A Big Ball Of Death - LaPlace, Louisiana

Summary

Small Town Murder — Episode Summary

Episode: A Big Ball Of Death – LaPlace, Louisiana

Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman

Release Date: April 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this gripping, darkly comedic episode, James and Jimmie tackle the chilling case of a spree of brutal murders in and around LaPlace, Louisiana during the 1990s. What begins as an investigation into a seemingly isolated rural murder quickly spirals into a multi-jurisdictional hunt for a serial killer with a very local, and unexpectedly mundane, motive: gambling debt. With their trademark humor and thorough research, the hosts pull apart the details, the devastating impact on the community, and the strange blend of careful planning and reckless violence the perpetrator employed.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

LaPlace, Louisiana: Setting the Scene

• Location & History: Southeastern Louisiana, close to New Orleans. Pronounced “Laplace,” not “Laplace.”
• Community Character: Old European roots (German, French, Italian), repeated natural disasters, and a reputation for being battered by both weather and crime.
  • “No word shall be pronounced the way it looks, sounds, or is spelled. There we go. That’s rule number 12B.” (James, 05:14)
• Town Reviews: Hosts riff on local reviews, highlighting a sense of chaos, persistent hurricane/flood damage, and crime — “quiet yet chaotic neighborhood,” “problems with gangs,” and “most of the people are rude and mean.” (10:23)
• Demographics: 29k people, majority Black, mostly Catholic, median home cost under $200k — but with high violent and property crime rates.
• Festival Culture: Amusing festival announcements, especially the Andouille (sausage) Festival, featuring knockoff bands, a “petite princess party,” and “house DJs” (16:39–21:15).

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Crime Context & Community Impact

• Pre-Murder Atmosphere (Late 1990s): Once “doors unlocked” kind of towns, deeply shaken by a rapid escalation into violence.
• Rural Vulnerability: Many elderly residents kept cash in safes, adding to their risk.
• Communal Panic: By episode’s end, the region is in terror — alarm systems are sold out, people are afraid to sleep, and the police work around-the-clock. (70:19–71:47)

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The Murders: Timeline and MO

1. Victor Rossi (41, Prairieville, Oct 1996)

• Beaten to death with his own baseball bat; $800–$900 stolen. No forced entry. (37:36)
• Prints and DNA on murder weapon do NOT match the accused (later pivotal). (40:25)

2. Barbara Bourgeois (58, Paulina, Mar 1997)

• Beaten with a vacuum cleaner, stabbed; recent widow, special ed worker. (40:46–44:08)
• “It was just a ball of death.” (Officer quote, 42:45) — episode title.
• Intense struggle; may have scared killer off before robbery completed.

3. Lillian Philippe (Older woman, Gonzales, Apr 1997)

• Entered through attic vent after careful planning; bludgeoned with a trophy, stabbed; cash stolen from safe and purse. (24:16, 34:29)
• Investigators find attic grass blades and vent tampered.

4. Sam (76) & Louella Arcuri (69, LaPlace, May 1997)

• Sam: killed with a hammer; Louella: with a cane knife (sling blade).
• $112,000 cash hidden in encyclopedias is missed by killer. (51:00, 52:42)
• Survivors' DNA under fingernails does NOT match the accused. (53:02)

5. Joan Brock (55, LaPlace, May 1997 — five days after Arcuri murders)

• Nearly decapitated in backyard, safe and car stolen. (58:38–60:16)
• MO: Phone lines cut, no forced entry, safe and Nissan Maxima stolen.

6. Leonce & Joyce Millet (Both 66, Gonzalez, July 1997)

• Both survive: attacked with a sling blade, then shot (Leonce in the face!).
• $100,000 taken from safe; both provide a composite of the attacker. (74:16–77:23)
• Their survival and description are key in breaking the case.

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The Profile & Investigation

• FBI Profile: White male, 20s–30s, local, possibly radical behavior changes (quit smoking, new money, visible bruises). (54:49–57:37)
• Pattern: Elderly victims, phone lines cut, entry via window/garages, no weapon brought, uses opportunistic house items (trophy, vacuum, sling blade, etc.), and clear knowledge of who was likely to have large amounts of cash.
• Hilarious composite moment:
  • “If you know someone who just quit smoking, lost a bunch of weight, is covered in cuts, and is driving a Cadillac... let us know.” (James, 57:36)

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Break in the Case: The Square Deal Casino Lead

• Security Guard’s Tip: Regular customer, always broke, then suddenly well-dressed, new motorcycle, gambling heavily after murders started.
• Truck with Homemade Engine Hoist: Unique in area, and detective recognizes it as belonging to Daniel Blank, a former employee of first victim, Rossi. (81:49–82:38)

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Daniel Blank: The Killer

• Background: Small, 5’2”, 120 lbs. (Easy fit through attic vents.) Lifelong local, suffered brain injury at 12, dropped out in 8th grade, low IQ, skilled mechanic, gambling addict.
• Motive: Gambling debts — bet hundreds of thousands at local casinos despite near-zero reported income. (88:05–90:29)
• Selection of Victims: Knew older, cash-holding locals through mechanic work or community ties.
• MO Enhanced: Careful outside (cutting phone lines, disabling alarms, waiting in garages), but chaotic and improvisational violence once confronted inside.
  • “It seems like it’s a gamble.” (Jimmie, 133:03)
• Girlfriend’s Role: Cindy Ballard, persuaded to drive him and aid post-burglary escapes. She is charged as an accomplice but granted immunity for testimony she never delivers. (151:05, 162:28)

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Interrogation & Courtroom Drama

The Confession

• After a 12-hour interrogation, Blank confesses in minute detail—physical layouts, where safes were hidden, victim routines, and specific objects used as weapons. (119:13)
• Key Emotional Moment: Detective gets Blank to break down by invoking his deceased mother, who he’d been especially close to.
  • “Your mom is up in heaven watching you right now, talking to me.” (James, 118:30)
  • “Danny, still crying, says, no.” (Confession, 119:00)
• This becomes the sole direct evidence.

Trial, Appeals, and Physical Evidence

• No forensic evidence: No fingerprints or DNA match Blank at any crime scene. In fact, other (unknown) male DNA and prints were found.
  • “How did he not leave anything there?” – Jimmie (123:17)
• Defense Argument: Confession coerced; Blank’s low IQ and vulnerability exploited; physical evidence doesn’t match.
• Jury Verdicts: Guilty on multiple counts; multiple life sentences and a death sentence.
• Appeals and Delays: Technical appeal victories (one death penalty vacated for clerical error), ongoing questions about untested/unshared DNA and DNA evidence exclusions.
  • “If the fingerprints are in that man’s blood…ok, fine.” (Jimmie, 183:40)

Lingering Doubts & Post-Conviction

• New DNA Testing Ordered (2021–2024): Judge insists state police finally release DNA, and 29 unknown fingerprints from scenes still await results.
• Chance of Exoneration or Accomplice?: Confession is detailed, but DNA/prints mismatch keep the case alive in the appellate system.
• Host Theory: James suspects Blank’s girlfriend Cindy was far more involved and that Blank, possibly protecting her, is carrying the full blame.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “It was just a ball of death.” – Officer, describing Barbara’s murder scene (42:45)
• “You goddamn better well believe I’m going to bring the best murder weapon I can…” – James, on the killer’s unpreparedness (46:01)
• “Imagine you rob somebody of 100 grand, drive off, and then see your face on TV.” (78:40)
• “He knew too much.” — Jimmie, on why the jury convicted Blank despite DNA mismatch (185:08)
• “I tried to make friends with him, but he was real rude…after a while I figured they only wanted to be friends with elderly people. Those are the only people they were real nice to.” — Neighbor in Texas, on Daniel and Cindy’s suspicious friendliness (148:26)
• “We have solid cases and the reign of fear in the river parishes is now over.” — Police announcement after arrest (149:05)
• “How could Danny blank lift a 260-pound safe by himself?...The safe was on wheels.” — Courtroom cross-examination (164:41)

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Timestamps for Critical Segments

• Intro/LaPlace Description: 00:29–16:38
• Crime Stats & Initial Murders: 21:32–45:12
• Profile/Escalation: 54:49–62:16
• Millet Attack/Sketch/Break: 73:43–79:13
• Casino Lead & Daniel Blank Intro: 79:14–85:56
• Confession Breakdown: 105:23–120:18
• Courtroom Drama & Evidence: 151:05–179:20
• Recent Appeals & DNA Issues: 180:09–184:41

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Episode Tone & Language

• Dark Comedy: James & Jimmie alleviate the horror and tension with quick wit, regional riffs, and running jokes. They never make fun of the victims—only the absurdities of circumstance and the criminal justice system.
• Detailed, Respectful Research: Story is relayed with empathy for the victims and frankness about investigative shortcomings.
• Engagement with Listeners: Segments inviting audience commentary, and open wondering about unresolved forensic/police issues.

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Takeaways

• The LaPlace murder spree is both a disturbing showcase of rural vulnerability and a cautionary tale about the limitations of forensics in the late-20th century South.
• Daniel Blank is, for all the evidence, both the only person who could have committed the crimes (by knowledge and proximity) and possibly not the only killer (by DNA/forensic omission).
• The hosts highlight how small-town crime devastates trust and upends daily life, all while keeping the listener enthralled and oddly entertained.

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For more listener engagement, details on ticketed events, and their Patreon bonus episodes, visit shutupandgivemurder.com.

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End of episode summary.

Transcript

[James Pietragallo]

I'm Kiana. And I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Start your free [e-mail]

[James Pietragallo]

this week in Laplace, Louisiana. A brutal murder in a rural home causes detectives to notice that it's not the only recent local murder. And as a matter of fact, they seem to have a serial killer on their hands. One with a much different motive than they're used to for serial killers. Welcome to small town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to small town murder. Yay. Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another crazy, wild edition of Small town Murder. We have just a crazy, insane It's a serial killer this week, so don't have to tell you how crazy that is of a thought to have. So before we get into that, just want to definitely say head over to shutupandgivememurder.com get your tickets for live shows because they are there and they're going fast. So get in there. May 1 is sold out in Salt Lake City, May 2 in Denver. Still some tickets left for that, but not a ton of them. So get in there. May 29th, Buffalo. Sold out. May 30th, Royal Oak. Less than 100 tickets left. So get in there. It's a pretty good sized venue, too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You guys are doing great.

[James Pietragallo]

You guys are awesome. Thank you for doing that. And then after that, we have Milwaukee and Minneapolis and some September, we have Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento in October and then Tarrytown in Boston in November. So get your asses in there. Shut upandgivemerder.com is where you find all of that and more like your merchandise and all that kind of stuff. Definitely listen to our other two shows, which are crime in sports, which is hilarious, and a lot of murderers lately, too. So you want to check on that and definitely listen to your stupid opinions. Where we hear people's reviews for places we'll never go and things we'll never use. And it's hilarious and just the funniest thing going. So check that out a lot of fun. Then get yourself Patreon while you're at it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get everything that we put out, including as soon as you subscribe, hundreds of back bonus episodes you've never heard before immediately upon subscription. Then new ones every other week. One crime and sports, one Small Town murder. And you get it all, everybody, all of it for the low, low price of $5. Now this week, what you're gonna get for crime and sports, we are gonna talk about in California that happened back in the day in the 80s, where these kids were. It was supposed to be a good place for kids to go for sports and get off the streets and stuff like that. What do you think happened? It turned into a big abusive, cult like situation. So we'll get into all of that. Then for Small Town Murder we're gonna do Corey Richens part two. Because she was, she was not enough to contain with one episode. So we definitely have to do part two, which is absolutely crazy case out of Utah, very recent murder case there where she killed her husband, then wrote a book about grieving for her children. Fascinating crazy stuff. It's wild. We'll get into all that and more. Patreon.com CrimeInSports and in addition to that, you get everything. We put out all three shows all ad free with your Patreon ad free ad free. And on top of all of that, you get a shout out at the end of the show too, where Jimmy will mispronounce your name all sorts of ways. So that said, let's get into this with the disclaimer. This is a comedy show. We're comedians. Jokes are gonna be made and a lot of people are gonna die. That's just the way it is. It would be very strange if there was no murder in a show called Small Town Murder. You might go, well, how does that work? Well, very easily. We think the humor kind of just takes the edge off of it a little bit, softens it, makes it a little less hard to deal with. And honestly, the people who are just like, then he cut her head off. That's just a little creepy to me. And a little more, it's a bit much, a little weird. So we try to take a little lighter approach to it. While all the facts are completely true, everything is as well researched as we could possibly, possibly do. So if you think that sounds good to you, you're gonna hear a wild story. Cause one Thing we don't do is we never make fun of the victims or the victims families.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why's that, James?

[James Pietragallo]

Because we're assholes. But we're not scumbags. That's how that works. So here we go. I think it's gonna be a crazy story, and I think it's time to sit back every. Clear the lungs here. Let's all shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I suppose so.

[James Pietragallo]

We gotta do it. We're going down to Louisiana this week.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Way down, I should say, because this is down down too. This is Laplace, Louisiana. It's spelled like Laplace, but it's Laplace. Because they can pronounce nothing in Louisiana the way it looks. It's just not allowed. I swear to God. It's in like the state charter. No word. It's the cordon bleu of America. No word shall be pronounced the way it looks, sounds, or is spelled. There we go. That's rule number 12B. Perfect. This is in southeastern Louisiana, only about 30 minutes outside of New Orleans.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, so it's close to Florida, though.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, well, close to Mississippi and Alabama.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, there's a couple other states in between there.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, the panhandle goes under pretty far, but not all the way to Mississippi. Not all the way over there anyway. About two and a half hours to Mobile, Alabama, if you want to head east in about 2 hours and 15 minutes to Ville Platte, Louisiana, which was our last Louisiana episode, episode 646, the Chopped Swamp Murders, which was Chopped swamp. Chopped swamp. And that was a crazy one. People just being found chopped up in swamps. This is in St. John the Baptist parish. There's no counties, there's parishes. St. John the Baptist, area code 985. Now, what is Laplace now was originally settled by German immigrants in the early 18th century. So early 17th century Germans in Louisiana, Germans. Louisiana has a lot of different people because it's got the French history, obviously. It's got the Germans that came in. This was one of the main ports Italians came to as well. So there's still parts of Louisiana where Italian is the predominant ethnicity. Like down by little New Orleans and some of the suburbs there. So this is what happened. Now, the original, I guess the larger settlement was called Karlstein with a K, which is very German. It was one of.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And ugly.

[James Pietragallo]

And yeah, Carlstein, it was one of the four settlements collectively known as the German coast. And it had Been populated by German speaking immigrants since 1721.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My word.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And the French and the Germans started intermarrying and all that kind of thing. They had a. Ooh, the name, I don't know if it's Bonnet or Bonnet Carre. C A R R E with an accent, with a dash. Carre was inspired. The name of that was inspired by the right angle turn of the Mississippi river near the settlement and its resemblance to a square bonnet. That's French for square bonnet. Those words.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bonnet like a hat or is that like a square?

[James Pietragallo]

I guess like. I think like a hat. A square bonnet, I guess. 1879, a pharmacist, planter and patent medicine purveyor named Basile Laplace arrived in New Orleans and established a large plantation in this area. And the settlements railroad depot was named after Laplace. Then the post office and then the town itself finally got the name. Now they've had a. Yeah, they have a lot of problems keeping water out of shit here. That's an issue. Imagine in the real estate report, several of the houses I was looking at said, never been flooded. Exclamation point. That's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hey, what is this, a motorcycle?

[James Pietragallo]

It's never even been flooded.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Never been down.

[James Pietragallo]

Never been. Let's see. From 1850 to 1883, the levee on the east bank of the Mississippi flooded several times. In 1850, a flood created the Bonnet Carre Crevasse, a levee breach that was more than a mile wide. That's big.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Several major floods were exacerbated by this crevasse near Laplace. The Laplace Crevasse. And one resulted in the severe flooding of New Orleans in 1871. They finally.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Laplace did that.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, Laplace. They finally closed that off in 1883 and completely with the levee. In 1983, a violent F4 tornado devastated a lot of the town. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew spawned an F3 tornado that killed two people here. So they get tornado runoff of a horrible hurricane.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's amazing.

[James Pietragallo]

Holy shit. In 2012, 5,000 houses were damaged by flooding in Laplace during Hurricane Isaac. In February and March 2016, several tornadoes touched down in Laplace, damaging hundreds of buildings and cutting the power off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And then no wind blows straight through here.

[James Pietragallo]

No. And then 2021, Hurricane Ida. Fuck this place up, dude. It's just whenever there's something coming, you are in deep shit in this place. Reviews of this town, we've never been here. All the reviews should be. It's great until the wind starts blowing and then it's not good anymore.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If it's breezy, go inside.

[James Pietragallo]

Here's five stars. All the five star reviews have something sort of negative in them, which is really funny. It's really, really weird. I have lived in Laplace my whole life. It could be better because after all the hurricanes, they don't. After all the hurricanes, they don't redo everything, which I think they should. They just leave shit in tatters, apparently.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You mean repair.

[James Pietragallo]

Redo everything. Other than that, Laplace is a great place. So other than the fact that it gets all the blown apart by wind every few years and they don't fix it at all, it's terrific.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All the cored out buildings and nothing up to code. It's great.

[James Pietragallo]

It's great. Three stars. Laplace is a sort of quiet yet chaotic neighborhood. If I could change anything about it, I would get rid of the quote, gang bangers and quote, gangs. I don't know why those are in quotes. It makes no sense.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Also, quiet chaos sounds horrifying.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Quiet chaos yet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a ninja. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They cause nothing but mess and problems. So you're saying you have a negative outlook on gangs and gang bangers as opposed to most places. They're like, if only we could get some gangs in here, we could really clean this place up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gangs and gangsters. PR is just fucking horrible.

[James Pietragallo]

It's not good. It's not good pr.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's work to do.

[James Pietragallo]

Two stars here. Most of the people are rude and mean. Whenever new people move to Laplace, they usually say how mean the people are. And I agree with them. I'm not. Yeah. Overall, the area I live will most likely not have many new people coming in. I feel as if we are ranked in the middle compared to everywhere else in the country. Think again.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I feel as if.

[James Pietragallo]

Feel as if there's plenty of statistics available. This person's going on feeling. I don't think I'll be moving back to that area in laplace in the near future.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

And then finally one star. Laplace used to be a suburban town, but it's gotten a bit rough over time. The constant construction makes the traffic terrible at all times of the day. Well, it's better than just leaving the hurricane remnants about.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What else are you going to do?

[James Pietragallo]

Strewn about the town people in this town, population 29,129. It's a pretty decent sized place. It's definitely grown recently as well. More women than men. 51.2% women. Median age here, just about right around the national average. 37.2. Everything's kind of average. 50, 50 is married people in the rest of the country here it's 49%. So it's all about the same race in this town. 39% white, 51.3% black, 1.3% Asian, 6.6% Hispanic. Religion. 43.7% are religious here. Wow. Which is lower than the national average, actually. And the number one religion with a bullet. It's really up there by a lot is. What do you think, Jimmy?

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's gonna be Baptist.

[James Pietragallo]

It's Catholic.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

It's New Orleans. Yeah. New Orleans area. So it's all that kind of French Catholic shit with all the Italians too coming in there with their Catholic crap. And there it is. So that's what it is. We got 0.0% Jewish unemployment here. A little bit high. Median household income just below the national average. $65,459 a year. It's about $69,000 normally here. Cost of living 100 is regular. Average here it's 90. So almost.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a little more affordable. I mean you're not making as much money either. So it's fine.

[James Pietragallo]

No. But just about the same as everywhere else. The housing is the really cheap thing. Well, cheap compared to the rest of the country. Median home cost here, 191,600 bucks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's fairly affordable.

[James Pietragallo]

Still get a media cost of under 200 grand.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's pretty good.

[James Pietragallo]

In America in 2026, that's pretty, pretty, pretty impressive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unheard of.

[James Pietragallo]

So only that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But are they up to code?

[James Pietragallo]

That means it's probably a shithole is the problem. So let's find out if it's a shithole or not. Or what we have here with the LaPlace Louisiana Real Estate Report. Alright, here we go. House number one is a very small house. It's a little box of a house. It's not a trailer though. It's an actual house here. Two bedroom, two bath. So technically a T bowl for each and every b hole here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

887 square feet. So small.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How do you get.

[James Pietragallo]

It's real small and the yard is small. It's just a little box of a house and a little box of a yard. That's all. It's very small. It's good for old people. It seems like they don't want to get around too much here. This house built in 1987, $74,000 for that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's fair.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a house. Yeah. 74, $5,000 price cut just went down on that one as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sub thousand square feet, though.

