It’s the stance of the Orange County district attorney’s office that Daniel Wozniak acted without accomplices when he savagely murdered two Coast Community College students in 2010.
Wozniak has sat on death row in San Quentin State Prison since early October 2016.
His ex-fiancée, Rachel Buffett, is serving a 32-month sentence inside the Orange County Jail for her after the killing deeds.
Wozniak’s brother, Tim, admitted he was also an accessory after the fact in exchange for zero jail time because he gave testimony that blocked his sibling from using an insanity defense.
In previous episodes, Sleuth producer Linda Sawyer explored evidence that Buffett played a greater role in killing Sam Herr and Julie Kibuishi.
Sawyer now raises equally serious questions about Tim Wozniak’s involvement. Joining her in episode 20 is Bob Castillo, Tim’s longtime close friend until post-murder revelations fractured their bond. Because of his knowledge of Tim’s habits, Castillo’s participation in the podcast is groundbreaking.
For example, Sawyer reveals that an empty bottle of Gentleman Jack was found at the spot where Herr’s body had been decapitated and his arms sawed off. She asked Castillo if he knew anyone who drank that brand of 80-proof whisky.
“That’s an everyday drink for somebody I know,” he responded. “Tim’s favorite drink was Gentleman Jack.”
Sawyer also notes that detectives found two different shoe prints at the Herr crime scene.
But a mystery remains: Costa Mesa Police Department officers confiscated Tim’s bloody shoes in the wake of the killings but never revealed the source of the blood or if the shoes matched recovered prints.
According to Sawyer’s reporting, Tim told a relative that he had nightmares and “couldn’t get the sound of bones crunching out of his head.”
Officials believed Wozniak’s motive for the crimes was to steal Herr’s ample bank savings for a planned honeymoon with Buffett and then diabolically kill Kibuishi in Herr’s bedroom as a prop to explain his disappearance.
But Castillo doesn’t buy that story entirely. He has an alternative explanation. “[Daniel] could have kissed his parents’ ass and [gotten money for the honeymoon],” he said. “[Those murders were] just about doing dope and getting high and not thinking straight.”
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
I don’t believe she (Rachel) had anything to do with this. Watching this story more closely than the first time. I never knew she had been convicted. I think it was all Dan. Sorry for the loss of Julie and Sam. Grateful Dan was convicted.
But how did they plan to get the $60000 from his bank account? This is never addressed. Withdrawing $400 a day? That would take 150 days… this makes no sense.