Zordon Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences, listener discretion is advised.

You know, murders were taking place and then singing and dancing was taking place. Hello and welcome to Season seven, Episode 164 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

They people are shit, if you haven't figured that out in the last hundred and sixty three episodes. It's worth saying again they'll do all kinds of things, evil things when it benefits them.

Humans, deep down are self-centered, narcissistic, selfish, evil little creatures. Yeah, you are, too. So am I. But most of us find a way to repress that, to push it back and live normal, civilized lives. But others can't seem to figure that out.

Today's story is about one of those little evil creatures. So keep your playbill handy and settle into your theater chair. The curtain is rising. Enjoy the show.

To be or not to be, thespian culture is a world of its own entire off stage drama performances occur between cast members, sometimes having an even more titillating storyline than the player musical.

They're all rehearsing to perform in front of a real audience on a real stage. The classic Shakespearean tragedy follows a formula ending with a disastrous conclusion, usually as a result of the main character's internal conflict and subsequently succumbing to his or her own negative traits. The things that we call demons that live within them, so to speak.

Well, have them. You know, those demons, what we once considered very real supernatural beings associated with evil that have been prevalent in our religions, our literature, our mythology, the idea that these spirits with divine power could inhabit our souls and drive us to evil places is one that has been permanently affixed to Western culture, hell, even human culture. Today's story is about those demons.

It was Saturday, May 22nd, 2010, when Steve Herr was trying to get a hold of his son, Sam, who lived in an apartment complex in Costa Mesa, California. Sam was Steve's best friend, is only child, and he planned to spend the whole weekend with both of his parents at their place in Anaheim Hills. So, of course, it was strange that he never showed up to his parents house and even stranger still, that he wasn't answering his phone towards the latter part of the evening.

Around 9:00 p.m., Steve drove over to Sam's apartment to check in on him. He was getting really nervous at this point, not having heard anything from his son for the previous two days. He let himself in and started to look around calling for Sam, but he got no response. When he entered his son's bedroom, he saw something that would be burned into his memory for the rest of his life. OK, what's going on, sir?

As I said before, there's a lot of bodies. A dead body, dead body. Are you sure, sir?

Did she just ask him if he's truly seeing a dead body? Yes, she did.

I'm sure. Sure. Cold. OK, hold on just a minute. Is it someone that you know, sir? You here? I don't know what's going on. Does your son know who it is? Do you know where your son is? No, I don't think so. Just keep breathing for me, sir. OK, we're in the apartment. Is she in the bedroom? He insists on sexual activity. He there was blood from her head.

I don't know what to say. That's OK. Just stay in there, OK?

Steve, her mentions to the operator that he didn't know who this woman was. He still couldn't locate his son. And the woman's body in the bedroom gave Steve the impression that there had been some sexual activity before her death.

I think it is those experiences. I know I'm still here, sir. I'm not going to hang up, OK, until there's someone there with you. Is anybody else in the apartment besides, you know, no one else is in there. I heard somebody say, OK, who are you talking to now? Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Who is that that you're talking to one of the one of your son's friends that work has Jake talk to your son today?

No, I don't need someone.

I want the dead girl laying partially across Sam. Her bed was 23 year old Julie Kebu. She she was bleeding all over the mattress from one single gunshot wound to the head on her back.

Were words written. They said all yours. Fuck you. Police found out quickly who she was because her purse with her ID was found in the kitchen. It seemed like she had gone into the apartment, willingly gone there to die, or perhaps some horrible fate awaited her there unexpectedly. But where was Sam? Before we get further into this story, it's important to mention that we spoke to a woman writing a book about this case. She has a personal connection to the people involved, and she does a great job filling in some of the gaps the mainstream media left out when this crime occurred.

Her name is Glendale.

Julie and Sam were only friends. She didn't live with him. She lived at home in Irvine with her parents, not romantically involved at all. That was emphasized dozens of times by the prosecution during the trial.

This is an interesting fact, given that Julie was found in a position suggesting some sort of sexual assault, could this have been an. Instance of unrequited attraction, they had met each other when they were both students at Orange Coast College and they were in an anthropology class together and Julie was doing really well in the class system, was failing in the class they had met, and she offered to help tutor him in the anthropology class. And then they just became very close friends.

