River Parishes Serial Killer | The Hunt For Daniel Blank

RIVER PARISHES SERIAL KILLER PART 1 FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

Jim: Hey, everybody, and welcome to Bloody-

 

Woody: -Angola.

 

Jim: A podcast, 142 years in the making. 

 

Woody: Complete story of America's bloodiest prison. 

 

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman. 

 

Woody: I'm Woody Overton. 

 

Jim: And it's Season 5, Episode 5 already. 

 

Woody: Already. Time marches on. I want to say thank you again to all our Patreon members. You rock. We couldn't do without you. And Ms. Linda Parker is our newest patron member. And Ms. Linda, thank you and we love and appreciate you. Hey, y'all, if you can't be a patron member, we get that too. We love and appreciate everybody, and please continue to like us and share us and continue to help us grow. 

 

Jim: And continue to rate us. If you like the show, give us a rating on Apple podcast or wherever you listen. Facebook, whatever. It really helps. 

 

Woody: Yeah, the reviews definitely help, the algorithm. 

 

Jim: So we've given you a bunch of different stories this year. Our most recent one was the rodeo, which is still going on at Angola. And this story we're about to tell you, we're going to tell you all about the crimes. We're going to then get into the court proceedings and the incarceration of this guy. His name is Daniel Blank. And these murders took place in what's known as the River Parishes of South Louisiana. 

 

For those unfamiliar what the river Parishes are, they're classified as the Louisiana parishes that divide the Mississippi River. They include Ascension Parish, St. John, St. James Parish. And it's kind of like working your way towards New Orleans. So before we get into this particular killer's time in Bloody Angola, we're going to tell you about the crimes and we're going to start off with the victims. And the first one we're going to tell you about is Victor Rossi. Now, Victor Rossi lived in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. He was 41 years old. Woody, kind of describe where Ascension Parish is located. 

 

Woody: Ascension is just east of Baton Rouge and just south of Livingston Parish where we're at. Y’all, when we say parishes for you that aren't in Louisiana, we have parishes and not counties. So parish and county are the same things. 

 

Jim: Yeah. He was a small business owner. He owned a very popular mechanic shop there in the town of Gonzales in Ascension Parish, which is a community there. Very popular mechanic shop. A lot of the police officers in Ascension Parish got their personal vehicles, and even the Gonzales Police Department got their vehicles serviced through this mechanic shop. He wasn't super wealthy, but he had done well. He was well off. He was discovered in his home on October 27th of 1996, sadly, by his daughter. He was beaten to death with a baseball bat that belonged to him, and it was found on the scene. That's going to become important. Police actively worked that case. Victor Rossi, as we told you, was well known. He was well liked in the community. So obviously, when you have an individual and you have a connection to him and the community has a connection to him, everybody starts banding together. 

 

Woody: Right. Gonzales is really the central seat, if you will, of Central Parish, where the sheriff's office is in the courthouse. It's probably the largest city in there, but it's still a very tight knit community. 

 

Jim: Absolutely. So they're working it, and there's no case. They're working harder than the Rossi case. It was a shock to the community. Back in those days, murders weren't common in Gonzales. 

 

Woody: Yeah. Definitely not. 

 

Jim: You might have got one a year, and that was usually like drug related. So as hard as they worked it, there were no leads, there was no evidence whatsoever to point to a specific individual. 

 

Woody: Right. That's disturbing, for that smaller community. But then only five months later, on March 14th 1997, in the neighboring parish of St. James, the body of Barbara Bourgeois was discovered in her home. Now, Ms. Barbara Bourgeois was 58 years old, y'all, and on that day, a relative called police on-- I'm sorry. On March of 14th, a relative called police to conduct a welfare check because they hadn't heard from Ms. Barbara. Now, y’all, we used to do these all the time. Relatives from out of town would call and say, “Hey, I hadn't heard from Uncle Bobby. Can you ride by there and check on them?” So that's what they did. 

 

Jim: Was it common, Woody? Typically, it was probably nothing. 

 

Woody: Yeah. Well, a lot of times they were dead. 

 

Jim: Oh, wow. 

 

Woody: Old elderly people died in their chair. I'll never forget one. We went on, it was summertime, and you knew there was a dead body because you could smell it from outside. It was a trailer. It was an elderly lady. And so we had to take the front door, and when it did, almost shot my foot off because a bunch of cats came running out when we kicked the door. 

 

Jim: Oh, Lord.

 

Woody: Scared the shit out of me. And then when we got in there, I thought it was the most gruesome homicide I ever seen, because she was laid back in her chair and her eyes were gone, like somebody cut them out and their ears were all shredded off. When we got to the autopsy, the coroner said, “She have cats?” I said, “Yeah, she had a bunch of them.” But she was also very disfigured like from the heat. Even though the air conditioner was on, the TV was on, she was still bloated to the point where we went to pick her up, her skin sloughed off. But the coroner said, “She have cats?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “But that's what did all this. Her cats ate her eyes and her ears because they were hungry.” 

 

Jim: Oh, my God. 

 

Woody: That just popped in my head. I don't know why. 

 

Jim: Geez.

