MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Crawlspace (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

On a cold winter day in 2013, police officers rushed through the dense woods outside of a small town in Kentucky. They weaved their way through the trees, keeping their eyes peeled, and finally, one of them shouted out. He saw what they were looking for in the distance. The other officers quickly followed him into a clearing, and there, they saw a man with a long gray beard sitting in a large self-made camp. It looked like the man had been living out in the woods for months. The officers stared at him, and they almost couldn’t believe it, because they had finally tracked down the man who they thought could help solve a murder that had taken place a year earlier in a town 150 miles away.For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. On a cold winter day in 2013, police officers rushed through the dense woods outside of a small town in Kentucky. They weaved their way through the trees, keeping their eyes peeled. Then finally, one of them shouted out. He saw what they were looking for in the distance.

The other officers quickly followed him into a clearing, and there they saw a man with a long gray beard sitting in a large self-made camp. It looked like the man had been living out here in the woods for months. The officers just stared at him, and they almost couldn't believe it, because they had just tracked down the man who they thought could help solve a murder that had taken place a year earlier in a town 150 miles away. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you,

please email the follow button informing them they've just won the multi-billion dollar lottery. All they have to do is give you their social security number and credit card information. On the evening of October 28, 2012, 87-year-old Barbara Howe sat at the dinner table with a friend in her house at the Mount Pleasant Retirement Village in the small town of Monroe, Ohio. As the two women began eating, Barbara's friend had a huge smile on her face. She couldn't get over how Barbara still loved to cook and how good she was at it.

At 87 years old, Barbara made it a point to stay active. And she loved cooking and having people over to her house as often as she could. And when she wasn't entertaining, she loved to drive her prized red Cadillac around town and visit the shops on Main Street. At the dinner table, Barbara broke down the latest episode of Dancing with the Stars, which she watched religiously, and then also the two women caught each other up on what was going on with their kids and their grandkids. Barbara's husband had died about 14 years earlier, and since then she'd lived on her own. But her family, especially her daughters and her granddaughter Barbie, made sure she was never by herself too often.

Just then, the landline phone rang, and Barbara shook her head. People calling during dinner time was so rude as far as she was concerned. But she excused herself from the table and walked into the bedroom to grab it. The person on the phone said they were working in the retirement village that evening to fix and update all of the residence Lifeline medical alert systems. Lifeline was a device that allowed someone to push a single button in order to get medical help in case of an emergency. Everyone who lived at Mount Pleasant had one, and it had a piece of equipment connected

to the phone line that sometimes required maintenance. Barbara thanked the Lifeline worker for letting her know, said she'd see them soon, hung up and went back to the table. Barbara and her friend talked and ate a while longer and then finished up their dinner. They made plans to catch up again the following week, said goodnight, and then Barbara's friend headed out. Barbara cleared the table and started cleaning up the kitchen right away. She had been a neat freak her entire life, and she couldn't stand having any kind of mess or clutter in her house.

When she was finished cleaning, she poured herself a glass of iced tea, walked into the living room, and sat down in her favorite chair. She put her drink down on a small table right by her chair, then she grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. But just as she began flipping through the channels, she heard a knock at her front door. Two days later, on the morning of October 30, Detective Greg Myers of the Monroe Police Department took a call at his desk. The woman on the phone quickly introduced herself as Donna Wesselman, and Detective

Myers thought she sounded very frantic. Donna said she had plans to meet up with her mother, Barbara Howe, later that day. But she'd been trying all morning and she couldn't get a hold of her. And this was not normal. Her mom always answered her cell phone or at least called back within a few minutes. Donna said she talked to family and her mother's closest friends

and nobody had heard from Barbara in over a day. And her mom was 87 years old. So she was really worried that she might've fallen down in the house, gotten hurt, and now couldn't call for help. Detective Myers got Barbara's address and told Donna to meet him there. He would do a wellness check on her mother and make sure everything was okay. After Myers hung up, he headed right out to his car.

As a veteran detective in a small police department, he was used to handling all kinds of cases. The Monroe PD didn't have things like missing persons or homicide divisions, so the few detectives on the force had to jump in wherever they were needed, including wellness checks like this one. As Myers drove past the town's quiet main street, he looked at all the old-fashioned shops that were all decorated for Halloween. And he thought it looked like something out of a classic 1950s horror movie.

