It wasn’t long before I got a 12 page letter from Daniel (double-sided on white college ruled paper – he ran out of the yellow legal pad). He’s always quick to write back as, obviously, he has a lot of free time.
The letter started with a “Game of Thrones” reference – wondering if I’d be more a “sylph of Westeros” or one of “the Wilding Free Folk.”
Definitely Wilding.
He addressed the idea of me writing about him right away. He said there are a lot better topics out there, but he has “no control over what gets written, or by whom,” but he “will never deny another individual their right to express and use their artistic creativity.”
Daniel can get a tad verbose at times. Words are often written in ALL-CAPS and underlined.
I get it. He doesn’t want his whole life to be defined by a single “horrific act of violence,” and any writing about him is sure to focus on that.
Let’s call it like it is though: Daniel Wozniak’s name will forever be connected with the violent murders of two college students (not to mention the decapitation of one).
There is no escaping it. There shouldn’t be.
This didn’t keep him from answering my questions, as long as I was “asking out of curiosity, as a friend.”
Friend? Yes. Curiosity? Hell, yes!
Daniel and Rachel
Then he went into the topic of his ex-fiancé.
If you’ve read anything about Daniel, you know the name Rachel Buffett. She was a pretty young theatre actress who was once employed as a Princess at Disneyland. I’m guessing Cinderella or Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty).
Rachel and Daniel were supposed to get married on May 29, 2010, but that was canceled when he was arrested at his bachelor party.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Everything I’ve read in the press says that Daniel was murdering for money. He wanted to give his blonde, home-schooled beauty the wedding and honeymoon of her dreams.
I met Rachel. She was in the musical Nine with Daniel at our theatre. Honestly, she made no impression on me at all. Not positive. Not negative. I can’t even remember if I thought she was good or not. Did I also ask her to audition for my play? No idea.
I find her much more interesting now. I’ll be talking a lot more about Rachel in future posts.
Daniel Loses Rachel
So, according to Daniel, he and Rachel remained close for the first couple of months he was in jail. She wrote. She visited. After his arrest, he knew the two of them “would never be together,” still he thought they would be friends. That didn’t happen.
Here is the story Daniel told me:
Rachel and a male friend of theirs came for a jail visit. Without warning, Rachel walked up to the dividing glass, flipped him the bird with both hands and told him she never wanted to see him again. With that, she walked out of his life and stopped writing and taking his calls (inmates have to call collect).
He says he still doesn’t know what changed and “not knowing exactly why…literally drove (him) to the brink of honest insanity at one point.”
As you get to know Daniel, you learn quickly that “not knowing” something drives him crazy.
This happened before Rachel Mae Buffett was arrested herself for three felony counts of accessory to murder. Rachel is on bail awaiting trial.
When I had coffee with a Dateline NBC Producer (oh, you know there will be a post on that, too), she asked me if I thought Daniel was still in love with Rachel. I said no.
I asked him once if he thought he and Rachel would still be married now (you know, if they’d actually gotten married and there were no murders).
He said no.
Don’t tell him I said this, but I agree.
Tell Daniel that Kellee and Jesse say hi! ;)
Daniel never took a life. He is kind, loyal, caring and trustworthy person. I'm glad you are keeping an open mind about him. He was beyond drunk when interviewed by police. He got involved with the wrong family! He is always in my thoughts and prayers.
Thank you so much for you comment, Brooklynsmommy! The Daniel I know comes off just as you have described. I find him to be a genuinely nice person and I have trouble imagining him hurting anyone.
I will definitely pass on your greetings. Thank you for reading the blog! Feel free to tell your friends about it. :)
Bet you feel pretty stupid three years later, huh?
…but he “will never deny another individual their right to express and use their artistic creativity.”
What a perverse statement. He WILL and DID deny someone to live their life. He ended two young people’s lives.
It’s beyond me that you could have had so much reasonable doubt about your murderous friend with all of that evidence.
