The Gainesville Ripper

In August 1990, fear gripped the people of Gainesville, Florida. Students were being killed, mutilated, in their college dorms. Classes were canceled, everyone took to carrying baseball bats with them wherever they went. People slept in shifts and no one went out alone. The Gainesville Ripper was out there. A killer who inspired American screenwriter, Kevin Williamson – the creator of the Scream movie franchise.

Before Danny Rolling was the Gainesville Ripper, he was a long-time victim of abuse. Born in May 1954 in Shreveport, Louisiana, his father James, a Shreveport Police Officer, made sure he knew he was unwanted. He, as well as his mother Claudia, and brother Kevin, were beaten for the most absurd reasons, such as breathing in a way that James did not approve of.

Discipline was severe. When he was just one-year-old, he was beaten for the very first time. He wasn’t “crawling properly.” As he grew older, his father would pin him to the ground, handcuff him, then have his police friends take him away because he was “embarrassed” by him. He would beat Danny’s dog, so hard and so often that it died. 

Danny failed the third grade after missing so much school due to illness. His teachers described him as “suffering from an inferiority complex, with aggressive tendencies and poor impulse control.”

Around the time Danny turned 11, he had turned to music. He played the guitar and sang hymn-like songs. Meanwhile, his mother was committed to a mental health hospital after she had slit her own wrists. Claudia had made several attempts to leave her husband, but always went back.

Looking for another escape, Danny started drinking and doing drugs. 

He tried to maintain control of his life, despite the ongoing abuse from his father. He attended church, and worked, though he was never quite able to hold down a steady job. He found himself stealing, arrested for several robberies in Georgia, and was even caught peeping into a neighbor girls’ bedroom window. That was met with another beating from his father.

Danny tried to enlist in the Navy, but when they wouldn’t take him, he turned to the Air Force. His military career didn’t last long though, with his drug use spiraling out of control. It is reported that he took acid on more than 100 occasions.

Out of the military, Danny Rolling was once again met with the challenge of maintaining a job. He met a woman and the two were married, and it seemed like things were turning around. But, just like his father, he was abusive, and after just four years, when he was 23-years-old, his wife left him. Danny had threatened to kill her.

The separation was devastating, and rather than working on the issues that had caused his wife to leave, Danny turned to anger and rage. He found a woman who closely resembled his ex, and raped her. Later that year, he was involved in an auto accident, in which a woman was killed.

By the 1990’s, Danny had already been in and out of jail for numerous petty crimes and thefts including armed robberies in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. Somehow he managed to break out of prison multiple times and continued on with his life. 

In May 1990, he finally turned his anger on the man who had caused him so much pain over the years. Danny got into an argument with his father during which he made the attempt to kill him. Despite shooting him twice, his attempt was unsuccessful, though his father did lose both an ear, and an eye.

He broke into someone’s home where he stole the identification papers for Michael Kennedy. Using those papers, he assumed the identity of Michael Kennedy and took a bus to Sarasota Florida.

Then, on Friday, August 24, 1990, early in the morning, Danny broke into an apartment occupied by 17-year-old Sonja Larson and Christina Powell. He found Powell asleep on the downstairs couch, but made no move to disturb her. Upstairs he found Larson asleep, in the bedroom. 

Danny quickly taped Larson’s mouth shut before stabbing her to death. He descended the stairs where he found Powell, and taped her mouth shut just as he had her roommate’s. He bound her wrists together behind her back while threatening her with a knife. He cut her clothes off and raped her, forcing her face-down onto the floor. When he was done, he stabbed her five times in the back.

He went back upstairs where he found Sonja’s dead body. He raped her before cutting off her nipple’s, keeping one as a trophy.

Before he left the apartment, Danny Rolling posed the girls in a sexually provacative position then showered. Sonja Larson and Christina Powell were freshmen at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

When Larson’s and Powell’s families were unable to reach them, they immediately grew concerned. Powell’s family lived closer and went to check on them on August 26. 

At the apartment, they banged on the door, but got no response. They asked a maintenance worker for help. Speaking with his manager, Betty Curnutt, they contacted police before breaking down the door. 