A few minutes later, Myers arrived at the Mount Pleasant Retirement Village and he found Donna very anxiously waiting outside of her mother's house for him. After reassuring Donna that everything was okay, he'd go in there with her. Donna pulled out the key that she had to her mother's house. She walked up to the front door and she opened it. The pair walked into Barbara's house and immediately Donna called out to

her mother, but there was no response. Now, at first glance, nothing looked out of place to Detective Myers. He didn't see any signs of forced entry or struggle, which made total sense, because he believed Barbara had most likely fallen or gotten hurt while she was alone at the house. Detective Myers and Donna quickly searched every room in the house, but there was no sign of Barbara anywhere. But when they came back into the TV room, Donna noticed a glass on a small table, and she pointed at it, and she had this frightened look on her face. Myers didn't understand. It was just a half-empty glass of what looked like iced tea. But Donna said her mother had to be one of the neatest people alive.

She would never leave a half-empty glass on the table like that. Detective Myers glanced around the room. Other than the iced tea, he didn't see any other indications that Barbara had been home recently. So he asked Donna if her mother still drove and she said, yes, she did all the time. Myers led Donna back outside, and as soon as she was out there, she suddenly realized something else was off. Her mother's prized red Cadillac was gone.

Detective Myers quickly shifted his focus from the house to the missing car. He now worried that Barbara might have driven off the road or maybe gotten into some kind of car accident. She could have been injured and trapped in the car somewhere for almost two days now. He told Donna to go home and wait for his call. In the meantime, he'd issue a BOLO, a Be On The Lookout Call, for Barbara's red Cadillac. This would go to law enforcement departments all over the area. Myers got in his car and immediately called in the BOLO.

He also reached out to the Ohio State Police because he knew his department just did not have the resources to carry out a full-scale search for Barbara. And since she'd possibly been missing now for almost 48 hours, he needed all the help he could get. And he needed it fast. Two days later, on November 1, Detective Meyer sat at his desk, desperately hoping for some kind of lead on Barbara or her missing car. He'd stayed in regular contact with local, county, and state law enforcement agencies, all of whom were aiding in the search. But so far, nobody had found anything. He had also continued to update Barbara's daughter, Donna, about the whole situation, and he'd begun receiving regular phone calls from Barbara's granddaughter, Barbie, who was a young adult.

In fact, Barbie had become kind of relentless, asking for regular updates and wanting specific details of the police search. Myers knew Barbara's family was upset and panicked, of course, and they had every right to want answers from the police. But right from the get-go, something about these calls from Barbie just seemed off to him. Still, at this point, he believed Barbara most likely had gotten into a car accident, so he didn't think too much about why her granddaughter was behaving strangely. After all, stress can make people act in all kinds of different ways.

At around 1 p.m. that day, Meyer's phone rang, and he finally got the news he'd been waiting for. A state police helicopter had conducted an overhead search, and they had located Barbara's Red Cadillac. It was in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the town next to Monroe. Detective Myers contacted the local police from that town, and then rushed out to his car and drove over to that apartment complex. When Meyers arrived, he saw local police officers already on site, waiting for him. And he also saw a man wearing a dark suit getting out of what was clearly an

unmarked police car. Meyers stepped outside and the man in the suit came over to him. The man introduced himself as Agent Brian White of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and he said he was there to help. Detective Meyers had been holding out hope that even if Barbara was hurt, he would still find her safe and relatively unharmed. But as he and Agent White walked towards the red car, they feared that that was not the situation. Because as soon as they got near the car, they could smell something. It was the smell of bleach. And Myers knew that, almost always,

bleach was an indication that somebody had tried to cover up a crime. And as they got closer to the car, they saw the trunk was not completely closed, and clearly the bleach smell was coming out of there. And then once the two officers were standing right behind the trunk, sort of wincing from the bleach smell, they looked down and saw very clearly there were long strands of human hair sticking out of the trunk. At this point, Myers and White put on their gloves and opened up the trunk.

And what they found inside was somehow even more horrifying than what they had expected. They had already expected the worst. There was a deceased woman laying in the trunk, and they immediately identified her as Barbara Howe. 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. Hey, listeners! Big news for true crime lovers! You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon

Music with your Prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Bolland's Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top True Crime podcasts, completely ad free. No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime. To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to Amazon.com slash Ballin. That's Amazon.com slash B-A-L-L-E-N. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case,

then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Police immediately began searching the Cadillac and the surrounding area.

