NEWS

Murder suspect: I don't want to think anymore

Keith BieryGolick
kbierygolick@enquirer.com
Daniel French looks down during a recess in a Tuesday hearing about whether taped interviews with police should be allowed as evidence.

HAMILTON About a year before he was arrested for the brutal murder of an 87-year-old woman, Daniel French told detectives he wanted a lobotomy because he "didn't want to think anymore."

The 56-year-old Kentucky man said in a video interview presented Tuesday in Butler County Common Pleas Court that he hated relying on other people and grew tired of hurting.

"I don't care if you arrest me right now," French told Monroe police Detective Gregg Myers in the video. "I've thought about going to rob a bank so you'd put me in jail."

French faces the death penalty if convicted in the killing of Monroe resident Barbara Howe.

Judge Charles Pater heard a motion Tuesday from French's defense counsel to throw out evidence, including video interviews with detectives, for his murder trial later this year.

One of the interviews, presented in court Monday, included a graphic confession.

Attorney Lawrence Hawkins III argued the evidence should not be permitted because French was not able to waive his right to an attorney and had indicated he was suicidal.

French told Myers in the video he wanted to kill himself, but a psychiatrist told him that could lead his son to do the same thing.

Butler County Common Pleas Court Judge Charles Pater

Pater ruled Tuesday three of the interviews could stand as evidence because all of them were conducted voluntarily. The judge did not make a decision on the interview in which French confessed. Oral arguments are scheduled to continue on that piece of evidence July 8.

Prosecutors say French shot Howe with a stun gun in the Mount Pleasant Retirement Village before choking her and slitting her throat in 2012. Her body was found in the back of her car in a Middletown apartment complex.

French worked at the retirement community from 2003 until 2011, according to Enquirer archives.

He is charged with aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.

An almost hourlong video interview Myers conducted was played in court Tuesday, but French didn't appear to watch it. Seated between his two lawyers, he looked down and showed no outward signs of emotion as it played.

In the video, Myers spoke to French at a hotel in Mount Vernon, Kentucky. French wore a gray T-shirt and sat with his arms crossed during most of the exchange in September 2013. His gray beard was long and disheveled.

This was almost a year after prosecutors say he killed Howe.

Daniel French talks to Monroe police Detective Gregg Myers in a 2013 video interview, about a year before French was arrested for murder.

French spoke in a low voice, rarely expounding on his answers.

"I'm a fact-finder, I'm not the judge and I'm not the jury. I present what I find, whether it is good or bad for somebody," Myers told French in the interview. "A lot of facts keep bring me here and pointing to you."

French interrupted Myers multiple times during the interview to tell him he didn't kill Howe. He often bristled and withdrew from Myers when he asked direct questions about Howe's death.

Detectives first interviewed him in January and March 2013. In September, Myers asked him what he thought about their previous interviews.

"I don't dwell on things. I listen to the radio and I kinda go to fantasy land," French said.

This line of questioning got French to open up about characters he creates in his head to forget about life. Myers testified it was French's "way of taking up time."

French was arrested in December. His jury trial is scheduled for October.