, like, whole. Damn. Show me a teeth. Show me a teeth. Also a fascinating. On top of this, like, fun fact. I just,

I had to look up how Andrew, oh, was doing Andrew's past away. Unfortunately. But he remarried. Oh, he had children. Oh, he had grandchildren. So he had a good life. Like, he was able to together the pieces and seemingly lived a very lovely life. I'm happy that like happiness found. Yeah. People said just that in his like, you know, a bituary. Yeah. It says he had a hearty laugh, a warm and welcoming smile, a keen and reflective mind and kind words for everyone. He was a light

in the darkness. Oh, wow. So he was like a lovely person. Okay. That's an even more fun. And he had a big lovely family. He had two daughters. Like, I'm very happy to hear that he was that he could find himself like kind. I don't a life again after that. I just can't imagine it exploding the way it did. No. And like, and he looks like such a sweet guy. Oh, he looks like a sweet, sweet man. Oh, I'm so happy that happiness found. So Andrew's family. I'm really happy

that he had you. Yeah. Truth to you. That's like that really killed me to think of him walking into that house. Yeah. My God. God damn. All right, guys. Well, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. But that's where they go live and people's walls and terrorize the community and the surrounding communities as well. Don't get out of here. Don't do it. Get out of here.

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