But the state forensics team needed more space, and they wanted to get the car and Barbara's body into a more controlled environment. None of the small town police departments in the area had facilities to house a car for a full forensic search. So the local fire department cleared out space at their station and let the police move the car there. Once the forensics team had the time and space to really get to work, they told Myers and White that the killer had most likely poured bleach all over Barbara's body after she

was dead. But the killer had not bleached the trunk or the car. And forensics techs said that after the killer covered Barbara's body in bleach, they'd most likely emptied out a vacuum cleaner on her. That's where the techs thought that strange gray dust covering her body had come from. But most importantly, they said they had found some blood in the trunk and the car, but not nearly enough to match the brutal deep wounds on Barbara's neck.

They said if that kind of attack had been delivered in the trunk or the car, they would have found far more blood than they did. So based on this, Detective Myers and Agent White believed the murder must have taken place somewhere else, and Barbara had been dumped in her own trunk and then driven to the apartment complex. The investigators thought that the most likely site of the murder would have to have been

Barbara's house, but Myers had been there for that wellness check and he hadn't seen any blood or anything that indicated a violent attack had taken place there. That said, Myers knew he could have overlooked something while he was there. That said, Myers knew he could have overlooked something while he was there. There hadn't been a reported homicide in Monroe, Ohio in almost a decade. So when Myers had gone to Barbara's house, the thought that Barbara, an 87-year-old woman who lived in an upscale retirement village, had been brutally murdered there had not really even crossed his mind, so he wasn't really looking for indications of a murder. So Myers and Agent White gathered up a group of Monroe police officers and Ohio state troopers and went back to Barbara's house to conduct a much more thorough full-scale search.

Later that evening, now almost four full days after anyone had seen Barbara alive, Myers, White, and their team walked through Barbara's house, and nothing new really stood out. There still didn't appear to be any signs of forced entry or of a struggle of any kind. Detective Myers also found jewelry boxes that were filled with what looked like really expensive rings and necklaces just laying out in the open in Barbara's bedroom. And it didn't look like anyone had touched Barbara's high-end TV

or any of the other electronics in the house. So it definitely did not appear like someone had come to burglarize the house. And even though Barbara's daughter had talked about how clean her mom was, a glass of iced tea on a table was not enough to prove that something bad had happened there. So Myers and White started to think that they would have to expand their search across Monroe

and the nearby towns in order to find the location where Barbara had been killed. But as they were getting ready to pack up and leave Barbara's house, they both noticed something at the exact same time. The heater came on in the house and they could feel the heat coming from the floor. This meant that there were pipes under the floor that were heating the house. And they knew there had to be a way for maintenance workers to get to those pipes if they needed repairs. So Agent White called out to the team on site and said they needed to search the house for

any place that might provide access to the pipes under the floor. And within a couple of minutes, a state trooper shouted for White and Myers, and they rushed through the house and they found him inside of a utility room just off the kitchen. The trooper pointed to the floor, and Myers and White looked at each other and then bent down because they saw a wooden panel that almost completely blended in with the floor, and they realized this was actually the entrance to a crawlspace. They lifted up the wooden panel and they looked inside and right away both men felt a mix of excitement and horror. There in this tiny crawlspace they saw a rug that was covered in blood and there was blood spatter all over the floor and the sides of this crawlspace.

blood, and there was blood spatter all over the floor and the sides of this crawl space. Late that night, after forensics techs had collected blood and possible DNA samples from the rug, the crawl space, and throughout the house, Myers and White laid out a plan. They knew that a group of trained law enforcement officers, including both of them, had searched this house and almost left without finding the entrance to that crawlspace. So they didn't believe that Barbara's killer was just some random person who just happened to stumble upon that hidden panel in the utility room floor. Instead, they were sure that her killer must have had intimate knowledge of the layout of the house.

And for Myers and White, only a limited number of people could fit the bill. Staff members and maintenance crew who worked at the retirement village, and Barbara's close friends and family. Agent White had the resources at his disposal to track down and interview everyone on staff at Mount Pleasant. So Myers, who was well respected in the local community, would handle speaking to Barbara's friends and family. And Detective Myers knew who he wanted to start with.

Because he lived by a simple adage when it came to police work. If there's a fire and someone watching that fire burn wants to know all the details about how it started and how it spread, there's a good chance that person may have started the fire. And Myers thought the same went for violent crimes. And there was one person who had wanted all the details about Barbara's disappearance and the police investigation from the very beginning,

her own granddaughter, Barbie. In the days following the discovery of that crawl space, Detective Myers and his team dug deeper into Barbara's life and her relationship with her granddaughter. And what they found did not really surprise them. Barbara was loved by pretty much everyone who knew her. She was smart, funny, and always looked out for other people. But hearing things like this was pretty common for police when talking to people who had just lost their loved one.