 

Woody: Anyway, so the cops show up Ms. Barbara's house, and they found her stabbed to death on the floor of her living room. She had been violently beaten to death with her own vacuum cleaner, and then she was stabbed repeatedly. Now, that's horrible. Ms. Bourgeois was a pillar of the St. James community, which is even smaller, y’all, in Ascension, and she was an avid volunteer and special education teacher. No one can imagine why someone would kill her so savagely. But cops do what they do, and they work the scene. Evidence found in the scene pointed to a very horrific death in which Ms. Barbara fought for hard, hard for her life. And again, just like in Ascension Parish, police were at a loss as a suspect. 

 

Then, on April 10th, 1997, the body of Lillian Philippe was discovered in Ascension Parish again. So now you got three bodies. 

 

Jim: Yeah. And in St. James, as you just brought up, you talk about murders being rare, even more rare than in the Ascension Parish area. St. James, it just didn't happen. You didn't have those-- Especially for someone as you mentioned, that was such a pillar of the community. This lady was just good as gold. 

 

Woody: Right. Teacher-- 

 

Jim: Who kills someone like that? 

 

Woody: Stabs and beats them with their vacuum cleaner.

 

Jim: Totally at a loss. As Woody said, another body gets discovered just 21 days after that, Lillian Philippe was 71 years old, found bludgeoned to death with her own trophy. Again, a weapon of opportunity. Now, you notice in the first murder, it was baseball bat-

 

Woody: That was there. 

 

Jim: -that was there. Now it's a trophy that was there. 

 

Woody: And then it was a vacuum cleaner. 

 

Jim: A vacuum cleaner that was there. So these are weapons of opportunities. Before we go any further, I would imagine, Woody, as an investigator, you look for things like that. What did they use? 

 

Woody: Yeah. Like on Ms. Barbara Bourgeois case, the first thing you're looking for is knife sets. If she's been stabbed to death working on the scene, or kitchen drawers to be open. Obviously, if there's a knife set and there's one knife missing, you suspect that it could be matched up at the autopsy. But, yeah, the vacuum cleaner and all that, I doubt the guy carried the knife in, but that shows that he is using whatever he has on hand, literally. 

 

Jim: Yeah. Horrific. He's beating the shit out of them to death, essentially. Now, that trophy was taken from a bedroom in the house. Her body was discovered in another bedroom. And in this case, the phone wires were cut, and the perpetrator killed her, then went through her safe, her purse, and then left. There was evidence to point to that. Similarities to the prior cases did include weapons of opportunity, as I mentioned, and that those weapons were left behind. Now, this was a different time. This was the 1990s, so DNA was in existence in those things, but it's not what it is now. 

 

Woody: Very, very infancy stages when really only came around like 1991 and 1992, and then had to be proven in court, and they did not have it all the ways that they could test today. I can remember in 2000 having a rush letter and walking the DNA to the crime lab myself and still take six months to get back. 

 

Jim: Yeah. 

 

Woody: They just didn't have the capability. 

 

Jim: And they didn't have cameras like they have today on every street corner. 

 

Woody: Yeah. It looks like the phone line was cut, Ms. Lillian's house. Nobody has-- [crosstalk] 

 

Jim: Nobody has phones anymore. [laughs] 

 

Woody: [crosstalk] -landlines is what it's called. 

 

Jim: Yeah. So there's a lot of differences between then and now, even though it's only been 28 years, 30 years since that time. Now with two murders so far in a short period, and now you've got a third, the community obviously is starting to take notice, especially these communities. This is not major cities. You're not in New Orleans here where you hear about murders more frequently. This is just crazy weird to these people. So panic starts to set in.

 

Woody: With the first body, yes. Ms. Barbara's body being a separate parish, certainly different parishes. But then we're back in Ascension Parish again. So now investigators, you got to be like, “Holy shit. 

 

Jim: That’s right.

 

Woody: Maybe we got a connection here.” 

 

Jim: Yeah. So gun purchases go up, alarm installs skyrocket, and self-defense classes are selling out everywhere. Police weren't ready to say, it was the same person yet, but they definitely had some suspicions. Then on May 9th,1997, just 29 days after the discovery of Ms. Philippe's body, police in St John the Baptist-- Now all these parishes border each other. 

 

Woody: Yeah, they're connected.

 

Jim: So you're working your way south towards New Orleans, you hit Ascension Parish, then you hit St James, then you hit St John. And St John the Baptist, they discovered the bodies of two people, Sam and Louella Arcuri in their home. 

 

Woody: Right. Y’all, Mr. Sam was 76 years and Ms. Louella was 69 years. And again, when they got there to work it, there was a very gruesome crime scene. There was blood everywhere. Again, like in Ms. Philippe’s case, the phone lines were cut and the murder weapon used was a cane knife, which, y’all, if you never seen one, it's a very large version of a machete used to cut sugar cane stalks, and it's very sharp. So it's basically got a long handle on it with this big ass curvature blade on it to make it easier on the backs when they're cutting down on the cane. 

 

So police again worked the crime scene and there was no evidence left from perpetrator. No fingerprints, no DNA, nothing. And then, just five days after the Arcuri double murder, police get a call of yet another body. 

