Original subtitles

In Southern California, there is a playhouse where all sorts of stories

come alive.

A special place where the performers form unbreakable bonds and share dreams

of stardom.

But when they're suddenly cast in an actual murder investigation, their

world of make-believe becomes a real life.

I just love theater.

It was just something that gave me so much joy.

It's kind of bittersweet for me, not being in a play for 15 years.

Because you tend to eliminate.

things that might remind you of that traumatic event.

I really haven't talked a lot about it in over a decade.

You know, because when something like that happens, you're like, did I miss

something?

You know, just like, could something have been done?

The Hunger Artist Theatre Company.

I was one of the founding artists originally, and we wanted to produce and

do shows that we felt passionate about.

And we occasionally did musicals.

So we put on Nine, which basically tells the story of this man's life, and he's

the only male in the show surrounded by a bunch of women.

There was this character, Le Fleur, who was the producer, and I auditioned, and

I got the part.

And then there was Dan Wozniak, who was the lead. He was the young man,

full of energy.

I was one of the people who worked at the Hunger Artist Theater Company.

It was a fun show, and people were drawn to Dan, on and off stage.

Daniel's fiancée, Rachel, also got cast in the show, her being one of the eight

women in it.

I thought that was so sweet that they were getting married, and you

could tell they were a unit.

Dan directed my high school production of Beauty and the Beast.

And then Rachel was choreographer.

We would kind of laugh at them because Dan was like a golden retriever, big,

loud, funny, and Rachel had cat energy, very straight-faced, very serious, just

complete opposite couple.

But they worked well together.

My mom was a theater teacher, so I did a lot of plays, and Dan was very hands-on,

helping with directing, giving some tips on...

French accents and stuff like that. They had invited me, you know, as we were

wrapping up meeting the Beast, to go see Nine. So I was really excited to see

them put on a different face and act.

I studied

theater with Rachel,

and so that's how I met her.

And then...

Dan and Rachel and I just would always hang out all the time.

There were lots of different groups that we hung out with. Like, they had their

community theater group.

And then at the apartment complex, where they lived, it was like a big group.

And it was kind of a party apartment complex.

I just remember, you know, going there and it's like, pool party.

There was like 20, 30 people at the pool party.

Which is where I met their friend, Sam.

Sam lived at the apartment complex. And I remember him being goofy and telling a

story where he walked out into the middle of the street acting like a

gorilla.

And being, like, really outrageously funny.

Like, we were all cracking up, you know. He was a really funny guy.

Okay, what's going on, sir?

I don't know what's going on.

I miss the fun times. I wish that they would all remain fun.

And goofy and pleasant.

And not tainted.

Sam

and

I were extremely close.

We were.

best buddies.

Sam was in Afghanistan for 15 months.

And as he came out of the service, we were more man-to-man versus father-son.

He was going to college and living in Orange County.

The Friday, I believe, was the 21st.

Sammy was supposed to come over.

His mom, my wife, Raquel, had called him at lunchtime, noontime, and he was

saying he was doing something with a friend.

So the next day, all day, periodically, I tried calling him.

His phone went straight to voicemail, which he never did. It never turned his

phone off.

And I wasn't really worried.

But I said, I'm going to drive to Sam's apartment and see if everything is okay.

This was on Saturday evening.

So I went, drove down, knocked at the door, and there was no answer.

But I had the key.

I let myself in. Everything seemed in order.

And then I went to the bedroom.

There was a body.

There's a body in my son's apartment.

There's a what?

A body. A dead body. A dead body?

There was a dead body in Sam's apartment, and Sam was missing.

I have no idea who it is.

Does your son know who it is? He's not here.

Obviously, my concern was, where's my son?

Is he running?

So I kept leaving messages, Sam, if you're in trouble, call me. It went

straight to the voicemail.

I'll never forget the hardest part was coming home and trying to break the news

to my wife that in our son's apartment, there was a dead body.

I found out that it was a girl who was tutoring Sam, Julie.

Julie Kibuishi.

Santa and Julie were friends.

