A California man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on charges of aiding and abetting the kidnapping and murder of a Northwest Arkansas man. Forty-six-year-old Daniel Paul Blanks was sentenced for the incident which happened in Nov. 2021.
According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office Western District of Arkansas, Blanks and his codefendant, 37-year-old Reginald Baker, drove to a Springdale apartment armed with a shotgun. According to witnesses, the men forcefully entered the apartment, assaulted and beat the resident. They then dragged his unconscious body down the exterior staircase of the apartment complex and placed him in the back of Blanks’ truck bed. The victim was then transported from Arkansas to the Mark Twain National Park in Barry County Missouri where he was shot by Blanks multiple times. The body was discovered several days later when a local hunter found him in a heavily wooded logging road.
On Nov. 29, 2021, both Blanks and Baker were charged with capital murder, kidnapping and residential burglary in Washington County Circuit Court. Baker pleaded guilty to the charges of accomplice to murder, accomplice of kidnapping and accomplice to residential burglary on April 5, 2024 and was sentenced to 60 years in prison. Twenty days later, Blanks entered a guilty plea to aiding and abetting kidnapping resulting in death. The federal court case resulted in Blanks receiving a lifetime prison sentence.
During the sentencing hearing, the Honorable Judge Timothy L. Brooks cited Blanks’ affiliation with white supremacist groups as an aggravating factor supporting the imposition of a life sentence.
The case was investigated by the Springdale Police Department, the Barry County Sheriff’s Office, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, the Bentonville Police Department and the Arkansas Office of Probation and Parole.
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