 

Jim: Yeah. So Ms. Joan Brock, who was 55 years old, police found her body in the front of her house after being drugged out of the front door with her head practically decapitated from her body. Again, phone lines were cut and the weapon used appeared to be the same one used in the Arcuri case, which was what they call a cane knife. And y'all, that's very, very popular in South Louisiana. There's a lot of sugar cane forms around here.

 

Woody: [crosstalk] -for sugar cane, we used to use them to clear briars and brush and all that kind of stuff. 

 

Jim: Yeah. And they're no joke. If it's used on a person, it's horrible. And also in this case, a safe and vehicle were missing from the home. So this is the first time he took a vehicle from a home, but a safe, again. In all these cases, it's robbery is appearing to be the motive. 

 

Woody: Right.

 

Jim: Now at this point in time, you've got three separate parishes-- We've done, yeah, a couple episodes on Sean Vincent Gillis, who was a serial killer in Baton Rouge. One thing that he did that made the case so difficult was he committed crimes in different parishes or he would dump the bodies in different parishes. The reason that that makes it more difficult is especially in this time, police didn't communicate like they do now. Computers, all that stuff was not what it was now. Facebook was not where it would blow up with all these announcements of murders. 

 

So police in these neighboring parishes did not realize until they really did some investigating that things were going on in Ascension Parish, St. James, St. John, but with no leads at all. And again, St. John, another smaller parish. Police decide to reach out, some detectives said, “Man, maybe we need to call like Gonzales and call Ascension Parish and see if they have any unsolved cases.” 

 

Woody: And they would have been friends, like Landry and all them in Ascension Parish. When I work in Livingston, you know them, every once in a while you might work something together. At some point, they will just call your buddy over there, say, “Hey, y’all got any unsolved homicides?” 

 

Jim: Yeah. 

 

Woody: They'd be like, “Yeah.” “Oh, tell me about it.” “Well, the phone lines were cut and a safe was missing.” “Oh shit.” “We had the same thing.” 

 

Jim: Yeah. And so some astute detectives did reach out. Ascension Parish detectives stated they had two unsolved murders. When they started talking about those murders with the detectives, they realized some patterns match. Robbery and the brutality of the murders, in particular, the phone lines being cut, all those things were the same. And if you notice people, all of the victims were older. 

 

Woody: Right. 

 

Jim: That really struck a red flag because it's not typical. Older folks, go home and they go to bed. They don't live these high-risk lifestyles and partying all the time. 

 

Woody: Another thing too. A lot of older people, especially back then, they have collections and stuff or extra cash or whatever. They didn't want to leave it in the bank. 

 

Jim: No.

 

Woody: They wanted it at home where they have access to. 

 

Jim: That’s right. And so police at this point are like, “Oh shit, we've got a lot of connections here.” St. John police then contacted St. James police, who also said, “Hey, we've got an unsolved murder here of Barbara Bourgeois.” And of course, those patterns matched as well. So police made the connection, and at this point, they knew they had a brutal serial killer on their hands without a doubt. And then on July 7th of 1997, just two months, less than two months after the Joan Brock murder, police were called to a home regarding an attack in Ascension Parish. 

 

Woody: That's right. That's crazy. It's not even months between or since the first body was found. And then I wonder about bodies that they may have never found. It might have been a single person or whatever that could have been killed that could have filled these time gaps. But go back to it. So Mr. Leonce and Joyce Millet, who were both 66 years old, y’all, they were attacked while they were sleeping, and the perpetrator forced Mr. Leonce to open the safe, again on a safe, where a large amount of cash was taken. So the bad guy then shot Mr. Millet in the face in the bedroom area and then he shot Ms. Millet in the dining room area. 

 

Jim: First time he's shooting people now. 

 

Woody: Right. I wonder if that was, again, could have been something they found on the scene. However, both of them survived the incident. It was the first time that the police had live witnesses who could describe the appearance of the killer. And so what they did, as we did in so many cases back then, a composite sketch was done, but there was a lack of physical evidence, including fingerprints or DNA. And so it made locating the suspect difficult. Police decided to turn to the FBI for help by asking the FBI to come up with a psychological profile of the killer. That's the behavioral analysis unit that you see on TV. 

 

So the FBI comes in, they'll work, and they'll look at all the different things, and on the profiles they'll make it fit one way or another. The profile they came up with that said the suspect will have an obvious change in lifestyle due to the amount of money taken off the victims. Like, somebody that's normally poor, now they're blowing money, and the suspect is familiar with and likely from the area where the crimes are taking place. The profile also said the suspect will likely leave town. 

 

Now, survivors exist, but for plausible reasons so as not to raise red flags with family or friends. And they said the suspect is without a doubt, a serial killer. And, y'all, serial killers defines a person that kills two or more people that unrelated times. Like, you walk into McDonald's and shoot five people, you're a serial killer, no. You’re doing different crime scenes at different times and killing different people. 

 

Jim: Yeah. Woody, let me ask you-- When you talk about profiling, it's amazing how the FBI does this. They don't always get it right. As a matter of fact, in the Baton Rouge serial killer case-- 

 

Woody: They got the race wrong. 

