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Daniel Joseph Blank was a mechanic living in The River Parishes region of Louisiana who committed a total of six murders between October 1996 & May 1997 with two of his victims surviving. Later dubbed The River Parishes serial killer, he preyed on innocent victims who were financially stable & in their 50s, 60s & even 70s with the sole purpose of robbing them to fuel his gambling habit. In every murder, he drove to his victim’s home without a weapon, utilizing whatever he could from their homes to bludgeon or stab them to death.
The River Parishes are the parishes or counties in Louisiana between New Orleans & Baton Rouge that span the banks of the MIssissippi River & consist of St. Charles Parish, St. John the Baptist Parish & St. James Parish.
Daniel’s family members, who referred to him as Bone, couldn’t help but notice that he began coming home with new motorcycles & cash. According to his sister, Sally Blank, her brother frequented casinos in nearby Kenner & Baton Rouge & on a couple of occasions, he came back with huge cardboard copies of checks, some as high as $33,000.
Daniel was one of 8 children, who at age 12, was struck by a car while he was riding a bike & was later diagnosed with a mild brain dysfunction as well as schizo-affective paranoia disorder. He only attended school up until 8th grade, he reads at a third grade level & has an average IQ of 85 which is on the low-end of average.
For those who knew Daniel from the now closed Airline Motors restaurant in LaPlace, Louisiana, described him as a gifted mechanic & a quiet customer with deep blue eyes who had a known affinity to visiting various gambling establishments, favoring slot machines & video poker. He was a family man who always ordered his coffee black & no one could ever have imagined him capable of such violence.
According to Sheriff Wayne Jones of St. John the Baptist Parish, it became obvious that Daniel was either on an extraordinary hot streak or he was up to no good as he seemed to be coming into a lot of money. According to his sister, Sally, her brother had been in trouble before, but not since he was a teenager when he was sent to reform school after he burned down a building, an incident that was chalked up to mere teenage stupidity.
It wasn’t until November 13, 1997, when during a 12-hour interrogation, Daniel fully confessed to the murders of 41-year-old Victor Rossi, 58-year-old Barbara Bourgeois, 71-year-old Lillian Philippe, 76-year-old Sam Arcuri & his 69-year-old wife, Louella Arcuri, 55-year-old Joan Brock & the attempted murders of Leonce & Joyce Millet. At the time of his confession, investigators had no forensic evidence that tied him to any of his crime scenes.
During his confession he allegedly told authorities that he wanted to have things he could never afford & may have taken as much as $200,000 from his victims.
By this time, Daniel was living in a double-wide trailer in Onalaska, Texas, a small town a few hours from Houston. When Louisiana & Texas authorities surrounded the trailer he lived in with his girlfriend, Cindy Bellard, & their four children, he had been working as a mechanic out of a former muffler shop that he leased from a retiree, Don Evans in August 1997.
According to Don, the mayor referred Daniel to him since he was interested in purchasing a piece of property. Despite the fact that Daniel offered to pay him $65,000 in cash in hopes of buying the shop, Don chose to lease it to him instead.
Don was eventually told by his 12-year-old daughter, who had befriended Daniel’s 12-year-old daughter, that Daniel had made a fortune playing video poker machines.
The area where Daniel was currently living in Onalaska is home to many retirees who come to escape the city & crime where, prior to this case, the last homicide was eleven years prior in 1986. Authorities learned prior to relocating to Texas, he had moved three times in River Parishes since beginning his string of murders. He was currently nearly broke & living only a notch or two above transient status.
When Don Evans went through the contents of the office he’d leased to Daniel after his arrest, he came across the latest bank statement for Daniel’s Automotive & saw that he had only $123 in his account while eleven cars were sitting in the lot waiting to be repaired.
Many suspect that because he’d squandered the nearly $200,000 that he’d stolen from his victims at casinos & was nearly out of cash, he was likely preparing to go on another murderous spree.