But Myers got the sense that Barbara really was this kind person who had tried to take care of other people for most of her life. However, there was something else that Myers kept hearing about Barbara. She and her late husband had apparently always been great with money. So over the years, Barbara had become extremely wealthy. And because of the type of person she was, she wanted to take care of everyone she loved after she was gone. Which meant her kids stood to inherit sizable portions of her wealth once she passed away. And also, so did her granddaughter, Barbie. And so armed with this information,

Detective Myers brought Barbie in for an interview at the police station. Barbie sat down across from Myers at his desk, and she proved to be as talkative as she'd been every time she'd called him about the investigation. Over the course of this conversation, Barbie communicated to Myers that she loved her grandmother. But she also communicated that she was having some money issues. She told him that she really had to work hard just to pay her rent and cover her bills. Now, on the surface, that did not seem particularly strange to Myers.

Barbie came off like a lot of young people do, who were living on their own for the first time. But there was also something that Myers could not quite figure out. Barbie still seemed like she wanted to know everything about the investigation, and Myers But there was also something that Myers could not quite figure out. Barbie still seemed like she wanted to know everything about the investigation, and Myers honestly couldn't tell if this was because of some morbid curiosity, if it was nerves, grief, or if she really was the arsonist watching the fire she had set. So eventually, he told Barbie that the best way she could help the investigation would

be to provide a DNA sample. And Barbie said yes, of course. And so Myers had an officer swab her cheek to get the sample. And then after that, he let her go. Part of Myers didn't want to believe that someone could do something so horrific to their own grandmother. After all, Barbara hadn't just been killed, she'd been brutalized. But regardless of what he wanted to believe, and even though Barbie had cooperated, Meyer

still had to consider her a major suspect at this point. She had tried to inject herself into the police investigation, she had a clear financial motive, and she was young and physically capable enough to have easily overpowered her grandmother. While Detective Myers continued to focus on Barbara's friends and family, Agent White and state police methodically interviewed staff members and the maintenance crew from the Mount Pleasant retirement village. And they also tried to collect voluntary DNA samples from as many employees as they could. But the investigation took time. There were so many people to interview just at Mount Pleasant alone, that it became clear this case would not be solved overnight. And as the weeks passed by and

still they had not caught the killer, Myers and White started to realize their investigation was causing a full-on panic in the retirement community. Homicide cases were almost unheard of in Monroe, so Barbara's murder had already shocked everyone in town. But now the people who lived at Mount Pleasant started to believe there was a killer on the loose who was specifically targeting senior citizens. And they feared that the police weren't any closer to finding this killer than they had been on day one of the investigation. As the Mount Pleasant residents made their feelings public, the pressure on the police

and the company that oversaw operations at Mount Pleasant continued to mount. In order to demonstrate that they were doing everything they could to protect their residents, the company that ran the retirement village helped set up a tip line with the Monroe police, and even offered a $10,000 reward to anyone who provided information that led to an arrest. On December 7, 2012, so almost a month and a half after Barbara's murder, an officer ran into Myers' office with an excited look on his face. The officer told him there was someone on the tip line and this guy had a bizarre story

that Myers needed to hear right now. And so Myers picked up the tip line and he heard the sound of a man who had a strong Kentucky accent. The man told Myers that he had no idea if his story would actually help the police, but something had happened over a month ago that he just couldn't shake. The man said that he lived in a small Kentucky town about 150 miles away from Monroe. And not long after Barberhau's murder, his brother, a man named Danny French, had come to see him.

And Danny had acted really strange, almost like he was saying goodbye for the last time. Now this conversation with his brother had been disturbing enough on its own, but it was not why this man had called the tip line. The reason he had called the tip line was there was something else about his brother that was off when he had come to say this goodbye. The man said his brother had been wearing a Mount Pleasant Retirement Village sweatshirt. Detective Myers asked the man where his brother was because he wanted to speak to Danny right away.