[James Pietragallo]

That's tough, man. Still under 75 grand. That's not bad. I mean, a truck costs more than that now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I guess you can get an apartment that's 900 square feet. That's two bedroom, two bathroom.

[James Pietragallo]

It'll work. I mean, if you have like three kids, that might be a problem, but that's tough. Here's a three bedroom, two bath, 1400 square foot house. Kind of your average family home. It's all brick, which is pretty cool looking inside. Needs some updating. It's got the old school countertops and those crappy sinks that look like they're in like an extended stay. It's not great when it comes to that. Built in 1970, this house is in foreclosure. Let someone else's pain be your profit, everybody. 194,900 bucks for that trash and treasure.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's something there.

[James Pietragallo]

Something there for Everybody. And finally, four bedroom, four bath, t bowl for each and every B hole. 6339 square feet. Big house with big columns in the front. It's not a big lot or else I would say it's like a plantation looking house, but it's just like a mini kind of plantation style house, I guess with the columns and all that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's got to have a right down there.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, Christ. Yeah. Jesus.

[Jimmy Wissman]

6,000 square feet to air condition that.

[James Pietragallo]

Good luck when it's hot. Always. It's got like the dual staircases and the big, you know, marble and all that kind of thing. Very nice on the inside too. 650,000 bucks, which.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Very doable if you're.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. If you're doing well, when you see the house, you go, jesus. That's not a bad deal for that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's not.

[James Pietragallo]

Not too shabby. It really isn't. Things to do here. All right, this is fun. We have the St. John the Baptist parish andouille festival.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And Dewey.

[James Pietragallo]

And Dewey. A sausage. Yeah, we're gonna do it October 16th through the 18th. They have rides and a gospel schedule that we'll get into.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, and tui With Dewey with a D. Yeah. Wait, is that a D?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, it is a D. Isn't it? A N D, Uh, A N D O U I L E. I thought

[Jimmy Wissman]

you were saying all that title for St. John and then. And Dewey.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, and Dewey.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And a guy named Dewey.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no, this is. This is a sausage festival.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's got a. Gets a whole sausage fest.

[James Pietragallo]

That's good shit. The appearing this year at the 2026 Andouille Festival will be. The 2025 Andouille Queens will be here. Oh, the queens of the Andouille Festival.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who are they?

[James Pietragallo]

I saw a picture of them. There's a teen queen and then an adult queen. And the adult queen looks like she partakes in some sausages though. She looks very happy with herself. Good for her. You go get her. Good for you, girl. Good for you. Eat those sausages. Taylor Swift tribute. They'll have also now the tribute. A tribute. Not Taylor Swift, but some blonde chick pretending to be Taylor Swift. There's a petite princess party, which all sausage festivals have a petite princess party. Usually it's normal. A TikTok takeover.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The fuck?

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know what goes on there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The app?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, yeah, the app. I don't know how you take over an Andouille sausage festival being.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I guess it's a flash dance or a flash mob. What do they do that?

[James Pietragallo]

Some horseshit. I don't know, some shit like that. There's also a kid's tent. I don't know what goes on in there. Oh boy. Let's find out though. Friday, October 17th. The emcee for the day is Kelly Ray. They're going to have a house dj, DJ Scotty also performing. Amanda Shaw and the cute guys.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And the cute guys.

[James Pietragallo]

And the cute guys. The Guillory Brothers will be there on Saturday. Kelly Ray will be emceeing again. We have the house DJ for the day will be Captain Charles. Just Captain Charles. Performing will be Ti Na Na T E E, Nana Shot Time. G Funk will be there from 3 o' clock to 4:15. The coveted 3pm to 4:15 slot will be.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Isn't that the guy from the Special Sauce?

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, Christ, there's so many funks. I'm not sure. It's hard to say really. DJ Jubilee will be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sick.

[James Pietragallo]

Universal Language. And then with a 2 hour set from 8 to 10, they must be the headliners, the Kings of Neon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, because.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, exactly. Just change a letter. Oh man, that's not good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is all knockoff horse shit.

[James Pietragallo]

It's all knockoff shit. Sunday, October 19th. The MC will be uptown Angela that

[Jimmy Wissman]

day because downtown Judy Brown was busy.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, yeah, she's probably dead by now. For Christ's sake, she's in a retirement home in London or something. She's got to be 68, 70 years old by now, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'll bet she's 75. Kurt Loder's almost dead, isn't he?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I think so. Because she Was. Yeah, she's got second oldest. She's got to be Kurt. Right downtown. Julie Brown. Gotta be.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, for sure.

[James Pietragallo]

She's In a Absolutely 60 years old. 100% for sure. Who else? Raj Smooth will be there. That's the house DJ for today's brother. Yeah, the Adam Leaguer Band. Okay, Peyton Falghost. Falgust. The Peyton Falghost Band. Like Goost Falgoost Band. Change your name, you're naming a band after it. The coveted 315 to 345pm slot will be occupied by 30 minute slot, the Hot 8 Brass Band and Tribe Called Gumbola. Gumbolia. Not called Tribe Called Gumbolia.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We can't get quests, we'll get the Gumboli.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. 3:45 to 4:30. Partners in crime or end crime.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

5 to 5:30. Juvenile. I don't think so. Not that juvenile.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's from there.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, he's got a half hour 5pm slot. That seems like he's really fallen down.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Juv.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes. I don't know, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It can't be juvie. Juvie's not doing this shit, is he?

[James Pietragallo]

Then from 6 to 8pm The Funky with a ph Monkeys.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

And there's also a gospel schedule as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It might be juvie. That would be hysterical.

[James Pietragallo]

I'll go. But I'm only doing a half hour. He said I'm not going any more than that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Lil Wayne will not be there with me.

[James Pietragallo]

No, he won't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not a hot voice. This is a juvie.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, Christ. Crime rate in this town. What we are interested in here, property crime here is about two and a half times the national average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

God dang.

[James Pietragallo]

They weren't kidding about gangs and gang bangers. That is a lot. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery and of course, assault. Just under three times the national average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It gets worse.

[James Pietragallo]

Shit is dangerous around here. That's why Juvenile's only doing a half hour set. He goes, if I do 45, I'll get killed out there. Yeah, you can only leave your car unoccupied for a half hour at a time or else it's gone.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's wild, man.

[James Pietragallo]

He knows it. So that said, let's talk about a shitload of murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Pietragallo]

A lot. Let's start out in 1997. All right, 97. The Internet is new. This is like.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's an interesting time.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, this is like, you know, some people like had the Internet and some people like didn't. And it Was like a, I don't know what goes on there, you know. And people are still on like chat rooms and shit in 97.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is such a weird time.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, this is pre Lime Walk and pre Napster.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh my God, Napster's not even there yet.

[James Pietragallo]

Two more years for that really to come out. This is really when the Internet is figuring it out at this point in time and during this time, Laplace is actually a very safe place. Sure, it's a lot safer. This is a doors unlocked kind of community at this point in time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, just less than 30 years ago, people, a lot of the old people around there would just keep their life savings in their houses just sitting there in a jar in cash. They'd have it in safes. They'd have it in sometimes in like, you know, tucked into books and shit like that. They didn't trust banks. This was still old people still not trusting banks from the Depression. So they're, they're doing that. So this is, it was a very kind of old school feeling place. Still in 1997. Still felt like the 50s or something here. So let's jump to Gonzalez, Louisiana, which isn't far away on April 10, 1997. And there's a woman named Lillian Philippe or Philippe, I'm not sure. Now Lillian's an older lady here and she is supposed to pick up her sister in law. Her sister in law is Viola Brow Philippe. And they were supposed to drive together to catch a bus to go to a religious retreat in Mississippi. That morning. It's 8am Lillian is supposed to be there to pick her sister in law up and she doesn't show up. Lillian's showing up for religious retreat pickups.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a thing you do.

[James Pietragallo]

She's doing it. There's a plan and everything else. So Viola calls Lillian, can't get a hold of her. So then she calls Lillian's husband's brother. Okay, so Lillian's brother in law, this is Dr. Doyle, Felipe or Philippine or whatever the hell it is. Dr. Doyle arrives at the house by 8:30am so this is a pretty swift operation here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No shit.

[James Pietragallo]

She's supposed to be there to pick her up at 8. By 8:30 there's someone coming over to

[Jimmy Wissman]

check on her, doing welfare checks 30 minutes later.

[James Pietragallo]

What if she had diarrhea? You know what I mean? This is like pre self. She could be just on the toilet going, hold on, it's still happening.

[Jimmy Wissman]

About that. Yeah. Though when you're into religious stuff, you'll shit while the Lord Tells you to shit, you just go.

[James Pietragallo]

That's the problem.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If the Lord says, there's no diarrhea time.

[James Pietragallo]

Thou shalt shiteth, you shalt shiteth. That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You just go.

[James Pietragallo]

You gotta go. And for as long as it comes. And there's no stopping that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The Lord sees fit. That's what I do.

[James Pietragallo]

Once it's happening, it's happening. So he arrives, he sees Lillian's cars in the driveway, and the door is unlocked. The alarm system has been deactivated because he opens the door and it doesn't go off. So, okay, there's no beeping or anything like that. So he said something felt wrong. Now, at first, it might look like she's getting ready to go. So she has the door unlocked. She deactivated the alarm to go outside her car. Is there. Whatever. But he said something felt wrong. He walked into the hallway, looked around and said, something's not right. And he went back outside the house and called the cops.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

Which seems excessive, right? Seems like you should at least explore and see if there's a problem first before you start.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, that's how much you know. Some. There's nobody in my life that knows me that well. They. They would walk in and get rid of Triple body. Yeah. Where is this dickhead?

[James Pietragallo]

As soon as you walk in the house, something's wrong.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's clean in here.

[James Pietragallo]

Look at it. There's nothing on the counter. And all the dog shit's been picked up. Something's wrong.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Blankets folded. What is this shit?

[James Pietragallo]

That damn puppy and his habits. Things are folded. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a better way to feed your dog with Ollie.

[Jimmy Wissman]

O L l I e.com Absolutely.

[James Pietragallo]

We all love our dogs. We love them. Jimmy's got a brand new puppy. I have three dogs. My one dog's getting older and he's, you know, got to go to the vet all the time, but he's hanging in there. And you take care of your dogs. Whether they're young or they're old, you take care of them. 91% of dog parents say their pup is an important member of their family. Absolutely. It's true. That's how people feel. That's how it is. And if anyone gets being dog obsessed, it's Ollie. They're relentless about delivering the best food and experience for you and your dog. And they give you a way to check on their health over and over again. And it's good stuff. The food they make is. It's just really Good stuff. I mean, Ollie's fresh recipes are developed by real chefs and backed by vet nutritionists. They're obsessed with making the best meals with the highest quality ingredients. And they really are. You wanna. You're jealous of your dog.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's terrific.

[James Pietragallo]

I've never had normally dog food. You're like, oh, that stinks. This is like, oh, what do you got there? Some of that? Yeah, it looks great. And from the moment you start your subscription, everything's tailored to your pup. The meals are perfectly portioned and you get a puptainer and a scoop for storing and serving to do that more easily. And with Ollie, you don't just get food through their app. You can actually check in on your dog's health with real vets just by uploading a picture. And then their team can check in on your dog's weight, digestion, teeth and coat because they're obsessed with making sure your puppy is as healthy as can be. And honestly, since we switched over to Ollie, the dogs, first of all, they love it, they go crazy for it. But I mean, the poops are better, they're healthy, they're doing great. Shiny coats. Everybody's happy with this stuff. And I even want to try some. It looks delicious. So get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed. Head to ollie.com stm and tell them about your dog. And use the code STM to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Or plus, they offer an obsession guarantee if you're not completely obsessed, you'll get your money back. That's O l l I e.com STM Enter code STM to get 60% off your first box.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you some delicious stuff here that's great for you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

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[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's nice.

[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

So he calls the cops. A cop comes here. This is officer Dowel Bren of the Gonzalez police department. He arrives and now the doctor, Dr. Doyle here goes back inside with the cop. Apparently the cop needs backup and Dr.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Doyle gonna bring Dr. D with us.

[James Pietragallo]

Everyone come with me. Yeah, I don't know, this seems odd. You'd think he'd say you stay outside in case it is a crime scene. I don't want. You know, Doc.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hold me.

[James Pietragallo]

People who aren't. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what he wants here. They walk in and they finally get to her bedroom and they find her in her bedroom on the floor at the foot of her bed. Covered in blood, Blood everywhere. Near her are two very telling items. There's a broken trophy near her head, covered in blood, and a butcher knife, also covered in blood, right next to the bed. So it looks like she's been bludgeoned with this trophy till it broke and then stabbed the rest of the way with his butcher knife, which. It's a horrible way for this lady to go down, obviously here. Now they find other things around. They look around, they see that in the bedroom closet, the doors are open and there's a safe in there that's open. And as they're walking back out of the room, they see in the bedroom that her purses are in the bathroom. Her purse is in the bathroom and has clearly been gone through. It's been rifled through. So the officer exits, pulls old Dr. Doyle out of there, secures the scene, calls for backup. They find that the alarm system has been deactivated. They find that the. Yeah, that the phone lines have been cut. We got cut phone lines?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Is that how it was deactivated or did they, like.

[James Pietragallo]

Not sure about that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Put the code in.

[James Pietragallo]

Not sure about that, but either way, it's totally not operating anyway. And the phone lines are cut, which probably in 97, the phone lines probably fed them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's how you communicate.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. And they know that she had an envelope that had $120 in it. I don't know if that was for the trip or what it was, but people know that she had an envelope with $120 cash that's not there anymore.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Imagine knowing exactly how much everybody, you know has, like in cash in their bedroom in an envelope.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's on their person.

[James Pietragallo]

That's so specific. So it must have been for the trip or something like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it was communicated. That's what they need for the trip.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Now they look around. That's the inside of the house, what they come up with. Now, looking around the outside of the house, someone notices a hole on the rooftop. Just a hole up there, but not a crudely punched out hole or any shit like that. It was a vent. It was a vent. Now it's not a vent anymore. So they're like, there's an attic vent that's been removed. And they also find a wrought iron chair placed on top of the air conditioning unit on the front porch, which looks like someone climbed up on top of that to get onto the roof and then go down into the vent. Now they have a forensic scientist examine the vent hole, and they say that it would Be very difficult for anyone to get through the vent hole. It's very small.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It has to be a very small person.

[James Pietragallo]

It's very, very small. So there are like not a lot of adult men. Even an average or even slight size guy is not fitting through that hole. Not even close. Like, no way. So that would be very difficult. Like you'd need maybe a child, Little Miss Andouille. Yeah. Or maybe a child or teen Andouille. We're not sure. Miss grown up Andouille. Not fitting through that hole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

So they also notice, and this is pretty good police work, honestly, they notice that there is a blade of grass in the attic. A fresh blade of grass. Wow. They literally find a fresh blade of grass in the attic.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, but a blade of grass in fucking Louisiana is the size of a tree branch.

[James Pietragallo]

It's a big blade.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They grow fat blades of grass.

[James Pietragallo]

But to find one blade of grass in the attic and that very impressive, that's still green and was very recently attached to the another in the lawn. They noticed that someone had obviously entered from the outside there and left a big fat Louisiana grass blade, palm leaf in their wake. So it's at this point that they form a task force because after this murder, they start thinking about some things. Detectives in Gonzalez are already aware of, of another murder nearby in a town called Paulina. And they'd also heard about a guy named Victor Rossi getting murdered in St. Amant. Heard about it. Similar profiles, older people, older than 60, homes ransacked, phone wires cut, weapons of opportunity. Also not a brought in weapon. Brought with them, things that were from around the house. So they make some phone calls. They call a couple of different parishes, they call Ascension parish, they call St. James Parish. And they say, do you have anything, any unsolved homicides on your end, anything like that? Because we're just trying to see if this is all one guy or what's going on here. And they said, oh, yes, we do. Plenty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We have unsolved too.

[James Pietragallo]

So let's start out where this whole thing started. These murders. October 27, 1996. So this was April of 1997, was the Lillian Phillipe murder. This is October 27, 1996, in St. Amont or St. Ament, Louisiana. There's a man here, not an old guy either, 41, Victor John Rossi is his name. He owned an auto repair shop in Prairieville. And so he's a small business owner, very well known in the community. Sure, yeah. He's a guy who owns the local shop in a small town. He employed A lot of local mechanics and things like that and all this type of thing. Now, on the night of 10-27-96, Rossi's front door was unlocked, they believe, or somebody found a way in otherwise. But they couldn't find any forced entry, so they believed the door might have been unlocked. And Victor Rossi was asleep on his couch. He had fallen asleep, somebody had walked in there, found a baseball bat that belonged to Victor Rossi and absolutely just beat him to death with it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Destroyed him.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, beat him to death. Then ransacked the house and took about 8 or $900 in cash.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's the thing about having. About them not bringing a weapon with them to kill people. The things that are in your house that are capable of killing you are the most painful.

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely. And you don't want to get beat with your own shit. That's worse. That's even worse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

If you were like conscious while it was going on at one point, you'd be like, is that my. Yeah, you know. Hey, that's mine. What the fuck?

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's my Ken Griffey. You bastard.

[James Pietragallo]

You messed up. Why are you beating me with my Griffey bat? Yeah, that is not cool. So. Yeah, that's tough for your trophy. Like, I won my bowled high game and you're.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That was such a happy night.

[James Pietragallo]

God damn it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You fucking jerk.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, I had a. I bowled a 197. No. Well, it's fucking horrible. So that's what happened here. They take the money. So the investigation into Victor Rossi's murder did not go anywhere. Really. Yeah, He's a well liked guy. He has no enemies. They don't have any suspects. If you don't have any enemies or really anybody that's real close to you like that, it ends pretty fast. They don't have anybody to talk to pretty quick. Yeah, yeah, they talk to the main people around him. They all have alibis and that's that pretty much. So they didn't know what to even do about it. They do interview a couple people during this time that were given suspects that they thought were possible suspects. A couple of mechanics that had worked for him, things like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

In that business, you're gonna have some tumultuous operations for sure.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, you're gonna have some dirt bags in there that you have to fire for stealing air filters or something and

[Jimmy Wissman]

selling them some unreliables that showed up late a bunch of times. And then when you fired them, they weren't happy about it.

[James Pietragallo]

They work around metal, so how that works, those aren't the best People, a car is mostly metal. So all your tools are metal. It's just metal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Huge percentage metal.

[James Pietragallo]

Huge percentage of metal. But they interview a couple people and they gave statements and they were all cleared.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

So they couldn't find anybody they were looking for. Like, has someone been fired recently? Has somebody had a big blow up with him?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Somebody with an expensive bill that didn't want to pay it because that can get priced too.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, maybe he told you it was one thing and it turned out to be a whole transmission and that now it's a. Who knows?

[Jimmy Wissman]

And now I want to fight you.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. Now the murder weapon is there. Is left behind soaked in blood. And they get fingerprints and DNA that doesn't belong to Victor Rossi off of this bat.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow. So that's something in 96.

[James Pietragallo]

That is something. Yeah. Not bad then. March 19, 1997, in Paulina, Louisiana, Barbara Bourgeois. I'm going to say sure, or I would think B O U R G E O I S Bourgeois.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That sounds French. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. She's 58 years old, recently widowed. Now, Barbara, this. I feel terrible for Barbara because she lives alone. Recently widowed. She works for the St James Parish School system as a special education teacher, which those people are fucking angels. I'm telling you, those people have a level of patience, and they're amazing people, people who can work with kids. And she really was. Her whole life was dedicated to helping kids that need the support and things like that. She was named the school board named her high school support employee of the year the last year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So she's like a teacher's assistant special education teacher here. Everybody remembers her as very generous, which by her job, she obviously is very generous. Her daughter said, my mother was one of those people that she was always willing to give. She gave so much to her family, her husband, and to our children, of course, the love. There's no greater love than a mother. So she's a nice lady. And the Sheriff, Willie Martin Jr. On this Morning is asked by neighbors to check on the whereabouts of Barbara because she hasn't been around. So he goes into her house and finds her on the living room floor of her house. So, yeah, it's not Good. This is March 9, 1997. So she has severe facial injuries and other injuries, including cuts on her wrists and hands. It looks like a struggle has taken place here. She wasn't beaten while she slept or anything like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A lot of defensive wounds.

[James Pietragallo]

The responding officer put it thusly. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody. We've done almost 700 small town murders. I don't think I've ever heard of a crime scene described this way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Quote, here we go.

