Julie Kibuishi and Sam Herr // 168 // Daniel Wozniak // Part 1

Transcript

On May 21st, 2010, Julie Kibuishi met up with her brother for dinner at his place in Long Beach. He was getting married, and she was helping him with the wedding plans. He asked her to be a bridesmaid at his wedding and gave her a tiara. She wasn’t able to stay long with her brother that night because her friend Sam Herr needed her. He had been texting her and the messages were getting strange. Julie originally received a text from Sam at 2:45 that afternoon, saying he was helping his neighbor, Dan, then heading to his parents' house for the weekend, but things had changed.

Sam: Can you come over tonight at midnight alone? Going out for a bit. Very upset. Need to talk

Sam: Please. No sex. I need to talk to someone....

Julie: lol ew Sam we are like bro and sis, no sex

Sam: I’m hurting with some bad fam crap. I can’t be alone. No sex. Please, I’m begging as a brother.

Julie: Ya that’s fine, Sam, I‘m here for you like family

Julie left her brother’s home and headed to Sam’s apartment. Eager to help her friend and show off her tiara. At 7AM the next morning, Julie’s mom, June woke up and realized she wasn’t home, so she texted and called her, but she didn’t respond. June called her son and he confirmed that Julie had been had cut their dinner plans short because she needed to go help her friend Sam. June called and texted many of Julie’s friends and attempted to call her daughter about 20 times, but when she didn’t receive a response, she knew something was wrong, so she called the police. They weren’t as worried as she was though. They said, look, Julie is 23-years-old, she might be out drinking, or having some fun. June said, absolutely not, Julie always responds to her calls and texts.

Julie’s family was frantic to find her, but they weren’t the only family that was missing someone that day. Sam Herr’s parents tried to get ahold of him, but the calls kept going straight to voicemail, which was concerning. He had last talked to his parents on May 21st, which was the day before, around noon and he was supposed to come to their house the next day. It wasn’t like him to just blow off their plans, so Steve decided to drive over to the apartment to check on his son. He knocked on the door, but no one answered, so he used his key to get in. He looked around and nothing appeared to be out of place, and he called for Sam, but no one answered. Then, he saw a dead body and he called the police.

Steve: There’s a body in my son’s apartment

Operator: There’s a what?

Steve: A body. A dead body.

Operator: A dead body? Are you sure, sir?

Steve: I’m sure. Jesus, she’s cold.

Operator: Ok, hold on just a minute. Is it someone that you know, sir?

Steve: No, I have no idea who she is. I don’t what’s going on.

Operator: Does your son know who it is?

Steve: He’s not here, Jesus, lady!

Operator: Ok. Do you know where your son is?

Steve: No, I don’t. I told you.

Operator: Where in the apartment is she?

Steve: She’s in the bedroom. She....looks like there’s been some sexual activity. She’s dead, there’s blood from her head. I touched her on the cheek, she’s cold.

Operator: There was blood from her head?

Steve: Yeah. Honey, I don’t know what to tell you. I see her, she’s dead.

On May 22nd, around 9:20 PM, the police arrived, they quickly found out who the woman in Sam’s apartment was because her purse and ID were in the kitchen. Julie Kibuishi’s body was found in Sam’s room on his bed, and she was in a position that made it appear that she had been sexually assaulted as well. She was kneeling and her upper body was on the bed. She had been shot twice in the head, so there was a pool of blood on the bed and her pants had been cut from her waist to her butt, and they were pulled down to her knees and someone wrote on her sweatshirt with a black Sharpie, all yours, fuck you. Her mother said that she would never wear anything disrespectful, so that message had to have been written by the killer. Julie was still wearing the tiara her brother had given her the night before.

Investigators found Julie’s phone and saw the bizarre text messages from Sam and now he was missing too, so he became the obvious prime suspect. They looked Sam Herr up in the system and learned that he had actually been arrested before. He was involved in a gang incident in 2002. Sam and 23 others were accused of murder. Sam was accused of luring another man into a parking lot where he was attacked by a gang. Some of the attackers were convicted of murder and received life sentences, but Sam was found not guilty. He was not in a gang, he was friends with people in the gang and he said that he didn’t know what was going to happen that night. He tried to clean up his life after this and he joined the army four years later.

Sam served in the Army, and he was a war veteran who fought in Afghanistan and was overseas for 3 years before making it back home. His father used to wait up every night and wouldn’t go to bed before 10 PM because he believed that he wouldn’t be notified of his son’s death past 10. His parents were so happy when he returned home in 2008. They were very close with each other, in fact, his father, Steve, said that Sam was his best friend. To honor his parents, Sam got a special tattoo. It was a large rose and heart on his chest that said Mom and Dad.

