**Episode Transcription
Welcome everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Love and Murder – the weekly true crime podcast discussing relationships gone terribly wrong. Where our motto is, you’re either someone’s last love or their first murder.
I am your host Ky and in today’s episode, we’re talking about a case of obsession, mind games, and murder. Be sure to listen to the very end of this episode as I very briefly rant about another case that I couldn’t wrap my head around.
Before we begin, I want to say that this episode is sponsored by my LaMs in Patreon. Without you there probably wouldn’t be a show.
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In the meantime though, grab your butts, grab your apple juice, and let’s get into some Love and Murder.…
Daniel LaPlant was born on May 15, 1970, in Townsend, Massachusetts. He was raised with his mom and his step father. The house, which was on Elm Street (forshadowing) he was raised in was like a junk yard with tons of junk and old cars. During his youth, he allegedly was subjected to psychological and sexual abuse – the majority of this by his own father.
As a teen, he went to St. Bernard’s High School in Fitchburg. There, he didn’t have many friends, possibly because he was described as “unfriendly, creepy and weird.” Daniel had very bad hygiene and just looked dirty; he didn’t care about his apparence. Another reason for this could be because his father was still sexually abusing him and then his psychiatrist had also started sexually abusing him. I mean, that would make a child act out.
In the 80s, neighbors would notice Daniel going into the woods alone and to them this was very concerning,
“You’d see him walk out there by himself. That’s the only place you would see him, the woods.”
Later, the same psychiatrist who was SA-ing him, diagnosed him with hyperactivity disorder. By the time Danial turned 15, he was known as the neighborhood thief. He broke into the houses in his neighborhood durin the evening and stole whatever they had of value.
Soon after, he not only stole but would leave stuff behind, would move items around in their houses, and basically freak them out. He enjoyed watching their terror.
By 1986, when he was 16, he became obsessed with with a 15 year old girl named Tina Bowen. They went to school together and he had taken her on one date. But after his classmates heard of this, they told Tina that Daniel was facing rape charges to stay way from him. Her father, Frank Bowen, said say less and told Tina to stay away from Daniel.
Several weeks later, the Bowen family started having some problems. One night, Tina and her sister said they were using a ouija board and they started hearing noises which freaked them out. Throughout the weeks that followed, things in their house were misplaced, or just slightly out of place, TV channels were changing themselves when they left the room, food would go missing and weird messages like “marry me,” “I’m in your room. Come and find me.” would be written on the walls in food. One da, a family picture was pinned to the wall by a knife. I mean, I gotta tell you, I would have never solved that mystery because I would have moved out with the onset of the creepy sounds. That’s my limit.
Well dad, Frank, isn’t like me. He thought the girls were just pranking each other and didn’t pay any attention.
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Yea well Frank, you should be more like me (I’m just messing – how was he supposed to know). On December 8, 1986, the girls came home to find that someone had used their bathroom, freaked out and told Frank. This time Frank took it seriously and searched the entire house. That’s when he found Daniel in a wardrobe with his face painted, dark spiked hair, wearing a ninja mask, Wearing a hairy jacket, and wielding a hatchet in one hand and a steel wrench in the other.. Imagine the shock. Daniel then gathered the family into a bedroom and then ran away and disappeared somewhere in the house. Um. El Nope!
Tina then jumped out of a window (you know she wouldn’t get killed in a horror movie. Go Tina) and ran to a neighbor’s house and called the cops. Cops came out, searched the house with a k9 unit, but found nothing. The Bowen family still left the house for a bit, not permanently. On December 10, the police got another call to come out to the Bowen house. When police arrived, Frank said they had just come home to pick up some stuff and he’d seen a face peering out the front window. Oh heeeeeeelllll no!
Here’s a quote from the arriving officer, Steven Bezanson,
“I could tell as I drove up. He (Bowen) was very upset. I could tell as I drove up. he’s pointing at the house. I said to myself, here we go. He’s going to say he saw the guy at the window.”
