Murder in a College Town: The Tale of the Gainesville Ripper
How a string of grisly Florida murders gave rise to a horror franchise
Gainesville is located in the north central part of Florida, among sprawling Southern live oaks. Home to the University of Florida and Santa Fe College, it is a small-ish, laid-back town. In the summer of 1990, however, Gainesville became the hunting grounds of a vicious predator. Over just three days, he would terrorize the town, killing five students in their homes and sparking a massive manhunt. His crimes would also lay the foundation for a horror classic, the first film in a franchise that is still going more than a quarter century later.
Content warning: Going forward, there will be descriptions of crimes that some may find disturbing.
The Murders
In the early morning hours of August 24th, 1990, an intruder used a screwdriver to break into the apartment of Christina Powell, 17, and Sonja Larson, 18. The girls, both University of Florida students, had met over the summer and decided to become roommates. The man briefly stood over Powell, who slept on the couch, then made his way upstairs. He found Larson in her bedroom, where he taped her mouth shut and stabbed her five times in the back with a Ka-Bar tactical knife. He then went back downstairs to Powell, who was still sleeping. He taped her mouth as he had done with Larson, then sexually assaulted her, before stabbing her to death as well. The murderer posed both women in lewd positions and showered before he left.
Christina Powell’s parents arrived at Williamsburg Village Apartments on August 26th. They had not heard from their daughter all weekend, even though she’d said she would call them. They weren’t too worried; she was a young woman on her own for the first time and was probably just busy. They had plans to visit her that day, which was Sunday, anyway. Once there, they saw notes on the front door from friends who had tried to get in touch with the girls, and their knocks went unanswered. The Powells’s worst fears were confirmed when the property’s maintenance man and a police escort discovered the bodies.
Christa Hoyt was an 18-year-old Santa Fe College student, who also worked nights. When she returned home at around 11:00 a.m. on August 26th, she had no idea that a killer lay in wait. The intruder attacked her from behind and sexually assaulted her, before stabbing her in the back and severing her aorta. He then sliced her body from her pubic bone to her sternum before leaving. After returning to search for his wallet, he decapitated Hoyt and placed her head on a shelf facing her body. This was done with the intent to shock whoever discovered her.
In a cruel twist of irony, Hoyt’s night job was as a records clerk for the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. She was known for never missing work, so when she did not show up for her next shift, a welfare check was performed at her duplex. There, the officers—who knew Hoyt from work—discovered her headless body sitting on the side of her bed.
As the murders gained national attention, the city of Gainesville was in a state of panic. Students took to sleeping in groups, in shifts, with weapons, or withdrawing from classes altogether, and hardware and gun stores were selling out of merchandise. Police helicopters flew overhead, their searchlights illuminating the night.
On August 27th, the killer slipped into the residence of Tracy Paules and Manuel “Manny” Toboada, both 23. Finding Taboada asleep, he plunged his knife into the torso. Manny awoke and fought back, but was overpowered by the intruder. He was stabbed a total of 31 times in the arms, hands, face, legs, and chest. Taboada had been close friends with Paules since they attended high school together in Miami, and while many were leaving town, she felt safe with the 6’3” former football player there to protect her. Later, the murderer would say he killed Taboada because he was “in the way.” His hatred was reserved for women, and Manny was mostly collateral damage.
Hearing the commotion from the attack, Paules came out of her room and caught a glimpse of the assailant. She ran back to her room and attempted to lock the door, but he broke through.
“You’re the one, aren’t you?” Paules reportedly asked the man, who was covered in Taboada’s blood.
“Yeah, I am.” He answered.
He proceeded to sexually assault her before turning her face down and stabbing her three times in the back. As he had done with other female victims, the killer posed her body before leaving the apartment. Paules and Taboada were the final victims of the man who would come to be known as The Gainesville Ripper.
From left to right: Ripper victims Christina Powell, Christa Hoyt, Sonja Larson, Manuel Taboada, and Tracy Paules
A memorial for the victims is located on Southwest 34th St. in Gainesville
While Florida police searched for their killer, Louisiana law enforcement made them aware of the similarities between the Gainesville murders and a triple homicide which had occurred in Shreveport the previous year. Tom Grissom, 55, his daughter Julie, 24, and his 8-year-old grandson Sean, had been murdered on November 4th, 1989. Sean did not return home on Monday morning as planned and was absent from school. His mother called the police after she made several unanswered calls to Tom, her father-in-law.
Police found Tom stabbed to death in the garage, while Sean was discovered in the family room with a single stab wound through the back. He’d been killed while watching TV, and had been stabbed with so much force that the knife penetrated into the floor. Following a familiar pattern, Julie had been sexually assaulted, then stabbed multiple times in the back. Her body had been cleaned with vinegar and posed. There were no suspects, but the perpetrator was determined to have type B blood.
Sean Grissom, Julie Grissom, and Tom Grissom
One of the adult victims of the Grissom family murders is removed from the house on Beth Lane.
Shortly afterwards, there would be an odd break in the cases. Shreveport resident Cindy Juraich called Crime Stoppers and told them she might know the man who committed the Florida crimes. While in the Florida Panhandle, she’d heard about the Gainesville murders on the radio, and he immediately came to mind. She explained that she and her then-husband Steven had befriended a man from church who came by their house often. During one of these visits, Steve walked inside and said pointedly: “He’s got to go.” Steve informed Cindy that the man had told him that he had a problem and the problem was that he “liked to stick knives in people.”
