A deranged menace admitted on camera to murdering a three-year-old girl after leading police to her body dumped in woodland.
Daniel Callihan, 36, bluntly confessed to the crime when he was taken to jail in Jackson, Mississippi, on Friday and blamed his depression medications.
The body of Erin Brunett, 3, was found dead behind a house in a wooded area and that of her sister Jalie, 6, inside a nearby car.
Erin and Jalie were located after a two-day search and their mother Callie Brunett, 35, Callihan’s ex-girlfriend, was found murdered and sexually assaulted in their home 130 miles away in Louisiana.
‘I’m taking Lexapro. Sober. There are no drugs in my system. I did it,” Callihan said as police escorted him from the courthouse to a prison van.
Erin, 3, (right) was found dead and her sister Jalie, 6, (left) alive in a nearby car on Friday after the confessed killer led police to the wooded area where he dropped them off.
Daniel Callihan, 36, bluntly confessed to the crime when he was taken to jail in Jackson, Mississippi, on Friday and blamed his depression medications.
‘I have no reason for what I did. All I know is that I mean he was sober and was only taking Lexapro…I think it was the side effects of the Lexapro.’
He said he told police everything he did and was not going to fight the charges, promising a quick trial.
Callihan said he was diagnosed with borderline and multiple personality disorders, but that didn’t mean he deserved leniency.
‘He would kill me… For what I did? “Lethal injection is the easiest for me,” she stated.
‘I don’t pretend to be crazy. I am certified. I’ve only been out of the asylum for two weeks.
Although he admitted to killing Erin, he did not answer a question about whether he also killed his mother.
Neighbors said Callihan was a menace who terrorized their children and set fire to a shed he was supposed to be guarding for a friend.
Darci Heck, who lived across the street from the mobile home in Amite, Louisiana, where the confessed killer was staying, said it was in bad shape.
‘The owner came out and cleaned it. He had an old bicycle parked out front. He always parked and rode that bike back and forth. He also lived under the bridge,” he said. WDSU.
Sheriff Daniel Edwards said Callihan was not a “complete stranger” to the family and had dated Brunett, as seen here.
‘I’m taking Lexapro. Sober. There are no drugs in my system. I did it,” Callihan said as police escorted him from the courthouse to a prison van.
Her daughter Laci Beetz, 12, was glad Callihan was in jail, as she feared she was the one who killed her.
‘It hurt me a lot to think that he lived right there. It could have been us. It could have been anyone,’ he said.
Surveillance footage showed Callihan breaking into a neighbor’s property naked and wielding a crossbow he stole from another home.
Heck said the shed fire was the culmination of a months-long campaign of terror throughout the neighborhood.
‘He (the friend) needed me to open the window and feed his cat. “Daniel opened the window, started a fire, stole some weapons and left,” he said.
Police did not confirm whether Callihan was a suspect in the arson.
Callihan’s girlfriend, Victoria Cox, 32, was also arrested Friday at a motel in south Jackson and is suspected of being an accessory to the gruesome crimes.
Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade said investigators received a tip that Callihan may not have acted alone before locating Cox.
“We are still trying to determine her exact role. “She will be held accountable for her actions and her role in this horrible event that occurred from Tangipahoa to South Jackson,” he said.
She may face capital murder charges along with him, or may be an accessory before and after the fact. “We have to do justice for the loss of this child.”
Callihan (bottom) holds a crossbow while hiding naked on a neighbor’s property.
Callihan creepily walks through a neighbor’s yard with something in his hand
Callihan was taken into custody by deputies with the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office in Jackson on Thursday..
Footage taken by officers shows the disheveled Callihan being held down by two law enforcement officers while being taken into custody.
Brunett was found dead on the bedroom floor of her mobile home in Loranger, Louisiana, on Thursday morning, without her two daughters.
Jalie and Erin were already reported missing by their father on Wednesday and were only found after Callihan led police to them.
Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade said the house in the woods where they were found appeared to be connected to human trafficking.
‘We see cages, cages for small animals. “It’s very, very disturbing for me as a police chief and as a father to witness and see what I saw,” he said.
‘He tried to kill the children by taking them to this wooded area. This was a horrible, terribly tragic situation, committed by the actions of a coward.
‘Let’s work this crime scene with a scalpel. “It’s going to take a long time to process.”
Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office Chief Jimmy Travis called the scene at Brunett’s mobile home an “obvious homicide” with “blood everywhere.”
Brunett was missing for more than 24 hours before detectives found her body.
Footage taken by officers shows the disheveled Callihan being held down by two law enforcement officers while being taken into custody.
Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office Chief Jimmy Travis called the scene at Brunett’s mobile home, seen here with her daughters, an “obvious homicide” with “blood everywhere.”
The chief later said the children could be on the other side of the country, but police would use every resource to bring them home.
Travis said Jalie would be interviewed as soon as possible as a key witness in the investigation, and that human trafficking experts had been called in.
“She has been through something that most of us will hopefully never get to experience. And she will have to spend the rest of her life living with this,” she stated.
Sheriff Daniel Edwards said Callihan was not a “complete stranger” to the family and had dated Brunett.
Callihan is accused of committing “brutal and heinous acts of violence,” including the murders of Brunett and her youngest daughter.
“Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this tragic event,” Edwards said.
‘These are heinous crimes. “We ask everyone to keep Callie’s family in your prayers.”