“When he went in, I followed him in the apartment and I saw the young lady on the bed. You could see [she was] in a bad position, and I just turned around and walked out,” Curnutt said. “My maintenance man, unfortunately, ran down the stairs screaming, ‘Oh my God,’ and came out and threw up. And the sad, sad part about it is that we had the parents behind us on the stairs.”

The accompanying police officer, Detective Sgt. Ray Barber, called for backup. They found Christina Powell dead on the first floor of the apartment. She had been raped, stabbed multiple times, and mutilated. Sonja Larson was found on her waterbed on the second floor. Her body was lying back, with her feet on the floor and her hair fanned out. She had stab wounds in her arms and torso.

On August 25, Danny broke into the apartment of 18-year-old Christa Hoyt by prying open the sliding glass door with a knife and a screwdriver. Hoyt wasn’t home, but he exercised patience. He waited in the living room until she returned, at about 11am. He was able to sneak up behind her and quickly put her in a chokehold. 

Subdued, he taped her mouth shut and bound her wrists together. In the bedroom he cut her clothes from her body before raping her. As he had with Powell, he forced her face-down and stabbed her in the back, rupturing her heart. He disemboweled her, cutting from her pelvic area to her xiphoid process – the cartilaginous lump at the bottom of the sternum. Danny cut off her nipples and left them beside her body.

He left, but back at his campsite, he quickly discovered that he couldn’t find his wallet. Worried he had left it at Hoyt’s apartment, he returned to the scene of the crime. Looking at her dead body, he decided to decapitate her, posing her on the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor, her body slumped forward, and placing her head on a bookshelf, looking down on her body.

Christa Hoyt was a student at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida.

When Hoyt failed to show up for work the next day, Detective Sgt. Barber was sent to her home. 

The murders attracted widespread media attention. Students changed their daily routines and began to carry baseball bats with them wherever they went. They slept in groups and only went outside in pairs. Some students in the area transferred to other schools or withdrew completely.

Classes were canceled for a week.

And as they had feared, the Gainesville Ripper was not finished yet.

On Monday, August 27, Danny broke into the apartment of 23-year-old Tracy Paules and 23-year-old Manny Taboada. He found Taboada asleep in one of the bedrooms. The two struggled, but Danny ultimately won, killing Taboada.

Paules heard the commotion and went down the hall to check on her roommate. She spotted Danny and quickly returned to her room, attempting to barricade herself inside. But, at 6’2”, he was a big and powerful man. He broke through the door and taped her mouth and wrists. He cut off her clothing and raped her before turning her over, face-down, and stabbing her three times in the back. 

Danny posed Paule’s body before he left, but left Taboada’s in the same position in which he died.

When police arrived the next morning, they found Paules on the living room floor and Taboada in his room.

Police were inundated with calls. The murders sparked national media attention, and investigators from around the state were called in to help. Police had little to go one. The girls’ bodies had been found with soap residue on them, and the killer had removed the tape he had used to subdue them.

The clues they did have showed that the killer entered the homes through back doors, and interestingly, the apartments were always near a wooded area. This became a vital piece of evidence. 

On August 25, police responded to a robbery at a bank, just a half-mile away from Christa Hoyt’s home. During the robbery, the teller slipped a red dye pack into the bag of money before handing it over. Later that evening, an officer noticed a man walking into a wooded area. He tracked him down to a campsite where he found the bag of money, defaced by the dye, as well as a cassette player and tape. 

Police found a gun at the campsite, but didn’t connect their suspect to the murders. Everything was taken into evidence, but it would be months before they ever listened to the tape.

After receiving several tips, Don Maines, an investigator with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, identified University of Florida student, Ed Humphrey, as a suspect. Humphrey had a history of mental illness and bore scars on his face from an auto accident. 

Humphrey was arrested just days after the murders and held in jail on a $1 million dollar bond. When searching his home, investigators found magazines about knives, guns, and girls. “We had a lot of physical evidence that, according to our technology at the time, placed Ed at some of the scenes,” Maines said. “Some fiber, some hairs. They couldn’t say definitively it was Ed’s hair, but they couldn’t say it wasn’t.”