[James Pietragallo]

It was just a ball of death.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A ball of death.

[James Pietragallo]

A ball of death. Which by the way would be a great name for this episode because that

[Jimmy Wissman]

is a ball is a ball of death.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't even know. Just it's all encompassing death sphere. I'm not sure he said. Never dreamed I was going to see what I was going to see. When I walked into that residence, I could see the bottom half of this woman lying on the floor. We saw the knife immediately. There was a vacuum cleaner right next to the body that was also covered in blood. Strange. A knife and a vacuum cleaner. Apparently she had been beaten severely. With a vacuum cleaner.

[Jimmy Wissman]

With the vacuum.

[James Pietragallo]

With the vacuum. And then stabbed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

So trophies, vacuums, baseball. These are not normal murder weapons. I mean baseball bats can be, but.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, but this is just shit in the house.

[James Pietragallo]

How many vacuum murders have we had take place in the show?

[Jimmy Wissman]

That'd have to be a Kirby or something. You know what I mean?

[James Pietragallo]

Something heavy canister that you can pick up and bag. Yeah. If it's a whole big thing, it's kind of awkward.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm not. I can't beat somebody with a shark though either.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, those Dysons will break into 100 pieces if you try to beat somebody with one of those. It's just plastic. With 97 you get a good. And an older person, you get a good old school heavy metal canister vacuum

[Jimmy Wissman]

with the thing that you drag behind.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Those things are crazy.

[James Pietragallo]

Those are wild. So she apparently had died from head injuries possibly during the struggle. Now in this one, this is the strange thing here. There's no sign of a robbery. No things have been rifled, but nothing has really been taken.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is that?

[James Pietragallo]

That's interesting. They believe that possibly looking at the crime scene that they think that maybe the level of fighting and struggle and noise that possibly occurred from the fighting and struggle might have scared the intruder away. Basically he got her dead and was like, people probably heard that too much, no time to grab shit, I'm out of here type of deal. Barbara's daughter said my mother had the biggest heart of gold. Everybody knew Miss Barbara and her husband and her family and knew that we had quite a task on our hands. We had a horrible crime scene and it was apparent to us that she fought for her life.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

So obviously this is a lot of murder so far.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's pretty heavy.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, pretty heavy. And all under the same mo. Looks like robbery once again. Her phone lines are cut. All of that goes on. They've all been killed with weapons of opportunity. People too lazy to bring their own murder weapon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure, that's crazy.

[James Pietragallo]

Imagine that. Imagine being such a no count that you can't even bring your own murder. You're like, they'll have something there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. You treat it like a potluck. Ah, everybody else will bring enough. There'll be plenty there.

[James Pietragallo]

Someone will have a pen. That's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It'll be there. Don't worry.

[James Pietragallo]

It's fine. Yeah. Someone leaves the house with cigarettes and no lighter. Someone will have a lighter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Someone.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know how people live like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Chaos.

[James Pietragallo]

It's chaos. It is a ball of death, that whole mess.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a wild, chaotic lifestyle.

[James Pietragallo]

Imagine living like that. It's too much, man. It's too much. So if I was going to murder someone, you goddamn better well believe I'm going to bring the best murder weapon I can, you know, one that I'm really comfortable with. One that I really think can work. I'm not going to just be like if they got a Kirby laying around, I'll take that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'll wing it.

[James Pietragallo]

I'll wing it as I go. That seems like a real risky way to go about things. Real fucking laissez fucking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You want a yes and yeah, real

[James Pietragallo]

improv way to do it. So then there's more murders.

[Jimmy Wissman]

More.

[James Pietragallo]

May 9, 1997 Laplace, Louisiana.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh boy.

[James Pietragallo]

9:46am okay. James Accurie Jr. Arcurie Jr. A R C U R I. Okay. Yeah, he stops by his parents house. Now he is a sheriff's deputy. He's a cop.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And he stops by his parents house because his sister had called him at work worried that their parents weren't answering the phone. So she knows he's out and about as a sheriff's deputy. She said sometime in your rounds could you stop by, check on mom and dad. So they're going. He stops by the house. His parents are Salvador Joseph Arcuri and Louella Arcuri. His dad goes by Sam Salvador, but he goes by Sam. So Sam is 76 years old. Louella is 69 years old. So they're older retired people. They've lived in Laplace for years. They operated a business so they weren't even retired. They had retirement age is what I meant to say. They're very well known in the community. Sam was, he's a retired self employed Gulf oil distributor.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

He had a gas station that he owned.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They really made it sound fancy in the newspaper.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But Gulf oil distributor, that's.

[James Pietragallo]

He owned a gas station. He owned a Gulf station that's a Gulf oil distributor. But I guess it's like a franchise. So that would be like. If you're like, you know, a cold cut distribution facility would be a subway franchise.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Because you can't just be an oil distributor who fucking. You know what I mean?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. You don't just sell barrels out of the side of your house. That's nice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's an oil distributor.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I'm thinking. But that's what they call it. He ran the Gulf station that adjoined Bumstein's Restaurant, now occupied back in 97 by Bertha's Chili Peppers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Chili Peppers will sell better than Bumsteins.

[James Pietragallo]

Bumsteins to birth as chili Peppers. The Arcuries were parishioners of the Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Church, where they're described as outstanding members of the community all their lives. Nice people. The St. John Parish Registrar of voters said that anybody who grew up in old Laplace knew them. You know these people because they own the gas station. So if you own a gas station, everybody knows you, like we said. So their son normally visits his parents each morning. But this one, he came a little earlier because of his sister calling him about it. So he shows up, and he found the front door ajar, which is never a good sign, especially in Louisiana. There has to be some weird animals, like a. One of those nutrients or something will run in your house. Some shit will come in, but bugs

[Jimmy Wissman]

are the size of flying dogs. You don't want to have the door open.

[James Pietragallo]

No. He walks in and he says, mom, Mom. And he's found his dad, and his dad was on the ground and not looking well. So he checks his father's pulse and found no pulse. So he's yelling, mom, Mom. And he finds her in the kitchen. She's also covered in blood, clearly been brutally assaulted. And she is unconscious, but has a faint pulse, small pulse, so she's still alive. And he calls dispatch, obviously, because his father's dead in the hallway of the home. His mother is dying on the kitchen floor. Everybody's covered in blood. And he says there was a lot of blood in the kitchen area, a lot of blood in the hallway, and a lot of things overturned, indicating there was some sort of struggle. This is another cop. On the father's forearms, we noticed some defensive wounds. Obviously, he was trying to defend himself as best he could. Okay. But he's 76.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And what are you gonna do?

[James Pietragallo]

Been attacked. So the officers arriving at the scene found a blood stained hammer near Sam's body and a large cane knife. A sling blade. Not a knife that you pull out of a cane to cut cane.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

You know, like the movie sling blade. I call it a sling blade. That's what we're talking about here. Covered in blood.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ouch.

[James Pietragallo]

That had been used on mom.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. A sling blade.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's so hard to operate that indoors.

[James Pietragallo]

Indoor. Yeah, you gotta have some ceiling clearance. You can't have 8 foot ceilings on that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Anything. Those are really awful tools.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And a sling blade. The only times I've ever heard of this being used in a murder are of two very abusive people in a movie.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

People that deserved it. This didn't seem like deserving or.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It was actually. Well, I guess. Yeah, he. He told the story. He didn't. That they didn't show that.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no, no. Yeah. He just told it in the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

In the.

[James Pietragallo]

In the institution or whatever.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So they think whoever was here waited in the garage for them. Like waited all night for them to get up in the garage. They had removed a window pane to get in with a knife. They removed the putty from the window.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow. One of those windows.

[James Pietragallo]

Think about that. Yes, with putty. With pains. And he carefully removed the putty with a knife and soundlessly removed a window pane and got in the garage. Apparently somebody, I guess they woke up at one point, they picked up the newspaper and they made their morning coffee. Coffee had been made. So this isn't like immediately upon getting up. They're doing their morning shit. And then they were attacked. They think somewhere around coffee time. Now what they find in here is very interesting. Whoever was in here missed a lot in their robbery attempt. Oh, what do you mean it's a robbery? But they found $112,000 in cash in the house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine.

[James Pietragallo]

Think about that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You went through all that trouble and missed six figures sitting on the counter in 1997.

[James Pietragallo]

$112,000 too. That is a fuckload of money. Back then and now. He too. It was hidden in encyclopedias on the bookshelf. They never thought so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're morons is what you're saying. Put it in the books.

[James Pietragallo]

Put it in the books. This idiot will never find it. Yeah, that's exactly right. So this guy didn't think to go through the encyclopedias. Cause he's a moron like you said. He didn't say. Hmm. I really wanna see. You know what I'm gonna Look up the life of a yak right now. I really need to find out about it and then start flipping. Oh, my gosh.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The flag of Zimbabwe.

[James Pietragallo]

Thousands of dollars. Wow. Yeah. What is it? I don't know. So they said it possibly he may have been interrupted. Whoever did this may have been interrupted by the son arriving. So that might have happened. He might have heard a car pull up, especially saw it's a fucking sheriff's deputy car, and went, holy shit, get the fuck out of here. And took off. Maybe didn't have time to really ransack the house like they wanted to, which is horrible. Now mom ends up dying in the hospital at about 2pm so she makes it to the hospital, but they can't ever get her back.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Can't revive her.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Nope. Which is horrible. Obviously. Here, the worst. Now they dust every surface in the house. The only fingerprints that they find are the victims and victim's family members. They find no other fingerprints. But underneath Sam's fingernails. Because he was fighting. Got them. They found unidentified male DNA. Okay, so now we have fingerprints and DNA from one scene. We have DNA from this scene. Starting to build something. It's at this point, after all these murders that the FBI is now involved. Once they made the phone calls around to the other parishes to see if they had any murders, and they said, yes. And they matched up with the MOs, they said, okay, this is a serial killer. And they call the FBI, see if they want to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's too many.

[James Pietragallo]

It's too many. So the FBI has their own thoughts on this whole thing. What do they think? They bring in profilers. The behavioral science unit, mindhunter, is what they bring in here. And based on witness statements by at least one person who thought they may have seen someone in the area, they think that he's a white male in his 20s or 30s, 5 foot 7 with a medium build with sandy blonde hair.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's an interesting size.

[James Pietragallo]

That size would not fit through the attic vent.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

Medium build right there. Done.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Can't do it.

[James Pietragallo]

So that's one thing. So we don't know how credible that witness, how accurate that is, witness statement is, but the behavioral science unit puts together a profile of this guy. They say, quote, he is nocturnal in nature. He's comfortable being out late at night and is probably engaged in late night activity on a regular basis. Okay, he does something. Goes to the bar, goes to the strip club, does something. They said it added that the suspect was familiar with Ascension, St. James and St. John parishes, possibly through his employment, past or present or Maybe residence or regular travels. So someone who comes through here often. It's not somebody coming from Michigan down here to do this. They have to know where they're going

[Jimmy Wissman]

up here or some shit like that.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly, yeah. Also, the FBI suggested the subject may have abruptly changed his alcohol, drug or tobacco consumption. Radical change in his physical appearance might have been happening recently. And also unexplained cuts or bruises.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're amazing. How do you get to. He may have stopped smoking recently. What?

[James Pietragallo]

That's interesting.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why do you say that?

[James Pietragallo]

Well, I think they say that because at some scenes they found cigarette butts, and at some scenes they didn't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They didn't.

[James Pietragallo]

So I think that's why they're saying that. So he may have quit smoking recently or.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And he's all irritable and shit.

[James Pietragallo]

Something. I mean, that's extra irritable. To beat a lady to death with a vacuum, you gotta be really pissy. That's super irritable.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're real good at this, though. Yeah, I'm shocked every time, especially when they come up with shit like that where they're like, oh, he's 5 7. You said 5 7. You didn't say 54 to 5 9. You said 5 7.

[James Pietragallo]

Very specific things like that always trip me out when they find you're like, God damn, that is so specific, it's not even coming. So, yeah, they. Radical change in physical appearance, unexplained cuts or bruises, or if he has shown someone maybe showing an undue interest in the investigation, possibly anyone who has bought a vehicle that is apparently beyond their means. Oh, something like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Came into some money.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So if you know someone who just quit smoking, lost a bunch of weight, is covered in cuts and bruises, and is driving a Cadillac while they make $8,000 a year, let us know about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Basically has a sweet Caddy on Dubs.

[James Pietragallo]

Holler at us. Give us a shout. So five days after the Arkirie murders, five days later, same town, different street. So again, we're here. Joan Brock is 55 years old. Joan and Doug Brock live in a house together. In this house, Joan is attacked. Doug is not home at the time, and there's no signs of forced entry. They think possibly this person was allowed in for whatever reason. She is brutally murdered. We'll talk about that. The phone lines were cut. The safe was stolen. There's a small safe that was stolen that weighs a good amount, though. £150 or something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Safe, sir. Not light at all.

[James Pietragallo]

No. And also a 1991 Nissan Maxima has been taken, which is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, the max.

[James Pietragallo]

That's something you could track, at least there. Now, in the backyard is where the attack happened. This happened in the backyard. Joan is stabbed so many times in the neck that she was nearly decapitated.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Pietragallo]

Essentially a Nicole Brown Simpson wound. Exactly. Big throat cuts, huge stabs, nicks on the vertebrae in the back. That's how brutal the stabbing was. So it's a lot. Her car was later found in the parking lot of a Holiday inn near the I10 and I55 interchange with the keys still in it. Someone just left it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Safe is gone, though. So they think someone took this with the safe somewhere and had somebody pick them up with the safe and left the car behind, or they had their car, whatever. Something like that. So the investigators. This is the way they described it. Somebody said, Ms. Brock, she'd been dragged out of the house, and her head was practically decapitated. And my body. When we got to the scene of the Brock case, the phone lines were cut, which was similar to the arcuries. It appeared a sharp instrument was used, similar to the arcuries, and the safe and her car were missing. Now, the autopsy on her. She suffered four major blows to the head by a sharp instrument such as a knife.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

So there was beating first, and then the stabbing. And one of the blows nicked the vertebrae in her neck. One of the stabs. Now, she's married, and her husband isn't home, like we said. Doug. And Doug said that he's so sad. Not only obviously his wife is dead, but they just redid the kitchen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You just did it.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, it was done, like, yesterday. The last of the linoleum was stuck down yesterday. And he said this was going to be the first Thanksgiving with her new kitchen, and she never got the chance to use it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a fascinating thing to say.

[James Pietragallo]

That is wild. That's like saying, I just bought her a new vacuum and she'll never have a chance to clean the floor with it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That maxima was brand new. Anything you could.

[James Pietragallo]

Nope. She never got a chance to use her kitchen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus, she didn't even make a turkey in there.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Now it's at this after this. They really know they have a serial killer now. I mean, it is painfully obvious that this is a serial killer. This is definitely the same person doing all this shit. This freaks people out. I mean, everyone goes nuts in this place. This is not a. These aren't big towns. This isn't New Orleans. You don't expect. Yeah, of Course, there's a murder last night. They're like, holy shit, what happened? It's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But they're targeting people north of 40.

[James Pietragallo]

And way. When you're north for the 40 guy. Way north of 40.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You feel. You feel pretty able to take care of yourself at 40. Yeah. They're doing them and overcoming them very easily.

[James Pietragallo]

It's 70. It's a lot to. Yeah. 41. You are at the. The peak of your physicality. At that point. You might not be able to jump as high as you could when you were 25, but you can fucking pummel someone way better than you could when you were 25. You get all the way, but you

[Jimmy Wissman]

better appreciate it because that disappears by 42.

[James Pietragallo]

I'm saying probably like 51. I'm not sure. I haven't got there yet. But by like 51, you feel like a pile of shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think 45. I think about how five years ago, I was so much more capable.

[James Pietragallo]

I felt like a pile of shit since I was 31. To be realistic and honest, though, let's be honest here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If I use a screwdriver for two hours, oh, yeah. I can't open my hand for two weeks. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. It is sad. I get the same shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's fucked up.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. I like wintertime. I get my snow shovel in and I feel real. Feel good. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a better way to learn a new language with Rosetta Stone.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Rosetta Stone.com Absolutely.

[James Pietragallo]

You might have travel coming up, Spring break, summer vacations, weddings abroad, international work trips, maybe imagine arriving, actually understanding the language, ordering your meals confidently, maybe even connecting with some locals and feeling immersed instead of just feeling like this alien from another planet that doesn't know anything that's going on around you. Rosetta Stone can help you with all of that. Rosetta Stone has been a trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive, intuitive method helps you naturally absorb your new language. No memorizing random vocabulary lists or relying on translations. Instead, you learn by connecting words, visuals, and meaning in context, the way language is meant to be learned, the way kids learn a language. That's the way the brain works. It's perfect. It's great. And I have not been able to do this yet, and I'm so upset. I am going to get into that this month. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna learn.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Learn it.

[James Pietragallo]

Learn good Italian. I'm going to learn it. Real decent Italian. I'm going to get into this and I'm going to learn it. I'm very excited about this true accent feature that they have that doesn't make you sound like you're from another planet. It's good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's usually the dialect and how it's actually spoken.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. So you don't look even weirder saying the words. It's great. And Rosetta Stone is awesome. They have their trusted language expert, over 30 years of experience, millions of users and 25 languages to choose from, including Spanish, French, German, Japanese and more. Rosetta Stone is the go to tool for real language growth and you're going to learn faster and you're actually going to retain it because Rosetta Stone immerses you in your new language naturally, helping you think and communicate with confidence. None of these English translations and all that. It's an intuitive learning process. You start with words, build to phrases and progress to full sentences. It's designed for long term retention. So you're going to keep this with you and that truaccent helps give. It gives real time feedback on pronunciation. Like you have your own dialect coach right there, which is really cool. And access lessons from your desktop or mobile app where whether you have five minutes or an hour, you can throw some. Get some language skills in there. Ready to start learning a new language this spring? Visit rosettastone.com to explore Rosetta Stone and choose the language that's right for you. Go to Rosetta Stone.com SmallTownMurder now and begin your language learning journey.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you the best home security available out there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

SimpliSafe simplisafe.com S I M P L I safe.com Absolutely.

[James Pietragallo]

There is a big difference between traditional home security security and simply safe. It's just number one, it's so easy when you get it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You, you can have the whole system up, installed on your own and live. So easy to do it online. There's apps and all this in. In like an hour. You can do this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is less time than normally people would take. Just in the window waiting for a technician for they have the cameras and they can see what's going on outside before you. Even before you know what's going on while you're in your house sleep. They could be yelling at someone through your system telling them to get out of here. The cops can be called and you're like, what's going on now? It's great. They take it. They take the initiative and they go after it before there's a problem. They make it so there's not going to be a problem for you. It is so good. We really, really love it. It's easy to get secured. You can easily customize a system that's right for your [e-mail] and it ships to your door in just a few days. With an app guided setup and no drilling required, you can install and arm your system under an hour. No need to wait for technicians or any of that. And it's not just a camera. It's a comprehensive ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and out and 24. 7 professional monitoring. In the event of a break in, fire or flood, Simplisafe's agents are ready to take action. No long term contracts, no lock ins, no hidden cancellation fees. Simplisafe earns your business by keeping the you safe, not by trapping you in a contract. That's great too. Their pricing is also really good. 24. 7 monitoring for a fraction of what traditional brands charge you. And they were named America's best customer service by Newsweek. And over 5 million people trust SimpliSafe every day. And U.S. news and World Report ranked them the best home security system of 2026. We also rank it that way as well. We want you to experience the same peace of mind that we do. Which is why we've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now you can get 50% off your new system by visiting SimpliSafe.com Small that's half off at SimpliSafe.com Small S I M P L I Safe.com Small there's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

Hey everybody. Jess going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a much better, easier way to shop with Thrive Market.

[Jimmy Wissman]

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[James Pietragallo]

Thrive Market is a membership based online grocery. It's just $5 a month. You get access to curated selection of organic and non GMO brands. 90 plus dietary filters. The app is awesome for that. Weekly sales, free gifts and the peace of mind that 1000 plus ingredients are all already restricted. One annual fee. Priceless peace of mind. We love Thrive Market. I really enjoy it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I love taking eggs out of my diet with them.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I mean. For Soura, the gluten, you can filter that right out and anything with gluten in it is gone. It's awesome. And if you find some ingredient that you don't want, you can find another something like that, without that ingredient. It's really excellent. It really is fantastic. We love it. I really do. Can't tell you enough about Thrive Market. I love. They're sea salt tortilla chips by the way. Absolutely outstanding. I keep those stocked all the time. I order multiple bags at once. It's a lot. I love them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why am I a big fan of sea salt chips?