Sam, in any interviews that were given in any testimonies, was always described as like a Big Brother kind of thing to Julie, that it wasn't a romantic thing, but that he felt very protective of her as a person. She did not live there. She did occasionally sleep on the couch if she was out late and didn't want to drive home. But yeah, that's important to note.

When Steve her called nine one one the evening of May 22nd, it's clear that there is fear in his voice, an undertone indicating his worry that his son may have had something to do with Julie Kibbutz's demise. After all, Sam was nowhere to be found and there was a dead girl on his bed. To make matters even more compelling, this was not the first time Sam found himself accused of murder. The 26 year old was a well-built, good looking veteran who had served time in Afghanistan.

But his previous murder charges had nothing to do with his military time.

Sam had actually been on trial when he was a teenager, about like a gang activity related situation where he was accused of luring a friend to an area where a rival gang jumped the guy and killed him. It's also another strange story. And Sam's his own confession to this got thrown out because of technical reasons. So he didn't end up serving any time for that.

This did not make the situation look any better in the eyes of the police. This was the murder of a young, innocent girl and a man with a criminal history and time spent in military combat beginning to show signs of PTSD and now was seemingly on the run when the police took a look through Julie's cell phone. They saw the texts, texts from Sam, her to Julie's phone starting the previous day, Friday, May 21st. He first tells Julie that he was helping his neighbor Dan move some things, helping dad, then headed to folks for the weekend.

But later in the night, it seemed that Sam decided not to go to his parents house and instead began to text Julie and what seemed to be some sort of emotional distress. Can you come over tonight at midnight alone? Very upset and need to talk. I'm hurting some bad family crap. I can't be alone. No sex.

Oh, Julie, remind Sam via text that she's there for him like family. Sam says, I feel like I have no one. I can share this with you. Sure you won't let me down? Please don't bring anyone. I don't want anyone else to know what's going on. This seem to be an obvious conclusion for authorities. Sam had lured Julie to his apartment, sexually assaulted her and ended up killing her. Now they just needed to locate Sam.

The Costa Mesa Police Department immediately issued a flyer stating this murder suspect considered armed and dangerous on five to ten at approximately twenty one. Twenty two hours, Costa Mesa Police Department responded to an apartment building on Pine Creek in reference to a report of a deceased female. Officers who arrived on the scene determined this to be a homicide. The twenty three year old female victim did not reside at the apartment with the suspect and was determined to be a friend. Only suspect Samuel Eliezer.

Her had the victim come to his apartment on five twenty one ten to speak with him due to him being depressed, possibly over a recent breakup. The victim was found in her apartment, deceased with a gunshot wound to the head. At this time, CMPD has been unable to locate her. Her previously served in the military served time in Afghanistan. And received a combat medal, her is considered to be armed and dangerous and is possibly suicidal, use extreme caution.

Her is believed to be in possession of an unknown model. Handgun suspect is twenty six years old, male, white, six feet tall, two hundred and five pounds, brown hair, blue eyes, both arms sleeved with tattoos. As police began monitoring credit card and cell phone activity, Sam's bank notified them of withdrawals made at an ATM in Long Beach with Sam's bank card. Two separate ATMs were used and four separate cash withdrawals were made using this particular card.

When they finally got the opportunity to view the footage from the cameras inside the ATM machines, they saw not Sam, but a teenage boy withdrawing the cash from his account.

They noticed this same bank card was used to order pizza. So police went to the shop and got the address the pizza was delivered to because they didn't know what they'd be walking into. Authorities prepared to surround the home in Long Beach with not only a full SWAT team but a helicopter and a fully developed tactical plan. When they arrived, a scared seventeen year old boy came out of the home and was forced onto the ground. After thoroughly raiding the home, Sam Hurra was nowhere to be found.

The teenage boy was Wesley Freilich, and he truthfully had no idea what was going on, nor did he know anything about Sam, her or the murder of Julie Kabui. She. He did, however, have a debit card with Sam Herr's name on it, but what was the link between Wesley and the murder?

How did he end up with Sam's bank card? Exactly what the hell was going on here?