 

Jim: The race wrong. You want to lean on and take in the advice, I would imagine, of these profilers, but at the same time, you don't want to maybe lock into it so much that you totally ignore. 

 

Woody: You know how they get the profiles? 

 

Jim: No. 

 

Woody: They go into the prisons and-- Let's say, serial killers, and they'll give them this big questionnaire and say, “You can't get in trouble for anything that you answer.” It covers the questions. It's like, thousands of questions, and it covers them from the time they can remember as a kid to the time they got arrested for their crimes as an adult. It's just everything, favorite color to this, to whatever, whatever, all these different questions. Then they take them back to Quantico, and they study them, and they're able to break them down in certain groups. 

 

Jim: Wow. 

 

Woody: And said that they were so successful on serial killers, they went back and did it for serial rapists and all the major crime groups. 

 

Jim: Very interesting. And in this case, as you'll see as we move along, they were pretty dead on their profile of this guy. So shortly after receiving the profile from the FBI, the police had a decision to make. Anytime you're working a case and something like this is so high profile, you have to be careful what you put out there. There's some things you don't want to put out there because you want to save something that only the killer would know, maybe.

 

Woody: It helps cut out on the crazies that call in. 

 

Jim: Absolutely. I'm sure you get those. [chuckles] If you'll remember people, there's a case going on right now with the Idaho serial Killer, where police had a ton of information, but they did not release it. It was to the point the public was thinking, “These guys don't know what they're doing.” The whole time, they knew what they were doing. They were just very smart about it. They didn't want to tip off the killer. 

 

Woody: Yes. 

 

Jim: So this was a similar situation to that. But at some point, you have to say, “We've got to release some things and get the public's help.”

 

Woody: Basically out of fear of, “If we don't, we might be missing out on some information. But more importantly, if someone gets killed by this person again, we could have forewarned them.” 

 

Jim: Yeah, so, they do. They release the sketch that was made of the suspect and the results from the FBI profile. They even open up a tip line. And as you would imagine, they get a massive response. And I'm sure some of those were from the crazies. [laughs] 

 

Woody: Yeah, I've got everything from, there's a shooter on the grassy knoll to Martians to whatever. But one of these tips was received from a video poker worker in the River Parishes area. And that's somebody who will work on these machines or collect the money and stuff. Part of the money goes to establishment, part of it goes to state of Louisiana. But the worker stated there was a regular whose spending habits dramatically increased and looked similar to the composite drawing. During the interview with the worker, the worker stated that the suspect had started wearing expensive jury and had just purchased a brand new motorcycle, like the profile said. When asked what the suspect drove prior to the motorcycle, the worker stated it was a pickup truck with a boom in the back to lift engines. 

 

Jim: That's a big clue. 

 

Woody: Right.

 

Jim: That's a huge clue. 

 

Woody: You don't see many of those. 

 

Jim: No. 

 

Woody: This information was then passed on to the detectives with the Gonzales at Dallas Police Department, and it caught the eye of Detective Dowell Brenn. Detective Brenn actually knew an individual who drove a truck fitting the description by the name of Daniel Blank. And not only did he drive a truck with the boom in the back, which is rare, but he also knew Daniel Blank used to work for a good friend of his who was, guess? Victor Rossi, who was the first victim, the murder victim in our story. 

 

Jim: Ah, that's huge. 

 

Woody: Again, we said Gonzales was a small community, and everybody knows everybody. 

 

Jim: Right. You say it a lot on Real Life Real Crime that don't hesitate if you think something is important. Police are putting the case out there, don't hesitate to mention it. These people who worked at these video poker places, they saw this guy all the time. And had they not called in and mentioned any of that, there's no telling how many more. 

 

Woody: They've never known anything. I joke about the crazies that call in, but don't ever feel stupid about your information or whatever. Just call it in, no matter how small, because you never know the case is going to break the case. Tip is going to break the case. 

 

Jim: That's right. So the Detective Dowell Brenn, he gets this to the detective actually working the case, which was an individual by the name of Detective Toney. They start looking into Daniel Blank. Detective Toney proceeds to his last known address, which was in Sorrento, and Sorrento is- 

 

Woody: Just north of Gonzalez. 

 

Jim: -just north of Gonzalez in Ascension Parish. He encounters someone by the name of Dorothy Racher, who is the mother of the suspect's girlfriend, Cynthia Ballard. Racher tells the officer that Blank did not live there anymore, but indicated she would try to get a message to him. So get this, y'all. About 15 minutes later, Blank calls the detective at his office. As soon as he walks in the office, somebody says, “You got a call from a guy named Daniel Blank.” And so the officer advises Daniel Blank that he wanted to question him concerning some murders that had occurred in Livingston Parish. And as a matter of fact, we're going to go ahead right now and we're going to play you that phone call.

 

Woody: In Ascension Parish, right? 

 

Jim: Yes. We're going to play you that phone call of Daniel Blank calling. It's apparent if you ain't figured it out by now that as soon as he left, the mother of the girlfriend called him and said, “The police are looking for you.” So here's that. 

 

Toney: Hello.

 

Daniel: This is Daniel Blank calling. 

