“Psychopath” Actor Kills and Frames Neighbor for Murder: "A Level of Inhumanity"

A worried father let himself into his son’s Costa Mesa, California apartment on May 21, 2010, after his son didn't show up for a visit — never expecting the horror that he would discover.

"Then I went into the bedroom. I saw a woman,” said Steve Herr, Sam Herr’s father, on A Plan To Kill, airing Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen. “When I touched her, she was cold. I could see she was dead. So, obviously, I was stunned. What happened? Initially, you say, ‘What did he do?’ I’m thinking, ‘Sam wouldn’t do that.’”

23-year-old Julie Kibuishi was laying against 26-year-old Sam Herr’s bed. Herr was not at his apartment. His passport, ID, wallet and vehicle were all missing. Kibuishi's pants had been pulled down and cut with scissors.

“Written on the back of her sweatshirt was, ‘F you, she’s all yours.’ So, that looks like a sexual assault,” said Matt Murphy, former Sr. Deputy District Attorney with the Orange County Homicide Unit, on A Plan to Kill.

Police assumed Herr was responsible for Kibuishi’s death and had fled.

An autopsy showed Kibuishi had been shot twice in the head, but not sexually assaulted. Even more surprising, the evidence showed her pants remained on for several hours after she was murdered.

“It means that somebody had come back after she had been dead for several hours. Staged the scene and cut her jeans off,” Murphy said. “And this soon morphed into something far more diabolical.”

The day before her body was discovered, Sam Herr and Julie Kibuishi had been texting, and he’d asked her to come over to his apartment. But Herr’s family, and friends of the pair, said they were just friends.

“Steve Herr was insistent that they weren’t dating each other, that this was his tutor, this was a friend,” Murphy said.

Herr was a U.S. Army veteran and had been stationed in Afghanistan for 15 months. When he left the military in July 2009, he started college, and often turned to Kibuishi for extra help with classes.

Police interviewed Herr’s neighbors in the building, including Daniel Wozniak and his fiancée, Rachel Buffett. The couple were friends with Herr and Kibuishi. Wozniak told police he last saw Herr on Friday, May 21 at 2:30 p.m., when he got into a car with another man.

As officers were looking for the missing Sam Herr, charges were made to his ATM card in Long Beach, California. On Saturday, May 22, the same day Kibuishi’s body was found, $400 was withdrawn from Herr’s account. The following day, another $500 was taken out. There was also a charge of pizza.

“At at least two ATMs it appeared to be the same young man. And it was not Samuel Herr,” Murphy said.

Police tracked the address of the pizza purchase to a home in Long Beach, and found a 16-year-old, who claimed he received the card from his friend, Daniel Wozniak. On May 26, officers questioned Wozniak again.

This time, Wozniak changed his story, and said he last saw Herr on Saturday morning, when Herr admitted to him that he killed Kibuishi. Wozniak claimed he helped set up the money withdrawals in order to help Herr escape. In return, Herr gave him $2000 for his wedding and honeymoon. Not believing he was telling the truth, officers used a ruse on Wozniak, and claimed they found his DNA on Kibuishi. Wozniak explained that Herr had asked him to come to his apartment, and he saw Kibuishi’s body, and saw she had two gunshots to her head.

“That was a very significant moment in the investigation, because every single person that had been to the crime scene knew there was no way you could tell how many holes were in her head,” Murphy said. “It was impossible.”

Eventually, Daniel Wozniak admitted the truth.

“I’m crazy and I did it … I killed Julie, and I killed Sam,” Wozniak told police in a recorded interview. “Sam came first. It was all just about the money.”

Wozniak admitted he’d plotted the murders for months, after learning Herr had $62,000 in the bank.

“Daniel Wozniak was in pretty dire financial straits,” Murphy said. “He had been served with an eviction notice. He wasn’t working. It did not appear that his fiancée, Rachel Buffett, had been working. They were struggling financially. So, he hatched this plot to get at Sam Herr’s combat pay.”

Wozniak told police he lured Herr to a theater at a nearby military base, and shot him, before dismembering his body.

“Sam is decapitated in the theater,” he told officers in an interview. “If you go up the ladder from the theater, his head and hands have been decapitated.”

He told police he put some of the body parts in the Nature Center in Eldorado Park, but Herr’s torso was still in the theater.

“For him to be able to pull this much violence off, there’s a level of desensitization. A level of inhumanity that really just screams serial killer,” said Dr. Michelle Ward, a forensic psychologist, on A Plan to Kill.

Wozniak claimed he then lured Julie Kibuishi over to Herr’s apartment using Herr’s phone, and killed her “to make it look like [Herr] was on the run and he did it.”

A backpack located at Wozniak’s parents’ home contained evidence such as Herr’s bloody clothes, wallet and ID. Wozniak’s computer also showed the extent of his murder plot.

“You can literally read his mind from Google,” Murphy said. “So it’d literally be from like, ‘How do I accomplish this killing?’ to ‘bitchin’ honeymoon ideas.’ So, it’s just—  it’s sick.”

On Dec. 15, 2016, a jury found Daniel Wozniak guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to the death penalty.

“He’s very clearly a psychopath,” Ward said. “Part of his personality disorder is you don’t experience the normal emotions that make us human. Like guilt, shame, remorse. This monster not only set out to kill an innocent person for his personal gain, he had no problem creating a plan that required a second murder. Because he doesn’t care.”