During one interview, Rolling claimed he used psychic powers to gain access to two of his victims. His time in between stints in jail were spent traveling the country, stealing and occasionally forcing himself on women. But running away to Florida didnt cure Danny. They were separated at the time of her statement. James also abused and beat Danny, Danny's mother Claudia, and his brother Kevin for frivolous things, such as breathing in a way that displeased him. If I didnt know him so well, I probably wouldnt have known it was him.. Bernadine Holder, a neighbor, said the father repeatedly criticized Danny Rolling and younger brother Kevin for their table manners and dining etiquette. She attempted to barricade herself in her bedroom, but Rolling broke through the door. As an adult, he had trouble trying to assimilate into society and hold down a steady job. Two years later, he killed five college students. Orlando Sentinel reports the abuse Rolling suffered at the hands of his father may be the source of his personality disorders. As reported by Biography, the resulting film, "Scream," brought "new life into the [horror] genre." She made repeated attempts to leave her husband, but always returned shortly. "One day, I picked up the phone, I called Crime Stoppers, and I said, 'I think there's one guy y'all need to investigate -- Danny Rolling.'"[6]. Rolling was known for hiding in Ocala, Florida in a wooded area that has now had a Home Depot built on it. His paintings and various musings are now collected as "Murderabilia". Danny then picked up drugs and alcohol which only worsened his already-fragile mental state. Rolling, who recorded the songs on August 4, 1990, days before murdering the five . He then raped her and forced her face-down onto the floor, where he stabbed her five times in the back. Kevin Rolling brother About Daniel Harold Rolling Danny Harold Rolling (May 26, 1954 - October 25, 2006), also known as The Gainesville Ripper, was an American convicted serial killer. Danny Harold Rolling (May 26, 1954 October 25, 2006), also known as The Gainesville Ripper, was an American convicted serial killer. [4], Hearing the commotion, Paules went down the hall to Taboada's bedroom and saw Rolling. By all accounts, Danny Rolling "remained calm" throughout the day of his execution. As Rolling skipped town, a local task force was assembled to calm a frantic community and find answers. London described meeting Rolling as something she wasnt prepared for, according to the Washington Post: Standing before my hungry eyes was one gorgeous hunk of man. Rolling, to the Post, described his relationship with London as deep as the Amazon river and just as wild!. The robbery had been committed ten days after the bodies of Paules and Taboada were found. He raped a woman who resembled his ex-wife and embarked on several armed robberies through the South, leading to his incarceration in Jackson, Georgia, in 1979. Following his divorce from his wife in the late 1980s, Danny Rolling began committing murder. He was wanted for the robbery of a Winn-Dixie as authorities still did not know that he was the Gainesville Ripper. After she had been subdued, he used duct tape to gag her mouth and bind her wrists together behind her back and led her into the bedroom, where he cut the clothes from her body and raped her. Except to identify him, she avoided eye contact. Danny Rolling was born in Shreveport, Louisianna in May 1954 to 19-year-old Claudia Rolling, and decorated war vet James Rolling, who's believed to have suffered from PTSD and other mental illnesses. He mutilated his victims' bodies, decapitating one. He was executed by lethal injection in 2006. A feature film entitled The Gainesville Ripper is currently in production in the Gainesville and Jacksonville, Florida areas, based on the accounts of the killings. The following May, Rolling got into one final argument with his father. Rolling 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'". Kicked out of the Air Force in 1972 after getting busted for drug possession, Rolling went to live with his grandfather and, for a time, found some stability through his church. Lewis testified that he had had hundreds of hours of conversations with Rolling about the murders, and along with another inmate, helped him fake a suicide attempt so that they could stay in the same wing of the prison. He called the match to the evidence in Gainesville a "revelation" in the case. . Rolling was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. Hes now engaged in the Fox series The Following which taps into hysteria on a college campus. When Danny was facing the charges against him in 1994, the court heard his mother, Claudia Rolling, detail the abuse that had changed him. That was on Sept. 8, two weeks after the murders. After