As is typical of sun-soaked days in Orange County, California, the afternoon of Saturday, May 22nd, 2010, was simply lovely. Outside, temperatures were cool but comfortable—around 70°F—and not a single cloud was present overhead. As such, residents and tourists alike were out en masse, shuffling between shops at South Coast Plaza, buying luxury brands, and visiting the area’s art museums.
At nearby Newport Beach, shaded only by the thin, evergreen palms above, loungers, joggers, and selfie-takers could all be found soaking up the sun as white waves glided across the sands and up to their ankles. Behind them, even more people visited the sun-faded outlet shops and homes that followed the coast—all familiar sights to anyone who has ever visited SoCal in the spring.
For most people, that Saturday afternoon had been just another day in paradise; however, the consensus inside one local residence was that it had been anything but. There, a tension hung in the air as the home’s middle-aged occupants, Steven and Raquel Herr, paced the floors and tried in vain not to speculate about the whereabouts of their missing adult son, 26-year-old Samuel Herr.
A Father’s Worst Discovery
The prior day, Friday, Steven and Raquel had been expecting Sam to arrive for a weekend visit, but he had failed to show. He had also failed to call and explain his absence, which they both noted was incredibly strange because Sam was a military veteran, known by everyone to be extraordinarily responsible, and the three of them were quite close. Obviously, they couldn’t help but worry, but there was little anyone could do as calling the police at this early stage seemed like a step too far.
Trusting that Sam was just running behind and would either show up or call by the following morning, both Steven and Raquel had gone to bed without further inquiry. But unfortunately, their prediction was wrong; Saturday morning came and went, and Sam was still unreachable. In fact, the situation had only worsened as, while attempting to make contact once again, the couple found that his cellphone was then sending them straight to voicemail, indicating that it had been switched off sometime in the night. Sam, they both knew, never switched off his cellphone, and this was when panic truly began to set in.
Under the threat of going to bed another night without hearing from their son, Steven told Raquel that he was going to drive out to Sam’s apartment in Costa Mesa to check on him. He then climbed into his vehicle sometime after 8pm and set off, arriving outside 2855 Pinecreek Drive a short time later, at around 9:20pm. Using the key Sam had given him for emergencies, Steven then let himself into unit 410 to have a look around. While entering, he called out to Sam but got no response.
Noticeably, the living area around Steven appeared in order, a good sign that he and Raquel were overreacting, but when Steven pushed open the door to his son’s bedroom, all he could think was: “Son, what did you do?”
Just ahead, surrounded by a pool of thick, coagulated blood, the body of a young Asian woman lay slumped partially across his son’s bed. To Steven’s horror, she wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, and appeared to have been sexually assaulted. This assumption was based on the position of her body—her face was pressed into the bed—and the fact that her jeans had been cut off. They were then hanging loose around her knees.
On the back of the woman’s shirt, the following had been written in marker: “All yours. Fuck you.”
Even in his worst nightmares, this was not at all what Steven had been expecting to find that night, but he had no time to stand by and be shocked. Hoping to help the woman in any way possible, he rushed to her but knew it was too late after briefly touching her cheek. She was, he later said, ice cold and had likely been dead for hours, possibly more than a day. This was also when he first noticed the tiara sitting atop her head—right beside a horrific gunshot wound.
Steven then bolted from the room to call 911. Through wailing sobs, he told the operator: “I see her. She’s dead. Jesus Christ.”
Sam and Julie
Detective Jose Morales and Lieutenant Ed Everett of the Costa Mesa Police Department were two of the investigators assigned to Sam’s apartment Saturday night. Between them, they had ample experience dealing with brutal homicides, so after photographs were taken, both set out to have a look around and see what jumped out at them.
First, as Steven himself had done earlier, they noted that the front door had not been broken into and that there were no obvious signs of a struggle within the apartment. In the living room, kitchen, and other common areas, everything seemed to be in its usual place, aside from several empty beer bottles that were found on the back porch beside a barbecue grill. On the kitchen counter, there was an invitation to a wedding that was scheduled to take place in less than one week, but overall, everything around them was standard fare for a typical bachelor pad—with the exception of the dead body in the bedroom, of course.
To Morales and Everett, the condition of their victim’s body told a story filled with barbarity: the message hastily scribbled on her back evidenced jealousy and rage; the manner in which she had been killed conveyed an unflinching callousness; the way her body had been left in such a lewd and unnatural position indicated a startling lack of remorse. Whoever was responsible for all this was unquestionably cold and dangerous. Unluckily for Steven and Raquel, the most likely suspect was obviously Samuel Herr, the apartment’s sole occupant, who was then nowhere to be found.
With a preliminary walkthrough finished, the pair then set out to identify their victim. Thanks to the fact that her purse was discovered sitting on a chair in Sam’s dining room, this was no problem whatsoever. Her ID revealed that she was 23-year-old Julie Kibuishi, a student at Orange Coast College, the same college that Sam was enrolled at. Alongside this ID, a cellphone that had been ringing almost nonstop since the police’s arrival was collected.
The caller was Julie’s mother, who nearly collapsed into hysterics after learning of her daughter’s fate. Once officers managed to calm her down, she and Julie’s father and brothers were able to provide a very detailed picture of who Julie was and, just as importantly, how Sam fit into her life.
As the third of four children, Julie had spent her childhood and young-adult years pursuing her greatest interests: dance and fashion. Having started tap dancing at only five years old, she was a prodigy who had eagerly accepted a spot at the prestigious Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana. Julie’s mother stated that she was both loved and respected by nearly everyone in her life, including Cindy Peca-Dolan, her jazz instructor at OCSA.
In later interviews, Peca-Dolan would someday say the following: “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.”
In recent years, Julie’s fondness for fashion had also inspired her to enroll in a fashion design course at Orange Coast College, and it was while studying there that she had first met Sam in an Anthropology class. At that time, Julie told her parents that Sam had just retired from the military but intended to reenlist as an officer after earning his degree. But because he was having trouble in a few of his classes, Julie had offered to tutor him. That’s how their friendship had started, and it had only blossomed since.
Yes, even though they were five years apart in age and came from very different backgrounds, Julie reportedly only ever had good things to say about Sam. With a large friend group of his own, he was loud but likeable, outgoing, personable, and funny. Nothing she had ever said indicated she thought he might be dangerous. She had even once told her mother he was “a big guy, but he’s like a teddy bear.”
When officers inquired about whether Sam and Julie were dating, Julie’s parents stated definitively that they were not. Julie already had a boyfriend, they said, and had never voiced a romantic interest in Sam. In a separate interview, Sam’s parents agreed with this assessment saying that, when Sam had introduced them to Julie, he had said she was like his “kid sister,” and there was absolutely nothing happening between them.
Morales and Everett noted this down but, based on what they had seen inside Sam’s bedroom, weren’t convinced. They strongly believed there was much more to the story and wondered if, perhaps, Julie had got herself caught up in a love triangle. It was possible, but they planned to keep their theories to themselves until they could gather all the facts.
