Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson here, your host of Pushing Up Lilies. This week, I’m taking you into one of the most unsettling cases I’ve ever researched—the story of Daniel LaPlante. Known for his bizarre and terrifying behavior, LaPlante lurked in the walls of a family’s home before brutally murdering a pregnant woman and her children. In this episode, I’ll guide you through the details of this horrifying crime, explore the twisted mind behind it, and discuss the aftermath that left a community shaken to its core. Prepare yourselves, because this is one case that will have you double-checking every corner of your home. * Listener discretion is strongly advised.
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly True Crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:31 Hey, guys, I hope everybody had an amazing Thanksgiving.
0:34 I know we did the traditional Thanksgiving meal this year and it was really good except I think I told you that I offered the Semaglutide at my med spa and I'm on it and have lost 50 pounds, but I'm not ever hungry.
0:50 By the time I cooked, I literally could barely eat anything.
0:55 But it's hard to believe that Christmas is right around the corner.
0:59 I hope everyone's getting their shopping done.
1:02 I personally have really enjoyed being able to shop online this year again.
1:08 You know, I went out for Thanksgiving to get groceries, and I could not believe the number of people that were out.
1:14 Of course, it was a Sunday.
1:16 Everyone's off work and it was crazy.
1:20 I didn't love it.
1:22 I think that online is kind of the way to go for me anyway, but I have gone into stores and found some really cool Christmas gifts.
1:30 I'm kind of excited about that.
1:32 So this week I wanted to talk to you about a story that is very creepy.
1:38 And I know that I've seen movies that are similar to this before, but it's hard to believe sometimes that this kind of stuff happens in real life.
1:48 This is a story that happened back in 87.
1:55 I was like a year old.
1:56 It's probably why I had never really heard of it.
2:00 And I can't even remember what made it come to my attention.
2:04 I think it was probably my husband who claims to be my content manager.
2:08 He will every once in a while, find cool stories and send them to me.
2:12 And so, I kind of look through them and decide and I don't want to do what everyone else is doing.
2:17 I want to give y'all some interesting stories that pique your interest, but I don't want to necessarily do the ones that everyone's talking about right now because I want to stay interesting.
2:30 This is kind of a story of Daniel LaPlante.
2:34 Now, this weird little guy was born in 1970 in Townsend Massachusetts.
2:41 He had, as we hear with a lot of criminals, a turbulent childhood.
2:48 He was diagnosed with dyslexia and allegedly his father was abusive.
2:55 He claimed that he suffered sexual and psychological abuse from both his stepdad and his psychiatrist.
3:05 His crime started at a very young age.
3:08 So this kid was only 16 when he pursued another 16-year-old named Tina Bowers from Pepperell, Massachusetts.
3:20 Tina's mom had recently died of cancer.
3:24 And so, Tina was living with her father and her older sister, I guess when Daniel discovered Tina, he got her number from a common acquaintance and just called her after a few conversations, he convinced her to go on a date.
3:46 That's weird when somebody just calls you randomly and tries to get you to go out.
3:50 Right?
3:51 But, I mean, I don't know the dynamics of her family and she may not have suspected anything at all.
3:58 Anyway, when they finally met, Tina was kind of surprised to find that Daniel was a little bit opposite of what she perceived and you know how you always kind of, you hear someone's voice, and you picture them to look a certain way or to be a certain kind of person.
4:16 Anyway, apparently Daniel was not quite what Tina expected.
4:21 I don't know if it was looks or what it didn't say, but she went ahead on the date and she felt really uncomfortable when he kept asking about her mother's death.
4:33 So it seemed like he was a little bit focused on that.
4:36 Which is weird because, you know, this guy calls you, randomly forces you into going on a date and the whole time you're there, he's talking about your mom's death, which, you know, is still fairly fresh and I'm sure not something she wanted to talk about.
4:50 But, you know, even though she was uncomfortable, she muddled through the date and then she hurried through it and returned home little.
4:59 Did she know that he had become obsessed with her and could go to any extent to harass her?
5:08 Now, a few days later, Tina and her sister decided to conduct a seance in hopes of contacting their deceased mother.
