decapitated – Daniel Wozniak Is My Friend?

Daniel Wozniak Answers My Questions (Part One)

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.

My Next Letter to Jail: Lots of Questions

February 2015

(Post Five)

It was time to write Pat another letter!

I picked out 3 different pictures of myself to send because my hair color changes a lot. I couldn’t remember what color it was when I met him and I wanted him to recognize me.

I told Pat how I thought it was cool to get mail from an inmate!

I talked about his theories on freedom and incarceration.

“Your life is what you make it and if you philosophically break it down, everyone is confined and limited in some aspect.”

Ok technically he’s right about that…

“I can’t drive-thru Jack in the Box to get a double bacon cheeseburger; yet at the same time, you can’t fly to the moon to get some cheese.”

I think he’s pushing it a little on that one, but I get his point.

I still told him that I wouldn’t trade my freedoms for his.
I CAN drive to Albertsons to get cheese.

I mentioned his crazy neat printing. I asked if it was always that nice. He said his penmanship had been pretty good, but he’s improved it over the past 4 years.

He’d asked me why I wrote to him in the first place…

I told him it was because I found him interesting (not a lie… I wasn’t quite ready to tell him that I considered him a writing topic.)

I told him that I’d talked about him to some of my friends and that we are all impressed with his general attitude about his life, trying to help others and making the most of his situation behind bars.

I rambled on about Orange is the New Black again.

My second letter was a bit longer than my first. I felt more comfortable this time. Since he’d written me back so quickly, I knew for sure that he wanted to correspond with me. I mean yeah, I probably could have figured that considering his situation, he’d be grateful for anything to pass time (he is), but I wasn’t sure.

In Pat’s first letter to me, he’d said “If there’s anything you may want to know about me… Don’t be shy.”

Ummm yeah, I want to know stuff about you!

Did you kill those two people??

Did you cut off that man’s head???

I didn’t ask those questions…

Not yet, anyway. After all, I didn’t expect him to send me a written confession.

Actually, I wonder if the police do have a written confession from him. Everything I’ve read said he confessed to both murders when he was first brought in to be questioned about the Vet’s ATM card.

The police claimed he had been Mirandized (told legal rights; ie: the “you have the right to remain silent” speech) before he confessed. I just don’t know if they have actual proof of his confession or not.

If it’s not on paper and it wasn’t recorded, it seems kind of challenging to prove.

First Questions For Pat

The rest of my letter had a lot of questions (I didn’t number them in the letter though):

So what drug were you using? I’m assuming your financial problems were probably related to your addiction as well? How was it in prison when you had to go cold turkey?
Do you like your lawyer? I’m not going to ask you anything about the actual case. I know you can’t talk about that. I’m just curious if you are happy with the lawyer that you been given.
What else do you do with your time?
You mentioned trying to get reading supplies. Is the selection available pretty dismal?
Have you ever felt like you weren’t safe in there?
You mentioned inmates and their quest to find God. Are you religious?
Do you get a lot of visitors?

Oh yeah, that’s right… I was putting out feelers to see if I could visit him.

I have, by the way.

Five times so far!

The Crime

January 2015

(Post Two)

I’ve read everything I can find on this case. I’m not asking Pat for any specifics. Yet.

My understanding is that the Sheriffs only wanted to question Pat about a missing man and his ATM card. And then Pat supposedly confessed immediately…

…to murder.

The Story

Pat and his fiancee lived in an apartment complex two floors below a 26 year old Army combat soldier.

The Vet (as I’ll refer to him) had recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan and had started attending a local college. Word around the complex was that The Vet had about 50,000 dollars savings in the bank and the police say that Pat wanted that money.

They also say Pat was in major debt… that Pat was about to be evicted from his apartment… that Pat was getting married in the middle of a terrible financial situation…

Money was motive for murder.

The Vet and his parents were close. He was their only child. When their son didn’t come over as expected that morning and couldn’t be reached on the phone, the worried dad went to his son’s apartment to check on him.

Inside the bedroom, he found the partially clad body of a young woman.

She was a friend of his son’s. She had been shot.

She had writing scrawled on her. The words indicated she’d been killed because of some kind of romantic relationship that had gone terribly wrong.

With no sign of his missing son, The Vet’s dad called the police.

I want to point out that everything I know about this case so far is from what I’ve read and seen on TV. None of my information is from Pat. We were not yet in that point of our relationship.

I’m not sure what exactly was written on the body of the murdered girl. My understanding is that a black marker was used to write on her body or her clothing. It supposedly said something like “now you can fucking have her…”

I will be very interested in finding out the specifics when Pat goes to trial
(likely this February).

Tutor Girl

The murdered woman was a 23 year old; The Vet’s fellow student and his tutor. Even though she had a boyfriend (A Marine combat engineer stationed in Japan),
the police immediately suspected that the relationship between The Vet and Tutor Girl was actually romantic. A logical conclusion. It appeared she’d been sexually assaulted and The Vet was nowhere to be found.

The dad protested profusely that his son would never have hurt Tutor Girl, but evidence showed otherwise. The previous evening, she was at dinner with her brother when she received texts from The Vet. He was depressed. He really wanted a “girl to talk to.” Tutor Girl was never one to abandon a friend in need, so she agreed to drop by his apartment later that night. Her brother got a text around midnight letting him know she’d arrived safely to The Vet’s apartment.

Now she had been found dead in the apartment of that man who had “lured” her to his home… and he was missing.

The police tracked the missing man’s activity through credit card and bank activity. The Vet’s ATM card led them to a 17 year old kid who had been taking out money. The 17 year old immediately told the police that he’d been given the card and asked to take out the money by… Pat.

Now, obviously, the police wanted to how Pat came into possession of a missing man’s ATM card – especially when that man was wanted in questioning to a murdered girl found in his apartment. This is when they tracked Pat down at that restaurant. It turns out that Pat didn’t realize that the police only wanted to question him about the ATM card. He thought they knew much much more.

You see, The Vet wasn’t on the lam.

He was dead.

The Confession

According to the police, Pat confessed to murdering them both.

The police say that Pat told them he’d asked The Vet to help him move some furniture at a local theatre building (not my theatre – a much larger one that was not operating at the time, on a Joint Forces training base) on a Friday afternoon in May.

In the attic of the building, Pat allegedly shot The Vet once (he thought he’d gotten an electric shock) and then shot him a second time in the head. Pat left the body, but took The Vet’s wallet and cell phone. He had a show to do that night. He was the lead in the musical at our theatre, and the show was sold out.

When Tutor Girl was receiving texts from her friend’s cell phone, The Vet was already dead. According to the confession, Tutor Girl was greeted by Pat when she arrived at The Vet’s apartment. She knew Pat casually. They were Facebook friends.

He invited her in and shot her in the head.

Wow, right? Hold on… it gets worse.

Pat decapitated The Vet’s body. He also cut off the man’s left arm and right hand.

He left the torso and legs at the theatre and hid the head, arm, and hand in a nearby park.

After that… he had another performance.

No one at our theatre had any idea that the man singing on stage had just murdered two people… according to police.

When I use “allegedly” and “supposedly” to discuss Pat’s crime and confession, I do this because his trial hasn’t happened. He is innocent until proven guilty.

I’m pretty sure Pat is guilty. He’s also my friend.