The Last Messages
Now, with basic backgrounds out of the way and determined to understand what had transpired during Julie’s final hours, investigators then conducted a search of her cellphone’s history to see who she had been in contact with. This was when they made a very important discovery: Sam and Julie had been frequently interacting with one another off and on throughout the prior day via text messages.
On Friday afternoon, at around 2:45PM, Sam had informed Julie that he was helping his downstairs neighbor, Dan, move some furniture, after which time he planned to set out toward his parents’ house later that evening. Morales and Everett recalled they had seen Dan’s full name, Daniel Wozniak, on the front of the wedding invitation lying on Sam’s kitchen counter and assumed Dan must have given it to Sam when they met up.
So far, everything lined up very nicely; however, several hours later, Sam then sent another message to Julie that proved something had changed. It read: “Can you come over tonight at midnight alone. Very upset. Need to talk.”
Then he sent another not long after: “I’m hurting with some family crap. I can’t be alone. No sex. Please I’m begging as a brother.”
According to her family, Julie had been out with her real brother, Taka, on Friday night, shortly before Sam sent those latter messages. They were having dinner at a Thai restaurant, where Taka and his fiancé were going over the details of their upcoming wedding, which was scheduled for next year. Taka said that Julie had an amazing time that night, mostly because his fiancé had asked her to be one of her bridesmaids. She had given Julie a tiara to wear to the ceremony, which Julie had put on and worn throughout dinner because she was so excited.
However, Julie’s mood changed when she began receiving the concerning messages from Sam. She was worried about him and set off at around 11pm to make sure he would be okay. As she left, Taka told her to be careful and text him when she arrived, so he knew she was safe.
At around midnight, Julie sent: “I’m here. Don’t worry.”
Her autopsy would eventually reveal that she died very soon after sending that message.
A Shifting Theory
Curious about what had caused Sam’s mood to shift so dramatically, Morales and Everett then questioned Steven and Raquel about what “family crap” he was dealing with, but they were no help. Both claimed to have no idea what the message was referring to and stated that things between them were as good as ever. They reiterated that the last time they had spoken to Sam, early Friday morning, he had seemed perfectly fine.
Obviously, something wasn’t adding up, so Morales and Everett then turned to the person they suspected might have been the last to speak with Sam before his mood shifted: Dan Wozniak.
By this point, it was Sunday morning, and Dan and his fiancé, Rachel, were awake and ready to assist investigators in any way possible. They said that Sam had stopped by Friday afternoon as expected but something had been off about him. He had not seemed like himself. He had also not stayed long, had left in a hurry, and had been accompanied by a man who they had never met before.
When asked to describe this man, Dan said he was wearing a dark baseball cap and sunglasses and suggested he might have been Sam’s drug dealer. Rachel confirmed seeing this mysterious man, as well as everything else her fiancé had said.
With a new lead to chase, Morales and Everett were then very eager to follow up with the man in the baseball cap, but none of Sam’s friends or other neighbors admitted to being that person, nor were they able to speculate about who he may have been. This was disappointing but not unexpected considering a drug dealer would likely not want to involve himself with the police. Fortunately, however, several of Sam’s friends were able to offer some very valuable information that might explain how someone that Julie thought so highly of could do something so depraved.
At the start of his military career, Sam had been stationed safely within Schweinfurt, Germany, but in 2007, he and several of his fellow soldiers volunteered to be stationed at Combat Outpost Keating, a notoriously dangerous base located in Afghanistan’s mountainous Nuristan province. At that time, Keating acted as a fire base and was considered essential because of its strategic location; it was situated beside the Landay River, where three valleys converged, an excellent place for Taliban forces to move supplies throughout the region under the cover of night.
Understandably, military officials wanted to prevent this, but as anyone who was ever stationed at Keating can tell you, holding their position beside that river was by no means an easy task. The mountainous slopes around it left troops open to sniper and mortar fire from nearly every angle, opening the door to regular attacks that only grew more frequent as the war escalated. In the first 9 months of 2009 alone, approximately 212 separate attacks had been documented, an average of one every 31 hours.
These attacks lasted anywhere from a few minutes to several hours, and Sam’s duty was to run through that gunfire on a regular basis to keep the camp’s generators going. Since returning home, he had been having intense nightmares and showing the warning signs of severe PTSD.
Upon learning this, Everett and Morales began to finalize their working theory: on the night of Friday, May 21st, Sam was struggling with his PTSD to the point that he decided to blow off the trip to his parents’ house and get drunk on his back patio. He stayed there for a while, thinking, drinking, and possibly doing drugs that he had purchased from the man in the baseball cap, until he decided to invite Julie over via text message. Based on the “no sex” comment, it was safe to assume that the two of them had been secretly hooking up behind Julie’s boyfriend’s back, but Sam was far too upset for anything physical that night.
Julie’s text to Taka proved she arrived around midnight, at which time something happened between her and Sam, things escalated, and Sam killed her. Panicked by what he had done, Sam then switched off his cellphone, climbed into his car, and fled the scene. No one had seen him, or his car, since.
Fearing that he may be armed and still in distress, the Costa Mesa PD put out an APB for Private First-Class Samuel Herr, who was 6 feet tall and 205 pounds with brown hair, blue eyes, and a sleeve of tattoos up each arm. The notification also made clear that he was a decorated combat veteran with years of experience and should be considered armed and dangerous, approach with caution.
The manhunt was officially on.
Pizza Time
As news stations and volunteers spread Sam’s photo far and wide and authorities continued interviewing those that had known both him and Julie, Steven Herr was busy working on an investigation of his own. Indeed, almost immediately after giving a statement to the police about how he had discovered Julie’s body, he had set out to locate his son by any means necessary. He felt very strongly that, if Sam was having a mental health crisis, he might be the best person to talk him down.
He also desperately hoped, as any father would, that Sam was innocent and could provide an explanation for Julie’s body. He knew that finding him first would be a longshot, but he had to try.
After contacting some extended family and speaking with Sam’s friends himself, Steven then began looking into his son’s finances, specifically his bank account, which he had been given access to. This account held approximately $60,000 that Sam had saved while deployed. His intention had always been to spend this money on his education, but when Steven checked the online transaction log, he noticed that the funds were being slowly drained.
Since Sam’s disappearance, there had been four separate withdrawals at two different ATMs in Long Beach, California, which was roughly 22 miles northwest of his apartment in Costa Mesa. In total, around $2000 was then missing, which Steven assumed Sam may have been collecting in order to flee the country.
Immediately, Steven drove out to Long Beach and parked his vehicle near the two ATMs, watching closely for his son’s car to drive by. While there, he also kept a close eye on the transaction history, hoping to see another withdrawal happen in real time so he could find and intercept his son before he got away. He sat there for several hours, waiting, and his efforts paid off. He watched in real time as, just down the road, Sam’s card was being used to purchase food at a local pizzeria named Ecco’s Pizza.