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, they're so good. They're so good, those sea salt chips. They really are here. It's excellent. Plus Thrive Market restricts, like we said, 1,000 plus ingredients. No stressing over any of these labels or googling every additive. Who has time to do that? Every product is curated. Organic and non GMO brands bedded before they ever hit the site. The in app barcode scanner finds healthier swaps for almost anything in your pantry right now. They're awesome. And you pay $5 a month so you don't have to google all this stuff and worry about it. And I don't have time to do that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a hassle.

[James Pietragallo]

It's too much of a hassle. And the member pricing up to 30%. You end up with like 30% off every week anyway on sales and free gifts and price matching free delivery. It'll pay for itself. Really. It really does. It's excellent. No per order delivery fees, no service charges or figuring out what your tip's gonna be. None of that stuff. One annual cost and that's it. All the filters mean you're gonna get anything you want out of there. You want high protein, you want Low Sugar GLP1 Friendly Gluten Free Kato, More whatever you want. It's awesome. The fact that you can filter out the whole site by high protein or low sugar in seconds. It's awesome. You guys want that? Ready to do your own spring reset. Join Thrive Market with our link thrivemarket.com Smalltown Murder for $20 off your first three orders, plus you'll get a free $60 gift.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh God. So everyone's freaking out. People obviously buying alarms. Literally all the stores in the area were sold out of alarms. You couldn't get an alarm system in this town.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're out of alarms.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. People who've lived in the Same House for 40 years and have literally never locked their. Don't even know if their locks work. Are now buying extra deadbolts and fucking locking it and shit like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Painted them closed or painted them open.

[James Pietragallo]

Now they got paint them shut and we're never leaving the house again. Everything will be delivered Through a vent in the attic. That's all we can do. So people were afraid to be home alone. They were afraid to answer the door if anybody knocked on it. People were afraid to sleep because a lot of these murders took place while people were sleeping in the night. A detective later said there are people that shouldn't have to worry about going to sleep at nighttime and never waking up because someone broke through, attacked and murdered them while they were sleeping in their beds. There's some people, Some people say there are people that shouldn't have to worry about going to sleep at nighttime and never waking up. There are people. There's also people that should have to worry about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But that's really a funny way to say that.

[James Pietragallo]

It's a strange way of saying that

[Jimmy Wissman]

there are some people here that shouldn't have to worry about this. Others though, they just happen to not get the others.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I was looking for more on the quote. I'm like, there's no more on this quote. That's it. That's the whole quote.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Crazy sentence.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a wild one. How about no one should have to worry about going to sleep at nighttime. I fixed it real easy. So the task force members are working 20 hours a day because this is a very active serial killer. So they have no fingerprints or DNA that link to anyone specific. They have fingerprints.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They have. They have fingerprints in dua, but we got nobody.

[James Pietragallo]

They have no eyewitnesses. They have a pattern. They have a profile. They have an MO And a shitload of terrified people with hilarious accents. That's what they have down there. So that's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They can't communicate it to the rest of the country.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. And their profile that they have doesn't really narrow it down very much. White male, mid-20s to mid-30s, average height and build, light colored hair, familiar with the parishes, likely employed or previously employed in the area, and possibly has recently purchased items he couldn't afford and may

[Jimmy Wissman]

or may not quit smoking and may

[James Pietragallo]

or may not have a cool hanging out of his mouth.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're not sure. Yeah, we don't know.

[James Pietragallo]

So there's press conferences and they release the profile and they're asking the public about anyone in their lives who has suddenly started spending money they didn't have. Now imagine how many people maybe that just decided to run up their credit card that month or something. Imagine how many people have been spending money that they're living beyond their means.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How often do I just became a suspect to this? Yep.

[James Pietragallo]

Thousands of tips come in based on this profile, a white guy that's spending too much money. That could be anybody. Thousands of them. Most of them led nowhere. That's the problem. Most of them are just, you know, my cousin, he just bought a car and, you know, I think he got fired last month and blah, blah. Okay? We don't care about that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't think he can afford this Miata.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I really don't think so. It's well beyond his mean. He got this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's got an R. And it's not even a normal engine.

[James Pietragallo]

It's a convertible. I'm saying that's an extra 5,000. I think. So now. July 7, 1997. All right, it's 2:00am okay? Leonce Millet Jr. And his wife, Joyce Millett are in their house. It's in Gonzalez. They're both 66 years old. Gonzalez is where the first murder we talked about happened about 2am Somebody cuts the phone lines and breaks in, finds themselves a sling blade.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

It seems to be a weapon of choice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here the Millets have a sling blade.

[James Pietragallo]

There the Millets have a sling blade. And everyone in this area has sling blades in their garage.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that where Sling blade was filmed or. No, it was Arkansas.

[James Pietragallo]

It's Arkansas. Arkansas. But I mean, right around the corner. It's all the same thing. Yeah. Anywhere where you keep a sling blade in the garage is all. Let's call it Sling blade country. Yes, that encompasses a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sling blades and Baptists.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. Sling blade country. That can be Billy Bob Thornton in the movie. That can be the weapons, the murders. It all ties in. So they think he found the cane knife in a garage and waited. The Millets awaken later on in the morning, just like the Arcuries did. And this is when a confrontation happens, okay? It's a violent confrontation. There's fighting. The intruder forces Leonce Millet to open the bedroom safe. He's bleeding from knife wounds. So he's saying the intruder is down there by the combination. And he's saying, give me the combination right now. So Leontce Millet gives him the wrong combination. Repeatedly. Repeatedly gives him the wrong one. Eventually the safe is opened. Eventually, I think he said, I'm gonna cut your throat if this thing doesn't open. On the next fucking time, you give me a number. And he probably gave him the right number at that point. It contained over $100,000 in cash.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Dang.

[James Pietragallo]

Jackpot for a burglar. Obviously, then the intruder stands up once the safe is open and shoots Leon Millett. In the face with a shot shotgun he found in the house. What? With his own shotgun? In the face. In the face? Yes, in the face. What was that Colorado? Was that murder? In the face? Yeah, that was Colorado, right? The woman killing her postal employee ex husband. That's right. Okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All the questions.

[James Pietragallo]

In the face. So shot him in the face. Then he goes to the other side of the house and shoots Joyce Millett as well. So both these 66 year old people and then takes them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's so cold.

[James Pietragallo]

Takes the money and leaves. Now the problem for this killer is he fucked up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He missed.

[James Pietragallo]

Now these two. No, they're both shot. One shot in the face and stabbed. The other one shot. But neither of them are dead, right? Neither of them are dead. And they both leonce despite a shotgun blast to the face and several stab wounds. Yeah, he survives.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

He got shot in the face with a shotgun from two feet away and survived.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh my.

[James Pietragallo]

He probably looked like Daffy Duck. After he gets shot, he has to like turn his beak around. Yeah. But still, that's gotta.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, man.

[James Pietragallo]

Holy shit. Joyce also survives. She manages to drive to her son's house after the attacker left.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Was she shot in the face too?

[James Pietragallo]

Different parts of the body. She manages to bleeding, leaking blood, get in her car and drive to her nearby son's house where they call the ambulance. And both of them survive the attack.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's unbelievable.

[James Pietragallo]

That is miraculously incredible. That's amazing. If you got stabbed a bunch, then shot in the face with a shotgun, you'd just be like, I'm definitely dead. Now this is happening.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine though, that it's not that bad where you know for sure that you can make it. You gotta be like, you motherfucker, fucked up my face. I'd be so mad.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So this was in like an upscale residence just outside of Gonzalez too. This is a very nice house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, God.

[James Pietragallo]

Now the thing that's wonderful for the police is they both survive the attack. Which means they can, what, describe like a motherfucker? Absolutely. So they have a description they give to law enforcement. The FBI is there trying to compile

[Jimmy Wissman]

information, but they definitely don't know the guy. He's unknown to them.

[James Pietragallo]

Unknown to them. Supposedly here they don't have a name. I mean, yeah, they say he's a white male in his 20s or 30s. They say he's about 5 foot 7 with a medium build.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Incredible.

[James Pietragallo]

There you go. But then they sat with a sketch artist as well, and they got a composite going and that gets sent out to the media and More tips start coming in. Because now there's a sketch and a description and an MO and anybody have any extra money? And now there's a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine you rob somebody of 100 grand.

[James Pietragallo]

Freaking murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You drive off and then you see your face on tv.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what we'll talk about. What happened when this guy saw his face on tv? Because it's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine he's gotta be like, your fucking

[James Pietragallo]

throat would drop out of your asshole if that happened.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It would go, yeah, you just gotta have the most heartburn. Every pizza you've ever eaten in your life would be backing up in your throat.

[James Pietragallo]

Balls would suck up into your cavity. You know what I mean? Immediately.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, God, that's so good. Looks just like me.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How'd they do it?

[James Pietragallo]

Tips come in. One tip comes from a security guard at the Square Deal Casino in Sorrento, Louisiana.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The square deal.

[James Pietragallo]

Square deal at a casino.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Come on into the casino where you'll get a square deal.

[James Pietragallo]

They do better than the rob you blind. Across the street, though, they do slightly better than that one. That one doesn't get as much business as they'd like.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Come on down to Highway Robbery.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, come on down to Highway Robbery Casino.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is this squared? Go fuck yourself.

[James Pietragallo]

Come on down to the gun in your ribs. Hand it over. Casino, Everybody. It's gonna be great times.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Come on, we'll call it even.

[James Pietragallo]

It's amazing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is this bullshit? Square deal. How dare they? The most false advertisement.

[James Pietragallo]

We give you a square deal where everything is stacked against you and we're hoping to leave with the mortgage to your house. That's how we're doing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a square deal.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a square deal. You lose your money to us. You sign over your house to us. That's a square deal right there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sounds square to me.

[James Pietragallo]

You owe us a house. You give us a house, we call it even. Square deal, everything's fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ah, square deal. Well, we take everything, leave you homeless. That's a square deal.

[James Pietragallo]

Square deal. By the way, we do eight decks in each fucking blackjack table, too. So it's a square deal. Real square around here. Real square around here. Those slot machines set up to be the squarest slot machines you can imagine, they really pay off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Only thing square is this motherfucking building, you thieving fucks.

[James Pietragallo]

That's awesome. So this is from a security guard there?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And he tells the investigators about a regular customer of his that he sees all the time. Now, he said, before the murders started, this guy would come in and spend very Little money. So he'd come in. He's a bummer. He comes in, he spends, drops 20 bucks in a slot machine or whatever. And video poker is his jam, actually. And then he leaves. They said he dressed like shit. He drove a beat up pickup truck. Just some ham and egger coming in, you know, hoping to get an extra couple hundred bucks for the weekend. Out of 20 bucks. You never know. He said, though, after the guy the murder started, he said the same guy was showing up, but all of a sudden he's looking sharp now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, he dresses nice.

[James Pietragallo]

He's got jewelry now. And now he's got a brand new motorcycle.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's riding a motorcycle to the casino,

[James Pietragallo]

Brand, brand new one. And he's spending a shitload of money on the slots on video poker.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Now he's got money to spend. He looks like night and day, like he won the lottery. So, yeah. The truck the guard described was distinctive. The truck that he used to drive a pickup with a homemade hoist on the back. He set it up. An engine hoist.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gross. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Like a mechanic would have, like a

[Jimmy Wissman]

shitty tow truck to lift engines.

[James Pietragallo]

Not a tow truck. It's specifically for engines.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's just an engine hoist.

[James Pietragallo]

An engine hoist? Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what it's for. Yeah. Not to lift actual cars. So one of the detectives, because this all comes in in tips, and somebody said, oh, we got an interesting tip from a guy at a casino saying A, B and C. And this one detective said, hold on a second. Did you say a pickup truck with a homemade hoist in the back?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

And he said, yeah, I know that guy. I know that fucking truck and I know that guy. I know exactly what he does.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nobody has that.

[James Pietragallo]

No, it's extremely distinctive for the area. So he said, I know this exact guy. As a matter of fact, the guy I know who has that truck is a mechanic who used to work for a friend of mine, you may know him, Victor Rossi, because he's dead. Our first murder victim.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So they're like, he worked for that guy, the guy I know with the engine hoist. So now we figure out. Now he goes, I got to figure out who that guy is. And we figure it out. It's Daniel Joseph Blank.

[Jimmy Wissman]

D.J. blank.

[James Pietragallo]

D.J. blank goes by Danny. Old Danny Blank. Born June 28, 1962. He is from Paulina, Louisiana, in the St. James Parish. Right on the river.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

So grew up here his whole life. His mom, I don't know her name because she died about three years before all these Murders started, but his dad's name is Hippolyte. H, Y, P O, L, I, T,

[Jimmy Wissman]

E. I'm so bummed. I already named my son Hypolite. That's a great name.

[James Pietragallo]

Hypolite.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know, I'd say like Hippolyte, but that would be spelled completely different. There'd be no Y. I don't get it. I know he has a sister named Sally Blank as well. So Hippolyte Blank and Sally Blank and Danny Blank here now. Danny's parents worked at a sugary refinery. A sugar refinery which is brutal, hot, shitty, industrial work. Champaign refinery. They decide since we both work at the sugar refinery, we should have eight kids.

[Jimmy Wissman]

God dang.

[James Pietragallo]

Eight. So Danny has seven brothers and sisters and they live in a small house and they're broke with 10 people living in it, which is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah. I mean, if you got no money, I mean, it's just me and you here. We could fuck.

[James Pietragallo]

We could fuck and then keep fucking. But once it starts getting too crowded to fuck, wouldn't you then slow down? Probably.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's the only thing we're allowed to do. I'm doing it.

[James Pietragallo]

You should take care of these goddamn kids is what you should be doing. Jesus. At age 12, Danny was riding a bike when he's struck by a car. He gets hit by a car. At 12, he's diagnosed with a mild brain dysfunction. After that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Got some issues. People who knew him said that after the accident he became a completely different kid. Personality.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I've heard of that.

[James Pietragallo]

Totally changed his personality. More withdrawn, more introverted. They said before he'd been a normal kid, just regular normal kid. And after that he got real quiet and just. They said it seemed like he was always inside of himself, just in a different way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Trying to figure it out in there. It's a ghost house in there.

[James Pietragallo]

And by the next year when he's 13, in the eighth grade, he drops out of school.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, he's done, huh?

[James Pietragallo]

He got halfway through the eighth grade. Who reads at about a third grade level. And he's got an IQ of around 85.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How old was he when he got hit?

[James Pietragallo]

12. And then the next year he dropped out. So, I mean, that's 13. So 12 is seventh grade, 13 is eighth grade. So he's got an IQ of about 85, which doesn't make him like, you know, medically a problem or anything like that. That's in the low average range. That just means you're pretty dumb. That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So so he's a dropout in his teen years. He committed some arson. He burned down a building, but he was still a juvenile, so they let him go. Pretty much that's just a kid trying

[Jimmy Wissman]

to figure out why this sulfur, when you strike, it burns.

[James Pietragallo]

And what it smells like when it all burns. So he's adjudicated a delinquent and sent to reform school.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. Now, in reform school, he discovers he likes working on engines, though, which is good for him. It gets him a vocation. The school had a mechanics program, and he was quiet and withdrawn and turned out to be really good. A really good mechanic, actually. Really, really good mechanic. He takes right to it and pretty much just natural talent for it. By the time he got out, he knew that's what he wanted to do, was be a mechanic. And he's good at it. And he worked steadily for years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Never at the same job for too long.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

But always, if you're a decent mechanic and you got your own tools, you can get a job anywhere. You can always get a job. It's like cutting hair. You gotta. You can cut hair until you fuck it up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So he also has a. I guess you could say a girlfriend. But they've been together forever and they have two kids, so. Oh, it's a lot. Now Danny's gonna have four kids total.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Two before this woman, then two with this woman. She is Cindy Ballard. B E L L A R D. And they live together in Louisiana. And they've been together a long time. And all four of the children live with them. Their kids and his kids all live with them. Now, what the hell has Danny been doing to make him need money so bad? Gambling and gambling and gambling.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And he's an addict.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, to the nth degree. He's a huge addict. Yeah. Louisiana opened up riverboat casinos. And video poker machines are everywhere. This is like Vegas now, where you go to the 711 and there's video poker there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's at the fucking gate.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

When you get off the plane, the first thing you see is a fucking

[James Pietragallo]

go ahead and get. So this is at gas stations, bars, you know, obviously, casinos. He went to many different casinos. The Treasure Chest, the Boom Town, the Square Deal. All of them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All the places that are named after things that are not happening.

[James Pietragallo]

Nope.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The boomtown. Boomtown for the casino.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. You come in, give us all your money. That's quite the boon for us. That would be Boom town. Yeah, it should be. He'd go in with a little money, he'd Blow it on the slots in 10 minutes and go home. That's all. Problem is though, he really escalates it and he really likes gambling. And by the mid-90s, he's out of his mind with this shit. Financial records would later show that between 1995 and 1997, he had a reported income of $5,410 one year and 13,767 the next year, and then.00 in 97. Okay. Now they said that his very low legitimate earnings. 13,767 and 96 and none in 97, make no sense because he gambled hundreds of thousands of dollars at local casinos.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Uh.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh yeah. He wagered during this same period where he made a grand total of less than $20,000, which is about $19,000 and change. He bet over $269,000 across three different casinos. How think about that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And cashed out 220,000 to 16. So his net loss was approximately $49,000 in three years, which is more money. That's more than twice what he made during that period.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But it's still pretty impressive that that's all he lost.

[James Pietragallo]

I suppose. But where'd he get the money though? That's the thing, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a question.

[James Pietragallo]

How do you lose $49,000 when you make thousand dollars in two years? That's crazy. So it's. I mean, hey, might be a decent gambler. That's sad that we're saying to be a decent gambler is you didn't lose that much.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You didn't lose all 240, 69,000. You only lost 40 something thousand dollars. That's actually impressive because if I gambled $269,000, James, I will lose $369,000.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, he's not a card play. He does video poker and he does slots. So you could get lucky.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You win and lose, Win and lose.

[James Pietragallo]

You win and lose on those. Now, the Treasure Chest Casino profiled him. They said based on his. They profile anybody who spends a couple bucks there. Based on his wagering patterns, they categorized him as a high roller. 19 grand. In three years. He made a high roller with the spending habits of a corporate executive who earns over $200,000 a year. They had him clocked as a CFO of a company that comes in there and does shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A big deal. This guy.

[James Pietragallo]

That is amazing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Boy, did they swing and mess.

[James Pietragallo]

No shit. He also has another expensive hobby. Street Rods, modified.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, he loves a hot rod.

[James Pietragallo]

He loves a hot rod. He's A mechanic. Of course.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He loves a hot rod. What's he got?

[James Pietragallo]

We don't know what the hell he's got, but. Not sure about that. But I thought you were about to

[Jimmy Wissman]

go over his fucking garage, James.

[James Pietragallo]

No, the problem is that connects him because he had worked for the one guy, Arcari, but also Joan Brock. The last murder he committed there, before the two people got away, her husband Doug used to build custom street rods. And they built them together. Daniel Blank, he and that guy Blank and Joan Brock. Sorry, Doug Brock and Daniel Blank.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So Joan's husband, Doug and Dan are building these.

[James Pietragallo]

They're building those. And they would attend street rod shows together with their cars. Apparently, between the street rods and the gambling, he just got out of control. He needed more money, obviously. So he started looking around at people that he knew. Employers, neighbors. Because it turns out that Barbara Bourgeois or whatever lives, like, right behind him. Also, Danny Blank lives in the same neighborhood.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He is far too connected to all of these victims.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I mean, if you're gonna do this, go to strangers, houses. But the problem is, he doesn't know strangers have money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He goes to people he knows who has money.

[James Pietragallo]

He knows who has money. Yeah. And also, who's older. Also people who are older, easier to knock over and take their money. So, yeah, maybe people who had nice houses and whatever. So his MO was consistent. He cased the house. Someone he already knew or knew of, knew about them. Someone with money who already thought who had money. And someone he could basically reasonably access without drawing attention. Maybe he knew the neighborhood, he had reasons to be there. Or it's just kind of the way the house is positioned. Or it's a rural area where no one else is gonna see. He cut the phone lines. Every single one of these has phone lines cut. Wow. Before he enters the house, he cuts the phone line. No. Calling 911. He'd disable alarm wires, too. He planned everything. He'd break in, usually through a window. He'd remove a window pane a lot of the times. He'd find the safe, he'd find the cash and search. Basically, that's it. And then he'd take the money and go to a fucking casino with it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's unbelievable.