I met Julie at one of the apartment pool parties, and she was so

sweet.

It was like all the girls were talking, and all the boys were at the pool and by

the barbecue.

We were talking about ballet, about college.

We were talking about family heritage.

She was a bubbly personality.

Just nice.

Bracken and I met Julie. She was a sweetheart.

Very outgoing, very bubbly. And she was a dancer, but she was starting to

be a fashion designer.

And Julie became a very good friend to Sam.

Julie Kibuichi is murdered. A gunshot to the head.

I remember seeing the TV stations showing that. All the stations have

Sam's picture.

I believe Sam would not do that to a woman.

But Sam was the primary suspect.

He was wanted for murder, and he was supposedly armed and dangerous.

We were aired.

Like, could Sam really be involved with the murder?

What happened?

I had always wanted to think the best of people, always give people the benefit

of the doubt.

But now, all the fun times that we had together have been taken away.

It's always in the back of my mind.

This is my first video interview about it. I have been asked multiple

times before to do an interview about it, and I haven't felt ready,

I guess.

I don't know. I guess I thought I could make it through this without crying.

You think 15 years has been long enough?

I would spend all my free time with Dan and Rachel at least three days a week.

They were planning on getting married, and I really liked them together.

They're like, this is so cute.

We all had a good time together.

I was in a show with Dan and Rachel in 2009.

It was a...

Gilbert and Sullivan musical, where we're just singing, We're called

Gondolieri, but that's the contrary.

But outside of the show, a group of us would go out, have a couple of drinks,

and sing karaoke.

So that's where I would say the friendship was more so forged.

When we go to karaoke.

I was always too nervous to get up and sing.

Yeah, we just had fun hanging out.

Life was really good.

And I remember around this time, me and one of our friends were going to be

bridesmaids.

We were planning the bachelorette, and they were working on the production

nine.

It was the closing weekend of the show, and Dan and Rachel were performing at

our theater all weekend and doing really well.

The show itself got great response. It seemed to sell out the entire run.

In fact, there had been talk about a possible extension of another week, but

they weren't able to do that because that was the weekend that Daniel and

Rachel were planning to be married.

We were told it's one of the best shows that the theater had had in a long time,

so I was thrilled, you know.

We had our cast party Saturday night.

Rachel was there, and I talked to Rachel, but I didn't see Dan.

And at one point, I overheard Rachel on the phone with him.

And she said, you can use my shower.

She was really, really, really late.

And I remember thinking, that's weird. It's the cast party and he's the star.

Like, why isn't he here?

Once they found Julie's body, on May 22nd, there was a large police

presence at the department.

Dan was Sam's neighbor. They were directly above each other.

Sam never mentioned anything about a wedding.

But there was a wedding invitation that the police found on the counter of Sam's

apartment.

Dan and Rachel were still set to get married and go on their honeymoon.

The wedding was scheduled for about a week after the show closed.

I was speaking to a lot of Sam's friends in that group.

And Dan, he was filling me in on information he was with Sam the day

before on that Friday.

Then he dropped him off with this guy.

And they took off. I said, how was Sam? He said, Sam was kind of nervous and

upset.

I said, well, what was he upset about?

And he says, well, he was having family problems.

I knew immediately he was lying right off the bat. When he said Sam had family

problems, there were none.

I've covered a lot of murders, and it just seemed like a run-of-the-mill

killing, and the killer was on the run.

There was a body in Sam's apartment.

Julie, his friend, his close friend, that the police discovered, had been

getting messages from Sam asking her to come over that night.

Steve was out there trying to convince the cops that there's no way his son

would have done that.

But he was the most obvious suspect.

Monday, Raquel and I were on Sam's bank account, and I saw that there was a

withdrawal.

Sam was missing.

So I had called the police. I gave them his account number.

They started tracking his debit card purchases, and they see this pizza being

bought, and it's delivered to a house, and they, of course, thank Sam.

hiding out there.

It was a really heavy SWAT operation and the police showed up there in force.

But when they burst through the door, they realized there was something else

going on here.

A college student is murdered.

The lead suspect is missing.