OK, I actually met Daniel Wozniak almost exactly ten years from today, I met him in 2010. He seemed just like a musical theater actor, which might not relate to everybody, but he was happy go lucky. Or at least that was the persona. He made a lot of jokes he liked, you know, singing randomly. He had a loud voice. He was gregarious, very friendly, very outgoing. And it seemed to me like most people liked him.

At least, you know what I could see on the surface, most people liked him, but he also seemed sort of like everybody else. You know, we're not like everybody else, but like many other musical theater guys, nothing about him stood out in particular.

Come on, you know the type. It's always like they're on stage performing. It's a whole personality. I've met a few of this type of person, but pretty annoying. All the world's a stage and that sort of thing. It's like the entire universe was designed for the performance of their life. Glendale is very familiar with this type of person, having been a community theater director in Orange County. Back in 2010, she started scoping out other local productions for actors and actresses for her own upcoming production, and especially in this case, I was a hunt on a hunt for actors who could sing.

So that brought nine into my view. Those actors came into our theater and I sort of started to make communication with them and sort of open up the ideas of, hey, I'm doing this show this summer. I would really love to see you come out and read for it. You've got a great voice, et cetera, et cetera. That is how I met Daniel Wozniak.

The production Glendower, speaking about nine, was one in which Daniel was performing just a few months prior to the one she would be holding auditions for. She really needed a man with a loud, deep voice who could pull off a roll of characters in his 40s.

And Dan was the man for the job.

Did Daniel Wozniacki have the greatest singing voice in the world? No. Did he have a nice, deep, loud voice? Yes. Could he hold a tune? Yes. Was he likable on stage? Yes. Was he a brilliant actor? He was.

OK, for those that don't know, that's generally pretty difficult to find. Decent male actors who could also sing. Women in the theater world with these talents seem to be abundant and diverse, but good male actors are hard to find for community theater especially. In the musical nine, Daniel would be costarring with his fiancee, Rachel Buffett. The interesting thing is the show nine, it had very few company members. Well, they weren't company members. They were sort of just visitors, guests that came in.

And this was the first show for either Dan or Rachel. So none of us knew them before they came in. It was all very much early first impressions. And while his first impression was that of gregarious, friendly, likeable and likes everybody, her first impression gave more of a don't really want to talk to you. Not that interested in what you have to say. A little bit snobbish.

Rachel must have really turned the charm on and off, depending on whether she was acting on stage or acting in the character department at Disneyland, which was another one of her jobs.

She was twenty two at the time, a cute, petite blonde who often played Alice in Wonderland at the theme park, among other similar characters. These two, to say the least, were well versed in putting on a friendly, happy, carefree mask facing the public. Here's a blooper for a promotional video from one of the other shows Daniel costarred in with his fiancee, Rachel.

Hi, my name is Dan Wozniak. I'll be playing the role of John Davis in Orange County deputy. OK, take it again. Hi, my name's Rachel.

We're playing this is a guy Daniel was the apple of Grendel's eye for her own show and she continued to hound him about auditioning for it later on in the month of May, once nine had concluded.

I went through so much effort to get him to audition for Bad Boy and I was positive he was going to show up. And then the day of my bad boy auditions, one of the other people who worked in the theater told me, don't hold your breath about Daniel Wozniak coming to your auditions. He's just been arrested during his bachelor party on May 26.

Daniel was accosted by police and taken into custody for his presumed connection to what seemed to be a bank card scheme. Dan had just finished up one performance, only to begin another one inside the interrogation room with police. So at this point, police had determined that Dan was NIAC, was probably the last person to have seen Sam her.

Perhaps he knew where Sam was now. And this was proven by a series of texts from Sam to Julie stating that Sam would be helping Daniel move some things.

That evening, the 17 year old kid, Wesley Freilich, had been handed over Sam's bank card by Daniel Wozniacki, and Daniel asked him to withdraw money when they finally had him in the interview room to nail down why exactly he seemed to be linked to all these people. Daniel explained that he had manipulated naive Wesley into helping him run this money scheme.

