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Background: Daniel Callihan (WWLTV/YouTube). Inset top: Erin Brunett (Amber Alert). Inset bottom: Callie Brunett (Facebook).
A Louisiana man, aged 38, has been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the brutal murder of a 35-year-old mother in her mobile home and the subsequent kidnapping of her two young daughters, one of whom he also killed.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lance Africk handed down the life sentence to Daniel Callihan, following his conviction for the murders of Callie Brunett and her 4-year-old daughter, Erin Brunett. Court records indicate that Callihan pleaded guilty in August to charges of kidnapping resulting in death and transporting a minor across state lines with the intent to commit a sexual crime.
Victoria Cox, Callihan’s girlfriend and alleged accomplice in these heinous acts, has been indicted on a capital murder charge in Mississippi. She potentially faces the death penalty if convicted.
The chilling case unraveled in June 2024 when Callie Brunett was discovered dead in her locked mobile home in Loranger, located roughly an hour north of New Orleans. Her body was found a day after she was reported missing, bearing more than 50 stab wounds across her head, neck, chest, abdomen, and back. Her two daughters, aged 4 and 6, were missing from the scene.
According to prosecutors, on the night of June 12, 2024, Callihan brutally murdered Brunett and abducted both of her daughters using Brunett’s vehicle. He then picked up Cox before crossing state lines, taking the victims to a residence on Boozier Drive in Jackson, Mississippi. Authorities revealed that Callihan and Brunett had been in a previous relationship.
Prosecutors said Callihan and Cox “engaged in sexual battery” with Brunett’s 6-year-old daughter. Callihan then “purposely suffocated [Erin] to death by holding [her] closely against his chest,” prosecutors said in a news release. Following his arrest, Callihan confessed to murdering Brunett and Erin as well as sexually battering Erin’s sister.
Authorities discovered Erin’s body in a wooded area near the Mississippi home on July 13, 2024. Her sister was found alive nearby and transported to the hospital for treatment.
The crime scene where the children were found was possibly linked to human trafficking, the Louisiana-based Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office and Mississippi-based Jackson Police Department said at the time.
“We see cages, small animal cages,” Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade said. “This is very, very disturbing to me as a police chief and as a father to witness and see what I saw.”
After his arrest in Mississippi, Callihan confessed to reporters with cameras rolling as he was being escorted in handcuffs and a yellow jail jumpsuit. He gave no reason for the bloodshed and asked to die by lethal injection.
“Unfortunately, on Lexapro, sober, no drugs in my system, I did,” he said to reporters when asked about the girl’s killing. “I have no reason for what I did. All I want to say is that I was sober and only on Lexapro — and off Lexapro — and I’m also diagnosed with borderline multiple personality disorder.”
“For what I did, lethal injection is the easiest thing for me,” he added as he sat in the back of a police vehicle.