It was Daniel’s unusual spending habits in relation to his earnings that put the spotlight on him as a suspect as well as the fact that he was associated with three of the victims & surviving victims were able to work with a sketch artist to create a composite sketch, an image Daniel strongly resembled.
Investigators conducted a background check to determine if his income could support his gambling activities at various area casinos. They revealed that he had run a total of $269,000 at three casinos, cashing out a total of $220,216, resulting in a net loss of about $49,000.
Managers at the Treasure Chest Casino indicated that based on Daniel’s wagering history, he had a player profile of a corporate executive with annual earnings of over $200,000. However, according to the Louisiana Department of Labor records, he had no reported earnings for 1997 & an annual income of only $13,767 in 1996 & $5,410 in 1995. The DMV record proved he’d purchased a pickup truck, a station wagon, a motorcycle & a utility trailer in 1997. He’d also purchased the mobile home in Onalaska, Texas for $22,0000 despite his meager income & extensive gambling debts.
Daniel spoke with Detective Toney & agreed to travel back to Louisiana to meet with the officer on November 10, 1997. He planned to bring proof of his gambling winnings, but he never showed up. This led to members of a task force that included an FBI agent, to travel to Texas to interview him while they were armed with search warrants for his home & business.
The task force found 35-year-old Daniel at his shop, Daniel’s Automotive, on November 13, 1997 & he readily agreed to accompany the officers to the Onalaska Courthouse Annex for an interview. Their discussion revolved around the topic of his elaborate spending habits which were not at all in line with his earnings which eventually led to his involvement in the murders.
During the three initial hours of questioning, Daniel denied having any involvement in the murders while he agreed to a polygraph examination. At that time, FBI Agent David Sparks interviewed him for an additional 2 ½ hours & also conducted the polygraph exam.
The polygraph related only to the murder of 55-year-old Joan Brock, which occurred on May 14 1997, six months earlier. During this time, he continued to deny any involvement while the polygraph suggested his responses were untruthful in regards to questions about Joan’s murder.
The investigators allowed Daniel a bathroom break & when he came in, Detective Todd Hymel entered the room & began to speak of Daniel’s recently deceased mother as he calmly encouraged him to confess. Daniel became emotional & slowly began to confess, first to Joan’s murder & then to each of the five additional murders as well as two attempted murders.
55-year-old Joan Brock was Daniel’s sixth & final victim, who was murdered on May 14, 1997. She was known to him because Joan was the wife of Daniel’s former employer, Doug Brock, who owned Brock’s car repair shop. Daniel accused Doug of taking advantage of him when he allegedly didn’t help him build some hot rods. He assaulted Joan at her home in LaPlace & robbed her before murdering her in her backyard.
Daniel’s first victim was 41-year-old Victor Rossi, who he murdered on October 27, 1996. Victor was Daniel’s new employer at an auto repair shop in Prairieville. Evidence proved that he was murdered with a baseball bat while he slept on the couch at his home in St. Amant.
58-year-old Barbara Bourgeois was murdered on the night of March 18, 1997 after Daniel entered her home in Paulina. He was familiar with this area as she lived across the street from his father. He broke into her home through a back window, disabled her phone & ransacked the house for money when she woke up from the commotion & confronted him. He indicated that when she tried to hit him with a vacuum cleaner, he took it from her & began to strike her repeatedly in the head & body which resulted in her death. She suffered from multiple injuries that consisted of large hematomas, mass blunt trauma to the face, fractured nasal bones, a fractured sternum & a hemorrhage. Prior to her death, she also tried to protect herself with a knife, something he also took from her & used it to stab her with. According to Detective Hymel, many of the details he provided matched with the evidence found at the crime scene.
Daniel’s third victim was 71-year-old Lillian Philippe who was murdered on April 9, 1997 at her home in Gonzales. Daniel had previously bought car parts from the store that her husband owned. The following morning, Lillian’s sister-in-law, Viola, was waiting for her to pick her up so they could take a bus to a religious retreat in Mississippi. When she didn’t arrive to pick her up at 8 am & Viola was unable to reach her, she contacted her brother-in-law, Dr. Doyle Phillippe, to check on her. Doyle arrived at 8:30 am & found Lillian’s car parked in the driveway while the door to the house was unlocked & the alarm system was deactivated.