I said, OK, here's what we're going to do and like I can go appears to Harvey across the street and it was across the street. You know, I was the point. I said, get out, friends in. Go over there and take off. No, that's OK. He has to do was illegal. Said the police didn't believe they were getting the whole story.

They had arrested Daniel for his financial crimes against Sam her. But during the time between the murder of Julie Kebu Ricci and Daniel's arrest, the crime scene unit had processed the murder scene. They knew more than they were telling Daniel, but wanted to see what kinds of stories Daniel would come up with throughout the course of the interrogation. By now, I'm sure you all know how common this technique is. Daniel vehemently claimed that on Saturday evening, May 22nd, Sam Hirsch showed up to his apartment and told him that he had just killed Julie.

Daniel recounted to police that Sam told him he had, quote, done something bad, end quote, and that there was a dead body in his apartment. He told Daniel he had just shot somebody in a fit of rage. He allegedly then vocalize to Daniel that he didn't know what to do. Daniel claimed that he was so caught off guard by being dragged into this mess, he didn't want to help Sam escape. But Sam was a big, intimidating guy and had threatened Daniel saying, quote, I know where you live.

You rat me out, I'm going to fucking kill you. Better yet, I'm going to start with your wife. He went on to tell investigators that he did end up helping Sam escape, but only because he was forced into it and he assured them that he had nothing to do with the physical murder of Julie. The police didn't seem to be buying this story, so they asked him for a DNA sample. They wanted to take some of his saliva.

That was at this point that Dan realized they would soon know whether or not he had been to the murder scene and his performance became even more aggressive and said, help me.

I went upstairs and maybe that was my you. So we might hear the truth. That is the truth. And tell us what happened and what to do when you got there. How did you know it was because it was right for the body. OK, so you get longer that just fall off? I don't know. I didn't I didn't do anything.

Truth be told, if Sam Hare had just been missing, then I don't think the police would have looked into it that carefully. It was the finding of an actual body in Sam's apartment that made the police take interest. And they didn't take interest because they were worried Sam was missing. They took interest because they thought Sam had murdered his friend and gone on the lam.

Every step along the way of this investigation made officials think they had it all figured out until each jaw dropping revelation or piece of evidence came into view one at a time.

At first, it seemed like a simple case of a veteran with PTSD murdering his friend and going on the run. Then, as evidence began to point to Dan Wozniacki, it seemed like he may have gotten sucked in and helped Sam make his escape.

While initially sitting in jail for these minor credit card fraud charges, Dan made a call to his fiancee, Rachel. During this call, he asked her not to tell police about the murder weapon and not to give up any incriminating evidence.

Rachel knew the line was recorded and reminded Dan of that. Shortly after making this call, Dan requested to go back into the interview room so he could speak to detectives one final time.

And that's when he dropped this bomb.

He said he wanted to talk to me. What's going on is that he did one. Julie and I got this case in just a few seconds.

I was completely turned on its head.

OK, let me tell you, you killed two shots using my father's gun that I had the motive behind killing Sam was money and money. Tell me about the same incident in which you did. I told them that I needed to do some stuff in the theater. I said, you need to and help me with this thing. I'm really fired the gun before. So I pulled it back and I shot.

Sam Hare is murdered on Friday, March twenty first. Twenty first. He's murdered Friday, March twenty first to twenty ten in the afternoon. And that night Danny and Rachel go and perform in the musical Nine. So Sam is murdered and his body has been left in the attic of a theater in Los Alamitos. And then Dan and Rachel are now in Fullerton performing in a musical in an entirely different theater. Because you have to remember the weekend of the murders, they were both acting in this play at the theater where I worked.

And so they, you know, murders were taking place and then singing and dancing was taking place.

So just to recap here, Sam was dead the entire time police were on the hunt for him. They thought he was Julie Kobayashi's murderer, but instead he had been murdered himself. Friday, May 21st, in the afternoon, Daniel Wozniacki lured Sam into a theater right in the middle of an active military training base in Los Alamitos, California, like he mentions in his confession, he asked Sam to bend down to grab something, and then he shot him in the back of the head twice.

He left the body in the attic of the theater until he could deal with it at a later date.