Steven threw his car into gear and set off, arriving just around the time police were reaching out to Ecco’s for details on the pizza’s purchaser.
Yes, the police were not sitting idly by as Steven secretly raced against them. Back in Costa Mesa, they had contacted Sam’s bank and asked to be notified in the event of any new activity. Not only did they know about the withdrawals, but they had also already watched the footage from the ATMs, footage that had revealed something Steven was not aware of: whoever was using his son’s debit card was obviously not Sam Herr.
Sam was tall and muscular, but the person in the surprisingly clear video was skinny and much, much younger, a teenager whom the authorities had never seen before. He was carrying a skateboard and wearing a red hoodie and a black baseball cap.
Was this the mysterious drug dealer?
Believing he was, detectives reached out to Ecco’s Pizza and learned that two pizzas had been delivered to a home not far from their shop. The owner then provided the address, which prompted an all-hands-on-deck level response.
Fearing that Sam and the unknown teenager were working together and likely armed, they decided to take no chances. Instead of approaching the home casually on foot, they used a SWAT team complete with assault rifles and riot shields to surround it and lock down its neighborhood. Overhead, a helicopter circled, watching for anyone to flee out the home’s back door.
Using a megaphone, the police ordered everyone to exit the home, and this was when a group of teenagers came out with their hands up. Among them was the teen seen in the ATM footage. He was then placed on the ground, handcuffed, and ordered to remain silent.
At the home’s front door, officers continued to shout for Sam to come outside with his hands up. When they got no response, they then entered and began clearing the home room by room. At the rear of the home, they found a door that was locked from the inside. They broke it down, expecting Sam to be just on the other side, ready to open fire, but he was not. To their surprise, Sam Herr was still nowhere to be found.
Wesley’s Story
With the raid now over, the police turned their attention to their handcuffed pizza enjoyer, whose name they quickly learned was Wesley Freilich, a 16-year-old high school student.
At first, Wesley was reportedly belligerent, but his attitude didn’t last long. In an interview with ABC’s 20/20, Lieutenant Everett said: “Wesley was trying to be a tough guy in front of his friends, but as we explained the gravity of the situation, that a murder was involved in this case, he changed his demeanor, started crying.”
With his bravado now deflated, Wesley was then transported downtown and taken into an interview room where he broke down and told the officers everything he could. He started with Sam Herr, whose location he claimed to not know. In fact, he claimed to have never met Sam in person and only knew of him from the man who had given him Sam’s debit card several days earlier. That man, Wesley said, was Sam’s downstairs neighbor, Dan Wozniak.
Wesley then spent the next several hours telling officers a very interesting story about neighbor Dan.
Unlike Sam, Wesley had known Dan for several years, ever since Wesley’s own mother had introduced them after Dan and his future fiancé, Rachel, had performed in a play at the local community theatre together. As someone who had been acting since a young age, Dan’s passion for the craft was obvious, inspiring Wesley to give it a shot himself. This ultimately led to Wesley seeing Dan as a sort of mentor, an older brother figure, and that’s why, Wesley told officers, he didn’t question Dan’s story when Dan approached him days earlier asking for help.
Friday afternoon, Dan had arrived at Wesley’s house with a request: a friend of his, Sam Herr, was in some legal trouble with a bail bondsman and needed help withdrawing money from his bank account to pay off a debt and avoid going to jail. Sam had given Dan his debit card to withdraw the needed funds, but for some unspecified reason, Dan said, he could not make the withdrawal himself. Because Wesley had no connection to Sam, he was the perfect person to help them out.
Dan needed him to grab a baseball cap and gloves and ride with him in his car to the nearby ATM and withdraw as much money as possible as quickly as possible. Because it was a time-sensitive issue, Wesley said he had agreed to do as he was asked, but only after Dan had showed him a stack of paperwork signed by Sam, paperwork that proved Dan—and, by extension, Wesley—had permission to access his account.
After climbing into Dan’s car, the pair had driven to the nearby Chase bank, where Dan had parked across the street and allowed Wesley to ride his skateboard the rest of the way. Wesley had then withdrawn the cash and handed it over to Dan as instructed. With this done, Dan had told Wesley to hang on to Sam’s debit card for him, which was how he had come into possession of it. It seemed that Dan had not intended for Wesley to use the card to order pizza for himself and his friends, but he had anyway.
With open arms, Wesley told detectives that he had no idea Sam was wrapped up in a murder investigation, that he had fled, or that Dan may be involved as well. He also had no idea what he and Dan had done was technically illegal, citing the stack of paperwork Dan had showed him; Wesley had been tricked by someone he trusted, and that was all there was to it.
At first, Everett and Morales were not sure what to make of Wesley’s story because it was obviously ludicrous, but they couldn’t help but believe him. The scrawny, pimple-faced teen sitting before them was certainly no killer, nor did he seem like he was lying, which meant that Dan Wozniak knew much more than he had claimed in his first statement given on the Sunday morning after Julie’s body was discovered. It was likely, the police felt, that he was helping Sam hide for some reason.
It was time for investigators to have a very difficult conversation with Dan Wozniak.
The Performance of a Lifetime
When the police first began looking closer at Wozniak, they noted that he was a 31-year-old Costa Mesa native who had lived in California his entire life. He was also, as we have discussed, an actor who was engaged to be married in less than two days to Rachel Buffett, who was a former Disneyland cast member known for playing Princess Ariel.
In the past, Dan had been cast as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, and more recently, he had performed as part of the Southeast Civic Light Opera in The Music Man, Charley’s Aunt, and Arsenic and Old Lace. At the time Wesley was in custody, however, he was cast in the musical Nine at the Hunger Artists Theater Company in Fullerton. Rachel was his costar.
Hoping to speak with Wozniak as soon as possible, Officer Everett reached out to Dan to schedule another interview, this time on the police’s turf. However, Wozniak told Everett any more interviews would have to wait because planning his and Rachel’s wedding was practically a full-time job at this late hour. He could not just drop everything and drive across town, even though Sam was still on the run and possibly dangerous. Unfortunately for Dan, this answer did not satisfy Everett.
Believing the actor was their key to unraveling Julie’s murder, Everett and a team of US marshals set out to pick him up on the night of May 26th, four days after Julie’s body was discovered. They found him at a restaurant, where he was then having his bachelor party. At this point, Everett and the others split off into two groups: one headed toward the front entrance, the other toward the rear service door. They converged on Dan’s location slowly and made the arrest in front of all his friends.
When Everett saw the look on Wozniak’s face, he claimed to know immediately that their detainee was guilty of something: “He either knew where Sam was at, he was hiding Sam—had helped Sam flee—or he had more involvement in this than he was letting on.”
Wozniak was then transported to the nearby police station, where he agreed to waive his Miranda Rights and speak with officers without a lawyer present because he claimed to have nothing to hide. This was a huge mistake.