Finding the situation very concerning, Doyle contacted authorities after briefly entering the home, surveying the area & going back outside. After Gonzales police officer Dowell Brenn responded to Lillian’s home, he found her laying on the floor at the foot of her bed, covered in blood. There was a broken trophy near her head as well as a bloodied butcher knife next to the bed.
According to Daniel, while he was looking around Lillian’s home, he saw something coming at him & realized it was Lillian, who was swinging what he believed to be either a trophy or a lamp at him when she realized that a stranger was in her home. He grabbed it from her & pushed her before she came at him again, this time with a knife. He struck her with the trophy & then cut her with the knife. He wasn’t sure where he’d struck her or cut her, but he believed that after he pushed her she was either laying across the bed or at the edge of her bed. He then fled from her home.
Exactly one month later, Daniel murdered an elderly couple, 76-year-old Sam Arcuri & his 69-year-old wife, Louella Arcuri, in their home in LaPlace on May 9, 1997. He broke into their home during the night & bludgeoned them to death. According to their son, Father Dominic “Mixie” Arcuri, a priest at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Destrehan, who was a banker at the time of his parents’ murders, his father failed to meet him as planned at a bank building.
This led to family members finding Sam & Louella’s bodies in their home. Soon after, a witness came forward to indicate seeing a man running from their house on the night of the murders. Only five days later, Joan Brock was murdered in the same neighborhood.
According to Father Mixie, he has never had any anger in his heart for the person who murdered his parents which he sees as a gigantic grace from God to give him the peace he needed in his heart to deal with his grief. His parents were murdered the same year Father Mixie told them that he was starting classes to become a permanent deacon, something that made them very happy.
On top of these six murders, Daniel also attempted to kill another couple, Leonce & Joyce Millett, both 66-years-old, on July 6, 1997. They were shot outside their home in Gonzales, but thankfully survived the attack & were able to assist in the creation of a composite sketch which was released to the media. He indicated that he targeted the couple because they had a big old fancy house & assumed they would have cash inside.
Elton Cloutare, a security guard at the Square Deal Casino in Sorrento, Louisiana, was able to identify Daniel Blank as the man depicted in the sketch.
On top of Daniel’s confessions, investigators found a pair of needle-nose pliers in his auto shop that matched what he indicated he used to cut the phone wires at several of the homes he robbed & murdered the victims. There were also details he provided that weren’t public knowledge, such as the location of an attic ladder, or a safe in a victim’s closet, the location of a purse & its contents as well as the location of the victim’s body.
After his confession, he was transferred from Texas back to Louisiana.
Daniel was initially indicted for three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Joan Brock & Sam & Louella Arcuri, but days later two more counts of first-degree murder were added for the deaths of Victor Rossi & Lillian Philippe, bringing the total murder indictment to five. By January 1998, however, he was indicted on all six counts of first-degree murder with Barbara Bourgeois’ murder added as well as two counts of attempted murder for the shootings of the Millets. Despite his taped confession, he pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Daniel’s girlfriend, Cindy Bellard, was arrested days later & accused of being his accomplice in some of the crimes, driving him to & from the scene. Her charges were eventually dropped in return for her testimony about his murders.
A court order was issued in April 1998 to keep the evidence confidential from the public in order to avoid publicity from affecting Daniel’s right to a fair trial. In December 1998, during a court appearance, he attempted to escape from the courtroom, but was ultimately captured by police.
Daniel first stood trial for the murder of Lillian Philippe which began on July 21, 1999 in Ascension Parish. He maintained his plea of not guilty with his attorneys arguing that he had been coerced to confess & hadn’t understood his rights. However, detectives argued this claim & maintained that he had voluntarily confessed to the murder of Lillian as well as five others.
Jurors listened to the confession where Daniel described pulling something that felt like a trophy out of Lillian’s hands, pushing her down to the bed & hitting her in what he believed to be the head. He then grabbed her hand that held a knife & hit her twice with it, cutting her in the process before he fled from her house.