When his credit card is used for a pizza delivery, police race to the address

expecting a killer.

Instead, they find a plot twist no one saw coming.

So the police showed up. thinking they were going to arrest Sam.

But they burst through the door, and there's this 17-year-old kid, Wesley.

My mom got me into acting when I was very young.

She was a theater teacher.

I did a lot of plays. And then in high school, a friend from the acting

community that I trusted...

Called me and reached out again.

Hey, how you doing? How's your mom?

And he said, I work for a bail bondsman company and we're looking to hire

someone that can do us some work. And I was thinking about you.

He had me look through the paperwork and I was like, all right, cool. This seems

all legit.

He handed me the debit card and he said to just withdraw as much as I can every

day.

That was it. You'll get a stipend every time you withdraw, and he will collect

it.

Almost a week period passed, and then I took the card and ordered pizza to my

mom's house, and we kept hearing like a helicopter.

No idea what was going on.

Yeah, and then my mom came to the door, and then they raided the house.

I don't know of a feeling to describe when they tell you to not move and

freeze and to get on the ground.

What the hell just happened?

And then they asked me who gave me the card.

They showed me a picture of Sam.

This guy gave me the card. I said, no. A family friend gave me the card. Who?

And that's when I said.

Daniel Wozniak.

Dan's bachelor party was Wednesday, May 26th. He was supposed to get married a

few days after.

The police had called him ahead of time and were saying, hey, you need to come

down to the station. And he completely brushed him off and said, oh, I can't

right now because I'm going to my bachelor party.

Dan was acting completely normal.

Everything was normal.

And then the police showed up.

If you're having a bachelor or bachelorette party, usually when the

police show up, it's usually more of a gag like, ladies, I hear there's been

a lot of disturbance. We're going to have to take you downtown.

This is not a gag.

This is a real thing.

Like, hey, we need you and we got to bring everyone to the police station

right now to ask some questions, see who's connected to this.

My friend messaged me and she said, did you hear Dan was arrested?

I was just shocked.

And then I was like, okay, wow, what the f*** happened?

I'm like, I know all of these men.

Are any of these men capable of that?

When they questioned me, I had no idea what was going on,

like pure and simple.

Murder was not even on my mind until later down the road when they told me

that.

I literally just turned 17. And in the acting community, Dan was a very

prominent figure.

But at that point, I was like, oh, shh.

What did Dan get me into?

We think Wesley and Daniel are then part of the plan to funnel money to Sam while

he's on the run.

Dan Wozniak says he was with Sam.

the day of Julie's murder.

But he said he had no knowledge what happened to Sam after that.

We were in a show that night, a nine musical down in Bullerton. We went down,

drove to the theater, and everything was fine.

That weekend I was house managing, so basically I was running the box office.

Seeing him that night, he was completely calm, joked around a lot, you know,

very affable.

Going to C9, I was, you know, just amazed by him.

And then after the show, I just remember seeing him and then his big smile.

Did you see Julie there in the apartment?

No, I did not. No, I did not.

Were you there when she was shot?

No, I was not. Are you sure about that? I don't even know when she was shot.

At first, he said he didn't know anything about what happened.

But Dan Wozniak had given...

Sam's debit card to Wesley and asked him to start withdrawing money.

They're not buying it.

It was a lot of time in an interrogation room.

I felt that I'm not proud of it.

That whole interview just take a really gruesome, dark turn.

I have nothing to do with this because my life was in danger with my wife. How

was your life in danger?

He threatened it.

Where to begin?

Okay, first, music.

When you're in this tight-knit community of a show, I think the last thing that

would ever be on anyone's mind is the idea that one of your close friends,

castmates, has the potential to be involved in a murder.

I remember that night because I came to actually see the production of Nine to

support Dan and Rachel, and it was...

It was that night. Yeah, I believe it was Friday night when that happened to

Julie. Yeah.

It just leaves me speechless when I heard Dan's been arrested. I was just

floored.

I got a text message from my girlfriend who said, did you hear about Dan

Wozniak? And it was a moment of, what?

