Danny Rolling, the ‘Gainesville Ripper’ who inspired the ‘Scream’ saga

The faces of evil

The murderer sowed panic when raping, mutilating and killing five students in three days

Monica G..Álvarez

When officer Ray Barber went to the Williamsburg Village Apartment building for a warning about high music, he ran into a worried janitor.The student Christina Powell had disappeared although her car was parked in the vicinity.Nor did they locate their partner Sonja Larson.Christina's parents just wanted the police to break down the door and make sure that the girls were well.The agent broke one of the crystals and then emanated a strong smell of the interior.Upon entering, Barber ran into the inert bodies of women: they had been violated, stabbed, mutilated and placed in grotesque sexual positions.

The murders of these 17 -year -old girls were the first of the five that occurred in the state of Florida in August 1990.Its author, Danny Rolling, known as the ‘Gainsville Ripper’, was arrested and sentenced to the death penalty.The story of this serial killer hit the scriptwriter of the filmscreamque wrote the one that is considered one of the most important horror tapes of its kind.

Voyeur and antisocial

Danny Harold Rolling was born on May 26, 1954 in Shreveport (Louisiana, United States) in a family marked by the violence exerted by his father, James Rolling, a war veteran with posttraumatic stress converted into police.The man not only behaved violently and aggressively with his wife Claudia, but also physically and psychologically abused his children.Among them, Danny.

Day after day, the boy suffered continuous blows and beatings and, to escape pain, different personalities were created.Little by little, his mind was distorting and developing various mental disorders.Among them, an antisocial disorder, a borderline personality disorder, in addition to sexual paraphilias and voyeerism.

He also found other shelters.On the one hand, music and art and, on the other, the consumption of alcohol and drugs.This cocktail, added to a depression, led him to try to commit suicide after a strong fight with his father.The situation was unsustainable and had to put land in between.He left his studies and enlisted in the Army.However, in 1972 he was thrown out of the United States Air Forces for narcotic consumption and had no choice but to return.

For a while, he lived with his grandfather and dedicated himself to going to Church, which gave him some stability.He married O'Mather Halko, they had a daughter, but, unconsciously, Danny was looking for the same type of abuse and violence with which he grew up during his childhood.

After divorce, the mental health of twenty -year -old worsened and this was when he began his criminal career.First, he committed small thefts that became robberies with force and for which he was later imprisoned years later.Then, he spared women in public places and even raped a lady who physically looked physically to her ex -wife.They also arrested him for voyeurism, although never for rape.

During the 1980s, Rolling jumped from work at work, and when they said goodbye he fell again in crime.He stole, stopped him and returned to jail.Until in November 1989, he assaulted a house in Shreveport, his hometown, and brutally murdered an entire family while they were having dinner.They were a 55 -year -old father, their 24 daughter, and the grandson of eight.

Towards Florida

No one related Danny to these crimes.Police gave blind sticks in search of the person in charge.They had to spend five years for Rolling himself to confess it once he stopped by Gainsville's murders.

Days after this carnage, the young man was looking for his father to kill him: he wanted to take revenge after so much suffering.He took a gun, appeared at the family home and shot him in the stomach and head.He didn't kill him.James lost an eye, was deaf from an ear and denounced him for attempted murder.Meanwhile, Danny undertook an escape that took him to Gainesville (Florida).

From here begins Rolling's life connection with the plot of the film Scream.It was the month of August 1990 when the criminal arrived by bus to Gainesville.He looked for an area to settle and ended up camping in a wooded area just behind the University of Florida and close to the house of one of his first victims.After several years in jail in jail (Alabama, Georgia and Mississipi) preferred not to socialize with anyone and live section.Until his murder instinct emerged again.

First thing in the morning of August 24, Danny slipped into Christina Powell and Sonja Larson, both 17 and 18 -year -old students, who still slept.

The first to die was Sonja.Rolling entered his bedroom, covered his mouth with insulating tape to drown his screams, raped her and ended up stabbing her.The young woman tried to defend himself but failed to get sail.He died trying to protect himself.Afterwards, the aggressor went to the room where Christina slept, also prevented her mouth, tied her dolls behind her back and threatened her with a knife as she undressed her.Raped her brutally and killed her five navajazos from behind.Once murdered, he placed young women in provocative sexual positions.Before leaving the apartment, Danny shower.

Hours later, the police found the completely mutilated and stabbed bodies.It was a really Dantesque scene.

The authorities were still in the crime scene collecting evidence when the murderer returned to act.Rolling did not miss a day before killing Christista Hoyt, another 18 -year -old student, who lived in the area.This time, the homicide assaulted the house by opening a sliding glass door with a screwdriver but the girl was not at home, so he waited for her patiently.