[James Pietragallo]

It's insane, dude. I could see a drug habit. I guess I don't have the gambling bug.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No. I'm terrified.

[James Pietragallo]

For some people, gambling is the same as drugs or booze. And it has the same draw for them. So I guess I just don't have that. So I don't Know, to me, I go, I dropped $20 in the slot machine. And I go, that was fucking stupid. And then I leave.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I sit there, mouth agape. I just saw a man win about 11 grand on roulette. Slowly. He's like betting several bets at a time. It's like, well, if you bet that on that and then you won this

[James Pietragallo]

on this edges and the quarters and

[Jimmy Wissman]

you have, you have. He had like fucking 11 bets out there. He won two of them. And he made more money on the two bets than what he had laid, so it didn't matter. But my brain can't calculate that. And he knows what the fuck he's laying it on. And then about 11 grand, he grabs his chips and hurriedly walks away. And I'm just shaking my head going, that wasn't even my money. And I can't fucking believe it. I had so much adrenaline watching him win.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, that man has a disease is the thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a sick man.

[James Pietragallo]

You watch that? And went, wow, he's really got this down to a scientist. Whereas most people do it for fun.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You know what I mean? That guy, that's what he does.

[Jimmy Wissman]

11 grand at a clip, just. I was horrified. I couldn't believe he was doing it. And like, so methodically, like a fucking surgeon, just like knew where to put things. And then when he was done, he was done. When he figured this table stepped out. I don't know when you quit with roulette.

[James Pietragallo]

I have seen when you're out of money or when you realize how stupid and random this game is and how your skill has zero to do with it, at least. Yeah, your skill has some level to do, something to do with it. A decision you make will affect the outcome here. No matter where you put your chips, they spin the wheel and little ball falls where it does. There's no way to control it. That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, but I know that on slots you can. You can go, well, this thing's not going to pay right now. It's doing some cycle thing that it's just not paying. So you get up and walk away. But on roulette, there's no fucking cycle there. It's just fucking random every time.

[James Pietragallo]

Completely the most crazy thing to put money into. It's so palsy, it's insane.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I was so impressed. I get why there's hot chicks that hang around to blow these guys, because I almost wanted to blow him. I was like, God, that was amazing, sir.

[James Pietragallo]

That's hilarious. That doesn't work with other diseases. No, it doesn't. Work with a heroin habit usually.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No. That was impressive, sir. I kind of want to blow you.

[James Pietragallo]

You really stuck a lot of junk in your arm. I'm really gonna suck your dick now. That's. That's great.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I was very impressed, but also very scared. I just wanted to go home.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. This is a different deal with people that gamble. They have a whole different.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Tim. I can't understand it.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't have it. I don't get it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

So the investigators here, they're looking. They want to talk to Danny. They really want to have a chit chat with him. They run a financial background check on him, and it confirms everything. It confirmed that he made $0 in 1997.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They're like, okay, that's not good. How does he afford things? They went to his last known address in Sorrento, and he already moved. He's gone.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's already gone.

[James Pietragallo]

Now his girlfriend's mother, Cindy's mother, answers the door, though, and says, danny doesn't live here anymore, but I could try to get a message to him for you if you'd like.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And they said, yeah, sure, you know, let him know that we're looking for him. Basically, investigators. Here's my card. So within the hour, these investigators.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, she got it to him fast.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. This investigator's phone rings, and it's a guy saying, I'm Daniel Blank. I heard you want to talk to me. And they said, well, where are you? And he said, onalaska, Texas.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not even close.

[James Pietragallo]

They were like, okay, but why do you need to talk to me? And they said, well, we're investigating several homicides of elderly people. Large amounts of money have been stolen, and your name keeps coming up because of your spending habits at the casino.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Keeps coming up.

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely. So he said, oh, no, no, no. Yeah, I totally get casino. He goes, I'm a good gambler. That's why I go to the casino. I have receipts. I'll bring you receipts. I'll prove to you that all my gambling wins are legit. I might have started off with a little, but I turned it into a lot like fucking Jenny from the block. You know what I mean? I can do it. So I got this. He said, I also have my casino winnings documentation with my girlfriend's mother. I left that over there. So he said, tell you what. Let's set up a meeting. I'll come back to Louisiana. I'll go grab all my documentation, and I'll come and I'll show you that all my shit is legit and you can look at somebody else for this murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bring some Quiznos and we'll have a little time.

[James Pietragallo]

Totally. They said absolutely. They set up a date and he never shows up, never comes back. Just stays in Texas.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I got busy.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So the task force, they're going to go to him. They had established a hotline and they said there's still the possibility that potential witnesses exist. And these witnesses, for whatever reason, may believe that their information is insignificant. This information may be extremely important to the investigation, to the investigators involved in the case. Now, by the time they get to an Alaska Texas, it's November 97.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

That has been months since the last murder. It took this long to be able to go there. Now Danny built a whole new life over here. He has a brand new trailer they're living in. Brand new hot shit trailer he bought for $22,000.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A trailer? Yeah. Like a mobile home?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, a house for 22,000. Cash he paid for.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cash money.

[James Pietragallo]

Cash money. 22,000 he bought. He even put in an above ground swimming pool for $4,000.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Boy, is he living a weird trash dream.

[James Pietragallo]

I was just gonna say this guy's got a garage full of tools, a brand new trailer paid off and an above ground kicking. He is like in white trash hog heaven. This is amazing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My fridge is full of natty lights.

[James Pietragallo]

Wow. Yeah. He's got like a carport fridge full of natty light and he's like full every shelf. People come over to hang out and he's like, I'll tell you what. He sits in his chair drinking, goes. I just couldn't think of anything that could improve my life right now. I just can't. I just can't think of one damn thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I got a fucking fridge full of beer. I got a cabinet full of Kraft Blue box.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, I got the good stuff called blue box. I get the blue box. Get that great value junk. No more. My elbow macaroni stays together when it boils. It don't break into pieces. It's good. He also bought a new dining room set, a new station wagon, a new motorcycle, a pickup truck and a utility trailer. He is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Does he also have tickets to the upcoming NASCAR race? Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

He's also got backstage passes to Toby Keith. He is ready to fucking go. He is ready to roll in 1997.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Everything that a lottery winner in a trailer park would do. Day one.

[James Pietragallo]

Day fucking one. They didn't win the Powerball. They just split the regular with a few people. So, you know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's a scratch off It's a

[James Pietragallo]

scratcher, but it's a good scratcher. God. Now, truck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Motorcycle.

[James Pietragallo]

Pickup truck. Station wagon. Motorcycle. Above ground utility trailer. New dining room set. That's right. And a nice above ground baby.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ah, Jesus Christ. That's solid oak right there.

[James Pietragallo]

That's solid oak right there. He. He leased a garage space and opened Daniel's Automotive as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

With this money, he's gonna open a business.

[James Pietragallo]

At least he's using it to. Like he's doing. Maybe I can actually make money if I own my own shop rather than having to murder old people and take their money. At least there's something there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What he's doing is living in his means. Stuff that he can maintain in the event that the money runs out. And then he started a business, which it's smart. He's kind of stretching it the way a hillbilly would.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, a hillbilly would piss it all away on beer and then not have any money left. He's turned into a businessman all of a sudden. So he takes over the business on August 8, and on September 3, officially changes the name to Daniels Automotive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. Now, while this is all going on in Texas, the FBI is working with not only the Louisiana police, but also the Texas authorities to keep an eye on Danny while he's there. They have surveillance established on him. They watch him. They need a reason to officially engage him because they don't have any physical evidence and they don't have anything other than this connection. So they need a reason to talk to him. If they just go up to him and go, hey, we know you're. Whatever. He could just move again and change up and you'll never know anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, the good news is it's Texas, so you can harass him about goddamn anything.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. Well, they found. It's true.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They found out that he does not have a valid driver's license. So they go, okay, that's a thing. But we can't pull him over for that. Cause how would we know his license isn't valid if thus, there was something first? So while they keep watching him, they find out that he habitually runs a stop sign near his business. There's a specific stop sign, you know, it's a roll through. He doesn't stop there. There's nobody there. And he just goes through it. They go, every time he rolls through that stop sign, we're going to pull him over. Next time he rolls through that stop sign, he's not going to have a driver's license. We can take him into the station, he's going to jail and see what happens. So they do a Texas detective, Mike Nettles, sets up a traffic stop, hangs out near the stop sign, pulls him over. Where's your driver's license? I don't have one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get in my car, I'll take you.

[James Pietragallo]

And he said, well, we got to take you. Danny said, is all this really necessary? You think you're arresting me? All this. Just let me go. There's my. You know where my shop is. You can. You know. What the fuck?

[Jimmy Wissman]

We told you not to mess with Texas and you messed with us.

[James Pietragallo]

You messed with Texas by rolling through a stop sign. You know Texas, where you can have fucking advanced military weaponry in your pickup truck. But don't you better make a complete stop at that stop sign, buddy. You're in trouble.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Wow. Wild place. So they book him into the county courthouse, they take a full set of fingerprints and palm prints and now they have them to compare to Louisiana and they take him in. Here it comes. It's gonna be fucking guillotine time. Basically, this is gonna be the hammer dropping. They don't match.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nothing matches.

[James Pietragallo]

Shit, they don't match. Not a single print matches him from any of the fucking crime scenes they have.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh my God.

[James Pietragallo]

Not one. Nothing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Y.

[James Pietragallo]

Not a partial, nothing. So they have nothing to hold him on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gotta let him go.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. He paid a $50 fine and walked out. That's that. They have nothing forensic. No prints, no physical evidence of any kind. They have nothing. They couldn't get a DNA sample from him because there's no reason to do that yet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cause that sounds crazy.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. All they had was a guy whose finances looked like something was going on and six dead people. And he happened to know or live near all of these six dead people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But a lot of people know or live near all of them. That's that too.

[James Pietragallo]

Small town. So they said the only way this is gonna work is if we get a confession out of them or DNA

[Jimmy Wissman]

or some shit like that, something.

[James Pietragallo]

So they end up. DNA was hard at this point too. You needed like a whole head, hair or blood or something like that. I don't think this is just a swab deal. And you needed like a court order for this shit back then. So. November 13, 1997, at the Unalaska, Texas courthouse annex, the task force here, they arrived at Daniel's Automotive with search warrants for his home and business. He was at the shop and readily agreed to accompany them to the courthouse for a conversation. He said absolutely no problem at all. He Sat in the front seat of the police car on the drive over. Not in handcuffs, not under arrest, nothing like that. They bring him into the room. He's given his Miranda rights. And he said, I'll answer anything you ask. I mean, I ain't got nothing to hide, quote unquote. Well, perfect. That's what we're looking for. What follows is 12 hours of interrogation.

[Jimmy Wissman]

12 hours. I got nothing to hide.

[James Pietragallo]

12 hours. Normally about. Nowadays at about 7, they break it and they go, it's gonna get thrown out. Anything past that anyway, so fuck it. But this is 12 hours on camera the whole time, so none of this backroom horseshit. They get him on camera. 12 hours. They give him four sodas, a water. Bathroom breaks. There's a no smoking sign. He immediately lights a cigarette. Cause he's a hillbilly. They tell him to put it out. Eventually. Apparently he's allowed to smoke in the bathroom during breaks. Oh, they let him smoke in the. Which is a smaller room, which makes no sense. I don't understand.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hey, go in that smaller room.

[James Pietragallo]

Maybe a fan. Plus, I guess it's better than smelling shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

If I walk into like every airport bathroom, they should have one guy just assigned to stand there and smoke all day. Just. That's your job. Here's a pack of cigarettes. When you're done, clock out. We get a new guy in here. Because I don't want to smell the amount of people shit in every corner of the world. And that's what I'm smelling in this bathroom. Foods. I don't want to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And I realize people have. Yeah, people have emergencies, people have allergies, people have health issues. It's fascinating to me how many people time travel a shit every day.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't get it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

As soon as they get off planes, those stalls are more full than the urinals.

[James Pietragallo]

I know. It would have to be coming from my eyes before I would go into a fucking airport bathroom and shit. Absolutely coming. I mean, I would have to be. Oh, God, it's literally. I gotta catch it coming from my ears. I have to shit now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm on the ground.

[James Pietragallo]

Not happening.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm almost to where I need to be. I'll do it there. How long is your fucking flight that you didn't day manage your. You know what I mean? Manage your day. So you're not shitting it like this?

[James Pietragallo]

I am not sure. So it's a very good question. So smoking in the bathroom. Now, the detectives. This is Detective Heimel and Detective Tony. They take the first Stretch here. This is background questions. Where are you from? What's your family like? Work history? Bullshit. He said he grew up in Lutcher and was from Paulina, born there, grew up in Lutcher, dropped out in the eighth grade. He admitted he can barely read. He said he has a son and a daughter from his first marriage and he never sticks to a job for very long. They said, why do you have so many jobs? And he said, no particular reason.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No particular reason.

[James Pietragallo]

Just a piss poor employee, that's all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm just bad at this.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. So they asked him all the questions. They're asking him questions they know the answer to to see if he lies, essentially. Here. One of the things they ask him is about gambling. And he insists that he wins money every time. All of his winnings are legitimate, and that's where his money comes from. He starts to tell them how he got into video poker and how lucky he was at it. I'm just lucky, that's all. All the time. Wow. He said I was making two to three thousand dollars a week on video poker.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How do you do that?

[James Pietragallo]

Crazy. Because he made $18,000 in three years for his job. He said, I once won $5,000 in one night. And he said, the trailer I bought, I bought it in Sorrento with video poker money. And the one detective says, do you think we traveled this distance to speak to you about casino winnings? Do you think legitimately that's why we're here? We think you're running a casino scam.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. You think we want to talk about casinos?

[James Pietragallo]

So he says, well, basically you wanted to know where I got all my money from, and that's why I gave him the papers talking about the documenting the money at the casino. So the detective says, we both of us took a number of notes and we've been speaking to you for about an hour and a half now. And Danny says, um huh, not uh um huh, which is a weird one. Um huh. They said, every single question that we asked you, we knew the answer to. And we do that for one reason, to see if you're going to lie to us. He says, right. They said, there, there's a few points that you did and there's a few things that you did. And we're not going to ask you a question that we don't know the answer to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So you lied to us right now and we know it. Just need you to know that.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. He said, yeah. And they said, we've been doing this for too long and we're Too good at what we do. Which is why I love when the cops try that approach. There's several approaches. There's the, look, we have all the evidence. Just give it up. There's the, you don't know how good we are at this. Let me explain to you how I can take a fucking hair and connect it to whatever. And then there's the, hey, you just need to be a good person and come clean. What would your grandma think of that? The first 48 thing? What would your grandma think about you not only killing someone, but then lying to a policeman. Police officer about it? And they start crying. So there's a few different.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You don't know how good I am. Is a fucking really aggressive approach. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Because they think he's a moron and they can just kind of roll him like that. So he says, right. And they said, and we're not going to come down here half stepping, and I'm not going to travel five hours to come speak with you without having all my ducks in a row. So he likes his idioms. So maybe. And Danny says, right. And they say, okay, you have absolutely no idea why we're here to speak to you. Is that what you're telling us right now?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And he said, well, you want to know where I got my money from, dude?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why is he so hung on the money? He thinks that's the only thing that's going to catch him.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what he wants it to be about.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Because that's not murder. So you're trying to hear all that other crime. Oh, yeah, I was terrible.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's keep talking about gambling.

[James Pietragallo]

So they said, have you ever been questioned or spoken to by any other sheriff's office in the past for any other crimes that have taken place? And he said, I was called in on that deal about Rossi. He was questioned about Victor Rossi, as were any of his former employees, but he was cleared. So they said, the Rossi homicide? And he said, yeah. So then Detective Himel says, we've been speaking to you for about an hour and a half now, and we know the answer. We're just seeing if you're gonna lie to. Like, why are you doing this three hours in? There's nothing, no progress here. He's just a lot of riot, and I'm just. I can talk about the money. So then finally they go, listen, will you take a polygraph?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

What do you say?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He said, yeah to everything.

[James Pietragallo]

Will you take a polygraph? They have an FBI agent in here, Agent David Sparks. He's been Trained at Quantico, and he's waiting in the next room for. So they said, what do you think? And he said, now, if I refuse the polygraph, then what happens?

[Jimmy Wissman]

We flew a guy in.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So they said, daniel, if you refuse it, then we got some serious talking we need to do, okay?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And they said, we'll sit down and talk to you some more. Meaning that's what'll happen. You're gonna be never getting out of this room. And they said. Then the other cops said, I'm. No, I'm not gonna bullshit you. We all big boys in this room, okay? But I think you should save that decision until he, meaning the polygraph examiner, gets here and he can explain the test to you and its procedures. He says, I'll take the test. Fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

They go over the questions three times before they administer it to him. So they tell him what is going to be asked. That way, you're not going to be surprised.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's an open book test.

[James Pietragallo]

It's an open book test. You know what's coming. I could hook you up to a polygraph, and I could bring up something in a question that you didn't want to bring up that had nothing to do with the other thing, and your heart rate would spike. So they said the test focus specifically focused on the murder of Joan Brock, the last actual murder. He fails the polygraph three fucking times. He takes it once, twice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He knew all the words.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, failed it. Failed every single question other than what's your name and your address? Essentially, yeah. Now the polygraph's not admissible in court.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

But they still sit there and confront them with the results. They go in the next room and they go, you failed every goddamn question. Worst you could do, just terrible.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And they're not bullshitting them, because a lot of times they'll do that, too. They just go, now, you lied and I didn't.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. They have them hooked up to a copy machine. Lie. Yeah. This is. So they then tell him, look, the investigation's pointing at you. The evidence is overwhelming at you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not good for court, for us.

[James Pietragallo]

But, yeah. Then he says, listen, if you just confess, your family's still going to love you. He said, your kids deserve to hear the truth from you. The detective says, something occurred in your life 16, 18 months ago. Something made you snap all the way to here. I don't think it was drugs. I think it was something you said. I have to take care of my family. I have to take care of my family. You decided that you Would take the easy way out. You didn't plan on hurting anybody, did you? So they gave him that out too. You never wanted to hurt anybody. We get that. That's another thing that they do is to minimize the crime so that it sounds like. Like less than being a serial killer. And they admit to it, and then that's that. So he maintains his innocence, he denies everything. And he just kept saying, I'm just real tired now. Just getting real tired as anybody would after hours of interrogation. He said at one point, quote, want to charge me for this? Because I don't know what. Look, I'm tired. I've been up since 1:30. Something in the morning, y' all dragged me down here. Y' all been at it. I don't even know what time it is. That's what he said. So this one cop, Sparks, he finishes. That's the FBI guy. No confession.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

They say, we're take one more shot at this. They send in Detective Todd Himel. They go in, and he takes the complete opposite approach. He takes the first 48. The one in Memphis that the black lady detective always takes with the kids when she goes in there and tells them, you live with your grandmama, right? And she'll be like, how disappointed would your grandmama be that you're lying to me right now? You're lying to a police officer in addition to being a murderer and blah, blah, blah. And then they start going, I love my grandmama. And then they start confessing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They go in, and he's real calm, this Heimmel. He doesn't threaten, doesn't talk about evidence, doesn't do any of that shit. Now, Danny's mom had died in 1994, three years before this started. Remember we talked about that? Danny was close to her, really close to her. And the death was hard on him. And people who knew him said that he never really recovered from his mother dying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Uh. Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

So for 20 minutes, Heimel sat with blank and talked about his mother. That's all he would talk about your mom. And not, like, your mom, like, I banged her last night either. Like, yeah, you might want to pick up my.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not a bunch of your mama jokes.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I left something on your mom's floor last night, if you want to grab that for me. None of that shit. So he just, real calm, he tells Danny that his mother loved him and that she'd want him to do the right thing. She raised him. Did your mother raise you right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Which.

[James Pietragallo]

What's he gonna say? No? He says, of course they Said she raised you to take responsibility, didn't she? Yeah, of course. And also, well, your mom is watching right now. You know that, right? You know your mom is up in heaven watching you right now, talking to me right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Lie to me.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. He said, quote, she made you take responsibility for your actions. She instilled that in you. And then Danny started to cry. He starts cry, the tears start coming.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The waterworks. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

He drops his head down and goes completely quiet, just sobbing. They give him a second to sob. And then when the time is right, this detective said, did you mean to kill Mrs. Brock?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ah.

[James Pietragallo]

Danny, still crying, says, no. That's it. That's a confession right there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

And that's it. And then after that, he just lets it all out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He just said it all.

