Man Who Fled From Crime Admits 6 Killings, Police Say

An auto mechanic who told neighbors in Texas he moved there to escape crime in Louisiana has admitted stabbing, bludgeoning or shooting six people to death before he left, police said.

Sheriffs of three parishes in Louisiana, where Daniel J. Blank lived until a few months ago, say he also admitted trying to kill two others since the slayings began in October 1996. Most of his victims were well off and in their 50s, 60s or 70s.

Blank, arrested Nov. 14 in his new hometown of Onalaska, Texas, told police he stole from his victims to pay for his gambling habit.

Many residents in Onalaska also are older and well-off.

“This is basically a retirement community where people come to get away from the city and crime,” Mayor Jeanne Ann Byrd said. “We go without murders for 20 years. He seemed like a nice man.”

Blank, 35, was arrested on one murder charge and was taken to St. John the Baptist Parish jail. The sheriffs of St. John, St. James and Ascension parishes say he will be charged with six murders and two attempted murders. A parish in Louisiana is what is called a county elsewhere.

The victims are:

* Victor Rossi, 41, beaten to death at his home in St. Amant on Oct. 27, 1996. Blank had worked at Rossi’s car-repair shop.

* Barbara Bourgeois, 58, of Paulina, stabbed to death March 18 at her home, a quarter-mile from Blank’s.

* Lillian Phillipe, 71, of Gonzales, stabbed to death in her home April 9. Blank bought car parts from the store that her husband had started.

* Sam Arcuri, 76, and Louella Arcuri, 69, bludgeoned to death in their LaPlace home May 9.

* Joan Brock, 55, beaten to death in the backyard of her LaPlace home May 14. Blank had worked at Brock’s husband’s car-repair shop.

* Leonce and Joyce Millet, both 66, beaten and shot inside their Gonzales home July 7. They survived.

Ascension Parish Sheriff Jeff Wiley said it was old-fashioned legwork by a task force that tied Blank to the killings. He noted the links between Blank and some of the victims, and a description of the attacker provided by the Millets.

“This community was gripped with fear and these were cases that begged for solution, and we are quite satisfied that we have the murderer,” Wiley said.

A search of Blank’s mobile home turned up a machete with traces of blood and human hair on it, Polk County (Texas) Sheriff Billy Ray Nelson Sr. said.

Nelson said Blank liked to gamble. Blank also allegedly told authorities during his confession that “he wanted to have things he never could afford” and might have taken as much as $200,000 from his victims.