When Sam came back home, he got an apartment near the college. The apartment complex was basically described as a dorm. People were always drinking, partying, and having fun at the pool, but Sam was focused and responsible. He did suffer from night terrors due to his time in Afghanistan and he said that sometimes, he would wake up and believe he was in a foxhole, and he would be screaming and full of sweat. He did his best in school, but he was struggling academically and Julie would help him out and tutor him. She told her mom that Sam was really nice, he was like a big teddy bear, and they would often study together at his place. The two of them felt like they were basically siblings, they treated each other like family and Sam was deeply in love with a woman in Germany, so he was in a long-distance relationship and Julie was also seeing someone.

Julie Kibuishi’s jazz instructor at the prestigious Orange County School of Arts, said “She was beautiful, she was graceful, she was dynamic, she was strong, she was emotional. Julie’s kindness was really immeasurable. Everybody loved Julie. She was very compassionate and warm and talented as well, very fun to watch on stage.”

Her mother June said she was her Valentine baby and, “I’m just so proud that she grew up to be very kind and very honest and very caring, loved to take care of other people.” She said Julie was passionate about dancing and some people even said she was too nice. At school, she was pursuing fashion design and she was living at home with her parents.

When it came to Sam, Detective Everett said, “we looked at the phone and thought, Ok, maybe he’s drinking, using drugs, and there was an incident and he just snapped and sexually assaulted her and wound up killing her and then fled. We believed Sam Herr was our guy.” After Julie’s murder, there wasn’t any activity on Sam’s phone any longer, so investigators believed he had turned it off. When Sam’s father, Steve, initially saw Julie’s body in his apartment, his first reaction was, what did he do? After thinking about it, he realized that Sam could never hurt anyone, but especially Julie. Sam was known for protecting his friends and family, so the people closest to him, did not believe he would hurt her and they wondered if he was also in danger.

Steve decided to do some investigating of his own. He called every person in Sam’s phone to see if he could piece together who talked to him or saw him last and where he might be. He contacted one of Sam’s close friends, Reuben, and he had an odd story. He said that he and Sam were supposed to go to a beach party, but Sam never showed up. Reuben called him several times and someone finally answered, but it definitely wasn’t Sam. He said the man on the other end said, hey bro and Reuben asked who he was speaking to. Sam never called him bro and it wasn’t his voice either. The man said, I’m busy right now, I’m having a lot of problems with my family and he hung up. Reuben tried calling back, but he couldn’t get anyone to answer again.

Steve also called Sam’s neighbor, Dan Wozniak and he said that the last time he talked to Sam, he sounded very nervous, and he saw him on Friday. Dan and his fiancé, Rachel, had already told the police that they both saw Sam on Friday, which was the day before Julie’s murder, and they hadn’t seen him since. They said that he drove off with a man who was wearing a black hat, but they didn’t know who this person was. Steve asked Dan what Sam was so nervous about and Dan said, oh, he was talking about family problems. Steve said he knew right there that Dan was lying about something, but he just didn’t know what. Why were two people bringing up family problems? Their family was super close, and Steve said he would have known if there were family problems.

An old Army friend of Sam’s, Miles Folts, wondered if something or someone from Sam’s past had crept back in? Perhaps this was related to the people from the murder case when he was younger? What if people from the gang were going to target Sam’s parents, Steve and Racquell? Miles decided to stay at their home to protect them while they kept looking for Sam.

Steve and his son, Sam had a joint bank account, so he decided to look up the activity and he saw that Sam’s ATM card was used about 1700 miles away from the crime scene and $400 had been withdrawn and the card had also been used at a pizza parlor. Steve drove to Long Beach and hung around the ATM. He was hoping to either see Sam or his car, but nothing happened. He also drove to the pizza place, it was called Ecco’s (Echoes) and he stayed there for about an hour. He drove to all of the hotels and motels nearby, but he didn’t see Sam’s car.

He went to the police with this information and they were able to pull the images from the ATM, but it wasn’t Sam’s face they were looking at. They didn’t actually know who it was, but he was a young male, probably a teenager. The police went over to Ecco’s pizza to talk to the employees and one of them believed they knew who had used the card. The officers went to the address, surrounded the home and there was even a helicopter above. They believed that Sam was inside the house. On May 26th, 17-year-old Wesley was hanging out with some friends, eating pizza when he heard the helicopter overhead, so he opened the door and when he looked up, he saw someone in the helicopter pointing at him. He shouted this to his friends inside and they told him he shouldn’t go outside then. He looked out the window and saw cop cars pulling up and he was arrested.

