Daniel at a very young age of three, recalls the day he was suppossed to be given by his mother to another family with his two younger brothers Gary and Ricky. Something told him, as he was about to be led to a car, that if he went, he would never see his mother again. It frightened him so badly and he made such a fuss, crying and clinging to his mother’s leg that she relented and allowed him to stay while his siblings moved on. It would be years before he'd see them again. For the next nearly five decades he always assumed his two brothers had grown up living a rather idealic life growing up on a nearby farm with loving parents. It would turn out, he’d learn as a 52-year old, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Daniel’s natural father Robert avoided as much as possible paying any kind of child support to his ex-wife Joann. Every time the authorities would track him down to force payments, Robert would move and the process would start all over again. Daniel believes there was just one occasion when his mother received any kind of support payment from his father. It was in the amount of $30. Robert denied even to his own family he was Daniel’s father. However, as his son became an adult it bacame obvious the striking physical similarities between father and son.

When Daniel was growing up as a little boy and living with his mother he was obsessed with finding his father and he’d stand in the area, anywhere people would pass-by, and ask any bald-headed man he saw, “Are you Sonny Gisewhite?”

As a young boy Daniel recalls visiting his maternal grandfather Leroy Hull with his mother. When they arrived at the house, on a cold winter day, his grandfather told Daniel’s mother “I don’t want that bastard kid in my house.” Joann, who wanted desperately the acceptance of her father, would leave Daniel on his own to wait outside. Eventually she’d buy him a BB gun to occupy his time while while outside his grandfather’s house.

Later when her son was just nine years old Daniel’s mother was absent from their home for a total of ten days. Daniel, having no idea where his mother was, would spend his days walking miles to the various bars in the area she and other members of the family frequented as well as to the homes of his aunts and uncles in an effort to locate his mother. His aunts and uncles would tell him she wasn’t there and just send him off on his own, apparently unconcerned and oblivious to his safety or well-being. Eventually when his mother did finally return home she told Daniel she was in the hospital and her sister Louella was suppossed to have taken care of him during her absence. Daniel would later learn that the story wasn’t true.

Daniel, as a young boy and teenager, would often overhear his mother’s brothers and sisters talking badly about Joann in her absence, “behind her back.” He doesn’t know the reasons why, but speculated she may have been disrespected due to the number of children she’d had, most of them outside marriage, and pawned off on others to care for them. For years family members, including nrphews and neices referred to her with the nickname “Joke.” Later in life he never asked his mother for an explanation about these things, but the time came when he hated her for how he’d been treated.

When just 13-years old Daniel had a job working under CETA, the federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act that provided jobs in public service. For about six months, he paid the rent and the bills for he and his mother Joann.

Later as a teenager, after finally locating his father, he paid him an unexpected visit in Akron, Ohio having driven there with his foster mother Karen. When his father opened the door recognizing his son, the first words out of his dad's mouth were, “Well, I don’t have any money.” Daniel replied he wasn’t interested in his money and only wanted to meet him. When his father died, in 1998 Daniel, who was by then 35 years old, was encouraged by his aunt Joyce to go to the funeral. But, Daniel refused saying, he’d had no relationship with his father his entire life, and saw no reason to attend.

Daniel spent his young life in repeated trouble with the law and lived to party with his friends. Drugs were easily accessible and all his friends partook. From about the age of eight he "popped acid" (LSD), and smoked crank*. A lot of his drug use was with his first cousin Linda Wise and others in the family. The first time Daniel did acid was at about thirteen years old. He also snorted crack cocaine and was taking speed. He says he never used a needle with any of his drug abuses.

He drank beer to an excess, often getting drunk. He’d frequently wake up at home or out in the middle of nowhere with his car door opened, the stereo blasting and having no idea how he got there, remembering nothing about his exploits the night before.

When he was about fourteen years old Daniel was falsely accused of burglary and robbing a jewelry store. Despite having a lawyer, who did little to defend him, Daniel was “sent up” and spent over a year in a maximum security juvenile detention center in New Castle, PA. That and other experiences, including at a young age beatings at the hands of law enforcement, left a bitter taste in his mouth for both the local small-town police, as well as its justice system. He recalled one incident, when in detention, how he suddenly woke up in his bunk in the middle of the night to find a black kid holding a knife at his throat. All the kid said was, ”Could have had you white boy!”

For years Daniel was passed around, shuffling from one home to another with one family after another in the foster parenting program,. From time-to-time he'd live once again with his mother. He says he knows his life would have been a lot better if only he’d lived while growing up with just one family and, in the same house.

In 1979 at the age of fifteen Daniel became the foster son of Paul and Karen Bond near Mahaffey, PA. Daniel had been living with his cousin Linda using acid and speed but got to know the Bonds who lived a short distance away through their two children, Randy and Cindy. He enjoyed the family and appreciated the nice home the Bonds provided for their kids, where all their friends would hang out and have fun.

