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-fiancée.

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 cancelled 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.  


Previous Post

What I Want to Know About Daniel Wozniak

I asked Daniel a lot of questions in my early letters.   I was super curious about his day to day living.  

I'd stick to asking basic stuff.  Our correspondences are obviously not private and he still hasn't had a trial, so what is the point in asking questions he can't answer? 

I wasn't sure how he'd feel about me "interviewing" him, but clearly, that is what I was doing.

My Questions To Daniel

Here's what I wrote to him in September (I also mentioned that I hope he has plenty of that yellow legal pad paper):

• Did you study art at all?  I loved the card you made me and I was ridiculously impressed by your skill.  I’m limited to stick figures myself, ha ha. 
• What does your cell look like?  Do you always have a “celly?” (Yeah that’s right. I’m learning the lingo).
• I’m reading the biography of Damien Echols (West Memphis Three) right now.  One thing that struck me was his feelings of anger and hatred toward the guards.  He says “it’s the guards and not the other prisoners that make being incarcerated so much harder…”  So, your take on this?
• This might sound silly, but have you considered starting some kind of theatre group behind bars? Performance therapy?  You might be laughing at my prison naivety right now.   Maybe you could entertain the masses with Shakespearean monologues??
• Do you have a lot of family and friends supporting you through the trial?  I’d be interested in attending it.  I want to know the “more to what happened” because I’ve always believed there had to be...
• So why were you reconnecting with your parents?  Was it your drug use that caused a rift between you?
• Do you think she (his now ex-fiancee) ended your relationship out of anger or fear because of the charges she's facing herself?   Did you have a big wedding planned?
• OK, here’s a big question.  I’m not sure if you can even answer this one.  You seem like it bothers you that people would believe you were motivated by money… You don’t want people to think you had major financial troubles. The thing is, Daniel, to me it seems like society would consider it a lesser evil to believe that a person might do certain things when facing a desperate financial situation.  If you didn’t have money problems then what would you want people to believe motivated you?
• Is your lawyer a public defender?
• You said you were visited a couple times by one of  your victims’ dads.  HE had written in his letter  “one of my victims,” so I was just going with his terminology. Which dad? Has he explained his  motivation for wanting to visit you?
• Was "Lost" actually your favorite TV show?  I’d read that somewhere.  I was a huge fan of "Lost."
• I have to ask you how you are handling the possibility of getting the death penalty.  Are you afraid of this?

Answers For Daniel

The rest of my letter was answering his questions about me.  I called it a fair exchange of information.

• No, I don't consider myself to be a religious person.
• I was adopted as a baby and my adopted mother is an undiagnosed bi-polar, self-proclaimed born-again Christian.  Years of her craziness has left me with a bad taste in my mouth for organized religions.  (I told Daniel that for simplification, I could be considered an Agnostic who leans toward spirituality.)
• I told him about my adopted dad -- who passed away 8 years ago -- and that I loved him tremendously in spite of his unchecked alcoholism.
• I shared that I now have good relationships with both my biological parents (I just found my biological father last year).
• That I was reading the second Game of Thrones book (I didn't want him to think that when it comes to reading materials, I’m all crime all the time).

Oh, and I also included a copy of a good review he got when he was acting in the play "Nine" (his last performance before the arrest).

I finished my letter by asking if I could maybe visit him at some point...

I signed the letter with "your friend," and I meant it.

Next Post

Previous Post