But, the man said this is actually where things got even weirder because soon after their conversation his brother Danny had disappeared. Immediately following this call, Myers met with Agent White, and they reached out to local police in the Kentucky town where the caller lived. But after weeks of searching, the police couldn't find the man's missing brother,

Danny French. But then on January 18th, 2013, so two and a half months after the murder, Detective Myers got a call from the cops in Kentucky. They said they had found Danny French, and apparently he'd been living in the woods for months. Myers got in his car and sped across the state line into Kentucky to the local police station where the cops had brought Danny. Danny was big and very intimidating looking, he had long gray hair and a huge gray beard,

and he certainly looked and smelled like he'd been living outdoors for months. But it wasn't really Danny's appearance that shook Myers the most. Instead, it would be what Danny talked about. When Myers asked him about Barbara Howe, Danny said he didn't know her and had nothing to do with the murder. But when Myers asked him why he'd gone to live in the woods, Danny got this glazed look in his eyes and he started talking about how the woods were a fantasy world and a place where people transformed into different things. Myers and Danny continued talking and basically the conversation went in

all sorts of different directions into bizarre things that at times Meyers just did not understand at all. It sort of seemed like Danny was sort of unhinged. But by the end of their discussion, despite the bizarreness of what they were talking about, it was clear Danny had to know something about what happened to Barbara. Myers just knew it. So when Myers left the station, he got assurances from the local police that they would keep close tabs on Danny. Still, as strange as all this might be, there was nothing actually tying Danny directly to Barbara's murder.

So Myers returned to Ohio with another potential suspect, but no evidence. This had also been the case with Barbara's granddaughter Barbie and several of the Mount Myers returned to Ohio with another potential suspect, but no evidence. This had also been the case with Barbara's granddaughter Barbie and several of the Mount Pleasant employees who Agent White had interviewed. All good suspects, but no evidence. Investigators also received DNA test results of samples taken from multiple suspects and attempted to try to match them to samples found at the crime scene. These results did eliminate some suspects, but they did not conclusively point to a killer.

And soon, with no new evidence coming in, the investigation started to grind to a halt. Months passed, then a year went by with very few new leads, Myers and White still believed they had a few strong suspects here, but the evidence just wasn't strong enough to make any arrests. And so Barbara's case basically went cold. Fast forward to October of 2014, two years after Barbara's murder. Detective Myers sat in his office at the Monroe police station working on a different case. Now he'd not given up on finding Barbara's killer, and both he and Agent White had continued

to follow any potential leads. But Myers still worked for a small department, and so other cases did need his attention. Just then Myers heard someone yelling his name, and then he looked up to see an officer rushing into the office with a grin on his face and he handed Myers a piece of paper. Myers looked at the paper and saw a bunch of dates, times, and some handwritten notes. And then he asked the officer, you know, what is this? Why are you so excited about this?

And the officer said a lead in the Barbara Howe case that Myers had asked him to pursue had paid off. And this, this sheet of paper was a copy of the schedule that Barbara's cleaning woman had kept. Myers looked down at the schedule, and now that he knew what it was, his eyes suddenly went wide. He told the officer to find this cleaning woman and bring her in right away. He would have to ask her some questions, but Myers was now positive that this schedule

finally made it clear who killed Barbara. Based on information from Barbara's cleaning woman, DNA test results, and evidence collected over the course of the entire investigation, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Barbara on the night of October 28th and the early morning of October 29th, 2012. The killer sat inside of their parked car, staring out at the homes that line the quiet streets of the Mount Pleasant retirement village. The killer glanced at the homes that line the quiet streets of the Mount Pleasant Retirement Village.

The killer glanced at the clock. They knew Barbara was expecting them any minute, so it was time to move. They grabbed a stun gun sitting on the passenger seat and then stepped outside. The killer held the stun gun behind their back as they approached Barbara's house and then knocked on the door. Barbara opened the door and the killer smiled and followed her inside. Barbara walked through the house towards her bedroom and the killer stayed right behind her. At some point they raised the stun gun, pressed it to her back and pulled the trigger.

Barbara immediately felt an electric shock. She screamed, she convulsed, and fell to the floor. But to the killer's complete surprise, Barbara remained conscious and she was trying to get back onto her feet. So the killer leapt on top of Barbara and hit her in the head and then strangled her. Eventually Barbara passed out. The killer stood up and picked up Barbara off the floor.

