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Man in the Woods

36:25 recording · EN · 1 speaker

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Brief overview

A former maintenance worker used a fake Lifeline service call to murder 87-year-old Barbara Howe.

  1. The fake Lifeline call got the killer through the doorDanny French phoned three Mount Pleasant women posing as a Lifeline repairman, and Barbara was the only one who told him to come that night.
  2. A hidden crawlspace narrowed the suspect listTrained officers nearly left the house without finding the wooden panel in the utility room floor, so the killer had to know the layout intimately.
  3. A cleaning woman's schedule broke the caseHer dated log of work proved the house had been thoroughly cleaned many times after Danny stopped working there, so his DNA could not be old.
Executive Summary AI
  • On the evening of October 28, 2012, 87-year-old Barbara Howe ate dinner with a friend at her house in the Mount Pleasant Retirement Village in Monroe, Ohio, and took a phone call from someone claiming to be there to fix the residents' Lifeline medical alert systems.1:45
  • Two days later her daughter Donna Wesselman called Detective Greg Myers of the Monroe Police Department because nobody had heard from Barbara in over a day, and a wellness check turned up only a half-empty glass of iced tea and a missing red Cadillac.4:18
  • On November 1st a state police helicopter located the Cadillac at an apartment complex in the next town, and Myers and Agent Brian White of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation found Barbara's body in the trunk, bleached, covered in vacuum dust and nearly decapitated.9:30
  • A full search of the house revealed a hidden wooden panel in the utility room leading to a blood-soaked crawlspace, which told investigators the killer knew the layout of the house, and suspicion first fell on Barbara's granddaughter Barbie, who had a financial motive and kept pressing for details.14:51
  • A December 7th, 2012 tip line call about a Kentucky man named Danny French led to his arrest: a former Mount Pleasant maintenance worker whose DNA was in the house, disproved as innocent contact by the cleaning woman's detailed schedule, plus store camera footage and a cab driver's identification, he confessed and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.21:59
Key Quote
“Barbara was almost completely naked, chunks of her hair had been cut off, and there was a strange gray dust covering her body, and her head barely remained attached to her neck.”
— Mr. Ballin11:15
Key Quote
“Her mother's prized red Cadillac was gone.”
— Mr. Ballin7:13
Key Quote
“It was the smell of bleach.”
— Mr. Ballin10:28