
186. The Secret Beneath the Floorboards: The Chilling Murder of Barbara Howe
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Into The Dark — 186. The Secret Beneath the Floorboards: The Chilling Murder of Barbara Howe. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
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You're listening to an ONO media podcast. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Into the Dark podcast. I'm your host, Peyton Morelin. I'm so happy you are here watching or listening to today's episode. If you could please drop a comment. If you're watching on YouTube or leave me a five-star review, if you are listening, that would be amazing. Just engagement with the show. But either way, I am just grateful you are here. Getting into my 10 seconds before we jump into the actual episode. My back hurts. My hips hurt. Everything hurts. But everything's good. Pregnancy is going good. So I can't complain too much. But yeah, I think, let's see. When my third trimester were getting there, but you know, it's just a long journey. I feel like I can't breathe right now. So if this episode is a little breathy, well, blame her, not me. Okay,
because I'm doing I am doing my best. But aren't we all? But yeah, I really don't have too much update you guys on. That's basically it. So yeah, a little short 10 seconds, but I know you're here for the episode. So let's get into it. Trigger warning, this episode includes discussions of sexual assault, child abuse, and suicide. So please listen with care. For a lot of people, when you first hear about a true crime story, it's natural to identify with one person in particular. You might put yourself in the victims, shoes, and wonder how you might have responded to a situation differently, or you might picture yourself as a detective or a police officer trying to solve the crime. You probably though, don't think of yourself as someone who's almost on the sidelines, like a random tipster. But just for a moment, imagine you suspected someone you
love of committing a violent crime. If you thought a cherished family member had killed someone, would you hesitate to turn them in? That is the question a man named Kenneth French had to grapple with on November 1st, 2012. Because that day Kenneth's brother Daniel called him and asked if they could hang out. Now on its own, that wasn't unusual. Kenneth and Daniel were pretty close brothers, but Daniel the brother lived in Kentucky with his sister Wanda. I guess he had been out of work for a while, so she had been supporting him and providing him with a place to live. And he said he was driving home from Ohio, but he wouldn't explain what he had been doing out of state, like away from Wanda's home. They lived close to the border, so it wasn't too unusual for Daniel to go to Ohio. Still though, Daniel isn't answering any questions. He's not telling Kenneth what he's been up to. Plus, Daniel didn't want to meet up at a restaurant or bar,
or even his own home. He said he wanted to see Kenneth in a random grocery store parking lot on his way home. Now this is an odd request, but Kenneth didn't have any other plans that day, so he agrees to see Daniel in the parking lot. And as soon as he saw his brother, he could tell something was off. First of all, Daniel was wearing a sweatshirt that said mountain pleasant retirement community. And he also had a matching hat on. Kenneth knew Daniel used to work in an Ohio retirement community called Mount Pleasant as a handyman. He'd had to wear branded hats and shirts like that, so the residents could tell employees, you know, apart from strangers, but the weird thing was Daniel had quit that job about a year ago. So why is he showing up in this parking lot in a uniform for a company he doesn't even work for anymore? Even if he had grabbed the sweatshirt because it was laundry day, he shouldn't have had the matching hat too. Plus he shows up and he keeps making these odd sad comments. He spoke as though he never expected to see Kenneth again.
He thought this was his last chance to say goodbye forever in this parking lot. And at one point during this strange meetup, Daniel also mentioned to his brother Kenneth, he didn't have any money or enough gas to get the rest of the way home. So Kenneth gave him 20 bucks. And then Daniel hugged him, got into the car and drove away. And after he left, Kenneth couldn't shake the feeling that something very strange had just happened with his brother in this parking lot, but he couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong. Not until a day or two later, when he turned on the local news, and he saw a report on a recent unsolved murder. An 87 year old woman named Barbara Howe had been found dead in Ohio. And she was living at the Mount Pleasant Retirement Community. Now just to explain something a little bit, the Mount Pleasant Retirement Community is not like
a large retirement home where every person lives in a room. It's more like subsidized individual apartments that are a part of this community. So you have your own home within this retirement community. And that is where Barbara lived at the time of her death. And this is obviously the exact same company where Daniel had once worked. And her body had been found the same day Kenneth met up with his brother in that parking lot. All of this to say Kenneth doesn't know anything for sure, but when he sees this, it could have been a coincidence that Daniel was back in Ohio, wearing a Mount Pleasant uniform and acting odd on November 1st. But he gets the airy feeling that maybe Daniel had something to do with Barbara's death. He couldn't say for sure because he knew very little about Barbara's case. However, if you had known the full story, you might have been even more uneasy. See, Barbara the victim had spent her entire life in Ohio. She loved this community.