Officer Bezanson looked around the snow covered ground for any signs of fresh footprints but saw nothing. He then went in to calmly search the residence, because he didn’t really believe Frank.
“When I opened the door, on the right hand wall, I saw a knife sticking out of the wall. And I see it’s through a picture – a family picture – written on it in magic marker ‘I’M STILL HERE. . COME FIND ME’.” Now the hair goes up on the back of my head. On another wall, I saw another picture saying I’M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL with a knife through it.”
The officer took THIS seriously and called for backup. He was joined by two other officers and they search the house again, but still couldn’t find anything.
Officer Bezanson said, “That bastard is still here. We’re missing something!”
The officer noticed a small cut out space in the wall. It was a triangular shape in a corner and it separated the toilet from the plumbing pipes.
“Oh, that’s a wall to hide pipes. I’m thinking, son of a bitch, there’s enough room back there. I have one hand on the butt of my pistol. I saw what looked like a pile of clothes. He was totally covered with the clothes. I said, that’s him. I pulled my pistol and said, ‘I got the son of a bitch right here’. But he didn’t move. I told him, let me see your hands.or I will splatter your brains all over that wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dave Young (the Cheif officer) run out of the room. He left.
This is when I saw Laplante was really bad. He was not afraid. He looked out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t afraid to have a gun stuck next to his head.”
He was crouched in that crawl space that wasn’t wider than 6” (15.24 cm). So, imagine that. He was in that house for like WEEKS, staying in that crawl space; even sleeping in there. 6”! How?! I actually have a drawing of the crawl space in the Patreon. There are a bunch of pictures and court case documents in the Patreon by the way, www.patreon.com/loveandmurder
Daniel was arrested and sent to a juvenile facility with a $10,000 bail. He was released in October 1987, by Judge Joseph Travaline, because his mother remortgaged her house and paid his bail.
After this, Daniel appreciated what his mother did for him, saw the error of his ways, talked to his mom about what was ailing him – like his past trauma by those people in his life. They hugged and he sought help in the road to recovery.
Yea none of that happened. This is Love and Murder after all.
While waiting for his trial, Daniel lived at his mom’s house and kept stealing from his neighbors.
On Oct. 14, 1987, Daniel stole two .22 Caliber guns from a neighbor.
On Nov. 16, 1987, Daniel broke into the Gustafan house. In this house lived Priscilla (33), who was a pregnant nursery school teacher, Andrew (34), the husband, William (5 years old) and Abigail (7 years old).
On December 1, 1987, Daniel went back to the Gustafan house with a .22 gun to break in again. Once in and going about his business, Priscilla came home with William. Daniel claimed that he thought about jumping out of the window and running away, but that would be too logical. Instead he walked up to Priscilla with his gun drawn and told her to take her son to the bedroom. There he put William in the closet and tied Priscilla to the bed and gagged her with one of his socks. After this he raped Priscilla and then shot her two times in the head at point blank range. He then took William out of the closet, to the bathroom, and drowned him. Finally, he decided to leave the hous, but as he was getting to the front door, it opened and in walked Abigail, fresh from the school bus. He brought her into another bathroom in the house and drowned her too.
Mind you, this was only 2 months after being released from juvy.
After doing all of this, Daniel went home and went to his niece’s birthday party.
After calling his wife all afternoon with no answer, Andrew rushed home. Upon entering his house, he thought that the house was just a little too quiet. But his wife’s car was here. He continued searching for his family throughout the house and found his wife on a bloodsoaked bed, dead. He ran out of the house and called the police. He didn’t go in search of his kids because he thought there were not at the house.
When police arrived, the found the body of Priscilla and searched for the kids.
Here’a quote from an article written by the *Celtics Sentinel, “He went upstairs and discovered his wife’s body. He did not know where the two children were. John and I went inside to search. First we went upstairs where the wife was and she was on her back with a pillow over her face. You could see she had been shot through the pillow.”