Now, this is in the attic of a theater that is still in use. It's it's not a theater that is abandoned. And so later on, there was like a children's performance in that same theater. So he knew that he couldn't a body needed to remove the mayor. He just didn't have the the necessary tools to remove the body. So Dan goes back home. Then he tells Rachel that he just murdered Sam Hare. According to his confession. He didn't tell her that, but he did tell her that.

And then the two of them went and performed.

On Friday night, after the show concluded, Daniel returned to his apartment complex where he killed Julie inside of Sam's bedroom, shooting her with the same gun he used to kill Sam and staging the scene like a sexual assault.

Because that said, the jury prior to showing her I got her in I was downstairs in my apartment. I was text messaging. That was Sam's from your readers and asked what sort of text messages were you doing? Because I was saying you need to come to here tonight. You need to come over tonight. What did you just say to me? It was very odd looking around here. You just come from her brother's. Sam just told me he was going through some stuff she said to keep us going.

Soon after he admits this to Rachel, Julie Cheboygan, she starts receiving texts on her phone from the telephone of Sam Hare. Dan Wozniacki and Rachel Buffett are the ones now in possession of Sam Hare's telephone. Dan had taken the telephone when he left Sam's body at the theater in the attic. He'd also taken Sam's wallet. He had gone and gotten this teenage boy to take some money out of Sam's bank account so that it would look like Sam was still moving around out there.

And then Julie is texting back and forth with Sam Harris telephone. Now, obviously, this isn't Sam who's texting her.

The reason Daniel thought Julie needed to be killed, too. Well, here it is in all its stupid glory.

Dan tells Rachel that while he was driving home, he got a cell phone text from this girl. They all know Julie Kebu. She's part of their group of friends. She hangs out with Sam a lot, even though she doesn't live there. Everyone knows her. Everyone is friends with Julie. Sam's message from Julie was basically, Hey, buddy, how are you doing? And Dan was NIAC using Sam's phone, had replied, Oh, I'm just helping out Dan.

So kind of in his own stupidity, Dan told somebody immediately that he was, you know, as Sam Sam is with Dan. So later on when Sam goes missing, they obviously want to talk to Dan. And then later, once Dan arrived home and this is actually proven from the cell phone towers and the records and such, that the other texts, the ones that were very different in nature, the ones where a supposedly depressed Sam Hare was begging his friend Julie Kiba Ricci to come over and hang out with him and talk to him because he's going through some rough things.

None of those texts took place until after Dan got back to Costa Mesa with Sam's found that even the the prosecution believes that Rachel was completely involved in sending those texts.

Dan's confession was he was the one that sent the texts to Julie that he and Rachel came home from their show, from their performance at around 10, 30. They hung out. They watch some TV. He gave her a massage, and then she fell asleep on the couch.

And during that time, he sneaked out of the apartment, went up to the fourth floor, which is where Sam Hare's apartment was.

He met Julie Key Boycie outside of Sam's apartment instead of Sam being there. Now, keep in mind, Julie's getting these messages all night. Where are you? I'm really upset. Don't bring anyone. Please be alone. I only want to talk to you. I don't want anyone else to talk to me. And the whole time she's like, You're my brother Sam. I would never let down a friend. So this part has always been confusing to me that this young woman I met went up to Sam Harris apartment, knocked on the door.

Sam didn't answer the door. And then suddenly Dan Wozniak shows up and says, oh, I can let you into the apartment. As a woman, I would not feel comfortable in that situation.

It's possible that because Julie had met Daniel before and he seemed like a nice, trustworthy guy, that her danger radar was just turned off. She had no reason to think Dan was dangerous. But sometimes in life, there are lessons you learn a little late, sometimes too late. Once Dan let Julie into Sam's apartment and followed her in, it was all over.

I just went to the bathroom because nervous wanted to come again, you want to go back to the hallway and then said, oh, when did you see this? And then I leaned over and over it. When did you feel you have to to kill Julie? What was the rationale behind that? It's kind of crazy, but seriously, seriously even cover the sound and so. Well, why how are they going to make it look like he was on the run and he was the one that did it?