In the end though, their suspect did not fit. Despite the killer’s attempt to clean away all evidence, police were able to collect DNA from some semen that had been left behind. Their killer had type B blood, while Humphrey had type A.

The heat was on, and Danny decided to lay low for a little while. Well, sort-of. He continued to steal from homes and gas stations, and even robbed a Winn-Dixie. On September 7, he led police on a high-speed chase, after which he was finally arrested – though police still did not know he was the Gainesville Ripper. 

Then investigators came across a cold case from Shreveport, Louisiana. On November 4, 1989, 55-year-old William Grissom, his 24-year-old daughter, Julie Grissom, and his 8-year-old grandson, Sean Grissom, were killed in his home. Looking at the case, investigators found that Julie’s body had been posed in a similar position as their victims. Additionally she had tape residue on her body, but instead of soap, they found vinegar had been used to clean. But there had still been DNA evidence left behind.

The DNA in Shreveport was found to be type B and Maines called the match to their evidence in Gainesville a “revelation” in the case. 

Shortly afterward, a call was received by Crime Stoppers reporting Danny Rolling. Cindy Juracich, a resident of Shreveport, said that while traveling through the Florida Panhandle in August 1990, she had heard a report about the murders. The report instantly made her think about Danny, whom she had met at her Louisiana hometown church. She reported that he had said deeply disturbing things to her and her then-husband, Steven Dobbin. 

“He’d come over every night for a while, and then one night, Steven came in and he goes, ‘He’s got to go,’” Juracich said. She continued that when inquiring about why, her husband reported that Danny had confided in him. “[and Steven said], ‘He likes to stick knives into people.’”

Juracich had dismissed those comments when she heard about them because she didn’t want to believe that he could be responsible for the murders in Shreveport. She also reported that Danny had also told her, “…‘One day, I’m going to leave this town and I’m going to go where the girls are beautiful and I can just lay in the sun and watch beautiful women all day.’”

Though Scott Grissom, son of William, brother to Julie, and father to Sean, didn’t know Rolling, it was discovered that he had once lived with his parents, about a half-mile away. The caller reported that Rolling was unwelcome at his parents’ house, especially if his father was there.

In January 1991, noting the similarities of the murders in Shreveport to the ones in Gainesville, investigators requested DNA of prisoners from Shreveport who had been incarcerated. Again, Danny Rolling came up. His DNA was similar enough to both scenes to charge him with murder.

Following the Danny Rolling’s tip, investigators quickly discovered that he had been arrested on September 7, 1990 for the Winn-Dixie robbery. Looking into his record, they discovered that he had been responsible for multiple armed robberies, and immediately connected him to the bank robbery that had happened on the day Christa Hoyt’s body had been found. 

They went back to their evidence locker where the bag of money, cassette player and tape were being stored and listened to the tape. They found audio containing audio diaries and ten original songs. 

“Jingling spurs rolling into town
Old black stallion you bring a grim reaper
Dressed in snake hide worn black leather
Mystery Rider what’s your name
You’re a killer, a drifter gone insane
Mystery Rider what’s your game
You’re a rebel no one can tame.”

Danny Rolling was charged with 5 counts of first-degree murder on November 15, 1991. Before he could answer to those charges, however, he was convicted for federal bank robbery and sent to Florida State Prison. There, he met Bobby Lewis, an inmate on death row for killing a drug dealer in the 1970’s. Lewis claimed Danny confessed the details of the murders to him. Details lewis wrote in a five-page letter.

Investigators, wanting to confirm the details of Danny’s confession, requested a meeting. Danny only agreed if Lewis could be there, to act as his mouthpiece. It was during this meeting that more details came out about the murders. Details such as how he had gone back to Hoyt’s apartment because he thought he might have left his wallet behind. 

As the questioning went on, Danny claimed that he had dealt with different personalities all of his life. He went on to tell investigators about two of his darker personalities, the first of which was named Ynnad, or “Danny,” spelled backward. He described Ynnad as a Jesse James type, a bad person, but not evil. 

Then there was”Gemini,” his birth sign, whom he described as evil and blamed for his deadliest acts.