The First Lies
At first, he asserted total innocence by sticking to his original story that the last time he had seen Sam was when he stopped by his apartment with a friend shortly before Julie’s murder; however, his conviction waivered after officers confronted him with Wesley’s statement and the video evidence from the bank. Now, Wozniak changed his story and said that everything Wesley had told them was true because Sam had gotten him wrapped up in a good, old-fashioned fraud scheme. Now, he would tell them everything because he was tired of protecting Sam.
According to Dan’s new story, Sam had once bragged to him about the $60k he had saved while serving in Afghanistan while also saying he felt it was not nearly enough for what he had been put through. Dan had agreed and added he was also frustrated with his own financial situation because Rachel wanted a large, extravagant wedding, which he wasn’t able to afford. This conversation had stuck in Sam’s mind, causing him to devise a simple scheme that would help them both: Dan would take and use Sam’s debit card to withdraw as much money as possible from his account in small increments in order to prevent the bank from freezing his account, after which time Sam would report the card and funds as stolen.
In this way, they hoped to secure several thousand dollars, which would then be split between the two of them. Dan had recruited Wesley as a way to put more distance between himself and the ATM withdrawals.
Altogether, this was obviously a much different story than the original, but Wozniak claimed the reason he had lied to police at first was because Julie’s murder had caught him off guard. At the time he was first being questioned, Sunday morning, he was in shock because he had possessed no prior knowledge that Sam was suffering from mental health issues or that he would go on to murder Julie in cold blood shortly after their scheme began. He was also deathly afraid of being arrested for fraud less than a week before his wedding and said he hadn’t been thinking clearly. He also reasserted that he had not helped Sam escape, that he was not currently helping Sam hide, and said he was very sorry for lying.
Could Wozniak’s new story be plausible, at least at first glance? Yes, but Everett’s intuition told him their time together was just beginning. If he was right, they had barely scratched the surface of the truth, so he pressed Wozniak further using the Reid Technique. He insisted he didn’t buy Wozniak’s lies—and this was when Dan changed his story for the second time.
The Second Story
Claiming to be putting all his cards on the table, for real this time, Wozniak then made a series of startling admissions, beginning with the claim that he had spoken to Sam after Julie’s murder and that Sam had admitted to killing her 12 full hours before Steven Herr would discover her body.
Saturday morning, Wozniak said, Sam came down from his apartment and lamented that he had made a huge mistake the prior night, that there was a dead body directly above their heads. When Wozniak asked what had happened, Sam told him he had been drinking and taking ecstasy and had invited Julie over with the plan to seduce her. However, she had rejected him, causing him to lose control and lash out.
He had shot Julie out of anger and then needed Wozniak’s help to dispose of her body. Originally, Wozniak said he refused, but because he feared for his and Rachel’s lives, feared that Sam would shoot them as well, he eventually agreed to drive Sam to a nearby outlet mall and drop him off. That was the real last time he had seen Sam, and his involvement went no further.
Now, Everett felt they were finally getting closer to the truth—but they still weren’t quite there.
Hoping to put even more pressure on Wozniak, detectives then produced a swab and requested a DNA sample from him, saying that it would help rule him out as a suspect in Julie’s murder. They put him on the spot, and in the heat of the moment, Wozniak agreed without fully considering the implications of what a DNA test would reveal.
Fully convinced that Wozniak’s DNA would be found inside Sam’s apartment, one of the officers then took a gamble, slyly asserting: “If you’re being honest, there should be no reason why we should find your DNA inside Sam’s apartment…”
At this point Wozniak was forced to backtrack because, as he was about to reveal, he had been inside Sam’s apartment on the day of the murder. He told detectives that his DNA might be found inside Sam’s bathroom because he had used it recently. It might also be found on Sam’s back porch… and in Sam’s kitchen… and in Sam’s car, whenever it was eventually located.
Pressing further, the detective asked: “What about on Julie’s body?”
Wozniak denied it, but his tone and body language weren’t very convincing.
At this point, the interrogators informed Wozniak that they were getting tired of his lies and threatened to book him into the county jail and leave him there to rot while they rounded up everyone else who they suspected might be involved, including Dan’s brother, Tim, and one of his groomsmen.
Desperate to avoid missing his wedding, Wozniak then pleaded with the officers to let him go. He said he had nothing to do with the murder, reiterating: “Yes, I helped [Sam] get away. Yes, I knew that [Sam] killed someone.”
Somehow, he thought this would help his situation because, in his mind, he hadn’t killed Julie himself, so police would surely just let him walk right out the door, right? Wrong.
The officers stood up and began moving toward the door themselves. Wozniak asked: “So, I’m staying here?”
To which Everett quickly replied: “Absolutely you are. You’re arrested for murder, for accessory to commit murder…”
After this, Wozniak began to panic. In desperation, he pleaded with the officers to come sit down, claiming he could straighten everything up if they would only give him a moment to explain. In frustrated anger, he shouted: “He came down and said help me. I went upstairs and, yes, I saw the goddamn body. Is that what you want to hear?”
Detectives said they wanted to hear the truth, and Wozniak said that was the truth. Now, they had officially gotten Dan to admit to being in Sam’s apartment, in the room with Julie, which was significant.
They then asked what he had seen inside Sam’s apartment, prompting Wozniak to describe the crime scene in great detail, including stating there were two bullet wounds on the back of Julie’s head. For investigators, this admission was also significant because, up until this point, they had not revealed to anyone that Julie had been shot twice and, because of her hair, it would have been all but impossible to determine that detail by simply looking at her. Even Everett and Morales had not been aware of the second shot until Julie’s autopsy report came back.
When the interrogators questioned Wozniak about how he had known there were two shots, Wozniak tried to backpedal and say that Sam had told him he had shot Julie twice and he hadn’t actually seen the two bullet wounds himself, but nobody believed him. They called Wozniak a terrible liar and a terrible actor to his face, and then he was booked into the county jail.
The Phone Call
After bumbling his way through the disastrous interview, Dan was given some time to calm down and allowed to make a phone call. Desperate to know what was happening in the outside world in the hours since his arrest, he had a long conversation with Rachel, a conversation that only incriminated him further.
Altogether, around 45 minutes of recorded calls between Wozniak and Rachel are available online, but for the sake of time, they have been condensed heavily by cutting out unimportant filler, repetition, crying, etc. Keep this in mind because, although much of this section is written as a back-and-forth between the pair, it is not an exact transcript. With that being said, the following conversation was captured:
Rachel: What did you do?
Dan: I helped Sam cover some stuff up… That’s it. I didn’t murder anybody.
Rachel: Did you help him actually cover the body up or was it just the money thing?
Dan: Yes, I helped him cover the body up and the payment was supposed be everything in [his] account.
Dan then spent a few minutes reiterating what he had told the detectives and said he helped Sam stage the crime scene in a way that they hoped Julie’s boyfriend would be considered the most likely suspect in her murder. This included writing the message on her back.