[James Pietragallo]

He says it all. He's done detailed confessions. Not just, oh, boy, yeah, I did it minute by minute by minute. Where he put things that he stole from the house. What he stole from the house. Certain things that you. Most of this stuff has not been out to the public. This is stuff only the killer knows, only the person in the house. He draws maps to items that he put. He draws diagrams of houses, of where the victims were, where he was, where items are. He notes the location of safes in bedroom closets. Well, this is his roulette board. I think that he's putting it on. Yeah, that guy remembers that. You remember your business, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

For sure. Yeah. It's impressive too. They just got him to crack using one person that. I mean, the lady's not even here.

[James Pietragallo]

Nope, that's it. It just got him on his mother sheet. They knew that was an emotional fucking nerve to press. And they pressed it. And that's like last. That's last ditch effort is your mama would want you to tell the truth. After that, they'd have to let him go. They have nothing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. That's the last swing.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, that's it. If he said, fuck you and fuck my mama, that would have been the end of the fucking interview. Literally. So it's wild now he notes the location of safes and bedroom closets, how much money was in them. The fact that the attic ladder in the Philippe house folded down into the hallway. One of those. He knew that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He knew that.

[James Pietragallo]

He knew the contents of victims purses, things that he left behind, things that he took. These specific things. The trophy he used. He knew what the trophy was for. He knew what kind of trophy it was. He's like third place in the bridge tournament. He fucking knew which is crazy. So he knows everything. This is all shit that only the killer would know. His narrative is consistent throughout. He didn't intend to kill anybody. He broke into rob places, he tried to do it in the middle of the night while they were sleeping, things like that. They woke up, they attacked him, and all he ever did was defend himself

[Jimmy Wissman]

with a shotgun to the face.

[James Pietragallo]

It's almost like they didn't want some stranger in their home robbing them. It's real weird. They attacked him and he was like, well, I had to defend myself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's almost like the business owner that just fired this man didn't want to his fired employees stealing from him.

[James Pietragallo]

Strange. Isn't that weird? In his house, he won't even pay him for work. He does nevermind for nothing, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Give him my shit.

[James Pietragallo]

October he goes back through all the murders. October 27, 1996, is that he had recently worked for Victor Rossi. That's all. It was at the repair shop in Prairieville. The guy had recently hired Daniel Blank, so he still worked there. And he said that Rossi failed to pay him for some fuel injection equipment and failed to pay him for work that he had performed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

So he decided to go over and exact it for himself. And the guy woke up and there was a big fight. And that's what happened. He said, I went to his fuel injectors, just some fuel injectors. Said I went to his house, he was asleep on his couch. He said, I found a baseball bat and beat him to death with it. Said I got about 900, 800, 900 bucks. And I went to the casino. He said he woke Rossi up with the bat and attacked him. But Rossi got the bat away from him and hit him back. And then he got it away from Rossi and then he hit him until he was dead. Basically, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, there's got to be an element of self defense.

[James Pietragallo]

That's totally. I mean, he was just asleep on his couch and I was over him with a baseball bat and he freaked out about it. Like, calm down, bro. So now the problem is the murder weapon. This baseball bat with prints and DNA. The prints don't match him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Uh huh.

[James Pietragallo]

And neither does the DNA.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, what the fuck is that?

[James Pietragallo]

Neither thing matches him. Oh, by the way, Sam's fingernails. Yeah, that doesn't match him either.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Doesn't match him either.

[James Pietragallo]

It's an unknown male DNA. Not Danny Blank.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How did he not leave anything there?

[James Pietragallo]

How did someone else leave something there? Never mind him not leaving if it was just. There's nothing. There's Other fingerprints and other DNA. DNA there, which is fucking crazy. Then they talk about there's a gap in the murders from November 96 through March 97. And he confirmed that he was spending money that he had stolen at the casinos at that point. So he didn't need money. He said he was working as a mechanic, living with his girlfriend Cynthia in Sorrento, helping to support his kids and her two kids. Well, actually their two kids and the two kids they have together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're all his. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So he said five months he was losing its slots. He was spending money he didn't have, and he was. Debts piling up. So then, March streak. Yeah, not a bad streak. 3-19-97. Is the Barbara Bourgeois or Bourges or whatever her name is. Bourgeois, Barbara, 58 years old in Paulina, Louisiana. Recently widowed, special education teacher. Teacher's assistant of the year and all that. Jesus Christ. One of those. The ball of death, essentially. It's that scene. So this was the vacuum cleaner covered in blood and the knife that they immediately saw. They said there was no sign of robbery, extreme violence. So that's why they thought that the robber took off because of the confrontation. He said he broke in through a window, disabled the telephone wires and ransacked the house. House. He said he was going to collect shit and leave when Barbara woke up. When he woke up, she confronted him. So he grabbed her vacuum cleaner and attacked her with it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The first thing he could grab.

[James Pietragallo]

First thing. He didn't even punch her first. He grabbed a vacuum cleaner. By the way, he's like 5 2, 120 pounds.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He is little.

[James Pietragallo]

He's little enough to fit through that fucking vent. Five two, five two, they're saying. Very small. So he beat her horribly. Massive blunt force trauma to the head, fractured nasal bones, fractured sternum, large hematomas, internal hemorrhaging. Then he got a knife from her kitchen and stabbed her also. Wow. Brutal. She lived about a quarter mile behind his house, right there. April 10, 1997. Gonzalez, Louisiana. Lillian Felipe. That's the first one we talked about. That's when Dr. Doyle came over because she didn't show up to pick up her sister to go on a religious retreat. This murder blank said that he cut the phone lines, peeled a window open carefully so he didn't make noise, got inside and started searching. Now, he found the attic. There was a vent on the roof, and he removed it and lowered himself in. That's how he ended up getting in eventually, because he couldn't. The window thing wasn't working. Too well. So he made his way through the attic, came down through a folding ladder into the hallway, then went looking for a safe. Now, there was a safe in the bedroom closet. He opened it. He got into the purse. He was searching through the drawers. But then Lillian came out of the bathroom. Turns out she wasn't asleep. She was in the fucking bathroom. She was found at the foot of her bed covered in blood, with a broken trophy near her head and a bloody butcher's knife next to the bed. He only fled with $120 cash, remember, in the envelope here. Now, the thing is, they said that a person would have a hard time fitting through the roof, but not if they're 5, 2, and 120 pounds.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

So here is the confession description of this crime. He said, quote, then I went back in and turned the light back on and started looking some more, and I didn't find anything. So I gave up on it. And when I come out, I had turned the light off. And when I come out, that's when I saw something swinging at me. And they said, you saw something swinging at you? And he said, well, I saw a shadow of something. The light was off. The only light on was, I think, the bathroom light. And when I saw something coming at me with the shadow of the bathroom light, and I just put my arm up, then I grabbed it and I pushed her. And they said, when you say you saw this something swinging at you, it was a person.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Kill her.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, he said, yeah, it was the woman swinging something at me. I don't know if it was a lamp. I didn't see it. I just grabbed it. And it could have been a lamp. It could have been a trophy. Felt more like a trophy. I don't know. It could have been like one of those little skinny lamps. I don't know. And, well, then that's when I pushed her. I pushed her. And then she comes at me with. I don't know if it was a knife or one of those letter openers or something. I don't remember what it was. I. I didn't see it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She was super armed.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. She's grabbing whatever the fuck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Armed to the teeth with lamps and letter openers.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, if she's got a desk there where she opens her mail, there's no lamp. And let her open it right there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So this is a wild story, though, to justify killing an old lady.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. You could have just knocked her, pushed her down and ran away.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ran away.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or just don't do this.

[James Pietragallo]

Or Just stay out of people's fucking houses. So they said she had it in her hand. And he said, yeah, that's when I hit her with the thing I had in my hand. Then I grabbed it and I cut her with the knife. Yeah. He said, I don't remember where I cut her or how I did it. It just happened. It just happened so fast. I just freaked out. And then I left after that. And they said, all right, so you're saying while you was in the closet, you heard some noise and you turned the light out in the closet? And he said, right. And they said, then you waited a little and then you turned the light back on? And he said, no, I turned the light off when I heard a noise. Then I kind of opened the closet door and peeked out. I didn't see anything or didn't hear anything. Then I waited a couple seconds, then I closed the door back and turned the light back on. And when I was ready to get out after, I looked around and they had all kinds of stuff in there. I kind of emptied out the drawers and stuff like that and didn't find nothing. I just decided to leave. So he's saying this was a bust and he was just going to leave. So they said, okay. And he said, and then when I come out, that's when I turned the light off and opened the door and come out. And that's when she was standing there and she had something in her hand and swung it at me. And they said, and you took it away from her? And he said, I put my hand up like that and it hit me on the arm. And then I grabbed it it and pushed her on her back onto the bed. Then she grabbed something off the table or something, coffee table. And it could have been a knife or could have been one of them letter openers. I don't remember. They said, okay, so when she went to grab this, you had this trophy. And he said, she come up. And they said, or lamp in your hand? And he said, yeah, she come up. And all I seen was like a shadow because I wasn't. I. There wasn't no light when she was. The light was. There wasn't no light where she was. The light was where I was shining from the bathroom. And the bathroom door wasn't open all the way. It was kind of cracked. And. Well, then she come back at me with the knife. And I tried to grab it, but I couldn't see her. I couldn't see her arm to grab it, and I just kind of ducked to the side And I hit her with the thing I had in my hand. They said what part of the body did you hit her with? Did you hit her? And he said I think I hit her in the head.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I ain't sure that's what he was aiming for.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what he was trying to hit her at. Yeah, that's the thing. They said, okay. And he said I think that's where I hit her. And they said and what did she do? And he said after that I pushed her and I grabbed her hand with the knife and I cut her. I don't know where but. And they said was she standing up when you cut her or. And he said no, she was laying on the. I think she had. When I pushed her, she was laying across the bed or at the edge of the bed. And after I did that, then I left. They said but you hit her with the knife too then? And he said yeah. And they said okay. Then you left. And he said I, I grabbed her arm or hand or something and went back with it. And then I took the knife and I ain't positive, but I think I hit her twice with it. I ain't sure. I don't remember. It happened so fast. I was just scared and I just took out and left.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Incredible recollection of that part versus knowing where every fucking thing is. And he can only give small time. He doesn't want to tell him he knows what he did and he's trying

[James Pietragallo]

to make it sound as self defensey as possible but on the fly. So how do you make a 71 year old woman in her own home, how do you make it seem like you're self defending against that?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bludgeoned her crazy and slit her throat to near decapitation.

[James Pietragallo]

That's insanity. So yeah, they said, so you took out and left or you took her out. And he said no, I took off, I got out of there. So that's the point where the whole task force is formed. And they noticed that the killer, when they were looking for him, they noticed he was organized and how he broke in the tools, the wire cutting, the careful window work. But disorganized. Once he was inside, he had no weapon to speak of. There's no normal point of attack. There's nothing that he just gets in there and whatever happens, happens.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It seems like it's a gamble. Yeah, it's a gamble. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

That's his big swap. He pulls the arm, but you know, give me those two. He's like, oh shit to old people, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He can plan everything that Happens on the outside. He doesn't know what's going to happen on the inside because he's never been in there or he's unaware of things that are there. So he's like, well, yeah, but you think a weapon going into the unknown.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, like a lot of an organized killer might go in there, know people are sleeping, find them sleeping, kill them while they're sleeping, and then take care of shit. That would be an organized person that knew what they were doing. This guy gets in there and he's like, well, I mean, if they come at me, I'll come at them, but otherwise, I'm just gonna steal some shit and leave. It's real weird.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Double down.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Splitting aces.

[James Pietragallo]

And they said he didn't bring weapons. He panicked when confronted. This combination suggested someone familiar with the area. Someone local, someone who could blend in, someone who might have the unexplained resources after that and all that kind of shit. Then they go on to 5-9-97 in Laplace. This is Sam and Luella Akiri. That is the young, the deputy son comes over and does all this shit and finds him there, finds his parents dead. And he said he spent the night in the garage waiting. He got there in the middle of the night. He waited. He'd removed a window pane to get in, and he waited in the garage. They picked up their newspaper. He heard him making the morning coffee. And then he went in and beat the place up and killed these two people. And they also said, you know, you left $112,000 in the encyclopedias in that house, right? Which must have just burned his ass.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You should have wanted to know who the 13th president was, you idiot.

[James Pietragallo]

You fucking dummy. You had no interest in anything encyclopedic. So that was the one where they find the DNA under the fingernails. That doesn't belong to Danny. Okay, next, is Joan and Doug there? Joan. Doug was out Brock. He said that he had a grievance against her husband. That's why he did this. He's pissed at Doug. That's exactly it. He said she let him in to the house because they knew each other. So she let him inside. And then in the backyard is when everything went down. They said that Daniel, Danny had worked for Doug. They'd worked together on the street. Rod cars, custom built, vintage vehicles. Danny had spent a ton of time at their home and knew Joan very well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

He described his resentment of Doug. He said, he took advantage of me by not assisting me in building some street rods. And he said he also he'd put work in and didn't feel like he got what he was owed for.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, well, I compensated to what I felt I deserved. Nope.

[James Pietragallo]

So this is what happened here. This is following the polygraph. And all of this. This is about Joan Brock. They said something occurred, and you decided you wanted more in your life. You thought you could take the easy way, and you thought you could get some money from somebody. And he said, no, no, Danny Blank said. And they said, and something happened. And he said, uh. And they said, and when you went in there to Joan Brock's residence, when you were in there. And they said, oh, don't shake your head. I love this. When you went in there. Oh, don't shake your head. I don't know. You know, don't deny it, okay? That's what he said. I, you know, don't deny it, okay? That's the exact words. The investigation. This investigation's been coming down for six months, son. Okay? Now he's. Son, this didn't happen yesterday. We didn't just come out here in the middle of nowhere. Middle of nowhere, okay? We know what's going on. We're trying to figure out. What we're trying to figure out is the why, because why this occurred, okay? And he said, I don't know, Danny. And they said, I want you to tell me, Daniel. Don't just sit there and shake your head.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Said. Now, come on. Let's be honest with each other, okay? Let's be honest with each other. It's time to have a meeting of the minds, okay? I'll tell you about the time my sister jerked me off when I was 12. If you tell me about the thing that happened to you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Meeting of the minds.

[James Pietragallo]

The meeting of the minds. He said, it's time for you to sit down and accept what you've done and accept what you've done and let it go, okay? And this is before he admitted to everything. He said, how can I accept something I ain't done?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay?

[James Pietragallo]

And they said, yeah, yeah, but you have. You have done it, Satan.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's the thing.

[James Pietragallo]

They said, yes, you did, okay? And II when you say you can't accept something you haven't done, and that's good, okay? Because that means in reality, you know, I can't accept I didn't do it because I didn't do it, okay? That's what you're trying to tell me, all right? In your own streetwise way, what you trying to tell me, all right? Something happened. Something occurred in your life, and he Said you didn't plan on hurting nobody. You just decided to take the easy way out. They keep going back to that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You got some regrets. It's all right.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. So, yeah, he said that. And Joan was nearly decapitated. She was stabbed so many times in the neck. And her car was later found in the Holiday Inn parking lot as well. With the safeguard and all that kind of shit. Then they go to July 7, 1997, 2:00am Leonce and Joyce Millet, the two toughest senior citizens who've ever existed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That side of the misstep for sure.

[James Pietragallo]

God damn. Yeah, they lived in a nice house in Gonzalez. And he said, Danny said he thought they'd have a lot of money around because they had, quote, a big old fancy house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's unbelievable. When I see a big, fancy house, I go, there ain't shit in there.

[James Pietragallo]

No. There's a bunch of people with credit and assets.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They don't have taxes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's a bunch of people with some paperwork about where their money is.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. So he said at 2am he went in, cut the phone lines, found the sling blade in the garage, and waited. When they were awake, that's when it happened. He said they kept giving him the wrong combination. He did what he did. Safe had $100,000 in cash. He took the cash. He shot both of them. He thought they were dead. The problem was, he went home, and like you said earlier, he saw on the news that both victims survived.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine the.

[James Pietragallo]

He cleaned the shit out of his comfort pants.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Oh, yes.

[James Pietragallo]

And he immediately packed up, told Cindy, we're moving to Texas, threw the kids in the car, and we're fucking gone. He was gone, like, two days out of there. Soon as that happened, he goes, they're gonna be able to describe me. I gotta go.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Peace out. That's real easy. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

That's when the sketch came and all that kind of shit. And that's when the tip came from the security guard. Also, Fred Babin of the Ascension. Ascension Sheriff's Office said after getting a detailed map from Danny Blank, he recovered the safe that had been thrown into a bayou along Airline highway about a mile outside of Sorrento. How the fuck else would you know where a safe was in a bayou and draw a map to it? Like, that's crazy. There's also other objects here. Several of the officers of this parish's sheriff's office also said that they recovered items at Danny's trailer in Sorrento, including jewelry boxes and a watch that were all identified from the Brock house. So he has things that he's took from there as well. So quickly, just a timeline to go over, because that's a lot to do. 10-27-96. That is Victor Rossi beaten to death with a baseball bat. 800 to $900 is stolen. 3-18-97, is Barbara Bourgeois, 58, beaten with a vacuum cleaner and stabbed. Robbery not completed. No money gets taken. April 9th and 10th, 97, that's Lillian Felipe, assaulted and stabbed in Gonzalez for $120. 5-9-97, Sam Arcary and Louella Arcary found by their son, the sheriff's deputy. They had $112,000 hidden in encyclopedias. The DNA doesn't match Danny. 5-14-97, Joan Brock is murdered in her backyard, nearly decapitated, had her car stolen, safe taken, all that kind of thing. Then July 7, 1997, is the Millets and Gonzalez, and they survived. Now, this is the fucking hilarious thing here, okay? They have him now that they have him, and they arrest him, obviously. And the news goes out. Now you have people talking about him in the press, which is hilarious. Police say that Daniel told them that he was the serial killer that did all this shit. But, folks, this is from a newspaper article. Quote, folks in the Piney woods town of Onalaska, Texas, say Blank told him or told them that he'd moved there last summer to get his wife and their kids away from the crime. There's all these murders going on where I'm from. That's what he said.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy shit. There is a serial killer on the loose. We had to get the fuck out of there.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, it's dangerous. It's like they got a stupid Ted Bundy rolling around them parts. He said the neighbor said he was concerned with crime where he had lived. He said he was from Louisiana. You hear about all the violence in New Orleans. He wanted to get his children away to a nice, safe place to grow up and go to school. Wow. So just if you're in prison, it's a nice, safe place. Barbara's daughter, on the night of the arrest, received a phone call. And the detective told her that we arrested somebody for your mother's murder. And quite a bit of time had passed, so she was happy. She said it was like, oh, my God, okay, they got him. You know, my mom's going to get justice. We came out of that courthouse with them. Every news media affiliate from Dallas to Lufkin to Fort Worth, that's all of them was on the steps of the courthouse. I'm glad they got the person who did it? Meaning when they arraigned him. And then she said, my mother had this smile that could just light up a room. Everybody says I look just like her. And I take that as a huge compliment. The police did what they had to do, and they were very determined. From the bottom of my heart, I think, but it'll still never be enough. Doug Brock, the one who was very disappointed his wife didn't get to cook him dinner in her new kitchen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He said, she gets to use the new Viking range.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes, God damn it. He said, I'm real happy, but it doesn't change much in my life. There's still nobody making dinner in that new kitchen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'll tell you what, I'm still hungry.

[James Pietragallo]

I'm still hungry. Still waiting for Thanksgiving. Got my bib on with my turkey on it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't even know how to turn this Viking range.

[James Pietragallo]

No, I don't know nothing about the kitchen. This poor guy, he's fucking his wife died making fun of him, but still, it's just funny. He said it definitely tears your life completely apart. They say time wounds are heals all wounds. But time cannot heal this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

Then they talk to his garage landlord, the one who he's renting Danny's Automotive in Texas from Don Evans, who owns a car repair shop. He said that Blank wanted to buy his repair shop for $65,000 cash.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He had 65 grand cash sitting there.

[James Pietragallo]

Cash money. That's what he said. He said I felt something funny when he said he wouldn't have any problem coming up with 65,000 cold hard cash. He said their kids said their dad made a lot of money from video poker. He was an excellent mechanic, though. An excellent transmission man. He upgraded this place, fixed the roof and some other things. So he's real happy with the improvements to the building.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a capable man, thank God.