5:18 I don't know if y'all remember Seance as they used to be really big, we would do them when I was a kid just more for fun than anything.
5:26 We didn't really expect any action.
5:28 But the same with a Ouija board, you know, I had a Ouija board, and I got it one Christmas and I was so excited and my friends came over and of course, we'd make it move and that kind of thing.
5:37 I don't know if that stuff is real.
5:39 I'm not saying it is or isn't anyway, Tina and her sister decided to have this seance because they were hoping to hear from their mom to their surprise.
5:48 They got a response back which, you know, this would kind of freak me out, especially if it was an obvious response, but they got rhythmic knocks through their walls like knocking from the insides of their walls.
6:02 And so, they really believe this to be their mother's spirit.
6:07 But what they were unaware of is that Daniel was hiding in a crawl space between the toilet and the plumbing pops, and he was just tormenting them.
6:20 His behavior worsened over the next several months apart from the pounding on the walls, which is creepy to me.
6:30 I mean, that would chase me out of my house for good.
6:34 When they left the house, he would go in and move the furniture around.
6:39 He would change the channels on the TV, and drink and eat food out of the refrigerator.
6:48 A lot of the stuff the family could probably blame on each other.
6:52 But when certain things would happen, the girls would go to the dad and dad kind of dismissed it.
6:58 Daniel began writing taunting messages on the basement walls.
7:04 He wrote it and read to make it appear that it was written in blood.
7:09 When the girls would go to dad, dad was kind of dismissive.
7:14 He thought that a lot of it was just them hoping that they would get some sort of message from their mom.
7:21 He figured that it was probably trauma related to mom's death.
7:25 He kind of pretty much wrote it off.
7:27 Apparently, he never even went to the basement to see if what they were saying was true.
7:33 He just dismissed their claims pretty much altogether.
7:37 January of 1987 the girls had a friend over and then when what they thought were paranormal occurrences going on in the house, the girls went to a neighbor's house because they were scared.
7:54 They left home and went next door to the neighbors to call their father.
8:00 Now when the girls and their father return back to the house, the furniture was in complete disarray and the toilet had been used.
8:10 So, ok, when the toilet's used, you know, someone's been in your house, the father finally, I guess woke up began to believe.
8:18 Yeah, I think the girls might be telling me the truth.
8:20 Something's going on here.
8:22 And so he started kind of looking around the house and guess what?
8:26 He eventually found Daniel hiding in his late wife's closet.
8:31 But Daniel was dressed as a native American and was armed with a hatchet.
8:37 That's not weird.
8:38 I mean, he's been hiding in the house and tormenting them, hiding in the walls y'all.
8:44 That's so creepy.
8:46 Anyway, he took Frank and the three girls, the friend that was over as well, he took them hostage, but Tina managed to escape and call the police, but somehow Daniel managed to get away.
9:03 Now, Frank, the dad returned home two days later, and Daniel was there and at that time, I guess Frank finally got the message.
9:15 Something's actually going on.
9:16 My kids aren't crazy, called the police again and Daniel was arrested, but Daniel had been living there for several months.
9:25 All this had been going on for several months now for harassing the bowers.
9:31 Daniel was arrested and detained at a juvenile center until October of 1987.
9:38 Remember in the beginning, he was only 16 when all this started.
9:44 He was detained at this juvenile center and then he was released on bail.
9:49 And then on December 1st of 1987 catastrophe happened.
9:56 So this kid we know is not normal.
9:59 I wish I was privy to the interview that he had with the police.
10:03 I'd love to know his reasoning for hiding in the walls of this home and tormenting this family while he was out on bail.
10:12 On December 1st of 1987 he snuck into the Gustafson's family home in Townsend where he raped and shot 33-year-old Priscilla Gustafson.
10:27 She was a nursery teacher, and she was also pregnant with her third child.
10:33 He also proceeded to kill her Children, William who was five, and Abigail who was seven, by drowning them in separate bathtubs.
10:44 William was already home with Priscilla at the time of the initial attack, but apparently Abigail came home from school after that occurrence, and he drowned Abigail in a separate bathtub after she got home from school.
11:01 But her mom and William were already deceased.