After talking it over with the younger Randy, one afternoon Daniel timidly asked Randy's mom Karen if she'd “like to have another kid.” After some explanation as to what exactly he meant, she talked the matter over with her husband Paul and the kids. Paul, a tender and thoughtful man, who’d had experiernced his own deprivations as a boy said, “let’s give the boy a chance.” The family decided to take Daniel in on a trial basis. The local authorities overseeing the foster program gave the Bonds a phone number and instructed them, if ever there was any problem whatsoever, to just call the number and they’d be over immediately to remove Daniel from the home.

The relationship, despite the many challenges that followed endured. For the first time in his life Daniel felt loved. He gave up the hard drugs but used marijuana and continued drinking although, he claims, he never really liked the taste of beer.
When he first came into the Bond home he said, “I knew I was a mean little pr$@k when they first took me in.” He’d go on to say, he didn't have a conscience. He would kill animals, groundhogs etc. at the drop of a dime. Now [2016] he says, he feels guilty if he doesn't feed the fish in his digital aquarium. Over the years the Bond family grew and eventually Daniel had a brother and sister in-law, neices and nephews and along the way became an intergral and accepted son, brother and uncle.


Daniel said he always tried to keep his word. When he told someone he'd do something or he’d be someplace, he always made an effort to keep his commitments despite the taunts to do otherwise from his friends when it was time to fulfill a promise. As a young teenager Daniel had a serious lack of confidence. When he'd play baseball he used to come to bat and people would laugh because his knees shook, he was so intimidated by being the center of attention. As an older teen, and now living with the Bonds he'd get over it and became among the best players on his team, leading in home runs and the only one to hit a grand slam. He became popular and other guys would come to Daniel asking him to teach them how to meet girls.

During his years growing up with the Bond family Daniel held numerous jobs and worked hard as a laborer. In the mid 1980’s he worked at a trap factory, and a marble factory. Later at a lumber yard, then in toxic waste clean up. Eventually, beginning in the late 80’s, he found his best paying jobs working both oil and service rigs on and off through the mid 1990’s. As a rig hand he’d spend entire work shifts lifting 90-pound nipples, tubular pipe fittings threaded on both ends and used for making connections between pipe joints and other tools. He’d later sand blast the inside of railroad cars and labored at a tannery. Still later in the late 90’s he’d work in asbestos removal, at an arms factory, and in construction and as a paver. He said, “Lift, carry, pull and dig. That describes every job I’ve ever had.” Drinking, his use of marijuana and a general dislike for authority cost Daniel a lot of jobs. He didn't like the way girls would have nothing to do with him when he was poor, but when he earned good money working the oil rigs things changed. He owned a nice truck and the same females who had once rejected him now wanted his attention. To say the least, that didn’t set well with him and, in his typical no-holds barred fashion, he’d tell them to “get lost. You didn’t want anything to do with me before, I don’t need you now.”

His foster mother Karen was a religious woman and for years prayed that Daniel’s drinking would make him sick enough that he’d quit. Finally it worked! For years his drinking never affected him, never even experienced a hangover. But with his mothers pleas he did in-fact start feeling bad following his drinking bouts and in 1992 Daniel found himself once again in trouble with the law. He’d received two Driving Under the Influence charges within a two week period. One involved an accident in which his car ended up on the front steps of a neighbor’s home and, when he woke behind the wheel, he had no idea how he got there. He decided he’d had enough, it was time to quit. Since then he has avoided drinking but continues his occasional use of “weed.” He’s often remarked how luckty he was that someone didn’t get killed while he was driving.

Karen spoke to Daniel when as a young man he voiced his hatred for his mother. She’d talk to him about the hardships his mother must have endured as a young girl and later as an adult. Karen told him he shouldn’t be too harsh in his judgment of his mother, that no one knows what challenges others may have faced, and the circumstances that made them the people they had become. Her counsel had a positive effect on Daniel and over time he learned to forgive his mother for the hardships she had passed on to him. Over the coming years as Daniel moved out on his own, and later when he returned to the Bond home in 2009 with his dying mother in-tow, the Bonds came to know his mother Joann. Karen had many heart-to-heart conversations with her and described her friend Joann as a sweet woman with a good heart. Daniel recalled how over the years his mother would often be found crying on the days of her children’s birthdays, sorely regreting they weren’t a part of her life. In August of 2009, after a short battle with cancer Paul Bond died in his home. The following month on September 3rd Daniels mother Joann would pass away in the same house. Over a period of sixteen days Daniel would lose two of the most important people in his life.

Daniel would often say, he never wanted children because it wouldn’t be right not to take care of them. He said it was the same as having animals; “if all you’re going to do is own a dog and tie them to a five foot chain, then why have them? It isn’t right.”51,53,3
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Daniel had a first cousin on the Gisewhite side who, with his girlfriend, were believed to have committed suicide through carbon monoxide poisoning while sitting in a car. Some believe the two were in fact murdered.51

His foster mother Karen would often refer to him by the name “Daniel Robert.”3


*Crank is a low purity, crystallized Methamphetamine (“crsytal meth”) that is administered in a powder form.