After this, Rachel informed Wozniak that her mother was in the process of cancelling their wedding plans and that she had spoken to his parents, who were then searching for a lawyer for Dan. This seemingly did little to comfort Dan as he claimed to know he had already given a confession and would spend at least a few years in jail for his role in helping cover up Julie’s murder; however, Rachel then dropped a bombshell on the conversation about Dan’s brother that distressed Dan even further:
Rachel: I just talked to Tim. I need to make a phone call to the detectives now.
Dan: Why?
Rachel: Because Tim’s involved… Tim says he had evidence with him, or he knew where it was, or something.
Dan: Then I’m doomed.
Rachel: What? Do you know that Tim has some evidence?
Dan: Yeah…
At this point, Wozniak once again began to panic, repeatedly saying “oh god” into the microphone and begging Rachel not to turn the evidence over. Knowing that they were on a recorded line, Rachel told Wozniak she had no choice because the police now had a recording of them discussing the evidence. She was driving to the jail as they spoke; if she didn’t turn everything over, she would surely be arrested and charged as well.
It seems Rachel was a tad bit smarter than her “doomed” fiancé.
At this point, Wozniak began pleading with her, saying that the police could not get their hands on Tim’s evidence:
Dan: Listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. No. No. Trust me. Please?
Rachel: You’re being an absolute ass by trying to lie again.
Dan: Yes, I am, because there’s stuff in there that implicates me in something else, something bad.
Rachel: Are you talking about the credit card scheme? They already know all about that.
Dan: No. It’s more than that. What I’m saying is, if they can’t find that, they can’t…
Dan’s voice in the call then trailed off, but it’s obvious that he was trying to say that, without Tim’s evidence, the police couldn’t prove anything. He desperately wanted Rachel to turn around and drive back home, but she continued to refuse.
Knowing that the police had surely already heard so much during the call, Rachel then decided to speak plainly and revealed that Tim had indirectly told her that he had the murder weapon in his possession:
Rachel: Tim said he had a murder weapon.
Dan: Yeah, he does.
Rachel: So, that’s exactly what Tim told me, so I’m going to tell the detective now.
Dan: No.
Rachel: Then what do you want me to do?
Dan: I don’t want you to tell the detective anything. And I don’t want Tim involved like that. [I’ll be] dead. [I’ll be] really dead.
Rachel: Baby, you’re already dead.
Dan: It was more than credit card fraud… Tim has what you think he has… And I did it. To both. Like I said, babe, I’m done. I’m done. I’m really done. I was trying to cover it up, and now I’m going away for life.
Rachel: What did you do?
Dan: I think you know what I did.
Rachel: Were you the one who killed them?
Dan didn’t reply.
Knowing exactly what Rachel was about to point police towards, a very noticeable resignation could be heard in Dan’s voice. They talked for a while more, but before hanging up the phone, Dan said: “Babe, listen to me. I’m going to go do something right now and you’re not going to see me for the rest of your life. Do you understand that? I have to tell the truth [about] what I did, and I think you know what it is. And it’s bad. Imagine the worst, and that’s what I did… You’re going to hate me.”
After ending the call, Dan told a jail guard that he wanted to speak with investigators to amend his statement again. His request was granted, and he was taken back into the same interrogation room where he began by resolutely saying: “I’m crazy and I did it; I killed Julie and I killed Sam.”
The Final Confession
Now attempting to lay the foundation for an insanity plea, Dan calmly told the interrogators he had murdered both Samuel Herr and Julie Kibuishi because of “money and insanity,” before letting out a cringe-inducing laugh and finally giving a truthful confession:
As it turns out, Wozniak said, his money troubles were much worse than anyone could have guessed. Not only could he not afford his wedding, but he had also lost his job, blown through all his savings, and was on the verge of being evicted. He knew Sam had $60k stashed away, so out of pure desperation, he—not Sam—concocted a plan to steal it.
On Friday, May 21st, Wozniak asked Sam to accompany him to the theatre at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, where he claimed to need help moving some furniture. This was a theatre where Dan had performed in front of large crowds in the past, but that day, he and Sam were the only ones there.
Dan escorted Sam up a ladder to the theatre’s attic and asked him to kneel and get underneath the item they were moving. As Sam did, Dan pulled out his father’s handgun and shot him in the back of the head, twice. He then took Sam’s wallet, keys, and everything else he had in his pockets before locking Sam’s body in the attic and driving to Wesley’s mother’s house. That afternoon then progressed exactly as Wesley had described and Wozniak walked away with as much money as the ATMs would allow Wesley to withdraw.
After dropping Wesley back off at his home, Dan then rushed back to Costa Mesa to get changed and perform his part in Nine alongside Rachel. Somehow, after having just murdered his neighbor hours earlier, Dan was able to pull this off without a hitch. He was so cool and collected that none in the audience or his fellow performers suspected anything was wrong.
With a potential alibi now in place, Dan and Rachel returned home, and Rachel went to bed, after which time Dan put the second phase of his plan into action: using Sam’s cellphone, he lured Julie over, and when she arrived, he met her outside Sam’s front door, telling her that he, too, had received concerning messages indicating Sam needed help. Julie knocked, and when no one answered, Dan used the key he had taken off Sam’s body to unlock the door, saying that Sam had provided it to him in case of emergencies.
Inside, Julie quickly noted that Sam wasn’t there and suggested they have a look around, that they look for clues about where he may have gone. Dan agreed and then stepped into Sam’s hallway bathroom, quietly reloaded the gun he had used to kill Sam, and then proceeded into Sam’s bedroom. He then urgently called Julie over, indicating he had discovered something on Sam’s bed, beside his pillow.
When Julie leaned over to inspect what Dan was pointing at, he raised the gun and shot her twice in the back of the head, just as he had done to Sam. She collapsed in place, half slumped over, as Steven Herr would find her approximately 22 hours later.
According to Dan, the reason he had murdered Julie was because he wanted the police to go down the exact path they had followed before catching up with Wesley. That was why he had staged the crime scene as he did, cutting off Julie’s pants and writing the message on her back to make it seem that she had been sexually assaulted. He wanted it to appear that Sam had gone crazy, raped her, killed her, and then fled. Everything that had been done to Julie was done solely to cover up Sam’s murder.
Now knowing that two murders had been committed solely for money, Morales and Everett were disgusted, but they were even more disgusted by Dan’s next admission:
After staging the scene, Dan wiped away his fingerprints, returned to his apartment, climbed into bed beside Rachel, slept the night away, gave his statement to police, and then set out to complete phase three, the final phase: knowing that Sam needed to disappear entirely for his plan to succeed, he returned to the theatre in Los Alamitos and cut off Sam’s head, his hands, and his forearms. He then tossed these into a nature preserve at Long Beach’s El Dorado Park, where he hoped they would be eaten by wild animals. He left the rest of Sam’s butchered body locked in the theatre’s attic, intending to return and dispose of it after his honeymoon. That was where it currently was, Dan told Morales, as they spoke.