For her whole life, Barbara had always been outgoing and social. She was a former sorority member. She was really popular. She'd been happily married for 51 years, but sadly, Barbara's husband had passed away 14 years ago in 1998. It's heartbreaking he had been the love of her life. However, Barbara had begun a second chapter and was doing her best to enjoy her golden years as a widow. She was close to her neighbors. She had lots of friends. She still had a warm, friendly relationship with every member of her family. And Barbara was also very involved with her church. So on Sunday, October 28th, 2012, fast forward to the time of the case. She went to a service as usual and afterward, a member of her congregation took her out to dinner. They had a good meal and then he drove her home. And before he left her place, he set a church bulletin on her counter so she could keep it as a souvenir or just read it later. And then the next day, on Monday
29th, she got a call from her sister, 85-year-old Patricia Marshall. They talked on the phone every single day. They shared gossip, just talked about their lives. But Barbara didn't answer that day. So Patricia figured, okay, maybe Barbara's busy or away from the phone, she'll try again later, except the next time she tries to call, the same thing happens. It rang and rang and Barbara never picks up. The same thing happened the next morning when Patricia, her sister called yet again. And all day long, Patricia keeps dialing, but she can never get through to her sister. So on the 30th, Patricia asked Barbara's daughter, Donna, to just go check on her. After all, Barbara was 87 years old. Her age, there's always a risk. She could have had a fall, a medical emergency. And Patricia got the sense that something was wrong. She didn't feel good. She was like, just please go check on your mom. So it was still the same day, the 30th. When Donna, the daughter, drove to Barbara, the victims
home and knocked on the door. Nobody answered. And Donna noticed that Barbara's car wasn't parked out front. Even at her age, Barbara still drove around when she had to run errands, but Donna sensed her mother wasn't just simply at the grocery store or hair salon. Especially because it was getting late, Barbara wasn't comfortable driving in the dark. Something weird was going on. Her aunt was definitely right. Now, since she had a key, Donna let herself in. And three things stood out to her right away. First, in her mother's house, there was a half a glass of iced tea sitting on the table as though Barbara had been drinking it before she'd left. Except Donna knew Barbara was extremely me entidy. She wouldn't leave the house with a glass of iced tea out. And then Donna also saw a towel lying on the floor. And once again, she's like, my mom would have never left this towel here. And one of her rugs had actually been partially flipped over like someone had kicked it out of
place or kicked it up with their shoe and then didn't put it back. While the say her house still was me entidy, but these small details were just not right. They told Donna that her mother Barbara had not left this home willingly. And since she wasn't there, something must have happened to her. So Donna calls the police. Of course, the officers didn't know Barbara as well as Donna did. So they're like your older mother has a, you know, a towel on the floor and some iced tea out. They're like, are we sure this is foul play? All of Barbara's valuables, like her cash, her jewelry, her electronics, they were still at the house. Only one thing was missing. And it was her wedding ring, which she wore every day. It was worth roughly $26,000. So definitely something worth stealing, but she could have just left with the ring on her finger. Its absence on its own was not a sign that a crime had been committed. Her locks worked properly. There were no signs of forced entry in the home. So there
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they would figure it out really fast and confirm that she was okay. But then two days later, on November 1st, the officers actually do find Barbara's car. It was parked in front of a random apartment complex in Ohio. And its interior was completely covered with dust. It looked like hadn't been cleaned in years. Or like someone had taken something dirty and dragged it across all of the seats. And this strikes the officers as odd because they know Barbara kept her home clean. They're like, this car definitely looks weird. So they search the vehicle. And when they pop the trunk, they find Barbara. Well, her body. She was naked from the waist up with stab wounds all over, including a slit throat. But there wasn't a lot of blood inside the trunk. So police immediately know she was killed somewhere else. Her remains had then been put in her car after her death when