*Celtic Sentinel, they said: https://www.celticssentinel.com/2021/07/the-elm-street-nightmare.html
They found William in one bathroom, still in the tub,
“We began to look for the children. I went into the (upstairs) bathroom. The shower curtain was pulled shut. I opened the shower curtain and there was a blond-haired boy, I believe, lying face down. There was hardly any water in the tub. “
And went downstairs and found Abigail in another bathroom in the tub,
“We searched downstairs. We found the daughter in the tub. There was still water in it. My feeling at the time was that she had fought to stay alive.”
Police went in search of Daniel because apparently he ran. Lt. Thomas Lane, who was in charge of the case, decided to have the search start in the NW corder of Pepperell. He figured that Daniel would head AWAY from Townsend and go around the Bowen home. Sure enough, people started reporting sightens of Daniel based on pictures that Lt. Lane had put out. After the reporting signings, Lt. Lane headed out to that area. When he got there, he’d planned to search a wooded area and he pulled into a driveway nearby. The owner of the house, Lynne McGovern, walked up to his car and asked if he would walk her into her house. Although he thought this might alert Daniel of police presence if he was actually in the area, Lt. Lane did it anyway. His partner stayed int he car and he walked Lynne to her door, opened it, and began walking around. He then heard a loud bang from upstairs and pulled out his gun. He ran upstiars to investigate and saw a 16-guage shotgun on the floor at the top. He yelled down to Lynne what he found and she started screaming. Daniel was in the house and he jumped out of the second floor window and ran into the woods.
Of course Lt. Lane, and backup, went in pursuit. In their search, they heard a woman, Pam Makela, screaming inside her house. Daniel held her at gunpoint and told her to drive him away from the area. Because it was dark out, he didn’t see Lt. Lane in the police car next to him.
(Some side notes, Daniel had Pam drive him because he told her that he only have his learner’s permit) Like, you can’t even drive but you’re out doing all of this? Why couldn’t you have taken up your time practicing driving instead of robbing, raping and murdering. What an asshole. Next side note, the car was a van and it was bright orange with two “for sale” signs on it. I mean why didn’t he just have a flashing neon sign on a red Lamborgini? That would have been less obvious.
During the drive, Pam rolled out of the car when they’d gotten to Town Hall and got away.
Because Daniel couldn’t drive, even though he tried to continue, he jumped out of the car and started running; trying to hide.
One of the searching police, Officer Paul Baratta, said “I saw him when he stuck his head out (of a dumpster), but by then there was nowhere to go.”
Daniel was arrested on December 3, 1987 and taken to the Massachusetts State Police Barracks. When they forced him to remove his clothes, Daniel finally admitted that he had a gun that he’d stolen from the McGovern house, hidden in his underwear. Wow
During trial, which started in October 1988, police presented all of the evidence including the shirt and gloves he wore to drown the Gustafan kids. He’d hidden it in the woods behind their house.
They also presented to the court that Daniel had take ammo and guns from the McGovern home – which were found in the woods behind their home.
Commonwealth versus Daniel J. Laplante, 482 Mass. 399
“[The defendant] carefully planned [two] intrusions into the Gustafson[s’] home; first breaking in on November 16, 1987, and stealing items. While he could have stopped there, he decided to return. He obtained a gun and lied to his brother’s friend in order to get bullets. He practiced loading and unloading the guns. On December 1, 1987, [the defendant] broke into the Gustafson[s’] house for the second time, carrying the loaded weapon. When he heard Priscilla Gustafson and her [five year old] son William entering the house, he said that his first thought was to jump out the window. But he decided not to. He confronted them with the gun, brought them to the bedroom, put William in the closet and tied Priscilla to the bed. [The defendant] said that after he tied Priscilla to the bed, his plan was to leave. But once again he decided not to. Instead, he made the decision to rape her. After raping her, he acknowledged that he could have left. Instead, he decided he would kill her. After he killed Priscilla, [the defendant] made the decision to take William into the bathroom and drown him. As he was leaving, he encountered [seven year old] Abigail. He lured her into the bathroom and made the decision to drown her as well. . . . After fleeing the scene, [the defendant] went home, ate and then attended his niece’s birthday party as if nothing had happened.”