Danny confessed to the Gainesville murders, but they weren’t able to get a confession for the Shreveport murders. 

The trial began on February 15, 1994. Danny claimed his motive was to become a “superstar” like Ted Bundy. He was then allowed to address the court. “Your honor, I’ve been running from first one thing and then another all my life,” he said. “But there are some things that you just can’t run from and this being one of those.” Then, unexpectedly, he pleaded guilty to all charges. They moved on to the penalty phase.

Since Danny Rolling was facing the death penalty, the jury was still required to hear all the evidence so they could make a recommendation to the judge, life in prison, or death. The prosecution played Danny’s confession tapes.

“People say Danny has no remorse. They don’t know Danny. I don’t know how I live with myself. If it wasn’t for the good Lord Jesus Christ I wouldn’t be able to live with this man. But He gives me strength and courage. I’m not proud of myself and my life.”

Investigator LeGran Hewitt interrupted: “If you had something to say to these victims’ families, Danny, what would it be?”

After a long pause, his words came out in a torrent. “I would say to them that I don’t ask them to have pity on me. . . . But I would say I would ask them if they could find it in their heart to forgive so that _ so that the bitterness and the hatred about all of this won’t destroy what is left of their lives. I pray for them that God would give them strength and counsel to face every day. I believe somehow through all of this that the Lord will give them strength. I can’t do anything for them. If I could, I would. I can’t.”

“What can I do for them? Tell me.”

“I have no idea,” Hewitt answered. “I think you’re doing the best you can and that’s telling them what happened there that night to their children.”

“I’m sending this to the three people I love the most, and I’ll always love you. I love my mother, I love my father, and I love my brother. And no matter what anybody thinks about this man Danny Harold Rolling, I want these three people that I’m talking to right now to know that this is not the road I really wanted. This is not what I wanted, but it is the road that is before me now, and I will walk it like a man.

“You know I love you, Pop, and I’m so sorry, Dad. It rips my heart out by the roots to think what happened between you and I . . . Nothing’s ever been easy for me. Well, I always wanted to make you proud of me, Dad, but it’s somehow or another I always fell short. But I promise you this much: No matter what happens on the road ahead of me at least I’ll walk it as a man. I will do that.

“Mom, you’re such a precious soul. There ain’t a woman on the face of this earth that can cook like you can, Sugar. You hear me?

“Mom, don’t blame yourself for anything that’s happened. None of it is your fault. I don’t really believe it’s anybody’s fault. It’s just the way things happen sometimes. Sometimes we want so much for things to be right, especially with the ones we love, but it doesn’t always happen that way, does it, Mom? So we have to go on as long as there is breath in our body. We gotta go on.”

Then, to his younger brother, Kevin, “I wanted so much for you and I to strike out together and make a dent in this world and make something out of our lives, but it doesn’t always happen that way, does it? . . . I will walk the road that is before me the best I can. And I prayed, and I’ve asked God, I’ve asked him, I said, “Dear Lord God of heaven and earth, I would rather be judged of you that judged of men. . . . Man does not judge rightfully or justly. No, this world is corrupt, and so is the system that rose it up and that system is the system of the devil.

“I’m not going to deliver myself into the hands of men to be tormented by them, by men that are even lesser than myself. No, I’ll go to my grave first.”

The jury was also played the tape police found at the campsite. 

“You know, Pop, I don’t think you was ever really concerned about the way I felt anyway. Nope, I really don’t. You never would take time to listen to me. Never cared about what I thought or felt. I never had a daddy that I could go to and confide in with my problems. . . . You just pushed me away at a young age, Pop.

“I guess, you and I, we both missed out on a lot. I wanted to make you proud of me. I let you down. I’m sorry for that. Well, I’m gonna sign off for a little bit. I got something I gotta do.

“I love ya. Bye.”

On April 20, 1994, Danny Rolling was sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection on October 25, 2006, witnessed by many of his victims’ relatives. He was pronounced dead at 6:13pm.

This is a movie based on a horrible crime. May we recommend a story about a horrible crime, based on a movie? Check out Daniel Gonzalez Freddy for a Day.