 

Toney: Yes.

 

Daniel: Supervisor told me that the sheriff was looking for me. 

 

Toney: Yes, that's me. I'm Sergeant Toney. I'm with the Sheriff's office. We work in cases over here-

 

Daniel: Uh-huh.

 

Toney: -and your name came up in it. 

 

Daniel: Okay. 

 

Toney: We have some elderly people that's been murdered, and one of these people you used to work for, Mr. Brock? 

 

Daniel: Well, I worked for him many years ago. 

 

Toney: Well, his wife was murdered. She's one of these elderly people too.

 

Daniel: Yeah. 

 

Toney: Were you living Onalaska now? 

 

Daniel: I live in Texas. Yeah.

 

Toney: What kind of work are you doing now there, Daniel? 

 

Daniel: Mechanic work. 

 

Toney: Mechanic work? 

 

Daniel: Yeah. 

 

Toney: Did you come into any money lately? 

 

Daniel: Yeah, I won some money at the casino. 

 

Toney: How much money you won? 

 

Daniel: I think close to $50,000, I guess. 

 

Toney: $50,000?

 

Daniel: Uh-huh.

 

Toney: You're going to be back in Louisiana anytime soon? 

 

Daniel: Well, I was supposed to try to go down there this weekend. 

 

Toney: This weekend? Let me give you my name, and when you get in town, I'll give you my pager number, you call me. 

 

Daniel: All right then.

 

Toney: All right then.

 

Daniel: Bye.

 

Toney: Bye.

 

Jim: Now, you just heard in that clip, Daniel admit not only that he had known one of the murder victims, but that he had also come into a lot of money. The detectives were that-- at this point, they're believing this guy is not only a hot suspect, he's likely the guy that did it.

 

Woody: Well, now they got to stay focused on him until they can prove or disprove it. 

 

Jim: Daniel Blank, he agrees to come and meet with the officer on the following weekend and to bring proof of his gambling winnings. Blank apparently returned to Louisiana from Texas, where he was living at this point, and left documentations concerning his winnings at the casino with Ms. Reacher[?], his girlfriend's mother. Detective Toney collects those documents, and he conducts a background check on Daniel Blank to determine whether his income could support his gambling activity at the various casinos. So get this, y'all. When you put that card inside of the machine to get your points, which you don't realize is going on, or some of you may, but it's tracking your winnings and your losses. 

 

This was where they did something really smart. They issued subpoenas to these local gambling establishment, and it showed that Blank had run a total of $269,000 at three casinos. He cashed out a total of $220,216. So he had a net loss of almost $50,000. Managers at the Treasure Chest Casino indicated that based on Blank's wagering history, he had a player profile of a corporate executive with annual earning of over $200,000. 

 

Woody: Wow. 

 

Jim: So that's how casinos can actually break this stuff down and try to figure out what you do for a living. It's amazing. 

 

Woody: How many rooms to comp you or buffets or whatever-- [crosstalk]  

 

Jim: That's right. 

 

Woody: Keep you playing. 

 

Jim: They know if you're winning or losing. 

 

Woody: Yeah.

 

Jim: To contrast that with what reality was of Daniel Blank, which is something these police did, the Louisiana Department of Labor records revealed that Blank had no reported earnings for 1997, and annual earnings of only $13,767.

 

Woody: He lost, what, four times that amount? 

 

Jim: Yeah. And $5,410 in 1995. So Department of Motor Vehicle records said that Bellard and Blank had purchased a pickup truck, him and his girlfriend, a station wagon, a motorcycle, and a utility trailer in 1997. 

 

Woody: You got no job.

 

Jim: And you got no job.

 

Woody: Just paying $5,000. 

 

Jim: That's right. And the task force also learned that on July 15th of 1997, Blank had purchased a mobile home for $22,000 in Onalaska, Texas. And so Detective Toney has all this information. He calls Blank again, and he says, “Look, man, you need to meet with and kind of-- we can go over this stuff and see where you're getting this money,” is the way he kind of tried to spin that. Blank says, “Okay, I'm coming down this weekend.” Never shows. 

 

Woody: Never shows up. 

 

Jim: So police at this point, they know that they're dealing with somebody who is 99.9% the killer of these-- 

 

Woody: They definitely can't get off of them now. 

 

Jim: That's right. 

 

Woody: The more they go, the more information they get. Makes it look worse for Blank. 

 

Jim: Yeah. So they start digging into his background. They start trying to connect some dots.

 

Woody: Y'all, and the police were able to connect Daniel Blank to every one of the murder victims. Listening to the connections that they made. Victor Rossi, Blank worked for him. Ms. Joan Brock, Blank worked for her husband. Barbara Bourgeois, Blank lived close to her for a time. Mr. Lillian Philippe, had actually bought auto parts from her husband. The Arcuri's, girlfriend's employer was right across the street from where they lived. They also knew robbery was the primary motive, and Daniel Blank had a badass gambling addiction. 

 

Jim: Well, he sure did. And so if you're an investigator at this point, Woody, what are you thinking? 

 

Woody: Keep digging, keep digging till-- I definitely think it's him, but keep digging and digging and digging, so you can get that probable because it's murder. 