Curious to know how Dan’s brother fit into the story, Morales asked how Tim had come into possession of the gun used in the murders. Dan told them that, directly after chopping up Sam’s body, he became afraid that the police were catching up to him, so he had called Tim over to ask a favor. He had then given Tim a bag filled with all of Sam’s belongings and asked him to dispose of it. Tim had taken the bag without asking questions because he wanted to be a good brother. He was not involved in any other way.
While Dan continued to speak to Morales, Lieutenant Everett ordered officers to venture out to the Los Alamitos theatre and corroborate Dan’s newest story. There, they found exactly what had been described: Sam’s dismembered torso, which was so badly butchered he had to be identified by a single, large tattoo on his chest; it was a heart with “Mom & Dad” written inside it.
After this, Dan’s accessory to commit murder charge was elevated to two counts of first-degree murder, and he was placed back into a holding cell.
In the following hours, a search team was assembled, who later found the rest of Sam, including his head, as described, at El Dorado Park. The backpack containing all of Sam’s belongings was also located behind a fence at Dan and Tim’s parents’ house, where Tim had thrown it after learning Dan had been arrested. Sam’s bloody clothes, his wallet, phone, passport, debit card and multiple checkbooks were all inside—as were the shell casings for both murders.
A Surprise Accomplice
Now, with Wozniak’s detestable and detailed confession on record, you might assume it’s time we begin wrapping up this story; however, that is not the case because, while almost everything he had admitted in his latest confession was verifiably true, police were convinced he was still lying by omission about a few critical details. He was doing this, they suspected, in order to protect anyone else who might be involved in the murders.
Tim, with his big bag of evidence, was an obvious potential accomplice, but there was also strong reason to suspect Rachel may have been involved as well due to several suspicious elements.
To start, if you recall, while giving their initial joint statement, both Dan and Rachel claimed to have briefly seen Sam with a man in a black baseball cap, whom neither of them had ever met before that day. This was significant because Dan had now admitted to fabricating this man to send police on a wild goose chase. So, why had Rachel claimed to have seen the man as well? Was she covering for him? When exactly did she learn about Julie’s murder?
That final question would turn out to be a major sticking point for detectives as, in the wake of Wozniak’s arrest, several of his and Rachel’s friends came forward to tell their stories about how the couple had acted around the time of the murders—and this is where our second suspicious element comes into play.
A few close friends claimed that Rachel had dropped hints about “something bad” happening in her apartment complex on Saturday, May 22nd. This was over twelve hours before she supposedly learned of Julie’s murder from the police on Sunday morning. Once again, they wondered, when did she really learn about Julie’s murder? Had she been involved from the beginning? Had she helped plan it? Had she helped execute it?
Furthermore, in an interview after Dan’s final confession, Rachel also claimed to be completely unaware of her and Dan’s money issues, therefore stating she would have no obvious motive for helping plan the murders. But the fact that police uncovered records of a prior eviction from another apartment complex months earlier proved this was a lie. She did know about their money problems, and another witness named Chris Williams soon came forward to provide even more evidence to prove it—as well as to provide a few more important details about Rachel herself.
As a jazz singer in Orange County, Chris had known Dan and Rachel for several years. For most of that time, they had been friends, but in the weeks before the murder, their friendship had been tested when Dan requested to borrow $500 from him to use as a downpayment for his and Rachel’s honeymoon. This drove a small wedge between Chris and Dan because, in addition to being known as an actor, Dan also had a reputation around town for being a freeloader and deadbeat.
Eventually, Chris had agreed to loan Dan the money, but because he had been so worried about repayment, he lied and said the $500 came from a loan shark with mob connections, hoping that Dan wouldn’t try to skip out on a mobster. Chris claimed that Rachel knew about this loan and that she had been in the apartment with Dan on the day he had come to collect.
Oh, and one more thing: that collection day also just so happened to be the very day Dan murdered Sam, meaning that Dan’s desperation to avoid crossing the mob was likely what had driven him to kill Sam in the first place.
Obviously, Chris felt guilty about his lie now, but he wasn’t done providing useful information. He also said he had personally seen Sam on the day of the murder because Sam had been inside Dan and Rachel’s apartment when he came to collect.
On Friday, May 21st, Chris arrived at Dan and Rachel’s apartment to find the couple and Sam waiting for him. Chris had never met Sam before, but Dan introduced the man as his “brother” and said they were going to drive down the street to get his money and would return soon. Chris agreed to wait there at the apartment with Rachel; however, Dan was not gone for a short time as he promised. He did not return for a full three hours.
During those three hours, as Chris and Rachel sat together alone in the apartment, she pulled out her laptop and revealed she was applying for jobs at a nearby topless bar. Chris couldn’t be sure if she was hitting on him or just trying to prove she and Dan were looking for every possible way of repaying their debt.
Either way, when Dan finally returned to the apartment, his attitude was much different than hours earlier. Now, the normally cool, charismatic charmer appeared panicked, was covered in sweat, and was nearly hyperventilating. He walked up to Chris, dropped his money on the table in front of him, and did not offer an explanation for what had taken him so long. Sam was not with him at this time because, unbeknownst to Chris, Dan had just murdered him. Chris then got up and left the apartment.
Now, the fact that Rachel had failed to mention anything about this three-hour meeting with Chris on Friday was beyond suspicious. That whole part of the story had been left out and the police assumed it was because Dan was trying to put as much distance between Rachel and the murders as possible.
To confirm their new theory, Everett then listened to the taped conversations we’ve already discussed, where he noticed something very interesting about how Rachel had reacted to learning Dan had killed two people.
In the first call, directly after Rachel asked Dan if he “killed them” and Dan refused to respond, Rachel changed the subject and tentatively asked what they did together the night Julie was killed, claiming she couldn’t remember. Dan replied by very clearly stating they showered together before watching Men in Black and Family Guy in bed. She then asked what Dan did on Saturday, then on Monday, then on Tuesday.
On the one hand, the exchange could be seen as Rachel legitimately trying to grapple with the information she had just learned and put the pieces together in real time. But, on the other, Rachel asked for specifics about days and nights she would have surely already been replaying in her mind because of their significance. Listening to the call after the fact, it’s hard not to think Rachel knew Dan had decided to take the fall for them and was indirectly probing him for information on what he was about to tell detectives.
She needed to ensure the information she was about to tell the detectives herself would align with what Dan was going to confess to. It seemed like Dan realized this and played along, giving her the details she needed to quickly cobble together a new cover story on the fly.
Furthermore, the entire call itself could also be interpreted as strange because not once does Rachel seem shocked by what Dan is telling her, even when it is made clear that he killed both Sam and Julie. She sounded stressed, but not shaken, and she didn’t start to cry until they were just about to hang up. At that time, she also reaffirmed her commitment to Dan, saying: “I’m gonna come visit you all the time. We’ll figure this out, okay?
You are so insane and so stupid. But I know in your twisted little mind you were doing it cause you wanted to be happy with me. And I hate you for screwing it up.”
Now fully convinced Rachel was, at the very least, protecting Dan, they brought her in for an official interrogation; however, Rachel refused to admit to anything. She was, it seemed, a much tougher nut to crack.