Edit – I’ve been saying Gustafon, but it’s pronounced Gustafson. Apologies because I know I’m about to get alot of DMs telling me the pronunciation. One person even said, shame on me.
It was reported that a year before he murdered, Daniel was running around telling people that he was a Satan worshipper and saying, “I don’t care if I kill.”
Andrew Gustafson also took to the stand.
Judge Robert later said, “It was so quiet in that courtroom, you could hear a pin drop.
All eyes were on (Andrew) Gustafson.
Gustafson began to cry. He told the jury he was afraid he would find his children dead.
In all my years as a judge, I have never forgotten that moment.”
Daniel took to the stand also saying that he was young and that he’d been abused and that’s why he did this. Really asshole? I know people who have been abused before and I knew then when they were young and older and they never did anything even remotely close to this. He also said that his brain wasn’t fully formed (oh my God LaMs, my eyes are rolling out of my head).
A forensic psychiatrist took to the stand, after he evaluated Daniel, and testified that Daniel was in no form or fashion remorseful for what he did.
Daniel was found guilty of murder and convicted to 3 life sentences with the possibility of parole after 45 years.
He was sent to the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts.
In 2017, he appealed his sentence – which, if I were the judge, I would ask him “based on what grounds.” and force him to write a 20 page paper, single spaced, front and back pleading his case. Keep in mind that I already know my answer. But you know, give him hope only to dash it away. Part of his punishment in my opinion.
Anyway, this was his second appeal. On March 22, 2017, he had a re-sentencing hearing asking the judge to reduce his sentence. During the hearing, Daniel “apologized” saying,
“Words cannot fully capture what I have done. I murdered three innocent people. Because of me, a five-year-old boy will never turn six. There’s a seven-year-old girl that will never turn eight. Because of me, a woman will never be able to give birth to her third child. I robbed an unborn child of his first breath. A husband was never able again to hear from his family, ‘I love you.’
I do not have the words to fully express my profound sorrow. But I am truly sorry for the harm I have caused. From the very essence of who I am, from the depth of my soul, I am sorry.”
But then also during the appeal, it was cited that Daniel said, “that juveniles convicted of murder should be given a meaningful opportunity to re-engage with society. There was also a new law allowing “juveniles convicted of murder with extreme cruelty and atrocity to ask for parole after they’ve been behind bars for a minimum of 30 years.”
A child, adolescent, general and forensic psychiatrist Fabian Saleh (damm he covers every aspect of psychiatry) reported that he interviewed Daniel for 8 hours the year before.
“He showed no empathy at any given point of time. He continued to minimize his behaviors. There was no evidence of emotion, no feelings, none whatsoever. He killed an entire family in a very systematic fashion. These murders had nothing to do with his youth, his age. There’s no evidence that shows impulsivity is driving these offenses.”
Dr. Saleh said that today, Daniel has anti-social personality disorder. He doesn’t care about the rights of others and has no remorse.
During his cross examination, Daniel’s lawyer told Dr. Saleh that Daniel cried while discussing the case with him the year before. Dr. Saleh said yea those tears were fake – what he actually said was “those tears were a presentation. He was not truly sorry and upset.”
Daniel’s attorney then said, well, he was depressed as a teen and he’s well behaved in jail now. As a matter of fact, they just transferred him out of maximum security prison.
After this, family members of the victims took the stands to talk about the case and what it’s done to their lives. Daniel showed no emotion as they spoke.
In the end, the judge said Daniel wasn’t remorseful and said stay in prison until you die, then your body will stay here until the flesh melt, then your bones will stay here till they turn to dust. Then, and only then, will you be CONSIDERED for release.