What are you talking about?

There's nothing you can do to prepare for a moment like that.

People's dreams.

Jesus.

It makes me angry.

He played us all, and that's not something you forget.

Dan's fiance, Rachel, was the choreographer in Beauty and the Beast.

And when I found out that Dan had been arrested, one of my first thoughts was,

is Rachel okay?

I felt bad for her. Like, oh my gosh, like all this shit is happening. You

found out your fiance might even be involved with this horrible thing.

And I've seen the fire behind his eyes, you know, when he gets angry.

But murder is so horrible, awful.

Yes, I helped Sam get away. Yes, I did not know what he was planning until

then. Yes, I lied to you guys earlier.

Yes, I have to. Without that, I'm not proud of him.

He thinks he's giving the police this big reveal, but they send him back to

his cell. He's sitting there, and there's a phone call that happens with

Rachel.

After that, he goes back in hours later.

Everything about Dan's tone changes.

You said you wanted to talk to me. What's going on?

I'm crazy, and I did it. You did what?

I killed Julie, and I killed him.

What he's telling them is he wasn't helping Sam. He had killed Sam.

Tell me how you killed Sam.

Two shots.

Using my father's gun that I had.

The motive behind killing Sam was?

Money and insanity. Money and insanity.

Okay.

Dan said he needed money. He was broke. His wedding was coming up.

His honeymoon was coming up, and Sam and Dan were close enough that Dan knew Sam

had $60,000 he'd saved up from his Army service.

Sam saved all his money from Afghanistan. He would send it home, and

it would all be put into that bank account.

After killing Sam, Dan left his body there and then went to another theater

to perform.

Then the cover-up started.

When Sam was already dead, Julie texted Sam and said, hey, what are you doing?

And Dan, as Sam was texting, I'm with Dan.

After that, Dan reaches out to Julie as Sam and says, I need you.

I need to talk to somebody.

I need somebody. Come alone.

And I was following everything that came out on the news about it. He's a

community theater actor.

Prosecutors say cast himself in the role of double murderer.

Authorities uncover the body of Samuel Hare in a Long Beach park.

I remember pulling up articles and I remember already at that point they said

he was arrested for a double homicide that he did while he was doing the

production of Nine at our theater.

unthinkable and then go on and perform right after that like nothing has

happened it's just i mean you can't make it up like you would never in a million

years think any human being would do that and then knowing that

detectives were coming to our company to interview people it was just horrendous

and I felt so terrible for the families of both people involved.

It was a shock. It really was.

Because Dan was a friend, you know. I was 17 years old, and I was completely

blindsided with the fact that a close person could mislead you, and so

how do you proceed after that?

Do you not trust anybody else, or do you play the what-if game?

Could he have been capable of killing me?

If I wasn't in the picture, could he have maybe have gotten away with it?

What if there was somebody else?

We were kids and we all felt safe with him.

And so I was scared for Rachel.

Where was she in this whirlwind of what was going on?

Is she okay?

I found out that she canceled the wedding. And so I feel bad for her

automatically. And I called her.

And I said, how are you? And she's like, well, what do you want?

And I was like, I'm just calling because I'm concerned.

She's like, you don't care about me. You just want your 15 minutes of fame.

She was so obsessed with becoming famous and being a famous actress on stage.

I know where her brain is. She was engaged to a horrible person. Oh, woe is

her, right? Like she wanted, I think she really wanted to come out a victim of

this.

I said, bye, Rachel.

And I hung up on her.

And I remember going to my other friend's house and she's like, that

bitch did it. She was involved.

And I was like, really? She's like, yes.

Think about Rachel.

A month before all of this shit went down, we were talking about the

bachelorette party and what we wanted to do.

And Rachel mentioned,

to see.

It's so fun. You should try it. And I said, absolutely not. I don't do that.

And she's like, well, if I slipped it in your drink, you wouldn't know about it.

I said, what?

And the thing about Rachel, she's serious.

Like she would actually do it.

And I knew that.

I was like, I'm going to go on this bachelorette party, and I'm going to

hide my drink the entire time, and the time I go to the bathroom, she's going

to slip some.

