What does it take to turn a serial stalker into a serial killer?
Daniel LaPlante’s childhood turned him into a serial killer.
He was born in Townsend, Massachusetts in 1970, on May 16, and had two brothers, Steven and Mathew. From an early age, he was physically, psychologically, and sexually abused by his father. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was then abused by his stepfather in the same manner.
In his early teens, he was recommended by his school to see a psychiatrist. This only exacerbated his trauma as he was then sexually abused by the psychiatrist for over a year. Unsurprisingly, during this period he struggled at school on many levels, his diagnosed dyslexia compounding his feeling of isolation even further.
Other students found him unsettling, off in some way, and avoided him like the plague. He had no friends, no one to confide in, no help.
In his mid-teens he went off the rails, stepping outside the law by committing a slew of break-ins. At first, this new career choice was just to steal valuables to make money, but the more he got away with it the more invincible he felt, the more powerful. He began to break into homes just to move things around, to mess with the minds of the owners.
The thrill he derived from leaving half-drunk bottles of beer around and rearranging furniture soon wore off, however, and the urge to escalate to the next level became too irresistible. He was scaring people, making them feel uneasy in their own homes, but he wasn’t experiencing their fear firsthand.
His infatuation with 15-year-old Annie Andrews in 1986, and her rejection of him, was the catalyst that set him on the darkest road imaginable. And one of the strangest.
Contacting her out of the blue, he explained that a mutual friend from school had given him her number, which was a lie. All that he knew about her, including her phone number and even what she looked like, was attained when he broke into her family home, snooped around, and became obsessed with her from a photo.
Over the next couple of weeks, they talked regularly on the phone, LaPlante consoling her over the loss of her mother to cancer, working his way into her confidences. It wasn’t long before he asked her out on a date.
Like any teenage girl her age, Annie was excited to be going on her first date, a trip to the local fair, no less. That excitement turned to disappointment when the suitor who turned up on her doorstep was not tall, well-built, and blond like she was expecting, but was short, scrawny, with dark greasy hair and acne that was winning the war taking place on his face.
On the date, Annie felt uncomfortable from the start and called it off after an hour, finding him too weird for words. She had no intention of seeing him again. LaPlante had other ideas.
A few days after the date, strange things began to happen in her household, but only when Annie’s father, Brian, was out, when she was alone or when she was with her younger 8-year-old sister, Jessica. Always in the dead of night.
It started with a sound from behind the walls in the house, a gentle tapping sound, repetitive, coming from more than one place. Their initial curiosity soon turned to annoyance, then a chilling feeling as the sounds became more consistent, seemingly following them as they moved from room to room.
When the first note was found, “I’m in your room. Come and find me”, scrawled on the basement wall, the two young girls, alone in the house, became terrified.
Their father at first thought his girls were playing games, seeking attention, until another message scrawled on the wall turned up seemingly out of thin air two weeks later, “I’m back. Find me if you can”. This was no joke, someone was entering the house undetected whenever they felt like it.
And then out of the corner of his eye, he saw LaPlante. In his house. Standing in the hallway in a blond wig, holding a hatchet, make-up smeared across his face, looking weird as hell.
They clashed, fought over the weapon, Brian eventually managing to subdue LaPlante until the police arrived.
After he was arrested, a quick search to ascertain how he had entered the house unearthed the crawl space behind the walls where he had been living undetected right under the noses of the Andrews family.
LaPlante was charged as a minor, being only 16 years old, and sentenced to 10 months in a juvenile detention center. While inside he turned 17 in May and after serving his time he was then scheduled to appear in court for a longer sentence as he was now classed as an adult. That allowed LaPlante to post bail, a get a get-out-of-jail card, and even though he had a court date set for December 11, he had no intention of turning up.
Instead, he returned to what he knew best – breaking into homes. This time, however, he forewent the petty thievery, stealing two handguns instead.
Now he had bigger plans in mind.
On December 1 he set out on the half-mile walk to the house of the Gustafson’s, one of the handguns lodged in his belt.
The husband, Andrew Gustafson, was at work, his pregnant wife, Priscilla, and his 5-year-old son, William, at home, his 7-year-old daughter, Abigail, soon to return from school. Christmas was just around the corner and decorations were already up and sparkling.
Daniel LaPlante was not in the Christmassy mood, the blood in his veins running colder than the weather.
When he broke into the house his mind was already set on what he was going to do, the bottled rage inside his soul boiling over after years of abuse, torment, and rejection.
At gunpoint, he dragged the pregnant Priscilla Gustafson upstairs where he relentlessly beat her into submission, then raped her. Still not satisfied, madness lurking behind his eyes, he shoved a pillow over her face, placed the handgun into it, and pulled the trigger, twice.
What he did next was beyond heinous.
Grabbing the sobbing 5-year-old, he dragged him to the bathroom where he filled the bathtub then held him underwater until his panicked thrashing ceased.
Going downstairs, he encountered Abigail who had just returned from school. By this time out of his mind, LaPlante proceeded to drown her in the bathroom downstairs.
Then he left the house, the neighbors completely unaware of the horrors that had just transpired in their midst. The first thing they realized something was wrong, was when Andrew Gustafson returned to find an eerily quiet house that was usually filled with the laughter of his young children. And then, filled with dread, he fearfully climbed the stairs and found the body of his murdered wife.
His anguished cries, and the ensuing police and ambulance sirens, reverberated around the neighborhood, shattering the calm of the evening.
Daniel LaPlante became a suspect because items were missing from the house and he had recently been released on bail. The first time the police questioned him on December 2 was inconclusive, his alibis plausible, but not wholly convincing. With no real evidence, they went away yet sensed something was not quite right with his answers.
When the police returned that same day for further follow-up questions, LaPlante panicked and ran.
Within the next 24 hours, the manhunt closed in on him, tightening, a helicopter circling overhead, 50 officers on the ground, police dogs sniffing him out. Eventually, on 3 December at 6.30 pm, a tip led the police to where he was hiding in a dumpster 11 miles away, a handgun tucked into his waistband, a crazed smile plastered across his face.
The case against LaPlante was overwhelming, indisputable, stolen items found in his mother’s house along with the murder weapon itself. When he was brought to court in October 1988, the constant smirk on his face, and the fact that he showed no remorse whatsoever, didn’t help his defense team in the slightest.
After the trial, the jury deliberated for 5 hours before unanimously finding him guilty. The judge, himself horrified at the murders committed, sentenced the amused-looking LaPlante to three consecutive life sentences that included the charges in the case of the Andrews family.
Daniel LaPlante will spend the rest of his life behind bars, but the devastation he left behind will last for much, much longer. It wasn’t just the murders that shocked the nation, but the creepy way he had terrified the Andrews family that struck a nerve, taunting them as he did from behind the walls in their own house.
At least now he was incarcerated permanently behind bars, behind walls where he couldn’t come and go as he pleased, behind walls that would protect society from the monster he had become.