she had already blood out. Her body was drenched in bleach as though her killer had been trying to destroy any DNA evidence. Again, it's 2012. People know about DNA. It was also coated in dust, just like the inside of her car. And interestingly, her wedding ring wasn't on her finger. It was still missing. And it was one of the only clues that police had to go off of. They didn't have much else to tell them who had killed her, who had dumped her car. So they go back to her home to search for more evidence now that they know this is a homicide investigation. Except still the house looks clean, there's no sign that Barbara had been killed there. In fact, officers almost wondered if she'd left her run errands and then been abducted while outside of her house. However, during their visit, they noticed how all of the heater and air conditioner vents were in the floor, not the walls are ceiling. They figured that meant the pipes must all be underneath the house. And sure enough, after a bit of searching, they located a trap door that opened to
an underground crawl space. The door was really hard to see because Barbara's laundry basket and some other things were on top of it. Plus, that section of floor had a tile pattern on it. The seams of the pattern lined up with the edges of this trap door to get under the house. So it wasn't eye catching or attention grabbing. But when they opened it up, they found the underground crawl space. And it was filthy, just like the inside of Barbara's car. Except in addition to all of the dust, the officers also found pools of blood down there. And they suspected it was in this crawl space that the murder actually happened. Someone had broken into Barbara's house, maybe dragged her into the crawl space, killed her, slit her throat, and then dragged her body into her own car, filling it with dust in the process. This is a key clue because, please know, most people are not going to know there's a crawl space there. A random home invader wouldn't have spotted the door, given how well hidden it was. So they were able to narrow their suspect list down to people who knew the layout of Barbara's
home already. Her close friends, family members, and maybe employees at the Mount Pleasant Retirement Center where she used to live. And even better, forensic's team collected blood samples from the crawl space. Some had come from Barbara and they also found DNA from an unknown man. You didn't match anyone else in their database. So he definitely didn't have a prior criminal record, but the officers knew this was their murderer. So right away, the officers start talking to Barbara's friends, family, neighbors. None of them had comparable genetics. They also requested samples from every Mount Pleasant employee. And again, the officers eliminate all of them. However, they did learn new information while they were talking to one of the retirement community residents. She said that at some point before Barbara's murder, someone had called her very late at night right before she went to bed. Now, this man claimed to be from Mount Pleasant's
Maintenance Department and he said an alarm was going off at her house and he wanted to come investigate. The residents said there was no alarm. There was no emergency. Everything was fine. But the maintenance man insisted that it was really important. He was going to come over anyway. And again, this resident was like, no, I'm fine. She said she was going to sleep. She wasn't letting anyone into her house at that time of night. And sure enough, the employee never showed up. A little later on, she called the main office. She's like, hey, apparently there was a false alarm. I need to make a follow-up appointment now that it's daytime. But the person on the phone of the office said they had no record of an alarm going off at the resident's house. They didn't even know what she was talking about. So when police talk to this woman and hear this story, they wonder, oh, is this the same ruse or mo that our killer had used with Barbara, maybe called pretending an alarm went off so he could get into her home. He could have then robbed her and killed her.
