True crime and Paranormal podcast festival in July in Denver, many other
podcast hosts in attendance. Use promo code ANNGELLE15 to save 15% on tickets. truecrimepodcastfestival.com
This Friday, February 9, marks 20 years that Maura Murray went missing. A vigil scheduled in New Hampshire on that day, near where Maura was last seen.
Mountain Lakes Lodge in Woodsville, New Hampshire. I am planning to attend, see Julie and the Murrays. mauramurraymissing.org
Pepperell, Massachusetts
This story, the prequel to episode 57 about the Gustafson family of Townsend, Massachusetts. I got some interesting information about my connection to this case. I made contact with author Joe Turner who has been researching the Bowen Family and Daniel LaPlante story for his book. This case has very little available information. A lot of people have gotten it wrong. I hope to set at least some of that straight.
This is a bizarre case, for what happened to a Massachusetts family in the privacy of their home, but also how their story was reshaped and retold by urban legend and lore.
This is the prequel: The Gustafson family story (EP 57) is far less known than that of person responsible. That's part of the problem. Before Daniel LaPlante, a disturbed kid from Townsend, went on the run and was caught after a 24 hour manhunt, he was already the stuff of legend, "the boy in the wall." That is what the quiet drone of the years has done; because everybody loves a good boogeyman story, right? A creepy low budget fright. It is so much more than that.
What led to the events of that day when the a family was ambushed in their home, and a mother and two children brutally killed. Well, this is truly the story of nightmares.
This episode is about stalking, child abuse and child sexual abuse, mental illness, antisocial personality disorder, violent crime against women and children. This is about one child destroying a family and almost destroying another. A broken boy or was he always going to be this way?
The Bowens of Pepperell were scared out of their home by a menacing presence. Months passed before they learned someone had been living in a narrow space in their walls, watching them. Due to the nature of all involved being minors at the time, there is no documentation available to the public about the Bowen's actual nightmare living situation.
Daniel LaPlante suffered from a childhood marred by the worst kind of abuse, by the people he should have been able to trust. We go back to the beginning, before his gruesome crimes to see the making of a monster. How he developed hobbies of crime, hobbies that grew into a practice - break ins, haunting people in their homes, to stalking to stealing guns and money, to kidnapping and murder. His crimes robbed the community of its peace, while many wanted to forget, others could never get it out of their minds.
Photos from episode 58
Images from Celtic Sentinel from Retired Pepperell Lt Tom Lane, sites around Pepperell, drawings of the wall space in Bowen home, Photo of the VW bus in black and white, and an example of the clown hair orange to see how ridiculous this was in color, photos from the chase and the Ayer lumberyard dumpster Laplante was hiding in when he was captured
Sources
updating
Author Joe Turner
Celticssentinel - the Elm Street Nightmare by Lt. Thomas Lane (Retire Pepperell PD)