Let's take a moment to clap for Dan's outrageous performance before we go over not only his true and horrendously selfish motives for this crime, but also what he eventually did with Sam's body. The day after killing Julie Kiba, wishe on Saturday, Dan returned to the Liberty Theater on the military base in Los Alamitos to take care of Sam's corpse. This time he brought with them a few tools.

The next day, Dan returns and he does some scouting out to make sure he can get back on the base without going through security. And then that's the day that he went back and did the really who the really awful stuff. I mean, the murders is really awful. But I think one of the things that freaks people out so much is the, you know, the decapitation of Sam Hare's body and cutting off his arms.

I honestly think that takes people over the edge of, OK, people kill people, but once you're cutting off someone's head, that that's a whole other level. Right. So I think he tells me as much as he can remember. But I also think that there's the possibility he does attempt to paint himself in at least a little less horrific a light. But he's never denied certain facts to me. He's never denied that he killed Sam Hare and he has never denied that he cut off Sam Hare's head and cut off Sam Hare's arms and his hand and took those body parts with him in a backpack, carried them to his car, drove to a nearby nature center, the Eldorado Nature Center, and kind of tossed the man's head and arms hand into this wooded area in hopes that animals would take care of that evidence.

His plan had been to do that over time. He hadn't realized how long the process would take. I guess to quote him, the TV lies when they make it seem like that's a very quick thing to do. But it's plan B if things hadn't gone awry. Well, obviously, things had already gone awry for Sam and Julie, but his plan had been to get rid of Sam's body piece by piece out of that attic and then make it seem like Sam was still alive, but just kind of on the run.

Sam, her was a war hero during his time in Afghanistan, he was forced to run through enemy fire over and over again to make sure generators remained functioning for the sake of the rest of the soldiers and their mission. Over the course of his time served, he earned a National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan campaign medal with two campaign stars, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon Parachutist Badge, Combat Action Badge, NATO Medal and several other awards.

He had finished up his time in Afghanistan and was enrolling back in college on his GI Bill when he was ruthlessly murdered by a weird theater actor. What a way to go, Sam had survived all the horror and treachery overseas, only to be disrespected and dismembered by someone who thought only about himself, these murders were committed strictly for the personal gain of a thespian.

If you're a father, you would know what. Give me five minutes with the ironic thing is Sam was a decorated combat veteran in Afghanistan and come back and this happens in this absurd, surreal. We miss our boy and we just miss our boy. If there's ever a case for keeping the death penalty in this state. That's it right there. What he did to my son and what he did to. I am currently the writer of a blog called Daniel Wozniacki is my friend.

It's not an easy thing to write about. And also there's a lot of controversy just wrapped around it and wrapped around the idea that I even call myself Daniel Wozniak's friend, quote unquote.

The people have been bothered by that, specifically when Glen Dell found out that Daniel Wozniacki had officially been charged with the murder. She, just like everyone else who knew him, was absolutely floored.

Oh, there was a great deal of chatter, as you can imagine, because theater people, we don't like to chatter and gossip, right. So, yeah, first of all, everyone was just shocked, stunned, in awe. And then there were the interesting things that people would start to talk about, about like a friend of mine talked about one time when he saw Rachel and Dan arguing in the lobby and he you know, he narrowed it down to, hey, wait, that was the weekend of the murders.

Friends and acquaintances of both Dan and Rachel followed the story closely and kept up to date as things were happening. When Glendale found herself sharing the story with people frequently over dinner or parties, she figured she might have an in with Dan. No one that she knew of was writing anything on him or had interviewed him and she figured Daniel might be willing to talk to her because he already knew who she was.

So I I went to see where he was. Honestly, I was surprised to find out he was still at the Orange County jail five years after his arrest. But that gave me the opportunity to write to him at the Orange County jail and sort of reintroduce myself, reminding him who I was and how we'd met, and that I was sort of just curious how he was doing in his situation and how he was handling everything. And he wrote me back and he was quick to write me back and very friendly in his letter.

He his early letters especially talked a lot about Rachel still and, you know, about his broken heart, how she was the love of his life, everything to him kind of thing. So you definitely knew that he wasn't over her. And then we just sort of chatted back and forth about things. But while we were chatting, I would ask questions, you know, little questions here and there.