At one point while questioning her, one of the interrogators plainly said: “Your stories are very inconsistent. Your stories have more holes than Swiss cheese. Do you understand that?”
But Rachel still would not confess, eventually lawyered up, and the authorities were forced to let her leave the station, for now.
Rachel’s Time in the Spotlight
With her fiancé awaiting trial behind bars—a trial that was heavily delayed for reasons we will discuss in just a bit—police kept after Rachel for several years, following up on every lead, attempting to scrape together enough evidence to charge her with first-degree murder. They interviewed her on at least three separate occasions during that time—although that number may have been higher. In one, they gave her a voice-stress-analysis test, which is like a polygraph, that showed “signs of deception.” But despite their efforts, they had to settle for a lesser charge.
On November 20th, 2012, two and a half years after the murders, the lead detective on the case called Rachel to request she stop back by the station to sign some paperwork. At this point, Rachel was used to dealing with requests from the police, so she thought nothing of it. However, when she arrived, they placed her in cuffs and charged her with 3 felony counts of accessory to commit murder after the fact.
After this, Rachel stayed in jail for three weeks, until she was able to post bail, at which time she set out on a press tour. She was agitated by the media’s coverage of her arrest and resented that her side of the story wasn’t being told. She gave interviews to multiple news outlets before then booking an appointment to appear on Dr. Phil.
Alongside Rachel, Steven Herr was invited to provide his thoughts on her involvement. The audience was also packed wall to wall, with Orange County’s district attorney, Tony Rackauckas, and one of Rachel’s own attorneys, Asha Sharma, both in attendance.
On the show’s stage, Rachel sat across from Dr. Phil and claimed she had made many mistakes during her time with Dan and that her opinion of him had shifted drastically since his arrest. While she hadn’t realized it during their relationship, he had always been “fake and shallow” and had lied about many things, including how much money he owed people. She had known their finances weren’t perfect, that they had been evicted previously, but had been told the worst of their troubles were in the rear view.
Then she went on to provide explanations for her repeated lies:
Regarding the man in the baseball cap, Rachel admitted she never saw anyone with Sam herself but backed up Dan’s claim because she had trusted him wholeheartedly at that time. She had no reason, after all, to think he would lie—or that he was involved—and didn’t want to cast doubt on his story: “I trusted him, and I trusted that what he said was true, especially before I thought it really mattered. I didn’t question it.”
As for why she hadn’t mentioned Chris being in her apartment on the afternoon Sam was murdered, Rachel claimed she truly believed he was connected to the mob, and she didn’t want to get herself or Dan killed by ratting him out to the police. This was simply another mistake.
As for her strange behavior on the call, she claimed to have been in shock at the time. Her whole life had just collapsed around her two days before her wedding, and she wasn’t really processing what Dan was saying or what it meant. She just kept thinking “this isn’t happening right now. I’m dreaming.”
As Rachel talked, the camera repeatedly panned over the faces of Tony Rackauckas and Asha Sharma, both of whom either nodded in approval or shook their heads at what she was saying. Once Steven Herr was brought onstage to accuse Rachel himself, Dr. Phil began asking DA Rackauckas specifics about the charges against her, about her lies. Altogether, it was quite the spectacle.
Either way, Rachel’s performance on Dr. Phil did not result in her being seen as innocent in the public’s eye, nor did it result in the charges against her being dropped—not that that was ever on the table anyway. So, after saying her piece, she sat back and waited for trials to commence.
Court Dates
Up first was Tim, who was also arrested and charged with being an accessory to murder after Dan’s discarded bag of evidence was collected. In the end, he worked out a plea deal with prosecutors for three years of probation in exchange for testifying against Dan at trial. This trial, it turns out, was necessary because Dan recanted his confession shortly after giving it and entered a plea of not guilty. However, Tim would have to wait multiple years to testify, primarily because Wozniak’s attorney, Scott Sanders, was a very busy man in the 2010s.
Not only was Sanders assigned to represent mass killer Scott Dekraai, who had killed eight people at a Seal Beach salon, at the same time as Dan, but he was also leading the charge against California’s use of jailhouse informants. Famously, Sanders argued that the police’s regular practice of recruiting jailhouse informants to illicit confessions from untried defendants violated their right to a fair trial. He said it constituted systematic misconduct and that the Orange County’s District Attorney’s Office was culpable for decades of violations that stretched back into the 80s.
And it seems his claims were not unfounded as San Jose’s Mercury News once reported: “[Sanders’ research] already has resulted in one convicted killer getting set free, one convicted killer getting his sentence reduced, and a third getting a new trial.”
This all related to Dan because, while incarcerated and waiting for his trial, the police had purposefully housed an informant with him in an attempt to gather more details about Sam and Julie’s murders, specifically whether Rachel was involved. Sanders was not happy with this and repeatedly filed motion after motion alleging that Dan’s rights had been violated by this informant, who he said was acting on behalf of the police. These motions were massively long, to the point that some people claimed he was purposefully bogging down the court system in order to delay trial for Dan’s benefit. In one of the more egregious examples, Sanders once submitted a 754-page motion to the court, complete with more than 25,000 pages of exhibits.
This delay resulted in several issues for the prosecution, most notably when one of the detectives involved in the case (not Everett or Morales) was killed in a car accident before trial. Because he was scheduled to testify about several key elements of Dan’s confession, his death sent the prosecution scrambling to reorganize. The judge’s wife also died in an unrelated way during the wait, causing further delay.
As this legal battle raged on, over 130 hearings were held to determine what, if anything, should be done about Sanders’ claims of injustice, and Steven Herr attended all of them. Like a legend, he reportedly sat within arm’s reach of Wozniak every day he was in court to remind him he would never stop fighting for his son: “I want him to know I’m here…”
Julie’s family was frustrated by all these delays as well. Her mother said: “We know Julie and Sam were murdered. It’s clear-cut. Everything is out there. So why does this take so long? That’s what we don’t understand.”
Ultimately, all this legal foot-dragging accomplished little for Dan. In December of 2015, his trial commenced. While in court, he walked tall and smiled to those around him, prosecutors and jury alike, but there was little hope of him being found not guilty as Sanders reportedly barely put up any fight. His whole plan had been to have confessions thrown out and evidence suppressed, and when that failed, there was nothing he could do.
After only a few hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.
At Dan’s sentencing, on January 11, 2016, however, Sanders pepped up while seeking lenience from the jury. He claimed that Rachel had been the mastermind behind the crimes and that Dan was simply her puppet. She was the one who wanted a fancy wedding, the one who drove him to near insanity. Sanders put up a good fight, but there were other voices in the courtroom that day, voices that carried much more weight than his.
Steve Herr told of how the police had found Sam’s head: “Animals got to my son’s body parts in El Dorado park… They found him. They ate his flesh off him. They urinated on my son.” He continued: “In my mind, I see [Dan] whacking away at my son’s head. I see him sawing my son’s arm off… I have trouble sleeping at night because, if I turn the TV off, that’s what I focus on.”