And so after that, I was very uncomfortable.

And I started panicking, like, I have to get out of this. I have to get away from

these people.

Rachel texted me asking me to still be her bridesmaid.

Asking me to come over and hang out.

And I look at what happened to Julie and I think that it could have been me.

Yeah, about to see how she could be involved.

Friends are shocked after Dan confesses to a double murder.

But as they replay scenes from the past, it's Rachel's behavior

they can't ignore.

Is she innocent?

Or is she playing them all?

I haven't been in a play for 15 years and it was that play.

Among the cast, after

this all came out, we all got together.

Because I think at the time, we all were feeling guilty.

Like, what did we miss? You know, we were asking, did you hear anything?

What did you hear?

We were just kind of trying to make sense of this.

And the case of Rachel, you just see their relationship, and hindsight is

golden.

Because things that I recall...

were pretty important when I found out the timeline of everything.

One of the last performances was Saturday, and it was before anybody knew

that anybody was missing or anything like that.

We had a matinee. You know, I just remember Rachel standing in front of the

mirror and she was putting her makeup on and she said, I'm really worried about

my friend.

I think that someone else we know might have hurt her.

And, you know, we're all excited and getting ready. These are the last shows

we're doing. And I was like, why are you saying that? Like, why would you think

that? And she goes, I just have this feeling.

It really stood out as bizarre.

Now I know that she was talking about Julie.

I had heard about that. I heard that she had said to the dressing room. She did.

I think the whole dressing room stopped. It was just really blatantly.

weird and out of place.

And then again, at the cast party, she, Dan wasn't there. And I heard her on the

phone with him saying, yeah, you can use my shower, get cleaned up and come over.

Yeah, use my shower, get the blood stains off.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I even called the detective after Dan had been

arrested and said, I don't know who you've talked to in the cast yet, but I

would make sure that you're also looking at Rachel.

Rachel and Dan were very much a team.

Everybody knew that. There's not a doubt in my mind that when this went down,

Rachel didn't have some knowledge of it at the very least.

One of the reasons Rachel became such a character in this is while Daniel was

locked up awaiting trial, Rachel was out there talking to people. She was on Dr.

Phil.

Did you know that he had Any involvement in these murders at all? After his

confession to the police.

So it was over the telephone.

Her side of the story was, I'm the victim here. I didn't realize my fiance

had killed two people.

But Rachel ultimately was charged with being an accessory to murder.

I thought I knew what she was capable of, but I don't know what she's capable

of anymore.

How can you trust somebody like that?

It still hurt

because I did care about him.

I cared about them both.

Dan was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, and because he did

it for money, that made him eligible for the death penalty.

Sitting on the stand and then seeing him after so many years and him smiling and

looking you in the face and just shaking his head, it gave me chills.

Dan's attorneys tried to convince the jury that he shouldn't get the death

penalty. And one of the ways they decided to do that was to cast blame on

Rachel.

On that part, we agreed.

Said, yeah, she was part of it. But this was Dan Wozniak's trial. He's the one

who did it.

And it was less than an hour. They came back with a death sentence.

Then we had to go to Rachel's trial.

I do remember being asked to be like...

a character witness for her. And I was like, no.

How can I be a character witness for somebody whose character I don't trust?

I look back and I'm like, what was the lie? What was the truth? What were you

deceiving me about? It mentally f***ed you up.

That's a trial. The prosecutor had 19 counts where she lied to the police.

19 times. And he said, all I'm asking is you find her guilty for one.

And they did.

Rachel ultimately was sentenced to 32 months in prison.

And at this point, she has served her time and been released.

15 years later.

I don't forget.

And I always mention Julie every time I mention Sam.

Because they gave their lives for believing that

they were helping somebody. That's a wonderful legacy.

This is something that actually happened in the midst of our community, in our

company, in our safe space.

And The Hunger Artist is no longer a company.

It makes me so sad.

And I can't look back at those times that I

had fun with them without thinking about what they did.

To see what they did.

You know?