During her research and correspondence with Daniel, Glendale soon learned that Rachel was more than likely, much more involved in the crimes than anyone could have ever imagined. Rachel was only charged with lying to police and spent a measly thirty two months in prison for accessory to murder. She, along with her defense team, claimed to this day that she was duped by Daniel Wozniacki, sucked into crimes by a pathological liar and manipulator.

It was like the person I love never really existed. It's hard to eat when your stomach is in knots. Do I have just a horrible judgment of character?

I think this is a very interesting case when it comes to planned murders.

They're fascinating, I think, because it's basically like they're puzzles. And first you got to take all the pieces apart and then you get to put them back together and figure out what really happened. Because when somebody plans a murder, they also plan for police activity and they plan for an investigation and they oftentimes will leave false clues and things like that. So in cases like this, it's the job of the police and most importantly, the jury to think and to use your minds, your common sense as we figure out what happened.

And it's it's interesting and this is one of those cases there was certainly some planning involved in this crime because the overall motive, believe it or not, was money.

Yes. You see, Daniel and Rachel, as we all know by now, we're planning to get married. There's weddings are expensive. I would know, unfortunately. Dan and Rachel were set to wed just two days after Daniel was arrested. In fact, the arrest took place at his bachelor party. Kind of a buzzkill when you say Dan and Rachel needed money to wrap up their wedding and go on a nice honeymoon. Everyone deserves a nice honeymoon. But the couple was so far in debt that they were allegedly about to be evicted from their own apartment, such as the life of an actor.

They owed lots of people money and were struggling to make ends meet in their basic daily life. They certainly didn't have any money to go on a lavish post-nuptial vacation. You know, what's a good solution to that, though? Don't have a honeymoon or postpone it until you pay off your bills. But Dan was determined to have one.

He set his sights on his innocent neighbor, Sam, who Daniel knew had over sixty thousand dollars saved up in his bank account from his time in the military due to his frugality, a skill Dan and Rachel clearly didn't have. One tiny tidbit that confirms Rachel's involvement in the entire murder for money scheme is a man named Chris Williams.

Chris Williams is he's he's likely an unlucky person in this situation or light or lucky because he ended up still love.

But Chris Williams, about two or three days before the murder of Sam Hare, loaned Dan two thousand dollars. And he'd only known Dan for maybe two or three days maximum, but he ended up loaning him two thousand dollars. And so Dan was going to pay Chris back on Friday morning.

That's that's what the story is. That's what's been given to the police. Chris, loan Dan two thousand dollars. Dan was going to give Chris Williams money back on Friday morning.

And Chris Williams waited around Dan's apartment for the next for at least two hours with Dan's fiancee, Rachel, waiting for Dan to come back from getting money to pay back Chris Williams.

Chris Williams story is very interesting because and he testified in both cases, he actually is Rachel's alibi for the murder of Sam Hare. But he was also sort of Rachel's downfall for her getting sentenced to accessory after the fact. He was with Rachel the entire time that Sam Hare was murdered, where as he also stated that Rachel seemed like she was aware of the fact that there were money issues. She didn't seem like she didn't understand what was going on. So they don't get two thousand dollars to pay back Chris Williams.

He only has four hundred dollars to pay back Chris Williams. He gives him the four hundred dollars and Chris Williams leaves.

Rachel neglected to mention Chris Williams or his visit to their apartment when she was interviewed by police, even though Chris was her obvious alibi, something that may have contributed to Sam. Her ending up as Danielle's target is that Daniel was under the impression that Sam had been having an affair with his fiancee, Rachel, which in and of itself is kind of weird that you're killing someone to pay for a honeymoon with the woman who's cheating on you with that same person.

So not only did this guy have money that Dan could steal from, he could also wipe them out of the picture, remove him as a threat, killing two birds with one stone, if you will.

This is what he told me after the fact that his anger at Sam came about from anger more than it came about from wanting to steal money that he found out from Rachel that she and Sam had been sleeping with each other. And now the thing that's interesting is Dan never necessarily got a yes from Sam that he slept with Rachel, but he didn't get a denial either. I have always said I think jealousy is the main motive. And for both murders, I believe that Dan was extremely jealous of Sam.

