Latest / Luke's English Podcast / I Went to Florida to Understand the Gainesville Ripper

Transcript

I Went to Florida to Understand the Gainesville Ripper · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I've never seen a city so overtaken with panic in
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: my entire career.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: This is the story of a serial killer whose crimes
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: are so calculated, so theatrical, they would echo far beyond
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: one campus and inspire an entire horror franchise.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It was palpable the fear that was going through the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: student body.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety, Danny Rowling committed a series of five
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: murders over the course of one weekend. The crimes shattered
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: the University of Florida, locked down Gainesville, and sent a
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: wave of fear across the country. Six years later, elements
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of those killings would resurface in the horror franchise Scream,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: but the reality was far more disturbing.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, as eighteen years old, you freak out and
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: think what is going on? And it was very scary.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: A significant amount of time in Gainesville speaking with reporters,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: authors and students who lived through those days, people who
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: remember the sound of helicopters overhead, the rumors spreading through dorms,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: and the creeping realization that this wasn't random.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: You hadn't heard anything like that since, like Ted Bundy,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: at least in our area.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: This isn't just about what the Gainesville Ripper did in Florida.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: It's about what was already happening long before Gainesville, and
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: by the end of this episode you'll understand exactly where
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: it began and why no one stopped it. I'm James
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Buddy Day. This is unmarked. Florida isn't just palm trees
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: and postcards. It's a peninsula, three sides water, one long
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: highway in and out, a transient state, tourism, college towns,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: see and all residents, people arriving, people leaving, and historically
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: it's been a place where violent offenders surface, or perhaps
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I should say resurface. Ted Bundy ended his run here.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Eileen Warnos operated along its highways. Florida isn't the cause,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: but it's often the convergence point, and in the case
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: of the Gainesville Ripper, the people who live through it
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: are still there.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I was doing daily stories about the murders at that point,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: so that's where my focus was on the murders and
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: who was doing this, and then the panic on the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: University of Florida campus.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: That's Mike Decon, an Emmy winning investigative journalist who I
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: spoke with at his home in Tampa.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I've never seen a city so overtaken with panic in
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: my entire career.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Before we go deeper, here are the basics. Danny Rowling
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: was a Louisiana native, a drifter who ended up in
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: South Florida, and in August of nineteen ninety, over a
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: single weekend, he committed five murders that would define the
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: case and earn him the name the Gainesville Ripper. These
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: crimes were violent, they were public. Coverage spread across the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: state and then the country. In fact, a screenwriter named
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Kevin Williamson watched the panic unfold, and years later, elements
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: of that fear would reappear in the horror film he
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: wrote called Scary Movie, which became the franchise Screamed. But
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: what happened in Gainesville wasn't cinematic. It was procedural and preventable.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: The entire state became focused on what is going on
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in Gainesville? Who's this monster?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: In the case of Danny Rowling, it's difficult to comprehend
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: the level of trauma, physical and psychological that precedes the murders.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: To understand him, we have to go back long before Gainesville,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: before he's even born. Rolling's family history is marked by
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: violence and severe mental instability. His great grandfather murdered his
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: great grandmother in their home, an act witnessed by Danny's father,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: James Rowling.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: Danny's father, j James, his grandfather. They filled his wife
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: like the kitchen table like. Basically, sliter grow right in
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: front of right, in front of James. He saw it.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: That's the voice of J. T. Hunter, author of a
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Monster of All Time, The True Story of Danny Rolling,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: the Gainesville Ripper. It's one of the most detailed examinations
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: of the case.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: I know. There are other people in his family. His
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: uncle Heino, commits suicide. Uh, his mother had scypophrenia, gained bioleduications,
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: definitely had mental health issue from self.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: There's no clean way to measure heredity, not yet, but
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: it's reasonable to say Danny Rolling likely inherited a predisposition
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: toward mental illness and volatility. What we can say with
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: certainty is that whatever vulnerability existed was compounded repeatedly inside
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: his own home.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: He had a rough childhood. As I recall, remember this
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: is a long time ago. The murders were nineteen ninety,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: but he had a very rough childhood, and it was
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: an unusual kid, as I recall, didn't get along well
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: with his father.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: James Rolling is central to understanding the crimes his son
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: would go on to commit. A Korean War veteran, James
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Rowling marries Danny's mother, Claudia, when she's nineteen. Neighbors described
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: him as erratic and cruel. At trial, the one witness
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: describes the Rolling household as quote chaotic and unstable, where
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: physical and emotional abuse were daily occurrences. Claudia is beaten
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: while pregnant, strangled, and in one instance, James shoves her
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: down a flight of stairs while she's carrying Danny. What
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: that level of stress does to a developing brain is
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: still debated. Nonetheless, Danny Rolling is born on May twenty sixth,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty four. A younger brother follows fifteen months later.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: In the early days, the family moves frequently through Georgia
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and Louisiana before settling in Shreveport when Danny is only
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: six years old. There, James Rolling becomes a police officer.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: And this is.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Crucial because the man responsible for the abuse isn't just
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: a violent father, he is law enforcement and this is
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: a message his son sieves loud and clear.