[James Pietragallo]

He said that's good because he made improvements to this poor man's building. But he also said, quote, but I'm worried that it's depreciated being leased by a serial killer and all. He said, I hope the roof, the fixed roof and the serial killer will offset each other and we'll get offsetting penalties first down. You know what I'm saying? Let's just call it what it is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hope I make a profit still.

[James Pietragallo]

That's wild.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, there was a serial killer lived here. But it's got a new AC unit and insulation. Tip top.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, we'll call it what he rented it for. So the police released the shop back to him, he changed the locks and called all of Blanks customers to have him come get their vehicles that were sat in the yard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, they're still there.

[James Pietragallo]

Stages of repair and disrepair. So, yeah, good with transmissions, though, which is fucking hilarious because St. James Parish Sheriff Willie Martin said investigators are still probing Blank's background, but there's little they know that would be consistent with the brutal crimes. They said, quote, this guy said he was a handy guy with his hands. He was a handy guy with his hands.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What else would he be handy with?

[James Pietragallo]

What the fuck are you talking about?

[Jimmy Wissman]

The steel, if you know what I mean.

[James Pietragallo]

A handy guy with his hands.

[Jimmy Wissman]

See, he's a transmission guy, but the catch is he has to do it all with his feet.

[James Pietragallo]

All with his feet. He's a handy guy with his toes around them. Transmissions.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Handy guy with his hands.

[James Pietragallo]

He said transmissions were his specialty. The authorities say that, you know, it's all just saying. It's just pathetic. He said, I know he frequented casinos. I don't know if he favored any particular one, but he frequented casinos, that's all. Well, the arrest made one guy here, Jerry Tucker, a retired Continental Airlines pilot and one of Blank's auto repair customers. He rushed to the bank to cancel a $223 check that he wrote him. I'm not paying him shit. That's hilarious. He said. Blank called him. When? He also said he wondered about a recent encounter because Blank had called him when? Wednesday, to ask him to dinner. And this man said he agreed to meet Blank and the woman. He called his wife, Cindy, but declined their offer to pick him up. And he said, how often does your mechanic ask you to dinner?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Never. He was going to find out if you've got money and come rob you.

[James Pietragallo]

He said. They knew where I lived. His wife had taken me home once when my car was at the shop. They knew I was retired and was living in an exclusive community and that my wife had passed. No one would have missed me for weeks. It's eerie. They seem like such nice people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was gonna get it.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, yeah, yeah. He's probably running out of money. He bought all that shit. He's probably running out of cash. That's crazy. They say they're trying to get ahold of Cindy, but they're having unsuccessful efforts here. Next door neighbors Penny and Mike Darling told the newspaper that the Blanks never tried to make friends or invite the Darling's children to play with their children or go in their brand new above ground pool. Look at these highfalutin cocksuckers splashing around in their above ground like they're too good for the rest of the world.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not even inviting us over to have a Coors Light in it.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, man. Darling said, I tried to make friends with him, but he was real rude. After a while I figured they only wanted to be friends with elderly people. Those are the only people they were real nice to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God. They were just. Everybody was a future.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. Just setting them up. Yeah, setting them up. Yep. Wow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He thought he was never going to get caught for this. I mean, if it weren't for his stupidity of talking, then he may have never. They didn't have any evidence.

[James Pietragallo]

They had no evidence. I mean, he would have had to keep clean forever because they would have watched him till the end of time. But they had no evidence.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that's unbelievable.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. Now the police make an announcement back in Louisiana, quote, we have solid cases and the reign of fear in the river parishes is now over. Everybody back to one, resume normal living.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We didn't catch shit. He told us.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, we got him in the room, but, you know. So December 97, the indictments begin. He's indicted for three counts of first degree murder for Brock, Joan Brock and the ekiri family there. Five counts total by mid December. Six counts plus two attempted murders. By January 98 they also arrest Cindy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She had to know something, right?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. She was apparently taking him to where she was a driver. She was dropping a hole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She was part of the whole thing.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, she was part of the whole thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She saw him soaked in blood. She knew what he did.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, absolutely. She knows everything that was going on. At this point when they arrest her, she had custody of all four kids, including his two from an earlier marriage. Imagine what a disaster that mother must be if the not even wife of your. Wow. Their relationship had been ongoing for several years despite her marriage because she's still married at this point. But the only reason she's still married to the other guy and not to this guy. She hasn't been able to get a divorce because her husband Brennan is serving time in Huntsville, Alabama. She's got a type and it's fucking scumbags. She's never accused of committing any of the murders herself with her hands, but she was arrested days after blanks or blank. And charged in connection. Specific charges were she was indicted in at least one count of first degree murder as a principal accomplice. And in the Victor Rossi case also, along with other related counts. They knew that she knew about Danny's crimes and drove him to or from some of the crime scenes. Like when he left that car at the Holiday Inn and took the safe. Who do you think picked him up?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, you gotta get picked up at some point.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. They said the last charge related to the unreported or to the reported burglary of Wayne Mellinson residence in April 1997, not earlier known to be part of Blanks River Parish's crime series. At the scene, the pair reportedly made off with a safe and a weapon belonging to Melanson. Passing the safe through a bedroom window. The residence was unoccupied at the time, a fact which they said probably saved this guy Mellinson's life. He had owned a restaurant in Ascension Parish at the time and he was in his early 60s, which mean he probably had fucking cash in his safe if he owned a restaurant. Nobody who owns a restaurant back before credit cards were every swipe is claiming all of that cash. Nobody is never. They said that Ballard Cindy would bring Blank to the crime scenes in Ascension Parish and assist in his escape. They said. We feel quite confident with the merits of probable cause for the arrest. She definitely knew what he was doing, so definitely accomplice. At least after the fact. Something. So she makes a deal. They're going to drop all charges against her in exchange for her cooperation and testimony. She provided information that helped corroborate details of his gambling and his movements. So she's not portrayed as the CO killer active in the violence, but after the fact knowledge and possible logistical assistance tied to the robberies. Okay. They also had. She knows everything about him, basically. Now they have evidence issues is the problem.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right? A lot of them.

[James Pietragallo]

A lot of them. They have a 12 hour videotaped confession. Detailed, specific, full of facts that only he could know, that only the murderer knew.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's that, sure.

[James Pietragallo]

But they have zero physical evidence placing him at the scene of any crime. No fingerprints, no DNA, no weapon tied to him, no fibers, no hairs. Ugats, Nothing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nothing.

[James Pietragallo]

They have unidentified male DNA on a baseball bat used to kill Victor. Not blank. Which a defense would use as that

[Jimmy Wissman]

would be everything put in somebody else's hands easily.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, none of his shit was on the bat. But other people's were. That's your murderer, not our guy. That's as reasonable doubt as you get. Unidentified male DNA under Sam and Carrie's fingerprints, not Danny's. And unidentified male and female DNA. Oh, cigarette butts found at the Millett crime scene. Not Danny Blank again. Okay, so the case is built 100% on his confession. Without that, they have absolutely nothing. And the defense's strategy is they coerced the confession. So if you throw that out now we're sitting here. Why is he with nothing? Yeah. Yeah. You could pick a guy off the street and sit him there. And he has as much to do with it as this guy. So now they do. The defense argued they did 12 hours of interrogation with no attorney present. Blank has mild brain damage from a childhood incident. He showed schizophrenic and schizoaffective disorder traits per psychological testing. And he was told that they had evidence that they didn't have, which perfectly allowed. They're perfectly allowed to do that. They said he was pressured with a polygraph. He was manipulated through grief about his dead mother. And the portion of the interrogation conducted by the FBI's agent sparks which showed the most aggressive questioning is edited out of the tape they're gonna show to the jury.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. Now, the DNA. They said not only was the state's forensic evidence inconclusive regarding his involvement in any of these fucking things, this is actually exculpatory evidence. Right under the fingernails, the baseball bat. That's exculpatory.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not mine. Yeah, no.

[James Pietragallo]

That's shit that comes up when someone's been in prison for 30 years and they let them out because of it. So there's all of that that they have. The DNA samples recovered from three separate crime scenes were analyzed as a part of the state's attempt to corroborate his confession, but they rule him out as a match. Now, his counsel obtained the results of the analysis but did not, however, obtain the underlying data or the unidentified DNA profiles generated from the DNA samples. So they don't have that part. This additional information, they're saying, would have helped his lawyers to independently test whether the unidentified DNA profiles collected from the Rossi, Accurie and Millett crime scenes matched each other, indicating a common perpetrator, or alternatively matched other known DNA profiles in FBI's CODIS database.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

Which they're saying, we would like to at least see if all three of those are the same killer's profile.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

How about that? They said either way, a match would have undermined the confession because it would have contradicted his account. So they don't give that over. And it's not tested. Now, during a hearing, he tells the judge that he's been mistreated at the jail, saying his cell lights are left on and jailers are constantly banging on his cell.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Because you Killed six little bitch. They're fucking with me.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And I killed a bunch of old people. Yeah, people tend to hate that. They hate when you kill kids and old people are like, come on, the fuck are you, a pussy? Don't kill old people. His family thinks he is innocent as fuck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, yeah. His sister Sally said her brother is, quote, too nice of a person, too kind hearted.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That doesn't matter, she said.

[James Pietragallo]

A lot of people don't believe it. Not just us. Old hypo light here, dad said, I still don't believe he done that. He is a good boy. He says he don't know what's going on. They don't tell him nothing. He says he didn't do nothing and don't know nothing. I talked to him a few times on the telephone and he says he don't know what's going on. I can't believe it. There's no way he could have done this alone. The main thing is who was with him?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cindy.

[James Pietragallo]

There you go. And he also said we can't afford an attorney for him, you know, either.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

So he's given an attorney Anyway, December 1998, he is in court for a hearing and he tries to escape.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Uh.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, he's a fucking moron. The hearing is whether the jury will be allowed to see, well, what parts of the videotape the jury will be allowed to see. Okay, While this is going on, Jesus Christ. This fucking moron. This guy goes. Sometime during this hearing, he goes to the bathroom. They take him into the bathroom. Somehow he broke through a bathroom window and jumped out the bathroom window.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He got out.

[James Pietragallo]

He got out, but he hurt himself. He hurt his leg falling out of the window and was quickly captured while he laid there going, ow, my leg, shit. While he's handcuffed, wearing orange. Fucking dummy. So he's caught and now he's made to wear a bulletproof vest in court because they fear retaliation from the victim's families. Because it's a bunch of fucking guineas and rednecks down there. That's who he's killed. Guineas and rednecks, all vengeful people. So 1999 is the first trial. This is the trial for the Felipe woman here, Lillian Felipe. This was moved to Terrebonne Parish due to pretrial publicity. The murders are all over this. I mean, this is all they're talking about for days. The prosecution enters their evidence. 12 hour videotape, polygraph portion edited out, of course. Evidence of five other murders and the attempted murder of the Millets as well. Because he is claiming self defense in this killing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

That's wild. Testimony from investigators that his confession included details not of public knowledge and financial records showing that he ran $269,000 through casinos while making about $18,000 in salary. So the defense argued that the confession is coerced. Held without a lawyer, there's insufficient evidence of a specific intent to kill. He didn't even bring a weapon with him. He didn't mean to kill. And the admission of five other murders was massively prejudicial. Also, they say his schizophrenia and brain damage made him susceptible to a false confession. Okay. Which is true. But he wouldn't have known the details that he knew. You could take me into a room right now and I could confess to shit. But if I don't know where the safe is in the bayou, you know I'm lying. Probably.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If I can, if I draw a map to a safe thrown over a bridge, that's a problem.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a problem. Yeah. And otherwise, even if I want to confess for some reason, if I don't know the details, they're not going to believe me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If I guess a by you, that's impressive.

[James Pietragallo]

That's pretty good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But to draw a map to it, you're kind of have.

[James Pietragallo]

That's fucked. So the deliberation took two and a half hours.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And he is found guilty of first

[Jimmy Wissman]

degree murder because he knew too much.

[James Pietragallo]

He knew too much now during sentencing. Death penalty on the table, by the way. Yeah, I believe the method of execution was just being thrown in a pit with two alligators back then, if I'm not mistaken.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is Harry Connick's dad there right now? That's bad.

[James Pietragallo]

It's not his judge. But prosecutors urged the jury to sentence him to death, saying it's the only just punishment. Felipe's son, granddaughter and brother all told jurors that their lives have been filled with pain ever since she's been murdered once. This is her son. Tracy said it's been a terrible loss. You can't imagine something like this happening until it happens to you. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. They have a psychologist. Two psychologists who evaluated Danny said he's severely disturbed. Oh, shit. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

Has difficulty understanding social detail and can get easily confused in certain situations. Yeah, I think that blow to the head fucked him up like that because they said he got all introverted and weird and couldn't get social shit anymore.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, they say that about people that have had that they're nuts after that. A Lot of times.

[James Pietragallo]

Sometimes it's like for the better. Like Sam Kinison, they say that he got hit by a car when he was a kid, and then he turned into a fucking preacher, comedian, lunatic. Before that. He wasn't like that at all. They said so. They also said Blank's family here, Danny's family, takes the stand. And they said they come from a close family. And he's never showed a violent side. His son, Daniel Blank Jr. Because, of course, he had to pass that on. Said it upsets me because my father is a kind and gentle person. He really is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And a wonderful gambler.

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely. So the aggravating factors found are engaged in the perpetration of an aggravated burglary and that the victim here was over 65 years old. And they say, you, sir, may fuck off. Death penalty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right? You don't kill old people.

[James Pietragallo]

They got him good. Now, the fucked up part is, you know, Cindy got up this big deal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

She's granted immunity in exchange for testimony. She never showed up to testify. What, she just blew it off?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Immunity. She just gets to go.

[James Pietragallo]

This is why they don't do sentencing of these people till after. Or whatever it is. Usually until after they testify. They shouldn't have given her shit. They should have said, you're charged until you testify. Then you can have immunity.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where did she go?

[James Pietragallo]

Don't know. She never showed up. Not at the guilt phase, not for sentencing. She just didn't show up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Basically, the state gave her immunity for murder charges and got nothing out of it. She played everybody. Played it perfectly. Played like a video poker machine on a run. April 2000 is the Joan Brock trial. And they said that the beginning of this, they couldn't select a jury. After two days, they had selected zero jurors. They couldn't get one juror in two full days of jury selection. So they were like, shit. Because this is after they had moved the trial. They said, jesus, maybe this isn't far enough away, basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Still struck them all.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So the openings in this case, they said that evidence will show. This is the prosecution. Evidence will show that the killing was unnecessary and intentional and that Danny Blank killed the mother of a new bride. I don't know what difference that makes. Oh, well, if her daughter just got married, then, yeah, this is serious.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The mother of the bride.

[James Pietragallo]

We thought that her daughter hadn't gotten married yet. We wouldn't let him go. But since got married. Yeah. Put him to death.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Everybody knows you never fuck with the mother of the.

[James Pietragallo]

No, everyone knows that. That's just the worst thing you could do in our society. Now, Blank's attorney, Glenn Cortelo, appealed to the jury to not only consider the factual evidence, but look at other things. Look at bullshit too, not just the facts. He said, there'll never be. There will be factual evidence and circumstantial evidence and a lack of evidence. I ask you to consider the lack of evidence. He pointed to his unemotional and slightly built client and asked the jury, how could Danny blank lift a 260 pound safe by himself?

[Jimmy Wissman]

And also said, great, great, fine. But how did he learn then? Who else helped him? Cause he did it.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I mean. It's not that he shouldn't be sitting there, it's maybe who should be next to him at that table, but he should definitely be there too, for sure. They said there's no forensic DNA, no fingerprint evidence, nothing linking him to the crime. They said, consider this. Even if there is other evidence, consider the lack of evidence as hardcore big time. So there's also the safe. The prosecution started its case by calling up several police officers. And one, the evidence custodian, testified that the safe taken from the Brock house could have easily been moved. He didn't need to pick it up. They said the safe was on wheels. Oh. And demonstrated to the jury how easily the safe moved by rolling it a couple of feet across the courtroom. Like, look, watch. See one fan.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's got its own personal dolly. This is so easy.

[James Pietragallo]

On cross examination, they said that they asked if the man, the evidence guy here, who weighs 175 pounds, could pick up the safe. He said, I probably could if I had to. Which is a great response. That's something only a guy would say. I mean, I probably could if I had to, you know, I mean, but you know, I don't want to right now, my back and everything, but, you know, if my kid's under it or something, you know, I'll lift it right off of there, no problem. That's total guy thing. A woman would go, no, that's huge. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

If it fell on a child's legs, I'll get it off of it.

[James Pietragallo]

Women know when something's too big for them to take in any aspect, whereas guys are like, I could do that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What am I, a bitch?

[James Pietragallo]

What am I, little girl? Of course I could pick it up. He said, among other things. So they said, could you put it up on a desk? And he said, no, but I could put it on a lower platform.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Depends on how high the Desk is.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. He said that the safe was too heavy to lift, but he had to drag it out of the bayou with his truck. And he said, I couldn't lift it because it was full of water and stuck in the mud. Yeah, that's a problem. It was like crawfish living in it and shit. That's why the medical examiner is called, talking about the four major blows to the head, the sharp instrument blows to the neck and the nicking the vertebrae. Just to talk about exactly how brutal it was. In the cross examination, the defense tries to show that the victim was struck by a left handed assailant. And Blank is right handed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

Medical examiner said could have been done with either hand. It all depends on the positioning of the body. Not a big score. So it goes to the jury and they find him guilty of first degree murder. Yeah, that's right. And during sentencing, the judge tells him, this is Judge J. Sterling Snowdy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

S W O or S O? S N O W D Y? Snowdy. Sterling Snowdy. He said, the death of Joan Brock caused irreparable damage to the Brock family, the local community and the state. You, sir, may fuck off. Death penalty again.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He got two. Now this is gonna be hard to overturn.

[James Pietragallo]

Did it twice. Oh, yeah. February 2001, Barbara Bourgeois trial. He pleads innocent to this as well. On day two of the trial, he says, fuck it. Change it to guilty. I'm done. Not doing this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why not guilty, bro. It's two. It's over.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. What are we doing? Yep. And the judge says, you, sir, may fuck off again. Life without parole. Okay, so we'll attack that on the two death penalties.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

November 2001, Sam and Luella Akiri trial. He pleads guilty to right away. Pleads guilty to two counts of first degree murder. And Judge Snowdy gives him again. You, sir, keep on fucking off. Two additional life terms without parole, consecutive. So now he's got three consecutive life sentences without parole and two death penalties. He's in there for like 600 years, basically. They have this guy for the Rossi trial, by the way, is never tried. The state decided not to pursue the fifth capital case.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, give it a sec. In case he tries to get out.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. They were like, it's not gonna work. He's got death sentences, he's got all this type of shit. They said these cases are extremely expensive to try. They are. You need all the experts. You have to pay for them and their experts. And they're really expensive in Louisiana. Not sure if everybody knows this or not, but is not a wealthy state. They're not doing well of what they have down there. No, no, no. It's not good. Yeah. Gross national product out of Louisiana is not great.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Suburban street's doing the heavy lifting of the financial bills around there. I don't think it's going to cut it.

[James Pietragallo]

The gross national product is like two strings of beads and a palm full of vomit. That's the gross national product of Louisiana.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And a titty glimpse.

[James Pietragallo]

And a titty glimpse. Now, 2006, the Joan Brock convection. This was his second death penalty case is vacated due to a clerical error in trial procedures. Somebody made a literally just paperwork error, and they have to vacate the conviction for that. Later on, he'll end up just getting life without parole for that. So he'll end up with one death and four life withouts consecutively. So that's a lot. 2007, he appeals to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Now, the court agreed that it was an error to exclude the portion of the interrogation where the FBI agent went at him pretty hard. They said the error was harmless, though, because this interrogation wasn't particularly coercive. They said it wasn't like he put his fucking head in a car door or anything. He. He didn't torture the guy. He was just asking him more pointed questions than the other guy. He didn't say, we're gonna go over there and fuck your mother if you don't tell us. None of that shit came out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Trying to put him in a pizza oven.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, exactly. So he has other things that he's also appealing, though. They said he alleges that the detectives coerced him into confessing by the repeated mention of his deceased mother.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's enough.

