Episode 58 | The Pepperell Prequel: The True Story of The Bowen Family Nightmare, Pepperell, Massachusetts
- Anngelle Wood
- Feb 7, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
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.
The Bowen family's true nightmare is the stuff you'd find in screenplay. Their story has been retold as urban legend. There is so much more to what came before Daniel LaPlante became a killer.
Explore the chilling origins of Daniel LaPlante - before the Gustafson murders. From haunting the Bowen family by secretly living in their walls to escalating crimes of break‑ins, stalking, and violence, this episode reveals the disturbing childhood that shaped one of Massachusetts’ most infamous true crime cases.
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.
What do we really know about Daniel LaPlante's childhood?* 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.
*Listen to episode 59, where we break down the untruths surrounding this case.
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.
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
Author Joe Turner
Celtics Sentinel - The Elm Street Nightmare by Lt. Thomas Lane (Retire Pepperell PD)