Wesley had no idea what was going on, so investigators showed him pictures of himself pulling money from the ATM. He initially tried to lie to them, but he changed his tune when he realized this was a murder investigation. He said he didn’t know who Sam Herr was and he certainly wasn’t inside his house. On the Dateline episode, Wesley said his balls were inside of him and he was shitting himself at this point because he was nervous as hell. He had a story to tell, but it sure wasn’t what the police were expecting. He said that a man handed him the ATM card and said he worked for a bail bondsmen agency. He needed Wesley to withdraw the money from the ATM for legal reasons. He was told that someone skipped bail and now they were required to withdraw the money, but a third-party had to do it.

Wesley knew this man, they were friends and he showed him the paperwork, which appeared to be legit, so he trusted him and agreed to help. He was going to withdraw the maximum amount each day, like his friend asked and he was told that it was fine to order a few pizzas as well. Wesley said, “He had an actual folder of paperwork...saying that this was all legal and that since I was a minor...I can’t be charged. And that’s when he pulled out the ATM card and gave me the instructions to withdraw the full amount and to make sure I wore a hat and glasses.”

Wesley said he did think this request was strange, but he was young and this was a friend that he respected. He had met this guy in the theater, he was an actor and director named Dan Wozniak. Dan and his fiancé, Rachel Buffett were Sam’s neighbors and they were very active in the theater world. Why would Dan have Sam’s ATM card? The police were starting to wonder if Dan Wozniak was the one protecting Sam and maybe even hiding him. They called him up that night, after talking to Wesley and they asked him to come in for an interview. Dan said, now isn’t a great time, I’m going to my bachelor party, I’m getting married in two days.

I’m not sure if you know this, but now isn’t the right time, doesn’t work for the police. So, they showed up at his bachelor party. They were hoping to hit him hard and fast to make him start talking. Dan said that he and Sam came up with a conspiracy to commit fraud and they were using Wesley to implement it. He said that Sam gave him his ATM card, then Dan gave it to Wesley so he could withdraw the money, then Sam was going to report the card stolen later, so the bank would reimburse him, but the plan got ruined right away.

Dan explained that he got a knock on the door about 8 or 8:30 AM and it was Sam. Dan asked him what was going on and Sam said they were both in trouble, but he couldn’t talk about it, they needed to get the fuck out of there. Dan said he didn’t ask questions, they just bolted from the apartment and left. Once they were in the vehicle, Sam said there was a dead body in his apartment. Dan asked what happened and Sam said that as soon as Dan had left, he started doing drugs and drinking heavily. He was depressed about his family, and he started looking at photos of his friend Julie and he got upset. Once she arrived at the apartment, he asked for sex, she said no, and he shot her twice in the head. He said he wasn’t in the right frame of mind.

After the confession, Dan says that Sam threatened him. He said, if you rat me out, I’m gonna fucking kill you. And better yet, I’m going to start with your wife. Sam said he needed money to get out of town. If Dan helped him get all the money withdrawn from his account, Sam would give him a few thousand dollars for his wedding. Dan felt like he had no choice. He said that he dropped Sam off in a parking lot at a shopping center in Long Beach and that was the last time he saw him, but he ditched Sam’s car later. He said that he previously told the police that he last saw Sam with a man wearing a black hat, and that was all a lie, that person doesn’t exist. He explained that he needed help with his wedding, so he got greedy when Sam offered to give him money and he also didn’t want anything bad to happen to himself or his fiancé, he was scared.

The investigators told Dan that they needed to find Sam, but Dan said he had no idea where he was now. They took a saliva sample from Dan and told him they were using this to rule him out and he said well, I was in Sam’s apartment on Friday afternoon, and I used the bathroom, and I may have gone out on the patio as well. Investigators thought it was odd that Dan just moved himself closer to the crime scene and why was he suddenly worried that his DNA was in Sam’s apartment? They decided to press him harder, what did he know about this whole situation? He insisted that he had nothing to do with the murder, he never saw Julie’s body, but he did know about it, and he helped Sam get away.

As the interview wrapped up, investigators told Dan he was being arrested for accessory to murder and he was like woah, woah, woah, ok, I’ll talk. He said he would tell them everything if it got him to his wedding on Friday. He initially started going through the same story as earlier, then he started yelling and saying, I don’t know, over and over. The detectives told him he’s not that good of an actor and they kept asking him where Sam was, and Dan’s story started to change again.