On September 3, 1999 after about 2 ½ hours of deliberation the jury found Daniel guilty of murdering Lillian in the first-degree & the following day, the jury returned with a unanimous verdict recommending the death penalty.
Two months later, on December 9, 1999 State District Judge John L. Peytavin sentenced a 37-year-old Daniel Blank to death for the murder of Lillian Philippe.
His second murder trial began in 2000 for the death of Joan Brock & on April 8, 2000 once again, the jury found Daniel guilty of first-degree murder despite his continued claims of innocence. The prosecution sought the death penalty & on October 20, 2000 he was sentenced to death for the second time.
On February 7, 2001, his third trial began, this time for the second-degree murder of Barbara Bourgeois. He initially pleaded not guilty, but later changed his plea to guilty. As a result, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In October 2001, Daniel expressed his intention to plead guilty to two more counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Sam & Louella Arcuri. On November 14, 2001 he did & he was given two additional terms of life without parole which once again spared him from the possibility of more death sentences.
He was not tried for the sixth charge of first-degree murder for the death of Victor Rossi as the state dropped the remaining charge since he was already guaranteed to spend the rest of his life in prison.
On November 21, 2001 the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal of Louisiana rejected his appeal against his conviction for the murder of Barbara Bourgeois when he argued that he was innocent & that his confession was coerced.
In 2006, Daniel’s conviction & death sentence for Joan Brock’s murder was vacated in favor of a new trial after a clerical error was found to be made during the trial for that case. Three years later in July 2009, he decided to plead guilty to avoid a new trial & as a result, he was re-sentenced to a fourth life term without parole.
On April 11, 2007 the Louisiana Supreme Court dismissed his appeal against his conviction & death sentence for the murder of Lillian Philippe & on January 25, 2011 his appeal for his conviction in Joan Brock’s murder was also rejected as were additional appeals in July 2015 & May 2016.
Since prosecutors based their case against Daniel primarily on his videotaped confession in 1997 while no forensic evidence tied him to the crimes, he has since recanted his confession & insists he is innocent. In January 2024 the Louisiana State Police completed their analysis of previously untested fingerprints at multiple crime scenes while the results are still being reviewed. There have been years long delays due to the death of a print expert hired by the defense to review 29 potentially exculpatory prints.
Thus far DNA evidence collected from three different crime scenes did not come from Daniel based on previous testing. This included unidentifiable DNA found on a baseball bat used to murder Victor Rossi as well as unidentifiable male DNA under the fingernails of Sam Arcuri as well as on cigarette butts found at the Millett home.
A then 53-year-old Daniel Blank was scheduled to be executed on March 14, 2016, but officials within the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections indicated that they don’t have the necessary drugs to carry it out. On February 17, 2016 the Louisiana Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for Daniel, meaning it has been temporarily suspended.
Daniel Joseph Blank remains on death row at Louisiana State Penitentiary.
Daniel Blank was a man who hid behind a quiet Southern life, all the while stalking, attacking & murdering vulnerable victims across Louisiana. His brutal crimes shook the small communities that mistakenly believed they were safe in their own homes.
References:
- U.S. District Court: Daniel Joseph Blank vs. Darrell Vannoy
- L’Observateur: Blank trial ends as confession prompts plea
- Herald Guide: Priest prays for serial killer who murdered his parents
- The New York Times: Mechanic held in series of killings: Police in Louisiana say gambling habit motivated suspect
- WAFB 9: State police complete fingerprint review in River Parishes serial killer case
- Wikipedia: Daniel Blank
- Justia U.S. Law: State of Louisiana v. Daniel Joseph Blank
- Wikiwand: Daniel Blank
- Los Angeles Times: Man who fled from crime admits 6 killings, police say
- WAFB 9: LA Supreme Court delays execution for serial killer Daniel Blank
- Radford University Department of Psychology: Daniel Joseph Blank
- Wikipedia: River Parishes