This was just a few weeks after the Grissom murders, but Juraich didn’t want to believe the man was involved. She dismissed her fears, but the news of the Florida murders haunted her, and she finally called the authorities. The man had also told Cindy and Steven that one day he would go somewhere full of pretty girls he could just look at all day.
Somewhere like a Florida college town.
Juraich told law enforcement about her suspicions and urged them to investigate the man: Danny Rolling.
Danny Rolling, The Gainesville Ripper
Dangerous Drifter
Daniel Harold Rolling was born in Shreveport on May 26, 1954, to James and Claudia Rolling. James was a retired cop who abused his wife, Danny, and Danny’s younger brother Kevin. He resented them because he had never wanted children, and this was something he often vocalized, particularly to Danny. At Rolling’s sentencing, Claudia would point to this abuse as a reason to not put her son to death.
As a teenager, Rolling committed several robberies and was once caught spying on a woman as she got dressed. These were precursors to the violence that was to come, and he would spend most of the 1980s in prison. After a lifetime of abuse from his father, things came to a head in May of 1990. During an argument, James chased his son out of the house at gunpoint. Rolling returned later with his own gun and shot James in the head and stomach. He survived, but lost an eye. Rolling fled Shreveport, and eventually ended up in Gainesville.
Following Juraich’s tip, police didn’t have to look far to find Rolling. He had robbed an Ocala Winn-Dixie on September 7th and was in Marion County Jail. While there, it was determined from military records that Rolling’s blood type was also B. After discovering his long criminal history, authorities revisited evidence collected from the campsite of a bank robbery suspect. The bank was located near Christa Hoyt’s house and the robbery occurred on the day she was murdered.
At the abandoned campsite—which was located in a wooded area near all five murders—police located a gun, screwdriver, a bag of money with a dye pack, and a cassette player. The screwdriver matched marks found at the crime scenes and the tapes were recordings of dark songs Rolling wrote and monologues alluding to what he’d done. One composition contained the lines: “Mystery rider, what’s your name? You’re a killer, a drifter, gone insane.” After his DNA was shown to match semen collected from the murders, Rolling was officially charged with five counts of murder in November of 1991.
Rolling’s campsite
Rolling initially plead not guilty, but abruptly changed his plea to guilty on February 15, 1994, the day his trial was scheduled to begin. He claimed he’d committed the murders because he wanted to be a “superstar” like Ted Bundy, another serial killer who had butchered Florida college students. Bundy, who had been executed in 1989, operated further west, on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee. Rolling also claimed to have an evil alter ego named Gemini, who drove him to commit the murders. However, prosecutors pointed out that Gemini is the name of a character in Exorcist III, which Rolling admitted to seeing the week of the Gainesville murders. Experts, including those for the defense, argued that Rolling had antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and paraphilia, but was also fully aware of his actions.
Shortly before he was executed, Rolling confessed to the Grissom murders. His last words came as a song, which repeated the line “None greater than thee, oh Lord.” Danny Rolling died by lethal injection at Florida State Prison, on October 25, 2006.
Hollywood connection
In 1994, Kevin Williamson was a struggling screenwriter. While house-sitting one night, he became completely engrossed in an episode of ABC’s Turning Point. The subject was Danny Rolling and the Gainesville murders. In a 1998 interview, Williamson told CNN:
“I was being scared out of my mind. During the commercial break, I heard a noise. And I had to go search the house. And I went into the living room and a window was open. And I'd been in this house for two days. I'd never noticed the window open. So I got really scared. So I went to the kitchen, got a butcher knife, got the mobile phone. I called a buddy of mine.”
Soon, the conversation turned to their favorite horror movies, and Williamson got the idea to make a movie in the vein of When A Stranger Calls. Rolling had also been a voyeur, and it was that fear of being watched that informed the finished product’s iconic opening scene. That night, Williamson was plagued by nightmares. Unable to sleep, he got up around 3:00 a.m. and began writing a screenplay that he titled Scary Movie. It would become director Wes Craven’s 1996 horror blockbuster, Scream.
On the surface, the murders of the film’s antagonist, Ghostface, bear only a passing resemblance to those of Rolling. Both watched their victims beforehand, and both killed multiple students with a knife. Though, unlike Ghostface, Rolling did not wear a mask. More than anything, it is the atmosphere of sheer terror and paranoia created by Rolling that ultimately gave rise to Williamson’s screenplay. In that sense, the Gainesville student murders served as a spiritual inspiration instead of a direct one. The actual murders are also arguably more gruesome than those of the fictional villain, which underlines the fact that the real monsters are not on the silver screen.
They walk among us.
Sources/Further Info:
shreveporttimes.com/story/life/2022/01/12/scream-movie-documentary-danny-rolling-serial-killer-gainesville-ripper-hometown-shreveport/9126171002/
gainesville.com/story/news/2006/10/22/evil-among-us-three-days-that-changed-our-city-forever/31772483007/
biography.com/crime/danny-rolling-scream-killer-gainesville
caselaw.findlaw.com/court/fl-supreme-court/1313594.html
allthatsinteresting.com/danny-rolling-gainesville-ripper
aetv.com/real-crime/danny-rolling-caught
crimelibrary.org/serial_killers/predators/rolling/gain_1.html
gainesville.com/story/news/2006/10/27/rolling-confessed-to-three-louisiana-deaths-in-note/31500083007/
casetext.com/case/rolling-v-state-8
murderpedia.org/male.R/r1/rolling-daniel-harold.htm