confessing to the murder and mutilation of five students in Gainesville, Florida in August 1990, he was ultimately executed. In 1994, Rolling pleaded guilty to five counts of murder, three counts of sexual battery and three counts of armed burglary in connection with those five slayings. The idea that Danny was an unwanted child was reinforced. The Gainesville Ripper on trial for murder. He was beaten because he wasn't crawling properly. In the videotaped statement, recorded in May 1992, she even said that she first saw Danny lose control after his wife of two years filed for divorce in 1977. His crime spree inspired screenwriter Kevin Williamson to pen the script of the 1996 slasher film Scream. In the film, Rolling is portrayed by Zachary Memos. On his alleged use of Rolling, Lewis wrote: "It not something I'm proud of -- it just survival -- in a animal world.". He said Rolling's main problem is his voyeuristic need to peek into windows at women to satisfy his sexual urges and fantasies - which Rolling admitted doing before the killings. Rolling claimed to have suffered severe mental and physical abuse at the hands of his father throughout the majority of his childhood. A total of 47 people witnessed the execution of the Gainesville Ripper, which is double the capacity of the viewing room. Then, a few short years later, the Gainesville murders became even more infamous when they helped inspire the classic horror movie Scream. His role in uncovering details of the Gainesville murders rendered him the focus of press accounts. As reported by The Sun Sentinel, Rolling's injections were administered beginning at 6:03 p.m., and he was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. Following his discharge from the military, Danny managed to marry and begin what appeared to be a normal life. Rolling suggested to investigators last year that he killed a Shreveport woman, her nephew and her father on Nov. 4, 1989, but he has not been charged. In one incident, Danny's mother . On August 27, the killer surfaced again at the home of two 23-year-old UF students, Manuel Toboada and Tracy Paules. His father survived but lost the use of an eye and ear before fleeing to Kansas and Florida, eventually arriving in Gainesville. But State Attorney Rod Smith says the image of Rolling's disciplinarian father has been exaggerated by Rolling and family members. Danny Rolling : biography May 26, 1954 - October 25, 2006 Daniel Harold Rolling (May 26, 1954 - October 25, 2006), also known as The Gainesville Ripper, was an American serial killer who murdered five students in Gainesville, Florida. In one example of the senior Rolling's sense of discipline, he pinned Danny to the ground and handcuffed him, then had police take his son away because he was embarrassed by him. But thats not quite the end of the story. His mother made repeated attempts to leave her husband but always to take him away like a criminal because his father was embarrassed by Danny. Based on the real case of an accused murderer and a disgraced journalist, 'True Story' reveals that "telling the truth" can be a slippery concept. Rollings last meal consisted of a lobster tail served with drawn butter, butterfly shrimp with cocktail sauce, a baked potato with sour cream and butter, strawberry cheesecake, and sweet tea. A Friday night in May 1990, Rolling, then 35, shot his father, a retired Shreveport police lieutenant, in the head during a dispute at the Sunset Acres home. . In the northern Florida town of Gainesville in 1990, five young university students were murdered in their own homes over just three days in horrific ways stabbed in the back, raped, beheaded. After confessing to the murder and mutilation of five students in Gainesville, Florida in August 1990, he was ultimately executed. Detectives noted that there were similarities between the Gainesville murders and those of 55-year-old Tom Grissom, his 24-year-old daughter Julie, and his 8-year-old grandson Sean. James also assaulted and battered Danny, his mother Claudia, and his brother Kevin for trivial reasons, such as breathing in an unpleasing manner. Rolling confessed to being the Gainesville Ripper. Rolling, who pleaded guilty last month to five counts of murder in the Gainesville deaths, told investigators he has two personalities, the murderous Gemini, and Ynnad, a Jesse James-type robber.. In May 1990, he tried to kill his father during a family argument in which his father lost an eye and an ear. In one incident, Danny 's mother went to the hospital after claiming her husband tried to make her cut herself with a razor blade. Echoing his later killings, Julie was found with bite marks and her body arranged with her legs spread on the bed. Rolling posed the bodies in sexually provocative positions. Rolling said that he agreed to talk to the task force because someone had trashed his cell, destroying a Valentines Day card he had worked on for more than five hours. Police also considered Brandon Curry. "I said, 'What kind of problem,'" Juracich said, "[and Steven said], 'He likes to stick knives into people.'" There are still bullet holes in the walls," she said. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Although he was given an opportunity to make an oral statement, Rolling spent the last three minutes prior to his execution singing a gospel song. He killed Tobada while he slept. Authorities feel Rolling did not manage to mutilate these bodies because he may have been in danger of getting caught, or was otherwise interrupted. After a week of gory photographs and lurid details presented by prosecutors, jurors who will recommend whether Rolling should die for his crimes heard more evidence Tuesday of his abused and damaged life. STARKE - In the end, serial killer Danny Rolling offered no apologies. Subsequently, Rolling confessed via letter from his spiritual advisor to the Shreveport, Louisiana police, to the killings of 55-year-old William T. Grissom, his 24-year-old daughter Julie and eight-year-old grandson Sean as they got ready for dinner on November 4, 1989, in Grissom's home. Danny Rolling was only one-year-old when his father first abused him, beating him for not crawling to his expectations. Danny Rolling was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. Chief Assistant Public Defender Johnny Kearns has argued that Rolling was mentally ill during the Gainesville killings, much of it attributable to childhood abuse. As a teenager and young adult, Rolling was arrested several times for robberies in Georgia, and was caught spying on a woman getting dressed. Rich's publicist Danny Deraney remembered Rich in a statement as . A 2007 independent feature film titled The Gainesville Ripper, based on accounts of the killings, was shot in the Gainesville and Jacksonville, Florida areas. Back when I was researching Danny Rolling, I wanted to write about a serial killer on a college campus, and an FBI agent hunting down a college professor. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. Louisiana's Shreveport is where Danny Rolling was born. Danny Rolling confesses to Louisiana killings, victims' families reflect: Part 11 In a letter to his pastor before his execution, Rolling confessed to killing the Grissoms in Shreveport. Afterwards, Julie Grissom's body had been mutilated, cleaned, and posed. [6], News of the Gainesville murders haunted Juracich, so she finally contacted police in November, based on her hunch about Rolling's connection to the murders in both cities. Gainesville Ripper murders are the subject of the book Beyond Murder by John Philpin and John Donnelly. His father was a Shreveport police officer named James Rolling, who told Danny that he was unwanted from birth. Two other psychiatrists also testified that a severe personality disorder was in play, but stated their belief that Rolling understood the magnitude of his crimes. Sondra started a correspondence with Rolling, leading to a book and also an engagement. Rolling was given three consecutive life sentences in prison for an armed robbery in nearby Ocala that happened right after he had slain the students, and he was already behind bars when he was identified as the suspect in the Gainesville killings. Danny Rollings Florida victims: (from left to right) Tracy Inez Paules, Sonja Larson, Manuel Taboada, Christa Hoyt, and Christina Powell. He holds a steady job,. Although law enforcement authorities initially had very few leads, in November 1991 Rolling was charged with several counts of murder, and Alachua County State Attorney Rod Smith oversaw the prosecution. His killing spree inspired Kevin Williamson to pen the script for the blockbuster movie Scream. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. From Gacy's first sexual assault conviction to his eventual execution, here are the key moments from one of the most notorious murder sprees in U.S. history. He forced one young woman to perform oral sex on him before he raped, stabbed and killed her. He was born in 1954 in Shreveport, Louisiana, to a 19-year-old mother named Claudia and a police officer named James, a decorated Korean War veteran who may have suffered some combination of post-traumatic stress disorder and inherent mental illness. ABCs 20/20: Gainesville Serial Killer is an episode that chronicles the tale of Daniel Danny Rolling, a serial killer responsible for eight murders, including a triple homicide in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the slaying of five students over four days in the college town of Gainesville, Florida. "Now, you need to pay.". Rolling refused to answer