So by now, the police were confident that Barbara had been killed by a mountain pleasant maintenance man or someone who was pretending to be one. The problem was they'd already tested the DNA of all the maintenance workers in none-war match. I'm not sure where to look next until they get a call on their tip line from Kenneth French. Now this is the man we started the story with. You'll remember he had that weird encounter with his brother Daniel back on November 1st. Daniel used to work at Mount Pleasant. He was wearing a Mount Pleasant uniform during this weird encounter. And after this meeting, he couldn't let go of the idea that his brother had something to do with Barbara's murder. Listen to Dr. Morris. This may be nothing and maybe something. It's been fine with me first since I guess this happened. I have a brother used to work at Mount Pleasant. Okay. What's his name? It's Danny French. What does he do there? He was made with me. Two's made it's like how long did he work there when he did work there? About 10 years. It's been negative because I once I read that article and I was thinking what's
faulting any of that Saturday night's going and now we do the later he's getting out of town. Yeah and especially if he's getting out of town for a couple of months, that's not the end. Right. I'm kind of struggling with this and he's made me sick. He had waited weeks to call because he didn't really have much to go off of except a weird feeling but he eventually decides he's going to call the police. And after nearly a month, he saw that Barbara's loved ones were offering a $5,000 reward for information. The money had been donated by one of Barbara's high school classmates who was just as eager as everyone else to see this murder be solved. Now the money was tempting for Kenneth of course but it also drove home just how many people loved Barbara, how desperate everyone was to solve this case and Kenneth knew he couldn't keep quiet anymore. He knew that his brother used to work there. He knew about his experience with his brother the day of the murder. He had to do the right thing and make sure justice was served so he called to give his tip and he admitted, listen, I don't
actually know a whole lot. He began the conversation by saying quote, this may be nothing, it may be something. Then he told the officers everything about meeting his brother in the parking lot, everything he had noticed. He described how weird Daniel had been acting and how he was wearing his old Mount Pleasant uniform and this was exactly the information police needed. It's how they realized wow, it's probably not current people working at Mount Pleasant. We should look at past ones too. So the officers tracked Daniel down. They bring him into an interrogation based solely off his brother's tip and during it he does consent to give a DNA sample and he answers the detective's questions. They thought about this stuff about told you here about what happened up there. What do you think about that? No, I'm not saying that. I was just saying what do you think about it's terrible. The surprising that happened there. Trying to get your insight on it since you worked there's too long-wise and surprised you that happened there. Put yourself in the
shoes of the family. But I didn't ask if you didn't hear since then. That's way up. They're not sure if they should believe him but again they have DNA so they test his DNA. It comes back as a perfect match. His blood and Barbara's blood were in the crawl space. Except Daniel has a pretty good explanation for it. He reminds them, hey, I used to work in Barbara's retirement community. I was in those crawl spaces all the time making necessary repairs. He said while I was working, I was sweating, I could shed hairs, I could even cut myself. There's a pretty good chance that my blood is in multiple apartments. It was very possible he left DNA in Barbara's crawl space while doing his job. Now this wasn't proof that he'd had anything to do with the murder and technically this is a good defense. He was right. The police couldn't prove his DNA was from the night of Barbara's death. They didn't have any hard evidence against Daniel.
They're also like, what are the chances that there's we know she was killed down there and your blood is also down there, but they have to let him go. They need more evidence. They don't have any other suspects. They didn't know enough about Daniel to charge him with anything. The case kind of goes cold for two years. During that time, the police were still collecting tips, following new leads, but they didn't find anything usable. Not until October of 2014, when another Mount Pleasant employee comes forward, this is two years after the murder. Her name hasn't been made public, but I know she worked as a maid in the community. All right, you guys, we are getting into an ad and I it is one of my favorite and you've definitely heard me talk about it if you listen to this podcast at all or my other show and that is Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again, kind of like your staples in a way. That's what Quince does. Okay, Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like
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dark. If you want to check it out guys, please don't forget slash dark. You can sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. Chime is a FinTech not a bank banking services and chime card provided by Chimes bank partners qualifying direct deposits required terms and limits apply go to chime dot com slash disclosures for details. She told the police that roughly two months before Barbara's murder in August of 2012. There was actually a bad flood in Barbara's house. The water soaked through the floor into the crawl space. It had made it a huge mess. Barbara had hired the maid to clean up the spill so the crawl space wouldn't get moldy or damage the foundation of the house. And she had given her a $20 tip, which she had paid using a check. And the maid was able to show the police the bank statement which displayed a copy of the check from Barbara's count. And it was signed in Barbara's handwriting. So police are like, she's not misremembering this made definitely did this job for Barbara.