 

Jim: Yes. And so police eventually, the issue they're running into is, he's in Texas, they're in Louisiana. The problem in all these cases is they had no physical evidence. So technically, all they had to go on was a ton of circumstantial stuff, and they couldn't force Daniel Blank to meet with them. 

 

Woody: Let me interject real quick. Look, I heard it told in a murder trial like this on the types of evidence we're talking about. If you're standing outside and the clouds darken and it's cold and you see snowflakes actually coming down, you see it and you feel and they land on your head and they land on your face, that's direct evidence. Now, if you're inside and you're getting ready to go to bed and you look out the window, and there's no snow on the ground, it's dry, but it's cold, and the same clouds are there, and you go upstairs and you take a nap, and you come back down and you look out the window, and then yard is white, six inches snow, you reasonably can assume that it's snow. You didn't see it directly, but you can assume, and that's what's going on with Blank. 

 

They got all this, “Hey, we were taking a nap, but look at all this evidence.” They didn't have that direct. They didn't see him do it. They don't have the DNA or whatever yet, but everything's points towards him. 

 

Jim: Everything's pointing that way. After he stood him up and did not show up when he said he would to talk about all this, the detective said, “Well, we're going to go to him.” 

 

Woody: Absolutely. 

 

Jim: So they knew where he lived in what was now Onalaska, Texas. And so Detective Toney, accompanied by members of the task force, including Officer Brenn, Lieutenant Benny DeLaune, Detective Todd Hymel, and FBI Agent David Sparks proceed to Onalaska to interview him. They were armed with search warrants for both his home and his business. He had a business there. 

 

So the task force encounters him on November 13th of 1997. When they arrived at his place of business, he had a business called Daniels Automotive, and he readily agreed to accompany these officers to the Onalaska Courthouse. And so for the next 12 hours, Detective Toney and other members of this task force questioned Daniel Blank, first, about his spending habits and later about his participation in the murders. Now, in the interview, they were hammering him, absolutely hammering him on money. That's obviously where they felt like they had a really strong case. 

 

Remember we told you, they went back through his background, they tracked his gambling spending. He was $50,000 in the hole, yet he was driving a car in Texas that he paid $20,000 cash for. He paid $20,000 for his trailer that he was living in there, all cash. And he furnished it with $1,000 worth of furniture. They knew as a blue collar mechanic, he was making in the neighborhood of about $40,000 a year, even if he was getting paid cash. Well, Daniel Blank was trying to explain this away by saying these were gambling winnings. “Where are you getting this cash?” “Oh, I win at the casino.” 

 

Woody: Yeah. What they're doing is they're locking him into his statements. They asked him a question about it. “Oh, I won it at casino.” “That's your story.” So you lock him into it, and then you come back a circle back around and do what they about to do. 

 

Jim: Yeah. So they lay it out there and they say, “Look, we've been tracking this. We know how much you've won and lost at the casino. You're on the hole $50,000. Daniel, and you didn't make by five grand last year.” And you can see in this interrogation that he’s just-- It's pressure, man. This guy's feeling a lot of pressure, and these detectives are really astute at interrogation. So they ask him at some point if he would agree to take a polygraph. They do three separate polygraphs, and Daniel Blank fails everyone with flying colors. 

 

Woody: Yes. We're talking about, they probably did three different ones because of the amount of victims. There's usually three questions that are directly related to the victims. Instead, they don't say, “Did you kill Ms. Barbara?” You never do that because that's an emotion vocal term you'd say something like, “Did you know Ms. Barbara Bourgeois?” Give him to say, “Yeah,” and say, “Have you ever harmed Bourgeois?” Defining that as everything from punching her in the mouth to beating her with a vacuum cleaner and then get him say no. But the question on the test would simply be, “Have you ever harmed Ms. Barbara Bourgeois?” It would come back as deception indicated, which they're saying he took three separate tests. I would assume that they're on three separate issues and he had deception indicated to all of them. 

 

Jim: Yeah. And you have to remember, this is over a 12-hour time period. So they are trying to also emotionally connect with Daniel Blank. 

 

Woody: The polygraph is just an interrogation tool. 

 

Jim: It's not even admissible. 

 

Woody: Well, it is if both sides agree to it, which they're never going to do. But you use it in the right hands, you use it to break a person down. I've had people sitting in the chair all cocky and confident. By the time I got done, they were slouched down, almost crying, and when I tell them that they fail. 

 

Jim: Yeah.

 

Woody: You're right that throughout this whole 12 hours, they're making personal connections, and breaking them down, hammering them to get the juice. 

 

Jim: And to tell you some interesting interrogation techniques that Woody can back up here with some first-hand evidence. When they first got to the room, this interrogation room, and it's just like you pictured on TV, it's a big table, and there's two detectives, and Daniel Blank. Initially, when they walk in the room, Daniel Blank is sitting across from one of the detectives. So the detectives say, “Well, you sit here,” and they pointed to the end of the table and had Daniel Blank sit there. The detective explained that you never want anything between you and the guy you're interrogating. It's almost a barrier.

