By LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / January 20, 1999

GONZALES – Daniel Blank, charged in three parishes with a series of six murders, will face the first of his trials in Houma, beginning March 2.

Blank’s attorney, Glenn Cortello of Alexandria, commented, “It is a massive case – it’s overwhelming.”His trial in Ascension Parish was moved to Houma in Terrebonne Parish by 23rd Judicial District Judge John Peytavin of Gonzales, to escape the possible taint of pre-trial publicity in seating an unbiased jury.

“I think it was a right and fair thing to do,” Cortello commented of Peytavin’s decision, which came down Jan. 15.Blank is charged in Ascension Parish with the murders of Victor Rossi of St. Amant on Oct. 27, 1996, and Lillian Phillipe of Gonzales on April 9,1997.

Blank is also charged in St. John the Baptist Parish with the murders ofSam and Louella Arcuri and Joan Brock in May 1997. In that case, hismotion for change of venue was granted last November with the stipulation that the trial will take place in Edgard before 40th Judicial District Judge J. Sterling Snowdy, but with a jury selected in anotherparish.

Once the jury is selected for the St. John Parish trial, now scheduled forApril 12 through May 2, that jury will be brought to St. John Parish andsequestered.

Meanwhile, Blank still proclaims his innocence of any murder.

“He’s saying he’s not guilty, that he didn’t do it,” Cortello reported.

This assertion comes despite a 13-hour, videotaped confession Blank made to St. John Parish detectives following his arrest. Cortello has filed amotion to keep that confession out of the trial and away from the jury, contending it was forced out of him.

A hearing on that motion is due to be heard before Peytavin on Jan. 28.”I have no doubt in my mind that his confession was coerced,” Cortello said. He insisted the length of the interrogation itself wore down Blank’smind to the point where he would agree to anything to end it.

Should the confession be ruled inadmissable, Cortello said, investigators have little remaining of their case against his client. “They’ve nevergotten the results of any physical evidence,” he said.

Cortello also said he doubts the St. John trial will go off as scheduled. Heguessed jury selection alone will take six weeks and added, “I’d love to have about eight more months to prepare for this.” Cortello also said he is hoping to interview Blank’s girlfriend, Cindy Bellard, and a childhood friend, Eddie Yaeger, before the trials begin.

“I would love to talk to her,” Cortello said of Bellard, “but she’s apparently in hiding.”The sixth murder case is that in St. James Parish of Barbara Bourgeois ofPaulina, who died on March 19, 1997. No trial date or venue has beendetermined for that case yet, Cortello said.

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