He could be considered for parole in 15 years – so that would be 2032 which is 9 more years as of this recording.
On Jan 1, 1989 Andrew Gustafson, now 36, got remarried and he wears two wedding rings; one for his past marriage and current marriage. His current wife, Carol (42), is a widow herself as well and she wears two rings as well. (her husband died of a brain tumor in 1984)
“It certainly would have been much more difficult without her. I don’t know whether I would have made it or not, without her. Now I have a reason to get up in the morning, something to live for.”
He also came out and revealed that it wasn’t that he didn’t think his kids weren’t home, it was more “I was too afraid of going to look for my children because I was afraid I’d find them dead. “It was so shocking and unbelievable. I screamed. I wailed.”
I can understand and can’t even imagine.
He moved in with his parents for a bit, then he rented an apartment and stayed there for a short while. A few months later, he moved back into his house because,
“I had to emotionally reclaim it,” he said. “I had to go back in there and be all right. The house became a source of strength for me, with the memories of my family. The love that occurred there was much stronger than the death there.”
His friends ralied around him (this is the kind of friends you need) and he joined a support group geared towards survivors of homicide victims.
“It’s a roller coaster with no highs, just different depths. It’s a struggle just to get through each day. First you sob all the time. Then you set goals. Like, you say, ‘Today, I’m going to go shopping.’ You don’t want to go out and deal with people, but then you go ahead and feel better because you did it.”
As of the time of the reports I’ve been going over, Andrew and Carol were hoping to adopt a child.
LaMs, I really thought I was done with this case. I was putting the finishing touches on my research and doing my 15th sweep to see if there was anything I was missing in this case. LaMs! I totally was missing a whole court hearing.
In March of 2013, Daniel sued the state Department of Correction with claims that his religious rights were being violated. While representing himself, he specifically cited that DOC’s superintendent, Gary Roden didn’t allow him to practice while behind bars. Now what he said is that he’s a Wiccan and that Gary wouldn’t allow him to get and bring in herbs, medallions, oils, teas, fruits and nuts, and some cakes that he needed. Really?
He said that he passed the “sincerity test” given in prison and that he has access to musk, frankincese, jasmine, and Somali rose, but not to Dragon’s Blood, Black Opium and other oils. He’s also not allowed to have baking soda, honey, black salts, or the ability to used colored pens.
The prison does give him cake, but it’s the same cake and boring. He wants more variety like carrot cake and sugar cookies.
The lawsuit said, “The defendants have refused to provide cake that excites the senses, which is an essential, and necessary part of Mr. LaPlante’s Wicca faith.”
The attorney representing the DOC, Attorney Richard C. McFarland, responded saying that “the DOC and Roden deny the allegations and note the LaPlante has failed to exhaust all administrative remedies.”
So I didn’t see an update on this so I’m guessing he got told to kick rocks, stop bitching, and go back to prison baby killer. (I mean those are my words not theirs)
And that is the case of Daniel LaPlante.
What did yall think about this case? What I learned about myself is that – new fear level unlocked so thanks for that. People just living in your freaking walls where you don’t even think someone could fit. Do you blame the first judge who let Daniel go?
Before I end today’s episode, I just wanted to acknowledge something. I think I’ve found my limit in True Crime. There was a video I came across with the title “The 5 year old was sold by her mom to be violated to death” by Anna Uncovered. I….I couldn’t even bring myself to click on it. My mental health will not allow me to watch this and I’m trying to scrub it from my brain. I really wonder, especially as a TC podcaster, wtf is wrong with people.
I just wanted to get that off of my chest. And you know what I’d love for you to do, get your thoughts off of your chest too and you have 3 ways of sharing them with me:
- You can tell me in the comments below
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- You can join the exclusive LaM community here at www.patreon.com/loveandmurder Right now we have options starting at only $1/mo
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