You know, I have writings with him talking about, you know, what was so great about that guy? What did he have that I didn't have?

Oh, you know, just a job, an education. Good looks. Sixty thousand dollars in the bank and a possible career working his way up the ranks of the military.

Probably the most terrifying thing for Dan would be to see Sam and Rachel together.

This jailhouse phone call between Rachel and Daniel is telling on so many levels, it's almost as if the call is scripted and acted out poorly, I would add. But the correspondence is strange, to say the least.

They line because Michael do this funny. I thought it was the only way I could take care of you because I was a failure. I'm sorry I couldn't be the man that you needed. OK, so maybe want to leave your family then? I left them is they almost reached the point where I almost killed them. You almost missed the point where you told me. No, no. I promise you that the only way you're never going to see me again, maybe you're going to see me again.

I'm gonna tell you all the time. We will figure this out. Okay. I still love you very much. You are so insane and so stupid. But I know in your twisted little mind, they were doing it. I wanted to be happy with. And I hate you for screwing it up there. OK. I love you, City. I'll be right there. Dan Bosniac is a monster. He's a psychopath and he's a pathological liar.

He lies to everyone in his life, lies to his family, steals from his family, lies to his friends, his best friends, strangers, employers, fellow employees and anyone he comes into contact with. The desperation came to a culmination a couple of weeks before this wedding. You heard in the people's opening that Dan was frantic. He had no money at all. They were in debt. They were getting evicted. Dan was panicking. He was worried this wedding was not going to go through.

He was worried Rachel was going to leave him. So out of an act of desperation, he started asking people for money, random people, people he didn't really know, friends, old employers, neighbors, anything he could to provide and keep up this deception to show that he was someone she could rely on. This person you're hearing is Rachel Buffet's defense attorney and all of what he's saying is true, but he had an obligation to paint her as the victim for the trial.

The jury didn't see her as the victim. They found her guilty of accessory after the fact and she was sentenced to those 32 two months in jail.

You've done the math. She's out already.

And truthfully, I believe with all my heart that if Daniel Wozniak and Rachel Buffett had never met, nobody would have been murdered.

And I'm not the only one to. It's like people who knew him beforehand. People I've talked to who knew him beforehand. He's only ever been described as a big teddy bear, a nice guy, fun life of the party. Do anything for a friend.

Never leave you in the lurch unless, of course, you sleep with his girlfriend or you have something he wants, like money. Then he'll leave you not in the lurch, but the attic of a theater without your head as the Kiba wishes are experiencing the worst news, the worst news that a family can get.

What is our hero doing? He's back on stage. Let's talk about Steve here. Steve was his best friend. These are his quotes. For the record, Saturday, May twenty ninth was my son's twenty seventh birthday. And here I am, his father, praying that they find my son's head. Ruckle here. Sam was her prince and her only son. She has no children. Now, because of the horrific nature of Daniel's crimes. The prosecution sought the death penalty in this case and they got it.

How many layers of awful do we need before the death penalty is appropriate? Before the death penalty is the only possible way we can satisfy justice in the case. He did not care about those people. And now I'm asking you to care about those people.

There will not be any executions in California for who knows how long. There haven't been for decades. And the idea, you know, the likeliness that Daniel was NIAC will ever face justice via the lethal injection. That's just not going to happen. I guarantee that will not happen in California. He is more likely to die of old age on death row than he is to actually be executed.

In Dan's case, it's probably better for him that he is separated from the general population in prison, given what he did to a decorated combat veteran and an innocent young girl on death row. He is surrounded every single day by only the worst of the worst. And they're not acting. But I'll bet he fits right in.

Well, that does it for this episode of Sword and Scale, we hope you've enjoyed it. If you love the show, you can get a whole lot more of it. You can get sword and skill plus. Sixty nine exclusive episodes are available right now and they come out every two weeks just head on over to sort of end scale dotcom. Plus it starts at just five bucks a month and includes all sorts of goodies such as store discounts, a third or 20 kilobyte feed and tons of bonus content.

If you join one of the higher tiers, you'll be eligible for physical perks.

The next one is going to be a really cool pin set. And we're going to announce that in June until next time, support your local theater and stay safe.