And the timeline here was important. Daniel quit roughly 10 months before the murder so around January of 2012. The maid cleaned the crawl space eight months later. They're like how was his old DNA from when he worked there in the crawl space still there. If this made had done such a huge deep clean eight months later. Police are confident they have their killer and this eyewitness is enough to arrest him. So in December, they cooperated with officers in Kentucky where Daniel lived with his sister. Remember he had been visiting in Ohio, but he really lived in Kentucky. The police stormed his house her house and they find Daniel sitting inside with a gun in his hand. He doesn't threaten the police, but he admits to them he's thinking about taking his own life. He doesn't want to be arrested. He even had a suicide note there that he'd already written. Luckily, he didn't hurt himself or anyone. He just voluntarily goes with officers when they come to arrest him.
And by this point, Daniel, I guess sees there's no point in lying anymore. He's been caught. He was obviously sitting there wanting to die. So during his interrogation at this time, he confessed. Daniel said that on October 28, 2012, two days before Barbara was reported missing, he pretended to be a maintenance man. He dressed in his old uniform and convinced her to let him into her house to repair something. His plan was to rob her, let her live. And he figured, you know, Barbara's 80, 80 something years old, she's going to be easy to intimidate and overpower. But as soon as she realized he wasn't there to do maintenance, Barbara actually began to fight back. Daniel claims he was so surprised. He didn't know what to do. He panicked. He did bring a gun with him. So he says he did actually have a stun gun with him. So he says he used it to shock her, but it didn't bring her down. So then he says he grabbed her and started strangling her. He says he was only trying to, you know, make her pass
out. His thinking was that once she was unconscious, he could steal some of her things and then leave without actually permanently hurting her. However, he misjudged how much force he should use and he says he accidentally killed her. And then Daniel realized he had to hide the body so no one would know what he'd done. So he tossed it into the crawl space beneath the house that he knew about because he had done tons of work on these houses and he left. But then he says two days later he returned and he doused Barbara's body with bleach to destroy any DNA that he might have left behind. He also removed her shirt, cut off chunks of her hair that he had touched. Again, this was so he wouldn't leave behind any genetic material. He also slit her throat even though she was already dead. So it's unclear why he did that. This was days later, but he also found a vacuum cleaner in Barbara's house. He cut the bag open and dumped the dust all over Barbara. He says he did this because he
hoped the dirt would bury any remaining DNA and make it harder for anyone to find useful evidence later. So he comes back solely just to try to cover his tracks and he said that's why the car got dirty. He said he shoved her body into the trunk of her own car, drove far away from her house and abandoned the vehicle in front of a random apartment, walked about a mile away and then called the cab. Now when it arrived, Daniel told this cab driver, his car had broken down on the side of the road. He needed a ride home so he could look up his mechanics information and figure out how to have it towed and repaired. But this taxi driver tries to be helpful and it's like hey just show me where your car's parked. I can just take a look and he told her his car was too far away. He'd walked a mile before calling the cab. This strikes the driver's weird. She's like the waisy lying. This is weird. Obviously we know the truth. So this is how the taxi driver ends up remembering him.
And then he goes back, he gets his car and he starts driving back home to his sister's house but meets up with Kenneth, his brother on the way. And that is obviously where our case started was with Kenneth and Daniel meeting in the parking lot. Daniel having just dumped Barbara's body. Daniel also told the police that somewhere along the way he had taken Barbara's wedding ring off her hand except then he said he felt guilty every time he looked at it so he didn't keep it or pawn it. He said he tossed it out the window of his car while he was driving. It's like now it's permanently lost on a highway somewhere. So that was his story. And he had done a good job of explaining how her body ended up partially naked, covered in dust and bleach, shoved in her own trunk. But some of the details from his confession don't match up with the actual evidence. Like how Daniel claimed he was shaken and overcome with guilt after the murder. It's important
to know that once they figure everything out, the police found security camera footage of Daniel from the evening of Barbara's death. This was before he dumped the body but a few hours after he had killed her, the cameras showed Daniel at a Walmart looking at movies to rent. And in the clip he seemed calm and collected. I like to think this was one of those red box things. Anyways, in the footage, because it's 2012, in the footage he doesn't look upset. Plus, Barbara's autopsy showed that she was still alive when her throat was slit. So police immediately know he didn't do this two days after like he said he had intentionally cut her neck. He had intentionally killed her. He didn't strangle her by accident. He also said he was there to rob her but the police know he only actually ever took her wedding ring. They believe he ends up killing her and then just in the heat of the moment doesn't take anything else. Or he was lying about his motive and his
motive was actually just to kill someone for the thrill of committing a murder and not actually to rob anyone. Perhaps given that she was found partially nude, he maybe wanted to sexually assault her and he may have been trying to describe the crime as a robbery gone wrong now to seem more sympathetic and not have to admit to the brutality of what he had done. This appeared even more likely when the police looked at Daniel's history. He had been very troubled ever since his childhood. Daniel's parents had been physically abusive. He and his brother Kenneth, who ended up turning him in and his sister Wanda, suffered from frequent beatings. Their parents also regularly starved them to punish them for misbehaving. So as an adult, Daniel suffered from depression and PTSD but in the months before Barbara's death, he had also kind of become obsessed with murder. Apparently he had been reading countless books about real life serial killers like Ted Bundy. He was watching TV shows like CSI and it's why he was going so crazy trying to cover up the DNA.