 

Woody: Right. As you're doing it, and as interrogation goes on, the connection goes on, you close that distance. Close this distance with the person that you're interrogating, and you may have to put your hand in their knee and get closer. Some of them you got to cry with, and some of them you got to pray with, and some of it just-- Everybody's different, but yeah, I always close that gap and make that personal connection, because even a hard ass, if they believe that you're maybe trying to save their life or whatever and you get on them, and they just-- Most people want to unburden, and you just got to get in there and get it. 

 

Jim: Yeah. That's just what these detectives did. The detective that was actually leading the interrogation, he noticed that every time he brought up Daniel Blank's mother, Daniel Blank would emotionally interact with that. He would get upset. Daniel Blank's mother had passed away three years before this interrogation, and they knew that. And so he brought Daniel Blank's mother up intentionally to see if he could get a reaction. He noticed it would break Daniel down every time he did that. So he did something very interesting in this interrogation and that he turned to him and he said, “Your mother would want you to admit that you did wrong and take responsibility, Daniel. That's what she taught you to do.” 

 

Woody: Right.

 

Jim: He's literally, y'all, putting his hand on Daniel Blank's shoulder as if he's his friend and he's saying, “She would want you to do this.” It is the most bizarre thing. You can literally see him break.

 

Woody: It's like physical connection.

 

Jim: Almost like he was having a heart attack.

 

Woody: Right. Using a mom against him. 

 

Jim: So he does. He breaks, and he confesses to these killings. We'll get into those in the next episode as we go through the trial and the aftermath of that, because he does give some details that we have. But he confesses to these killings, and he confesses to every one of them. Eventually, over time, the detectives then formally arrest him, and they bring him back to Louisiana. We have an article that we're going to read you. Woody is going to read you from The New York Times that is dated November 17th, 1997, and it contains some details that we definitely didn't want to miss. Woody's going to read you that article. 

 

Woody: Again, y’all, now with his confessions, you're outside and you get to see the snow, right? 

 

Jim: Yeah. That's right. 

 

Woody: Not only did he [crosstalk] look like it was about to snow, it's actually snowing. It's a blizzard. So this New York Times, it's titled Mechanic Held in Series of Killings; Police in Louisiana Say Gambling Habit Motivated Suspect. November 17th, 1997. So basically, a year after the first murder, or almost a year after the first murder. So it says, “At the Airline Motors lunch counter in sugar-cane country, a rifle-shot away from the muddy churn of the Mississippi River, they talk about Daniel J. Blank is as straightforward as the food served here. He was a gifted mechanic, a quiet customer with deep blue eyes, a family man who drank his coffee black. But last week Mr. Blank was jailed, arrested on three charges of first-degree murder. The local authorities said he had confessed to six murders, including a double bludgeoning of an elderly couple just across the street from the diner. 

 

His arrest, a big event in a town that often goes a year without a killing, stirred the memory of a waitress, Gloria Vicknair. Only a few months ago, Mr. Blank, the son of a sugar-refinery worker, emerged from the video poker stall in the back of the restaurant and asked her to change two crisp $100 bills, a lot of money for a man who usually ordered only black coffee. Ms. Vicknair said she made the change but thought nothing of it. ‘'They say it's always the quiet ones that'll surprise you, he was extra quiet,’ she said after the arrest was announced. ‘Of course, I was lucky. He went after wealthy people. I work for a living, thank God.” 

 

A quest for the big win and lust for a piece of the American dream, the police said, was what drove Mr. Blank to kill six elderly residents within 20 miles of his family's home in the River Parishes, a water-bound stretch of chemical plants and sugar cane between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Most of the dead were elderly. Most were found in their homes with their pockets turned inside out. Nearly all had at least a nodding acquaintance with Mr. Blank. 

 

One couple survived being beaten and shot, Leonce Millet Jr. and his wife, Joyce, both 66, of Gonzales. The authorities said Mr. Blank had killed to feed a gambling habit. “He favored slot machines and video poker,” acquaintances said, and visited many different gambling parlors. Toward the end of his suspected string of killings, Sheriff Wayne Jones of St. John the Baptist Parish said, “It became apparent that Mr. Blank was either on an extraordinarily lucky streak or was up to no good.“ The authorities estimate that he had stolen as much as $200,000, much of which he was believed to have squandered at the casinos. 

 

“He was without question a gambling addict,” Sheriff Jones said. “I guess you could say his income didn't quite correspond with his life style. He has confessed to these murders, "the authorities said, which occurred between October 1996 and June 1997. Victor Rossi, 41 years, of St. Amant, Barbara Bourgeois, years 58, of Paulina, Lillian Philippe, years 71, of Gonzales, Sam Arcuri, years 76, and his wife, Louella, years 69, of LaPlace, and Joan Brock, years 55, of LaPlace. Mr. Blank is to be arraigned in LaPlace on Monday. 

 

The police have given little information about the case, saying only that a tip had led to the arrest. But their relief is obvious. “It was the first homicide we had experienced since 1986,'’ Bill Landry of Gonzales said. 

 

Jim: Wow.