You need to ask Daniel all these questions that he couldn’t answer before being tried. Ask him if he is a murderer. Ask him if Rachel knew about the murders. Ask him there were any others involved. You are probably the only person who might get some answers. (or does he have to keep quiet on all this until his appeals are completed?)
Brooklynsmommy- are you delusional ? How you can say he is innocent when he admits what he did makes no sense whatsoever . He is no more innocent than Jodi Arias and about as evil!
I think she means ” it wasnt Daniel’s true nature.
Many money problems had clouded his better judgment.
On issues of logic.
And ” its possible” he had temporarily fell into a state of some form of psychosis.
When the murders happened.
Not to justify such actions.
Obviously.
I’m not saying he was insane.
Nut he might have been temporarily insane.
When the killings occurred.
It’s possible.
Neither am I saying hes innocent.
I’m saying he had a clean record.
And hadn’t ever shown signs of violence at all.
Highly uncharacteristic of dan.
Therefore.
So it appears.
Whether he was possibly insane at the time of the murders?
I dont know.
I’m just kind of surprised that possibility was never debated.
So it appears. Anyways I believe that’s what some of these comments are trying to say.
I have been in the US Army for over 8 years now. I, too had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, twice and once, respectively. So this really strikes a nerve with me. And any combat veteran will understand why. All combat vets are like family to us in some way. It’s a strange connection that will always be there.
With that being said, I despise Wozniak. I mean, I really, really despise him. He’s a coward, and that’s an understatement.
Not only did he kill Sam, but he also killed Julie in cold blood for absolutely no reason, except to help him get away with killing Sam. Almost as if human life means nothing to this man.
My opinion on this is that Wozniak killed Sam for his money because he was broke. He was a low life who didn’t have a job and couldn’t support himself, let alone his girlfriend, fiancé, whatever you want to call her. And he was so desperate for money that he killed his neighbor and friend. He was desperate for several reasons. One is because Rachel was a very pretty girl and Wozniak was a fat, ugly piece of trash. And i don’t say that because i despise him. No, I say that because it’s true. I mean, take a good look at him. There’s no way in hell that he could ever get another girl as pretty as Rachel. And he wasn’t about to lose her because he couldn’t buy her a diet pepsi on their honeymoon in his backyard. I’m sure you get the point. No girl wants to be with a broke, fat loser like Wozniak was. In fact, money or not, I doubt she would’ve stayed with him long, had this all never occurred.
He thought his plan was so perfect that he’d easily get away with it. The only problem is that he very stupidly went overboard on the texts to Julie. A simple- “Hey, can you come over? I need someone to talk to” would have sufficed just fine. But no, he had to go and say stupid crap like “don’t worry, no sex” and “I’m having big family problems”, which made the cops very suspicious. That was mistake #1. No, actually killing Julie was mistake #1. Had he simply killed Sam and disposed of his body properly, I hate to say, he ptobably would’ve gotten away with it and be a free man today.
Mistake #2, involving someone else.
Killing someone and then involving someone else is almost as dumb as using a murder victims debit card. Wozniak did both….OOPS!!!
There could have been several other ways to go about getting money from an ATM. Like, for example, putting a mask on and going late at night? Hmmmm, good one genius.
Obviously those were mistakes #2 & #3. And most likely the ones that had sealed his fate.
I can’t believe he had actually confessed to the police. And now he’s claiming that it was coerced? Haha, give it up man. You’re done for. They got you, you’re on death row (where you belong), and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. And I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m also happy for Sam’s family. Having a very close, intimate relationship with your parents like Sam did is something that I never really got to have. It’s also something that no one should ever take for granted, because believe it or not, that’s a very rare thing to have these days.
I had also read somewhere just recently (don’t recall where) that Wozniak had actually tried to get the detectives, during interrogation, to grant him an immunity deal. Hahahaha!! Nice try, moron. Did he not realize that cops can recant an immunity deal at any time? Which they certainly would have done. Also, did he not think for a second that his phone call from the police station would be recorded and/or listened to? Ahhhh, light bulb!!