At eleven in the morning, Christ's.Then, he served his mouth zeal, tied his dolls and took her to the bedroom.After undressing her, she raped her wildly as well as the first two victims.Then, he forced her face down, stabbed her to crack her heart and decapitated her.Before leaving, he placed his head and nipples on a shelf in front of the body.This remained in a strange sexual pose.

A rally is loose

For the second consecutive day, the authorities ran into a spooky scene similar to that found in the house of Christina and Sonja.A serial killer was acting and the investigators analyzed their modus operandi: it broke into the homes early in the morning, put the music very high during the crimes (the neighbors complained about the noise), stole the underwear of their victims,In addition to some parts of their bodies, it showed before fleeing, and used a knife between ten and fifteen centimeters.

The media echoed both events and on the university campus there was no talk of anything else.The students took all kinds of precautions: they slept in groups, changed their routines and some moved to other faculties.You were breathing fear.

But the real panic exploded when the bodies of Tracy Paules and Manuel ‘Manny’ Taboada appeared.It was August 27.The first to die, the boy: he discovered Rolling entering the house.After a strong fight, the murderer managed to reduce it to stuff.Tracy listened to the screams and, when going to the hall to check what was happening, he saw the murderer.The young woman tried to lock himself in the room but he was faster.

He introduced his mouth and dolls, undressed, raped her and stabbed her three times in the back.Once again, he chose a striking sexual stance to place the young woman's body.

With five murders on the table, the media baptized the person in charge as ‘Gainesville Ripper’.The city was completely traumatized, nobody went out and the police failed to find the real culprit until several days later.Meanwhile, they arrested a student, Edward Lewis Humphrey, for suspicious attitude: History of mental illnesses, scars on the face and violent behavior in the students of students where he lived.Humphrey was released when they arrested Danny Rolling.The arrest occurred on September 7.

The murderer was stealing in a store when a patrol caught him and transferred him to police station.While they collated their data, they jumped the warning that the detaine.The agents decided to check if the suspect's DNA coincided with the one found in the scenes of Gainesville's crimes and ... gave positive!They had just hunt the predator.

THE DIABOLIC ‘Geminis’

The researchers went to the camp where Rolling lived in search of evidence and, during the record, found belongings with pubic hair of one of the victims, 'Manny' DNA in blood stains of pants, their DNA in semen spots,In addition to several audio recordings where the detainee mentioned the murders.In November 1991, Danny Rolling was formally accused of five first -degree murder positions.

For three years, the defendant insisted on his innocence despite DNA tests, until, in February 1994, the journalist Sondra London entered into his life.They began to be requested and began a romantic relationship that ended at wedding.From this union the documentary The Making of A Serial Killer was born where Rolling talked about the murders committed, both those of Gainesville students and those of Lousian's family.

Shortly before the trial, he declared himself guilty.But he justified his acts ensuring that, the only person was responsible, a diabolical part of his personality, which surrounded as a result of seeing the third installment of the exorcist.The psychiatrists who examined him saw the possibility of a multiple personality plausible, but made it clear that Rolling distinguished perfectly between good and evil.

During the trial, held in Alachua County almost four years later, the jurate members viewed the photographs of the scenes of the crimes, the mutilations of the bodies and the state in which the defendant left his victims.They also heard dozens of witnesses, of the competent authorities in the investigation and, of course, those of the inmate itself.

Rolling shielded himself in the physical and psychological abuses suffered when he was a child to commit the homicides.That was what prompted him to become a murderer, a theory that did not convince the jury and, finally, declared him guilty of five first degree murder positions.A month later, in April 1994, the judge sentenced him to the capital penalty for lethal injection.The time he was in the death corridor, Rolling married the aforementioned journalist and granted multiple interviews.Its execution occurred on October 25, 2005 in Starke state prison.His last desire was to eat lobster tail, shrimp, oven potatoes, cheese cake with strawberries and sweet tea.

Outside the enclosure, protesters gathered for and against the death penalty.Those who opposed, about a hundred, placed in a circle, prayed and sang hymns such as Kumbaya and Blowin ‘in the Wind.Those who were in favor, carried slogans such as "kill the murderer".

At six in the afternoon, they injected a mixture of hypnotics, sedatives and analgesics.His last words were those of a Gospel song that said "nobody bigger than you, Lord, no one bigger than you".For thirteen minutes, the ‘Gainesville Ripper’ sang this stanza while looking at the relatives of the victims.Died at 52 years.

Gainesville state prosecutor Bill Cervone, who described Danny Rolling as "the face of evil" that overshadows the community, said that with its execution "that shadow has eliminated".