She didn't weigh very much. The killer then carried her through the house into the utility room near the kitchen. They laid her on the floor, reached down, and pulled up the wood panel that hid the crawlspace. Once it was open, the killer picked up Barbara and dropped her into the crawlspace. And then they just stood there for a minute, thinking. After a little while, the killer simply walked out of the house, leaving the door unlocked behind them. They got in their car, drove off, and parked on a nearby street where they could still

see the Mount Pleasant retirement village. And the killer just sat there in their car and waited. Hours later, after midnight, the killer saw that almost all the lights in the retirement village had now gone off. It seemed like most residents were now asleep. So, the killer grabbed a long, sharp knife they had left on their floorboard, stepped out of their car, and quickly walked back to Barbara's house. The killer walked inside and went right to the crawlspace. They looked in, and Barbara still lay there. She was unconscious, but breathing. The killer got on the floor, leaned down into the crawlspace, grabbed Barbara by the hair,

and slit her throat. Blood splashed onto the walls of the crawlspace, but the killer didn't stop. They kept slicing and cutting Barbara's neck until they had almost decapitated her. Finally, the killer relented and stood up. They grabbed a small rug from the kitchen and slid it into the utility room. They reached down, lifted Barbara out of the crawlspace, and dropped her lifeless body onto the rug. But as they did that, they realized that drool from their mouths had dripped and fallen into Barbara's hair. So they took the bloody knife and cut off that chunk of her hair. Then for the next several minutes, the killer remained in the utility room with the body, living out their wildest and most grotesque fantasies. But at some point the killer panicked,

as if they had just realized they might be leaving traces of their own DNA on Barbara's body. So they ran to the cabinet under the kitchen sink and grabbed a bottle of bleach. Then they ran back to the rug, took off Barbara's clothes, and poured the bleach all over her. Then they grabbed a vacuum cleaner that was in the utility room, opened up the bin, and dumped the dust onto Barbara's body. Finally, the killer grabbed Barbara's keys from the kitchen counter, rolled her up in the rug, and then carried her outside.

In the darkness, the killer used the keys to pop open the trunk of Barbara's Cadillac. They dumped her body inside the trunk, but kept the rug. They slammed the trunk door, not noticing part of Barbara's hair was sticking out and that the trunk did not close all the way. The killer ran back into the house, threw the bloody rug into the crawlspace, and covered the space up with the wood panel. Then they ran back outside, locking the door behind them, got into Barbara's car, and drove to an apartment complex in a nearby town. Once there, they abandoned the car and walked down a dark street to a large store that was open all night.

From there, they called a cab, got a ride back to a spot that was not far from where they'd left their own car. They walked back to their car, got in, and then sped across the state line into Kentucky. Danny French, the huge guy with the big gray beard who lived in the woods at one point and had that totally bizarre conversation with Detective Myers, murdered Barbara Howe. It would turn out Danny had once been a maintenance worker at the Mount Pleasant retirement village, so he knew all about that crawlspace. He also knew that every resident had one of those Lifeline medical emergency devices. So on the night of the murder, he called three women at Mount Pleasant, hosing as someone

who was there to fix their Lifeline devices. And Barbara was the only one who said he could come by that night to fix it. And as soon as Barbara opened up her door and let Danny into her home, he carried out his plan. From the moment Detective Myers met Danny after he'd been pulled out of the woods for his interview, he had suspected Danny was the killer. Danny told Myers the woods were his fantasy world. But the more he spoke, the more it became clear to Myers that, in reality, Danny just had a lot of fantasies, and some of them were very dark and violent. After multiple meetings over several months, Myers convinced Danny to provide a DNA sample. And it would turn out Danny's DNA matched samples found inside of Barbara's house. But there was a problem. Danny had provide a DNA sample. And it would turn out Danny's DNA matched samples found inside of Barbara's house.

But there was a problem. Danny had been a maintenance worker, so he'd been in that house many times, which could explain why his DNA was there. It was not until police got in touch with Barbara's cleaning woman that they realized there was no way Danny's DNA should still be in her house. Because Barbara's cleaning woman kept a detailed schedule. It had dates and times, and she liked to list all of the work she had done

on those dates and times. And so police knew that Barbara's house had been cleaned thoroughly many times since Dani had stopped working at Mount Pleasant. Which meant if his DNA was there now, he must have murdered Barbara. In addition to that, police found security camera footage at that store where Danny had called the cab on the night of the murder, and the cab driver was able to identify him.

Danny was arrested and he would eventually confess. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Bollin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts. This podcast, the Mr. Bollin Podcast, and also Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool, and Redacted. Just search for Bollin Studios wherever you

get your podcasts to find all of these shows. To watch hundreds more stories just like the ones you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin Podcast one month early and all episodes ad- free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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