11:05 Daniel was taken into custody within two days of that triple homicide to be questioned, he was released due to lack of evidence, which is really sad.
11:18 I mean, why would they take him into custody in the first place if they didn't think that he was guilty?
11:22 And it's hard for me to believe as crazy as he was that he said anything to get himself off.
11:29 Nonetheless, he was released and later the same day when police came to his house to interview him again, which was weird to me, like, why didn't you just interview him when he was at the police department?
11:42 Instead of turning him loose, he ran away from the police.
11:47 Now he subsequently, at that point, stole a van, took a woman hostage, drove away in her vehicle and then later threatened the owner of a nearby lumber yard with a gun.
12:01 He was later tried as an adult, and he was convicted and given three consecutive life sentences.
12:08 But what I don't understand is he was given the possibility of parole after 45 years.
12:13 Why would you give a guy who, number one, he's crazy.
12:17 He tormented a family by living in the walls of their home.
12:20 And then he goes into this pregnant lady's house and kills her and her two Children.
12:26 But in 45 years, he'll be normal.
12:28 So we can just let him out.
12:31 He did have the possibility of parole after 45 years.
12:34 And guess what?
12:34 He appealed for a sentence reduction in 2017 because there was a law stating that juveniles who were convicted of murder should be given a chance to engage with society.
12:46 No, sir, you can stay in prison your whole life.
12:50 You do not need to be out amongst normal people because you are not normal.
12:55 Of course, that appeal was denied.
12:58 And today he's 54 years old and he remains incarcerated at the medium security Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Norfolk.
13:10 He is expected to remain there until he is eligible for parole in 2032.
13:17 Whenever he broke into the Gustafson's residence, he restrained Priscilla by tying her to a bed, he silenced her with a sock, and he sexually assaulted her and shot her twice in the head.
13:33 Now, after killing her and her Children, he went to his own home and joined a family party and demonstrated no remorse at all.
13:43 The shirt and gloves that he wore during the killings were uncovered in the woods behind the Gustafson's home and they were still wet from him drowning the Children.
13:55 A massive search began as he committed multiple burglaries and then he was eventually found hiding in a dumpster on December 3rd of 1987.
14:09 I researched a little bit about the father because there was no mention in the initial story about the dad.
14:17 And so, I was just kind of curious, Andy Gustafson, the father was a small-town lawyer, and he came home to find his family dead.
14:30 He had closed a real estate deal on the night of the murders, and he phoned Priscilla because he was going to tell her that he was excited about this deal and he wanted her to get a sitter so he could take her to dinner and when she didn't answer her phone, he drove home and then found his entire family deceased.
14:52 And to me that just sounds horrifying.
14:55 I mean, it's just almost unbelievable.
14:59 But, you know, I mean, this has happened a lot.
15:01 I mean, we talked last week about Susan Smith, and I mean, her husband lost his Children and basically his wife because she went to prison.
15:11 I can remember growing up in high school, I had a, she wasn't my friend.
15:15 I didn't know her.
15:16 She was quite a bit older than me, but her entire family was killed in a car accident.
15:20 Her husband and both of her Children, I can only imagine because I know how hard it is to lose just one person but your entire family, I just don't know how you bounce back from that.
15:32 Andy is currently married to Carol.
15:36 Carol also lost her husband to a brain tumor.
15:41 I thought it was cool that each of the two, since they are widowed, they wear two wedding rings.
15:49 They wear their wedding ring to each other on their left hand and they wear their original wedding rings on their right hand.
15:58 I thought that was really neat.
16:00 It's good that you know, he was able to remarry and move on and found somebody that he obviously can go through hard times with because it sounds like she was there for him through all this.
16:11 And I don't know how much time went by before he remarried.
16:15 But I think they've been married for quite some time.
16:17 But could you imagine?
16:18 I mean, being excited headed home, going to tell your wife about your exciting day and you have this cool real estate deal, and you come home and your whole family's been murdered had, have been horrifying for him.
16:34 I can only imagine.
16:36 And going through the trial, I'm sure he was there too.
16:39 That would be so difficult.
16:42 Anyway, this guy was crazy, and I mean, this started at a very young age, but I was really concerned when he got out on bail for tormenting that family, obviously a juvenile delinquent.