Taka Kibuishi expressed his anger at how pointless his sister’s death had been: “We lost Julie and Sam for something so simple. It’s pathetic. It’s disgusting.”
And then the prosecutor delivered a powerful line: “Daniel Wozniak treated Sam like trash. He treated Julie like trash. So, the question I ask you to answer, in your verdict: are they trash?”
After less than an hour of deliberation, the jury sentenced Dan Wozniak to death. He was then transported to death row at San Quentin prison.
This verdict was exactly what Steven Herr had been hoping for. Now, all he had to do was sit back and wait for the needle to finally give him closure—oh, and attend Rachel’s trial for being an accessory.
Unfortunately, despite still wanting to charge Rachel with first degree murder, prosecutors felt there simply wasn’t enough evidence of direct involvement. They went forward with the lesser charges, and in September of 2018, eight years after the murders, Rachel’s trial began.
Unsurprisingly, Rachel’s attorneys blamed Dan for everything, presenting a defense that largely matched what had been delivered to Dr. Phil’s audience years earlier. But it didn’t work. In November 2018, a jury found her guilty of 2 counts of being an accessory after the fact, and she was sentenced to 32 months in jail.
The Fate of the Death Penalty
As of March 19th, 2019, California has halted all executions indefinitely, including Dan Wozniak’s. Now, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website states: “California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order instituting a moratorium on the death penalty in California in the form of a reprieve for all people sentenced to death.”
Steven Herr was furious about this, making his voice heard loud and clear at a Crime Victims United conference later that same year: “Talk about a kick in the stomach… [Newsom] hasn’t a clue what it means to be in our shoes… For him to say that the core of the people of California don’t believe in [the death penalty]—yes, we do. We voted for the death penalty, a number of times, every time. He didn’t see my son’s body, what Wozniak had done to it. He didn’t see Julie’s.
I walked in and found her body. And for him to say, ‘I have to have the backs—I have to do justice—for the criminals…’ No, it’s not going to happen. So, if we have to go to another 320 hearings, my son, Sam, and Julie’s voices will be heard…”
Today, Steven is still fighting while Wozniak has been transferred from San Quentin’s death row to a lower-security facility, Salinas Valley State. He now carries around a Bible and participates in various rehabilitation programs, hoping to someday be granted release under California’s ever-changing criminal justice laws.
Key Takeaways
- Steven Herr discovered Julie Kibuishi’s staged body in son Sam’s apartment on May 22, 2010, initially suspecting Sam was responsible.
- Neighbor Dan Wozniak murdered Sam Herr for his $60,000 savings, then lured and killed Julie to frame Sam for the crime.
- Wozniak’s multiple lies during interrogation unraveled after he revealed knowledge of Julie’s two gunshot wounds never publicly disclosed.
- A recorded jail call with fiancée Rachel Buffett led Wozniak to confess both murders, though he later recanted before trial.
- Wozniak received death sentence in 2016 while Rachel was convicted as accessory; California’s execution moratorium blocks his sentence.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who discovered Julie Kibuishi’s body and where was it found?
Steven Herr, Samuel Herr’s father, discovered Julie Kibuishi’s body on May 22, 2010, in his son Sam’s bedroom at apartment 410, 2855 Pinecreek Drive in Costa Mesa. She was found slumped partially across the bed in a pool of blood, with her jeans cut off and a message written on her back in marker.
What was written on the back of Julie Kibuishi’s shirt?
The message written on the back of Julie Kibuishi’s shirt in marker read: ‘All yours Fuck you’
What was the relationship between Samuel Herr and Julie Kibuishi?
Samuel Herr and Julie Kibuishi were friends who met in an Anthropology class at Orange Coast College. Julie had been tutoring Sam. Both of their families stated they were not dating—Julie had a boyfriend, and Sam had described Julie to his parents as being like his ‘kid sister.‘
Who was initially suspected of murdering Julie Kibuishi, and why?
Samuel Herr was initially suspected because the murder occurred in his apartment, he was missing, his cellphone was turned off (which was uncharacteristic), and the crime scene was staged to appear as though he had killed Julie in a fit of rage—complete with a message suggesting jealousy and sexual assault. Police also knew he had PTSD from his military service in Afghanistan.
How did Steven Herr try to find his son, and what did he discover?
Steven Herr investigated his son’s finances and found that approximately $2,000 was being withdrawn from Sam’s $60,000 savings account at ATMs in Long Beach. He drove to Long Beach, staked out the ATMs, and eventually saw in real time that Sam’s debit card was being used to purchase pizza at Ecco’s Pizza. He rushed there, arriving around the same time as police.
Who was actually using Samuel Herr’s debit card, and how did they get it?
A 16-year-old high school student named Wesley Freilich was using Sam’s debit card. He obtained it from Dan Wozniak, Sam’s downstairs neighbor, who told Wesley that Sam was in legal trouble with a bail bondsman and needed help withdrawing money. Wesley claimed Dan showed him paperwork supposedly signed by Sam giving them permission to access the account.
What was Dan Wozniak’s true motive for murdering Samuel Herr and Julie Kibuishi?
Dan Wozniak’s true motive was money. He was in severe financial trouble—he had lost his job, spent all his savings, was about to be evicted, and couldn’t afford the extravagant wedding his fiancée Rachel wanted. He knew Sam had $60,000 saved from his military service and concocted a plan to steal it. He murdered Julie to frame Sam and divert police attention.
How did Dan Wozniak murder Samuel Herr, and where did it happen?
On Friday, May 21, 2010, Dan Wozniak lured Samuel Herr to the theatre at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos under the pretense of needing help moving furniture. He escorted Sam up a ladder to the theatre’s attic, asked him to kneel and get underneath an item, then shot him twice in the back of the head with his father’s handgun. He then took Sam’s wallet, keys, and other belongings and locked the body in the attic.
How did Dan Wozniak lure Julie Kibuishi to Sam’s apartment, and why?
Dan Wozniak used Sam’s cellphone to send Julie text messages pretending to be Sam, saying he was ‘very upset’ and ‘hurting with some family crap,’ begging her to come over at midnight alone. He murdered Julie to create a cover story for Sam’s disappearance—staging the scene to look like Sam had killed her in a rage and fled. This was designed to make police pursue Sam rather than investigate Dan.
What ultimately led to Dan Wozniak’s confession?
Dan Wozniak’s confession was ultimately triggered by a recorded phone call with his fiancée Rachel, during which she informed him that his brother Tim had evidence including the murder weapon. Dan panicked, realizing he was ‘doomed,’ and told Rachel ‘I did it. To both.’ He then told a jail guard he wanted to speak with investigators again and confessed to murdering both Julie Kibuishi and Samuel Herr.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: The Costa Mesa Manhunt: The Man Who Thought He Could Get Away with Murder
- Hero image source by Haruhi8 / openverse, cc0.