any questions on his own; he would simply confirm or deny what was said. Mike Hudspeth. London and Rollings book The Making of a Serial Killer: The Real Story of the Gainesville Murders, led to them being sued under the Son of Sam law, which prevents convicted felons from profiting from their stories. However, his divorce appeared to be the catalyst for his crime spree, as the murders began shortly after he and his wife parted ways. She was also stabbed to death. His appeals exhausted, Rolling faced execution at Florida State Prison on October 25, 2006. This time he pulled out a gun and shot James in the stomach and head. Danny was only one-year-old when his father abused him for the first time. "filings were almost carbon copies of Rutherford's appeals. "It would not let me rest," she said. In all, Rolling confessed to killing eight people. Unfortunately for Danny, his father never wanted children. As he later recalled in The Making of a Serial Killer: The Real Story of the Gainesville Murders, Rolling endured the sort of horrendous childhood that made him ripe to emerge as a menace to society. Daniel Harold Rolling Executed October 25, 2006 06:13 p.m. by Lethal Injection in Florida 47th murderer executed in U.S. in 2006 1051st murderer executed in U.S. since 1976 3rd murderer executed in Florida in 2006 63rd murderer executed in Florida since 1976 Florida victims: (left to right) Christina Powell, Christa Hoyt, YouTubeDanny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper, appears in court. The following day, he made Santa Fe Community College student Christa Hoyt his next victim, leaving behind her severed head on a shelf to face her body propped up on the bed. Danny Harold Rolling, Florida's most notorious serial killer since Ted Bundy, was executed by injection Wednesday for butchering five college students in a ghastly . Ex-wife O'Mather Lummus, whom. In 2021, an episode of the ABC primetime true crime television series 20/20 aired the murder case. Rolling is one of the suspects in the murder of five college students in Gainesville, Florida, last year. Students brought baseball bats with them everywhere they went and no one went out alone during the day or night. At age 14, Dannys neighbors caught him peeping into their daughters room. Testimony will continue next week. Family members and acquaintances have said Rolling's life slid into crime and a series of failed relationships after his divorce from Lummus, a petite brunette. "It was almost as if you could crawl inside and feel his pain," Mills said. In 1994, before his trial could get underway, Rolling unexpectedly pleaded guilty to all charges. At age 23, after being with his wife for four years, she separated from him after he threatened to kill her. Biography reports he was facing multiple life sentences if convicted, as he had numerous prior convictions for armed robbery. Thinking he may have lost it at the murder scene, he returned there, at which time he decapitated Hoyt, posed her body in a sitting position at the edge of her bed and placed her head on a shelf facing the corpse. evidenced in an all-out brawl between the two at a CA bowling alley -- an. The small camp where he had been living was in a wooded area near apartment complexes frequented by students; investigators discovered audio diaries he had made there alluding to the crimes. Wikimedia Commons A memorial on 34th Street in Gainesville, Florida, for Rollings victims. He was convicted of armed robbery in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi for several grocery store robberies, and spent most of the 1980s in prison. Rolling was being held in the Marion County Jail 40 miles south of Gainesville. She died trying to fend him off. GAINESVILLE Claudia Rolling first noticed her son's mind slipping about six years ago. Mark of a Killer explores the methods and the madness of infamous serial killers, starting with the premiere on January 20, on Oxygen, Sundays 7/6c. The famed literary and celluloid antagonist was based on a Mexican doctor who murdered his boyfriend in 1959. His childhood was very difficult. At the time of these statements, Claudia and James were separated. Gainesville clinical psychologist Harry Krop, who first examined Rolling in January 1991 after his arrest on armed robbery charges in Ocala, said Rolling talked extensively about the killings of Christina Powell, 17, Sonja Larson, 18, Christa Hoyt, 18, Tracy Paules, 23, and Manuel Taboada, 23. She also said that Dobbin told her that Rolling had told him he had a problem. . Because the spree was happening so early in the fall semester, some students withdrew their enrollment or transferred to other schools. On Aug. 27, Rolling attacked Tracey Paules and Manuel Taboada, both 23. 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