As for Rachel, I’m not sure how i feel about her involvement. For all i know, it was all her idea entirely. But then again, she may very well be telling the truth and had absolutely nothing to do with it and was completely unaware of anything.
But as for what i think, my best guess would be that she did know all about it before and after it happened.
I also think he did it to impress her as well. Mr Bad Ass, right Rachel?
I just don’t think there’s any way he would have kept that from her. They were engaged, were together 24/7, and told each other everything. So you do the math. Did Wozniak pull off a miracle and do all of this behind her back without her knowing or suspecting anything?? Probably not. Actually, think about it. If You’re married or have a committed relationship (if not then consider your last one) then would you be able to pull off what he did unbeknownst to her?? No? Yeah, didn’t think so. Me neither.
If you’ve read this far, then thanks! It’s a super long comment, i know. But again, this one really strikes a nerve with me. My best wishes to Sam’s family, especially his parents. Julie’s family as well. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.
As for that scumbag, Daniel Wozniak, i have absolutely no pity for him and i hope his life on death row is beyond miserable. I hope he’s gained 150 pounds (if he hasn’t then he will), and his health is rapidly declining, I hope his teeth start to fall out soon, I hope Rachel disowns him and has found someone else and i hope he’s extremely jealous. I hope his execution date emerges soon, and I hope he cries and sobs like a little baby when he’s being dragged to the death chamber. I hope Sam and Julie’s families get to see it, and i hope they smile at him and wave when he’s being strapped down. I hope they all go out after and have a great dinner and celebrate a little while his dead body is being thrown into some concrete storage unit until he’s buried for good. Because that’s where this dirty, nasty, disgusting, fat slob waste of human life belongs.
RIP Sam, my brother. We never met, but we will always have that connection. You’re a true hero, my friend. RIP Julie. From what i hear, you were a great friend to Sam. If only there were more people like them in this world, it would be a better place to live.
The ultimate stupidity of his scheme was that he apparently thought he was going to be able to withdraw $400 a day every day for approximately 5 months to drain Sam’s account? Even if everything else had gone according to plan and he’d successfully framed Sam as a murderer on the run, there was no way the authorities weren’t going to be monitoring his accounts and freeze them within 2-3 days. You have to be a special kind of stupid to think that the police would just let a wanted man maintain access to a US bank account to fund his criminal evasion.
Either that, or he’s even more depraved (which I wouldn’t have thought possibly) because he murdered two innocent people not because he thought he would get $60,000 out of it but a lousy $800-1200. I mean Jesus a man with no moral code could get that much from a stupid robbery without killing anyone. Police barely even pay attention to robberies but they sure as hell pay attention to murder.
❤️
Long comment, but nice one… and a bit of reality check for the writer!
Little known fact to this case…
8 years prior to daniel killing sam herr?
Sam here killed somebody else.
Basically an innocent person.
But got off on a technicality.
I’m just wondering what the family of the man sam herr killed thinks of all this.
Hey.
It’s just a question.
Dear Moderator, do you know where Daniel’s Hawaiian shirt that he had on in his booking photo went? Did someone pick it up while he is in custody? Is it still at CJX in his property? It could be sold on a creepy black market.
Whoever picked up his property after his arrest would likely be in possession of the infamous shirt. My guess is either Rachel has it or Daniel’s mom. Hey Rachel, if you’re reading this, you might be able to make some money if you have that shirt.
I take back all the negative I’ve said about your blog: It IS fascinating… watching how deftly he manipulates & lies to you & you eating it up with a spoon! Last comment ever I promise; going to take a shower to wash the scummy feeling off…
I completely agree. Whoever is writing this blog just sounds like they desperately want attention. All of that nonsense about her wanting to be remembered by Dan as “hot” is pathetic and repulsive. I knew Dan years ago when I was doing musical theater. At the time, he was one of my favorite people in the world. Now that I know what he did (and he DID do these things, Brooklynsmommy), I have zero interest in any type of communication with him. The person writing this blog is no better than a groupie. -end rant-