TANGIPAHOA PARISH, La. — Before last week, Virginia Firmin had never heard the name Daniel Callihan.
“I had no idea who he was,” said Firmin.
That was before she got information from a former detective who had worked on her daughter’s homicide case back in April of 1990. Now, she’s reliving a nightmare.
“The man who kidnapped those two children is the son of Kelly Wayne Drott, the person who killed Rebecca,” said Firmin.
Rebecca Forbes was 19 when she went to the Italian Festival in Independence. That’s where Firmin says her youngest of three daughters met Kelly Wayne Drott and got into his car. He was later convicted of killing her, claiming it was an accident.
“He said he pushed her, and she hit her head, and that he put her in the trunk of the car and threw her off of the bridge,” said Firmin.
Forbes’ body was found three weeks later in the Tangipahoa Parish River.
Drott was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison but escaped from a New Orleans facility. While on the run he shot the woman who helped him escape and kidnapped a teenage girl. Both survived. Drott eventually shot and killed himself.
Thirty-four years later, Drott’s son Daniel Callihan, 36, is accused of killing Callie Brunett, 35, inside her Loranger home and kidnapping her two young daughters. The girls were found in Jackson, Mississippi. The youngest, Erin Brunett, 3, was dead.
“Daniel is Kelly’s son; that’s all there is to it,” said Callihan’s half-sister, Dixie Hemphill. “He always wanted to be like his daddy but mainly it was because his momma putting it in his head.”
Hemphill does not support Callihan and believes he belongs in prison. The half-siblings don’t share the same father and Hemphill says their mother was abusive. Hemphill remembers when Callihan was forced to take ADHD medication as a kid.
“My momma would shove it down his throat and he would cry. He never wanted that medicine,” said Hemphill. “She would punch him in the head and tell him that he was going to be a killer just like his daddy.”
Callihan was a child when his father committed those crimes. Firmin had no idea her daughter’s killer even had a son. She’s holding on to memories of Rebecca that make her smile.
“She just loved everybody. She was just a real affectionate, trusting person with a very wonderful personality,” said Firmin.
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