He said, “Ok, fine. You know what? He didn’t come down. He came down and said, Help me. And I went upstairs, and yes, I saw the fucking body. Is that what you want to hear?” The detective said, “No, we want to hear the truth.” Dan said, “That is the truth.” The detectives had only JUST taken Dan’s DNA, but they decided to use that to their advantage. They asked Dan how his DNA got on Julie, and he whispers, “Cause I was right over the body.” Detective Everett said, Ok, DNA doesn’t just fall off, so how did it get on her? Dan said he didn’t know how that could happen because he didn’t touch her. He saw Julie’s body and there were two gun shots in her head, her pants were ripped and cut, and he saw fuck you written on the back of her shirt.

This is the moment the detectives knew something was wrong with Dan’s statement. He said he saw two gunshot wounds in Julie’s head, so he’s either the guy that did it, or he was there when it happened because you can’t see two bullet holes. You would see blood and brain matter.

Detective Everette asked where the two bullet wounds were and Dan said, he didn’t know, Sam told him he shot her twice though. The detective called him out and said, you just told us you saw two bullet wounds when you were standing over her. They read his statement back to him and he said that’s not what he meant. He said he wasn’t present for the murder, but now he says that he helped clean up the scene. He said that Sam called him up to the apartment, he saw Julie’s body and Sam said he needed help cleaning up, so they found the two shell casings and Sam told Dan that he used scissors to cut Julie’s pants, but he was blacking out because he had taken 3 or 4 pills, so he couldn’t remember everything he had done. According to the autopsy, Julie had not been sexually assaulted, the scene had been staged to appear that way.

Dan was getting pretty antsy about the wedding, and he asked if he could call his fiancé, Rachel, to let her know that he was charged with accessory to murder, and he wasn’t going to make it to their wedding. She had to break the news to her friends and family and there was another bombshell. Rachel’s brother, Noah, was also under suspicion and investigators believed he knew where Sam was. Noah had also been arrested at Dan’s bachelor party.

Noah was questioned for 6 hours, and the guards let him know that he would probably be locked up for a few years at least. When he was told that Dan was involved in the murders, he laughed. He said he just couldn’t see it. He had been running wedding errands with Dan all week and the police had been following them. One of the errands happened to be bringing Dan over to Wesley’s place to drop off the credit card. Dan didn’t tell Noah why they were there, he just said it was a surprise.

Rachel and her friend went to Dan’s parents house, but only his dad was home, and she explained what was going on and Dan’s father didn’t really react to the news about his son being charged. He said things to Rachel like, he was a really good son, he was a good kid. As Rachel and her friend were getting ready to leave, Dan’s brother, Tim and his girlfriend pulled up. Rachel told them the story and Tim freaked out.

A short time later, Rachel’s phone rang and it was a recorded call from Dan, in jail.

Rachel: What did you do?

Dan: I helped Sam cover some stuff up, and helped him get some drugs. That’s it. I didn’t murder anybody.

Rachel: Babe, why on earth would you try and cover for him?

Dan: Cause we needed the money.

Rachel: No, we never need money. We need to be good people and just have each other.

Dan: I’m sorry.

Rachel: My mom’s working on cancelling all the wedding plans now. And I just talked to Tim, and I need to make a phone call to the detective now.

Dan: Why?

Rachel: Cause Tim’s involved

Dan: Because of what?

Rachel: Or....I need to call the detective first. Because I need to call him and let him know before they catch me on this recording device, because it looks like I’m not trying to tell ‘em right away. Tim says he has evidence with him. Or..or he knew where it was or something.

Dan: Then I’m doomed.

Rachel: What?

Dan: Tim said that?

Rachel: Yeah. Do you know that Tim had some evidence?

Dan: Yeah. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Rachel: Well, this is...this is ridiculous, and I have to go tell the detectives the truth.

Dan: No, no, baby. Baby, um, Tim....Tim did speak up?

Rachel: Only to me so far, and it was in passing. I said, “I’m going to the police station right now. Danny’s been arrested. And he ….. he starts freaking out. And he was really frantic and he said something, and something slipped that he had evidence.

Dan: No, don’t. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t. That can’t be found.

Rachel: No, babe. I’m gonna do it..

Dan: Listen to me. No.

Rachel: What?

Dan: Trust me? Please?

He begged Rachel to come back to the police station because he was going to do something that would change everything and he wanted her to be there for it.

Dan: Babe, um, listen to me, I’m going to do something right now and you’re not going to see me for the rest of your life. Do you understand that?

Rachel: No, no.

Dan: I have to tell the truth on what I did. And I think you now know what it is, and it’s bad. Imagine the worst and that’s what I did.

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