They also found that he had like history and logs of everyone who lived in the retirement community despite the fact he hadn't worked there forever. And they believe he'd actually collected this because he was originally going to use the rules that we know he did to get into someone's house. So this definitely fills plans. But are you going to be able to prove that this was a robbery gone wrong or was this a premeditated murder? But here's the thing, as the prosecution is trying to figure out how to prosecute this case, many of Daniel's family members come forward saying he wasn't capable of committing a violent crime. This included his sister Wanda who he was living with at the time. She told officers, listen, Daniel was sweet and gentle. He would never hurt anyone. He liked playing practical jokes. For example, he had a very young great nephew who visited the house a lot. Daniel had convinced that great nephew he owned a chicken that could talk. He'd
had no walkie talkie, near a tree. So his grand nephew would hear chatter from the radio and think it was coming from the chicken who talks. In Wanda's mind, this is just not how a cold blooded premeditated murderer would behave. In fact, she goes as far as to say you have the wrong person and the killer is still out there. But she's also now trying for this defense of this was all accidental. But now that he had confessed, Daniel stood by his story. He assured his sister and the police know I did do this. He wasn't trying to get away with the crime anymore. As his trial day approached, he focused on his legal strategy. Ohio was a death penalty state. He's hoping he can take a plea bargain to get capital punishment off the table. However, officials aren't willing to make the deal. So Daniel went to trial in the fall of 2015. He had been charged with aggravated murder, aggravated burglary and robbery, abusive accords and tampering with evidence. And he pleaded guilty to everything except the murder charges. He was afraid of being
sentenced to death. So Daniel figured his best shot at survival was to go before a jury and try to convince him he wasn't guilty. During his trial, he said the same thing he had said in his original confession. The homicide part was never the plan. It was accidental. He had just been trying to knock her out and he accidentally killed her. But then the prosecutions like listen, this story just really doesn't fit the evidence. And after an hour and 20 minutes of deliberation, they find him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So he doesn't get the death penalty, but he does get life. Now the wild thing is that Daniel might have never been caught if his brother Kenneth hadn't turned him in. He was in a terrible situation. Split between his loyalty to family and his desire to do the right thing and thankfully he chose justice for Barbara. But in the process, two families were destroyed. Daniel's brother and sister had to grapple with the knowledge of what their brother had done. And in the years after Barbara's
murder, her three children stopped talking to one another. Apparently they just had all handled this grief differently. Some like to talk out their feelings. Others prefer not to dwell on it. It just made it impossible for them to be around each other because nobody could figure out whether it was okay to bring their mother up, what to say to one another. Instead, as the years went on, they basically just drifted apart. And this story goes to show you you never know when your world could be turned upside down or what role you'd have to play in that situation. And that was the murder of Barbara Howe. Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode and I will see you next time as we go further into the dark together. Goodbye. Insurance isn't one side fits all. That's why customers have enjoyed Progressives Name Your
Price Tool for years now. With the Name Your Price Tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit Progressive.com. Find a rate that works for you with the Name Your Price Tool. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, price and coverage match limited by state
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