[James Pietragallo]

They explained to him that his deceased mother would want him to take responsibility and admit to the crimes. At that point, he broke down and started crying and admitted to everything they said in this appeal. A confession is not rendered inadmissible because officers exhort, adjure, or an accused to tell the truth, provided the exhortation is not accompanied by an inducement in the nature of a threat, which implies a promise of a reward or that. So you can't threaten or promise rewards for anything. In this case, the repeated references to Blanc's deceased mother and the exhortation to tell the truth and take responsibility for his actions did not make the confession inadmissible. The detectives did not threaten or promise blank anything in reference to his mother in obtaining the confession. They didn't say, we'll bring her back from the dead. If you confess. They said, basically, you can bring up somebody's dead mother as much as you want. Fuck off now. He said, I didn't get any food. Oh, throw all my convictions out because I got no food. He said he didn't get any food. But they say he also did not indicate that he was hungry.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But does he have a time that he eats or is it just whenever

[James Pietragallo]

he hollers he asks for food? They're saying, I guess. In the transcript of the hearing on the motion to suppress before the 23rd Judicial District Court, the detective testified that during the Nov. 13 interview, Blank did not ask for any food. And had he requested food, they would have given him food.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I didn't know you had to request it in jail.

[James Pietragallo]

He's not in jail. He's in an interrogation room.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, oh, oh, yeah, there. Yeah, yeah, you definitely gotta.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. I mean, they.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But 12 hours.

[James Pietragallo]

A lot of times they offer you something, but that's when they're trying to be nice to you and whatever. They'll offer you something, but. But, I mean, I guess he could have asked for food in 12 hours. Did they fuck yourself? That's what I'm saying. They must have went out and had a lunch after.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's got to eat.

[James Pietragallo]

But I guess unless he asked for it. They also offered Blank something to drink on several occasions. The detective testified he reviewed the tape several times and indicated that Danny was provided five drinks, four Cokes, and one cup of water. The 12 and a half hour video of the interview is the best evidence of. To determine whether the confession was induced from a lack of food. Upon review of the tapes, there appears no indication that Blank's confession resulted from lack of food. He wasn't, like, holding his stomach going, all right, fine, man, just put me in a cell so they'll feed me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, the thing about Coke is that it will suppress appetite too, because your body's. You won't even know that you're not hungry.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. There was no express statement or mention of food by either the detectives or Blank. The detectives did not promise to give Blank food if he confessed. Further, the detectives did not eat in front of him. That would have been funny if they were just eating big sandwiches in front of him. And Detective Tony stated that neither he nor Detective Himel ate anything during the timeframe of the interview either. In light of the fact that the detectives provided Blanks with drinks, bathroom breaks, and adjusted the temperature in the interview room at his request, there is nothing in the record to suggest that Blank would have Been denied food upon request. It's not like they were treating him like shit. They didn't have him chained to the floor floor with just his underwear on or anything. In light of the totality of the circumstances, there appears to be no coercion by the detectives to include a confession from lack of food. His next thing that he brings up is, they wouldn't let me smoke. Well, yeah, you don't have a constitutional right to cigarettes is the problem there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It is a bummer sometimes. I get it.

[James Pietragallo]

I mean, yeah, I get it, brother. But he said Blank tried to smoke a cigarette in the interview room. However, Detective Himel informed him that he he could not smoke in the building. Detective Himel testified that approximately at 3:45pm which was 2 hours and 45 minutes into the interview, Blank lit up a cigarette for 15 seconds while he was not in the room. When Detective Himel returned to the interview room, he informed Blank that he could not smoke in the building and directed him to put out the cigarette, explaining that there was a no smoking sign posted on the door. Detective Himel also stated that Shortly thereafter, around 4:10pm, right before the polygraph test was to be administered, blank had a 12 minute break where he went to the bathroom. The detective testified that Blank smoked a cigarette while in the bathroom. Detective Himel stated that after Blank smoked in the bathroom, the detectives continued to let him smoke. They were like, just fuck it. The whole place stinks anyway.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now go ahead, he's not gonna stop.

[James Pietragallo]

He keeps. Fuck it. The detective also states, so now soda and cigarettes. So he doesn't eat food. He's fine. Yeah, his appetite suppressant there. Detective Himel also stated that Blank smoked a cigarette nine times on camera and one time off camera in the bathroom. So he smoked half a pack while he was in there?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, in 12 hours. That's pretty good.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a lot of cigarettes. Yeah. Detective Mike Toney, the other officer present in the interview room, also testified that Blank smoked a cigarette prior to confessing. So it's not like if you tell us something, we'll let you have a cigarette. It's none of that shit. A record of the interview or a review of the record indicated Blank did not or did smoke prior to admitting some involvement in the crimes. Both Detectives Heimel and Tony testified that at first Blank was not allowed to smoke because of the sign. But based on the record and their testimony, it appears that the initial denial of Blank's request to smoke was not because of police coercion, but due to the no smoking Regulation at the Texas courthouse. Like, they weren't doing it to fuck with him. They were doing it because there's no smoking allowed in the building.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's the policy.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. If you see a lot of them, they usually take them out to, like, the vehicle area. They'll take them out to, like, the intake bay there and let them smoke out there. Even when they're already in cuffs and in prison, they let them do that. However, Detective Himel stated that once Blank smoked in the bathroom, they allowed him to smoke in the interview room. And not for nothing, but if you're gonna get a serial killer confession, we'll spray some shit in here later. You know what I mean? We'll open a window and spray some. Spray. It's fine. What are we talking about?

[Jimmy Wissman]

It won't be smelly forever.

[James Pietragallo]

It'll go away eventually, and it'll smell better than anything else in a jail. So it's fine. And now sleep also, they said within the first three hours of the interview, Blank indicated he was sleepy when he said, sitting here ain't doing nothing. Getting sleepy. And before the polygraph test was interviewed, he stated to the examiner that he went to bed the previous night between 12am and 1:30am and woke up the next morning around 8:10. That sounds like a great night's sleep. I'd never get that much sleep. I would fucking kill to get that much sleep.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's almost eight hours, right?

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, God, that sounds great. It's between seven and eight hours he got. That's amazing. Blank also stated that he was up late working on a transmission. A review of the tapes also indicates that Blank put his head on the table when officers were out of the room. The issue is whether Blank was deprived of sleep and if so, whether this amounted to police misconduct, which induced an involuntary confession. Based on the record, it appears that Blank did not request any sleep. He only said that he was tired from not doing anything and from working late on a transmission. The detectives did not promise him that he would be allowed to sleep if he confessed. So he's fine. And the Louisiana Supreme Court affirms this conviction and his death sentence for the Felipe case.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So there is a dissenting view from a justice who says it cannot be said beyond a reasonable doubt that the excluded evidence could not have affected the jury's verdict. And she said she would have granted a new trial.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. So 2009 is when he pleads guilty to the Joan Brock murder and is resentenced to life without parole. He has A habeas hearing in 2015 where Lillian's brother, who's 82 years old, attends it. And he tells reporters he had a hard time understanding how a long standing murder conviction can be undone years later.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

He should read the law because there's a lot of that in there. January 20, 2016. Here we go. He is. A death warrant is signed for him. Execution day scheduled for March 14, 2016. Okay. Problem is, state of Louisiana at that point does not have the drugs required to conduct the lethal injection. So unless they're gonna drag him behind a truck or something, they got some fucking problems. Blank's attorney, Gary Clements of the Post Conviction or the Capitol Post Conviction Project of Louisiana, said there are no drugs in Louisiana to execute anybody. And Daniel Blank will not be executed in March of this year or conceivably in the foreseeable future.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So what does that mean?

[James Pietragallo]

They gotta wait for drugs?

[Jimmy Wissman]

They just hang onto him?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, yeah. Like they did with everybody in this time. And the prosecutor said it's time for Daniel Blank to get justice like the jury said in 1999. February 17, 2016. Louisiana Supreme Court issues an official stay of execution because of the lack of drug. October 5, 2021. U.S. district Judge Brian A. Jackson orders multiple Louisiana law enforcement agencies to turn over evidence for independent DNA testing. Jackson notes in his ruling DNA collected from the three crime scenes, a baseball bat, cigarette butts, and material from under Sam Ekiri's fingernails does not match Blank. He writes that the state's case relied almost exclusively on the videotape confession. He said Blank's defense team was never given the underlying DNA data for independent review. The crime lab said they would only test the fingerprints if Blank waived his right to sue the state for civil damages in the event of an exoneration. Uh oh, they denied the judge's order. The judge called this, quote, incomprehensible and issued another order.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's shocking.

[James Pietragallo]

If you fucked up, you don't want any consequences for it. I don't think so. Fuck you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not a chance. I'm signing that.

[James Pietragallo]

Yup. December 2023. He orders that the Louisiana State Police crime lab to quote, stop flouting his past orders and test the evidence. And they hand it over. They have to at that point. January 2024, the testing is completed. The results go under Review. As of 2025, he remains on death row. The DNA review is ongoing. We don't know yet. Louisiana resumed executions in March of 2025.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, they got the drugs.

[James Pietragallo]

They got, well, they got different drugs that don't work as well. And they just say fuck it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good enough. Basically, they're gonna get him.

[James Pietragallo]

I think so, too. Well, there's evidence questions. A federal court has now ordered testing of 29 unidentified fingerprints from the Felipe crime scene and other locations. I mean, the problem here is though, he might have just not left. He might not have left behind DNA or fingerprints. And it might be someone else who was over at the house that was unrelated to the murders. Who the fuck knows who it is? Who knows?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, and he may have worn gloves.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I mean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a mechanic.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know how the hell an old man would get some other male's DNA under his fingernail. I don't know how that happens.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know.

[James Pietragallo]

A rough handshake is other men.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know.

[James Pietragallo]

You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like a good handshake.

[James Pietragallo]

What else?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What else would you do?

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I mean. Who the knows? But even then, a good handshake with who? They just woke up. I assume it was overnight.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pull something out of your kid's mouth.

[James Pietragallo]

You know, they're old people. They don't have any kids.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Grandkids. I don't know, man.

[James Pietragallo]

They were all night there by themselves and woke up that morning. They hadn't encountered anybody else.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How do you get that?

[James Pietragallo]

Did he have DNA from two days ago? Was he just dirty? I don't know what's going on. So we don't know. They said it's possible someone else was at the crime scenes for reasons unrelated to the murders. It's possible the DNA samples were contaminated. It's possible Blank worked with an accomplice. His girlfriend was initially charged, but then not at all. Where'd she go? But we never. I don't know if she was tested against this shit. And either way, it's unidentified male DNA.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There was one female thing somewhere, but

[James Pietragallo]

that was cigarette butts connected to an unidentified female. But they didn't match. Daniel might have matched her. We don't know. It's also possible that a federal judge found a significant order enough Found significant enough to order testing that a man was convicted on a confession. Because here's the problem, too. We know false confessions happen a lot, all the time. And when you start getting with the fucking. When the IQ starts going under a hundred, the odds of a forced confession go up and up and up. Because the people doing it are smarter than the person sitting there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But the problem is that he knows so much.

[James Pietragallo]

He knows so much.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Drawing maps is not Good.

[James Pietragallo]

It's not good. He knew how he got into every house. They didn't tell him. He knew that the window putty was cut. He knew about the. That the ladder folded down. He knew about everything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He knew murder weapons. That's too much.

[James Pietragallo]

He knew it was in old ladies purses.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's too much.

[James Pietragallo]

It's too much. So we don't know though the district attorney said he's confident that Danny is guilty and doesn't expect DNA testing to change a fucking thing about that. So. Holy shit. There you go. Everybody There is LaPlace, Louisiana.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And a whole fucked up ass story.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a crazy goddamn so very bad guy. If he a terrible name.

[James Pietragallo]

Holy shit. That is bad stuff. So let us know what you think.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He knew too much.

[James Pietragallo]

He knew too much. I can't get past that. Yeah, that and DNA not matching him. And fingerprints not matching. They directly headbutt each other.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But do they. I mean to me that says that guy didn't touch anything. That's just a gloved guy.

[James Pietragallo]

But then why is there DNA under a guy's fingernails? And why is there other DNA and fingerprints on a bat that was used to beat the guy to death?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know. Who knows if that was put there then during the beating.

[James Pietragallo]

Who know? That's what I mean. We don't know shit. It's crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If the fingerprints are in that man's blood. Okay, fine.

[James Pietragallo]

They're on the bat. They're the only fingerprints on the bat.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that's good.

[James Pietragallo]

And DNA too. They're the only DNA on the bat. Unknown DNA doesn't match any of his family.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So bad.

[James Pietragallo]

It's fucked up. That's. I mean it's so. This is a mind fucking. I mean I think he did it because he knew everything about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just knows too much.

[James Pietragallo]

Here's what I think, if you want my opinion. I think he did it. He doesn't want to say exactly what happened because Cindy was way more involved than she they let on. And he doesn't want his four fucking kids being to be taken away from homeless. Yeah, he wants her to take care of the kids. So he's just going to say okay, whatever. And he was going to try to confess to it all and his own. But I think that Cindy was involved and I think possibly maybe somebody else involved in the robberies. We don't know. But not sure either way. There it all is. If you like this story, if you're confused about it, if anything at all about this story, you feel compelled to talk about. Definitely let us know and hit us up on social media. We are Smalltown Murder on Instagram, Smalltown Pot on Facebook. So do that and find us and keep coming back and seeing us. Get on whatever app you're listening on. Give us five stars. It helps tremendously drive the show up the charts. Head over to shut upandgivemerder.com and get your tickets for live shows. So many of them. Also, all the merchandise May 2nd in Denver's the next one with tickets available. Salt Lake City is sold out, guys. Sorry about that. And then Royal Oak, Michigan on May 30, that also has some tickets. Buffalo sold out the night before. Then after the summer. Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Tarrytown, Boston. And a show note. We will not be doing a 4:20 virtual live show this year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sorry about it.

[James Pietragallo]

We wanted to, but it's literally impossible because the company that we went through, that we actually owned like 0.01% of

[Jimmy Wissman]

or something, a tiny, tiny sliver made

[James Pietragallo]

a deal with us for that doesn't exist anymore.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

So we don't know what to do and we have to figure it out and vet other companies. And this takes longer than a few weeks to do so. So hopefully we'll have a Halloween virtual wine. That's what we're working on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And maybe by then we'll find out if we have any money from that.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, maybe we'll find out if we got anything from it. So either way, if we got like eight bucks from it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So, yeah, if it doesn't make shows anymore.

[James Pietragallo]

No, there's no money. No money there. So do that. Shut up and give me murder.com head to patreon. Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all of the bonus material. There's so much of it. Anybody $5 a month or above, you're gonna get so much material. Hundreds over 300 bonus episodes. Somewhere between three and 400 immediately upon subscription. New ones every other week. One crime and sports. One small town murder. And you get it all, my friends, this week, which you're gonna get. God, let me try to pronounce this. The Exelia Athletic association is for crime and sports. This was a youth program in LA to help, you know, get kids off the street and do nice things for them. And it turned into something very, very bad that had nothing to do with doing nice things for kids. It was pretty bad stuff.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bad things for kids.

[James Pietragallo]

Bad things for kids. Then for small town murder it is. Cory Richens, Part 2. Fantastic because not One part cannot hold Corey Richards.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a nightmare.

[James Pietragallo]

So much to talk about. We have text messages to go over. It's a lot to do. So. So plenty to talk about there. Patreon.com crimeinsports and you get everything. We put out all three shows all ad free as well with your Patreon. And you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right goddamn now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful people in the world whose DNA would certainly be at a murder scene if they did it. They'd have the damn niceness to do that. Hit me with them right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This executive producer, Liz Vasquez. Stephanie and Emma visiting all the Illinois parks. They've got 35 to go. They've done over a hundred of them. I don't know how many parks Illinois got that seems apparently a lot like municipal parks or like.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, I thought you meant like amusement parks because we did that on Patreon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Amusement parks 135.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a lot. It seems like all of them. I think at that point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that municipal parks?

[James Pietragallo]

I think we're getting held up on details that probably don't matter that much at this point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gary Howard's In Duncan, S.C. did you know that?

[James Pietragallo]

Good to see you, Gary.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Laura Blakesley put down her pop. God damn it. I'm sorry.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a heartbreaker. Sorry.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Arthur Lane says Yahweh's a cunt. That's fun.

[James Pietragallo]

We'll find out about that. About do Robert Rosier on crime and sports.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Other producers this week. Peyton Meadows, Thomas Smith. Happy birthday. Happy hours in Horn Lake, Mississippi.

[James Pietragallo]

That's one of our show. One of our towns, I believe for Genesis.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sharon Jones. Raptor 1 and Raptor 2 are celebrating Raptor 1's birthday.

[James Pietragallo]

Congrats on happy birthday to the Raptor.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know why they got to be so anonymous, but it's that.

[James Pietragallo]

Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady. Raptor 1 and 2. I'm not sure. Not sure.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Mikey G. Tyler mack. Brad Kelly. Kiss fan 44 Aiden Chan Talon with no last name. Kelly would know last name. Becca Haas. Live with no last name. HK Aiden Becker. Trisha Montague. Shannon Johnson. Alex Nissen. Allison Bain. Danielle with no last name. Amelia Takach. Adam. No, that's Matt.

[James Pietragallo]

Adam.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's definitely Matt. Jaeger or Jaeger. Stacy Mayberry. Sam Van, Melissa Crane. Papa Willie. You know, like Pop Wheelie, but Papa.

[James Pietragallo]

Also Willie.

[Jimmy Wissman]

His name's Willie. Crystal Regina Blair Mackenzie with no last name. Brian D. Jody St. Laurent. Lindsay Malkowitz, Andrea Braun, Thom. No, it's Tom with an H. Yeah, no last name, just Tom. Riley Allen, Liz with no last name. Kristen Kava, Hugh Jassel James. It's definitely a real name. Mia Riverwind, Molly Vogela, Marine Lawless, Fiona B. Jackie Hawk. Chelsea with no last name. Charles Spencer, Paul Helvey. Ashley with no last name. Paul Estes. Kayla Dean. Jennifer's A Brist. Pacakes Pacacas. Donna Bala, Nikki Olson, Diane W. Courtney Frise, Jacob Osborne. Tanya Walker. Dan and Hannah Conway. William St. Jean John perhaps Miranda Bailey. Don with no last name. JJ with no last name. Jesse Rhoden. Kyle McDaniel, Paul George Aubrey would know last name. Tree or Tris or Tries with no last name. Carrie Issel, Isabrand Isa Brandy's brand. Penny and Adams. Penny Adams, that's it. Hansel Cross, Ronnie with no last name. Lollipop Heather with no last name. Jackie Pick, Yena Morgan Yana perhaps Jennifer Aiello, like Danny. Don Shaw. Gavin Yenny. What happened to him? Is he dead?

[James Pietragallo]

Danny Aiella.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. He's Gavin.

[James Pietragallo]

Maybe. I haven't heard of anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ian Crow. Yeah. Last time I've heard of him was that Papa Don't Preach video. Right. Is that the last thing he was in?

[James Pietragallo]

I think he was on a bad TV show in the late 90s. Pretty sure.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ah, fuck. Ian Crow. Slatman with no last name. Daze Gay, Barbara Thompson. Betty S. Mr. Moose. Andy with no last name. Rebecca H. Guy Pelland, Poland. J. Marie Hallie. Hallie Moore Timmons. Kevin and Janice McComber, Theresa Lang, Jen with no last name. Caitlin Haas, manuel Garcia, Amy McKernan, Nikki Sampson, Lando Ewok, Arthur Cook, Mary Eberhardt, Dylan O', Connell. Mike and Rebecca Elton. Betsy Rataya Gazda. I'd rather help a dog. Yvette with no last name. Nope, that's Yvette S. Roxanne. Lance Brody with no last name. Katie with no last name. Crystal Cardenas. Yami Jamie Jaime Keck. Dylan Glue, Kirt. Jossie with no last name. Nestor Navarro Cecilia with no last name. Sheet Metal Workers Local 19. James.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're around the locals. I fucking love a union. Lisa Dyer Bender with no last name. Megan French, Linda Payne Bridgert Brandhorst, Aiden D. Renee Crawford, Kimberly Hensley, Lindsey Ginger, Raimundo. Raymundo Martinez, Mary Esther Luce, Carissa. Carissa Cardiff. Timothy Kropa, Nakisha Kritzer, Daniela Satori, Sartore, Tish D. Bradley Lathan, Chelsea Rangelof, Alec Haddad, Krista Springer, Patrick Van Spleenen, Van Solen and all of our patrons. You guys are the best.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you so much, everybody. Honestly, from the bottom of our hearts, we can't thank you enough for all that you do for us on a daily basis. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for hanging with us. Thanks for telling your friends. Thanks. Thanks for doing everything. You want to follow us on social media or find out anything more else about our shows, head over to shutupandgivemerder.com there's dropdown menus that'll take you anywhere you need to be. That said, everybody, until next week, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Sa.