 

Woody: Right. I actually know him. He was a good dude. ''We weren't prepared. We had to retrain ourselves. His office handled three of the cases. One murder in April and a double murder attempt in July.” Acquaintances and family members said that since the killings began late last year, Mr. Blank had lived at a notch or two above transient status, making three moves in the River Parishes and then moving in the summer to a small resort town in eastern Texas. Mr. Blank was taken into custody in Onalaska, Texas on Friday, about four months after he reportedly tried to buy a four-bay automobile repair shop there for $65,000 in cash.

 

During this time, Mr. Blank periodically appeared at his boyhood home, a jumble of trailers and frame structures in Paulina, west of LaPlace, to report on his new fortune. Once, Mr. Blank, known as bone to his family, wheeled into the dusty yard on a shiny red Suzuki motorcycle. On two other occasions, he arrived with huge cardboard copies of checks from casinos in nearby Kenner and Baton Rouge. The checks, payable to Daniel Blank, totaled $33,000. “Daniel went to casinos pretty often,” said Mr. Blank's sister, Sally Blank, a 34-year-old cosmetology student and one of eight siblings. “He said he won big, and he showed us the papers to prove it. He told us they took his picture at the casino.” Sally Blank said, “The family had taken her brother at his word and had been shocked by his arrest.” 

 

Her brother had been in trouble before, Ms. Blank said, but not since he was a teenager. “He burned down a building when he was a teen-ager and had to go to reform school,” Ms. Blank said, “But a lot of teen-agers get in trouble. I don't think he did it. At least not all alone, not all by himself.” 

 

Mr. Blank had apparently been living quietly in Onalaska, a small town a few hours from Houston, in a double-wide trailer with his wife, Cindy, and their four children. He was working as a mechanic out of a former muffler shop he leased from Don Evans, a retiree in Onalaska. “What happened was the mayor referred him to me, said he was looking to buy a piece of property,” Mr. Evans said. “I leased him the shop, although he did offer to buy it. Said he'd pay me $65,000 in cash.” “That kind of scared me,” Mr. Evans said. “I refused.” 

 

Mr. Evans said he was later told by his 12-year-old daughter, a friend of Mr. Blank's 12-year-old daughter that Mr. Blank had made a fortune playing video poker machines. To Mr. Evans, Mr. Blank was an expert mechanic. “I've been at this for 35 years,” Mr. Evans said, “And just from talking to him I knew he must have been born and raised a mechanic. That boy knew transmissions inside and out. I don't know about all that gambling nonsense. It seemed to me he was interested in being successful in business and living in a way he'd never been able to as a kid.” 

 

Well, the problem was, Mr. Evans said, “Mr. Blank was nearly broke when the Louisiana and Texas authorities surrounded his trailer on Friday.” Among the items recovered, according to news accounts from Texas, was a cane-cutting knife, apparently smeared with blood and hair. Mr. Evans locked the repair shop after Mr. Blank's arrest. As he went through the jumbled contents of the office, he said, he came across the latest bank statement for Daniel's Automotive. “He had $123 in it, and 11 cars in the lot waiting to be repaired,” Mr. Evans said. “Thank God they arrested him,” Mr. Evans said. “I'll tell you what, I think he was just about ready to do it again.” 

 

Jim: Yeah. 

 

Woody: Hell of an article.

 

Jim: He was running low on money, brother. And yeah, I thought that was very well written and nobody reads them better than Woody does. 

 

Woody: Yeah, that was a good find. Pretty good piece. Christopher Cooper wrote that, y'all, shoutout to him.

 

Jim: Yeah, shoutout to him. We're not even-

 

Woody: Scratching the surface.

 

Jim: -scratching the surface of what you're going to hear in the second episode of this. 

 

Woody: I don't know how there's not been a movie about Daniel Blank. People have contacted me over the years about it. I think you and I talked about it before, but this is a bad dude. 

 

Jim: He's a bad dude, and we want to put this out there because we did this before and it worked. And of course, one of our favorite episodes all time was when the Detective Mr. Donald- 

 

Woody: Duck Sharp.

 

Jim: -Duck Sharp came in just a few weeks ago and did an interview with us. If any of the detectives that work closely on this case would be willing to come on Bloody Angola and do an interview with us. We'd love to talk to you. If any of y’all know these detectives, reach out to them and tell them we'd love to talk to them about it.

 

Woody: I think [crosstalk] chief editor is deceased now. So you're talking about 2017 over 25 plus years? 

 

Jim: Yeah.

 

Woody: But yeah, absolutely. If you want to reach out to us, we'd love to talk to you. 

 

Jim: Love to talk to you. Stay tuned, because next week, we're going to get into immediately following the arrest. There's some interesting things we haven't told you yet that are going to make you say, “Hmm.” So look for that. Thank you to all the patrons, as we said at the beginning. Please rate, comment, subscribe, and-

 

Woody: Yeah, leave a review. 

 

Jim: -leave a review, and follow us on your favorite network as we work to spread the word. 

 

Woody: Yes, indeed. 

 

Jim: And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. 

 

Woody: I'm Woody Overton.

 

Jim: Your host of Bloody-

 

Woody: -Angola. 

 

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making. 

 

Woody: Complete story of America's bloodiest prison. 

 

Jim and Woody: Peace. 

 

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