16:56 Then he murders a family of three.
16:59 And then I don't understand after that, you know, why are you eligible for parole in 45 years?
17:06 He was jailed once already and got out on bail and then committed a triple homicide.
17:12 But then in 45 years, I mean, and it's true, he'll probably never get out.
17:16 And I mean, my hopes are that he will never get out.
17:20 But why even give him that option?
17:23 I mean, this guy's crazy.
17:26 I found that story horrifying.
17:28 I mean, I can only imagine if someone were living in the walls of my house.
17:32 How creepy!
17:33 I mean, because, you know, they're watching you and I mean, they're coming out when you don't know it and using your toilet, drinking your milk and blah.
17:43 That just gives me the creeps.
17:46 I can only imagine if I hear the slightest little noise at my house.
17:51 I'm like, what is that?
17:53 And then I'm on a mission to find it and I will figure out what it is if it is something rubbing against the wall or, I don't know, it's just, it wouldn't go on for very long.
18:03 I can guarantee you that because it would creep me out and I wouldn't be able to handle not knowing what it was.
18:09 I am sitting here literally surrounded by Christmas gifts that need to be wrapped and I'm not super excited about it.
18:15 I'm very fast at wrapping.
18:17 My husband laughs at me because I usually sit on the floor and wrap stuff while we're watching TV together.
18:23 And he looked at me last night and he said, you really love rapping, don't you?
18:26 And I was like, no, I just don't like a bunch of Christmas gifts stacked in my closet.
18:32 And I also need to kind of look to see what I still need to get.
18:36 How many gifts do I have for each person, and how much shopping I have left to do.
18:41 And because there's not that many days, let's see what's today?
18:44 I don't even know.
18:45 Today is the 10th y'all.
18:50 We have a little over two weeks before Christmas.
18:54 I hope y'all are ready.
18:55 I am not.
18:56 And I can tell you though when I have been to the store things are picked over.
19:01 We went to Walmart yesterday during the day and a lot of the decorations and the gifts and all those things are picked over in all the stores.
19:09 You know what I'm thinking?
19:10 I mean, we stayed home for Thanksgiving and cooked that traditional meal and it was delicious, and I probably threw away eight pounds of the 10-pound ham I bought, I think we might just go out to dinner for Christmas.
19:24 And its funny cause last year I bought the most beautiful Christmas plates, and I bought these like evergreen Christmas mats.
19:31 And I'm super excited about having the family over and making the table beautiful because we have this big table and our family will be together except for our, my stepson and his girlfriend, but I was so excited about using them.
19:45 And now I'm kind of like, I really think I just want to go out to eat.
19:49 Now, my husband and I did go to Cracker Barrel for lunch on Thanksgiving because we didn't have the kids over until dinner and it was super crowded.
19:58 They told us it would be about an hour wait, but it was only about 20 minutes.
20:02 But there were a lot of big families there.
20:05 I don't know, I think it just takes a little bit of stress off you sometimes for the holidays, you don't have to do dishes, and you know, you can go home and watch football or whatever.
20:13 And you don't have a huge mess and you're not taking time away from your family by cooking and doing dishes.
20:18 But anyway, there's something to be said for traditions too.
20:21 We're thinking about Christmas Eve having a sleepover matching pjs making gingerbread cookies and all those fun things.
20:28 Whatever your tradition is, I hope that you enjoy the holidays.
20:34 Like I said, we only have a couple of weeks left.
20:37 I talked to y'all again before that again, reach out.
20:41 I've loved getting emails from y'all.
20:43 I even have a couple of listeners who have started my weight loss program at my med spa and so we can mail out of state if you just reach out Julie at PushingUpLilies.com.
20:58 If you have any questions about any of the stories, if you would like to be interviewed because you have a story.
21:05 I would love to hear from you.
21:07 Our Patreon again is up and running our Murder Merch Store is at PushingUpLilies.com and I would love to hear from you.
21:17 I hope you enjoy your week, and I look very much forward to talking to you next week.
21:22 See y'all later.
21:22 Bye.
21:24 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
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21:39 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.