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: James was a cop there at Divine and you know,
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: knowing how kind of a brotherhood that cop have to
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: begin with, you know, they tend to look out for
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: e shaz they send the kind of protect one another.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: So you know, it's it's.
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: Certainly very eeasible that he, you know, kind of got
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: away with some things.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: At the time, the Shreveport Police Department is plagued by
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Police Chief George d'Artois would
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: later be accused of running the department like a personal empire,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: shaking down businesses associating with organized crime. By the time
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Danny and his brother can walk, their father is already
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: punishing them belts, ropes, hours of for stress positions. The
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: infractions are minor, talking back, bad grades, spilling something at
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: the dinner table, wearing blue jeans to church. Reports are
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: made to Shrieveport Police, but documentation later describes the situation
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: as quote a family matter, with police notes indicating that
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: James Rowling is quote a good officer. It's a systematic
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: failure that will cost lives for decades to come.
• 8:22
  Speaker 6: How are you kind of put yourself in a position
• 8:24
  Speaker 6: as a as a young boy growing up, and you know,
• 8:27
  Speaker 6: like all young boys near and admire your father, you know,
• 8:31
  Speaker 6: and you want approval and to have that deliberately withheld
• 8:37
  Speaker 6: and go through all the horrible things that win it
• 8:41
  Speaker 6: grew if you'd bother growing up.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Neighbors press the issue to police Chief George d'Artois. Nothing
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: changes the system that could intervene protects its own. Witnesses
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: later say James appears to take satisfaction in the abuse.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Danny's mother leaves the home repeatedly two dozen times over
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: the course of the marriage, but she always always returns.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Each time she leaves, the boys remain behind. Danny grows
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: up in a constant state of fear.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: I like you abandoned as a child by mother basiclyak
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: because she never interceded and protected him.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: As a child. Danny Rolling is so anxious he injures
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: himself compulsively scratching at his skin, picking at his fingers,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Unable to regulate the stress response that never shuts off.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: To cope, he begins peeping into windows, and this is key.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: He's watching other families through the glass. Later he will
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: describe imagining himself inside those homes, not as an intruder,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: not at first. At first, it's about being a member
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: of the family. This is a key moment in understanding
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: rolling search on psychopathy and severe antisocial behavior suggests that
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: in some individuals, early trauma disrupts identity formation. The sense
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: of self becomes fractured. Shame and rage begin to coexist
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: when control feels absent. That's when fantasy steps in the
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: internal world becomes more vivid than the external one. Depression deepens,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Substance use increases.
• 10:29
  Speaker 7: Were stranger to bars and drinking where currently thing like
• 10:33
  Speaker 7: you drink quite a bit. I don't know if he would,
• 10:37
  Speaker 7: you know, stumbling around alcoholic level that he finitely break
• 10:40
  Speaker 7: a lot, and I believe he drake before he committed
• 10:44
  Speaker 7: Raggedy murder.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: At fourteen, Danny comes home with alcohol in his breath.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: His father beats him, handcuffs him to a chair, and
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: he calls his fellow officers. When the police arrive, they
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: arrest Danny and they place him in juvenile detail. From
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: his perspective, once again, authority does not protect him, it
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: punishes him. Not long after, his mother leaves again, this
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: time hospitalized for severe mental illness. Danny attempts to escape
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: by joining the Air Force, but he's discharged within the year.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Rolling is now nineteen, a high school dropout with no
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: prospects when he meets a woman named o Mather Loomis.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: It's shortly after he joins a Pentecostal church. Surprisingly, they
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: marry on September sixth, nineteen seventy four, and they have
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: a daughter, and for a brief period the only stable
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: stretch of his life, Rolling appears functional, but trauma doesn't
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: disappear just because circumstances temporarily improve. The marriage begins to
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: deteriorate almost immediately. Rolling starts disappearing at night with no explanation.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: Emotionally, he's still stuck to act as almost a child,
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: and he has this his anger that resent, this rage
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: by the way he is treated from his father, but
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: then also forgs his mother as well.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Rolling gets drunk and peeps into windows, and he's seen
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: at one point police question him. They even interview his
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: wife at his home, but fail to intervene once again,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: and one evening, during an argument, Danny Rolling holds a
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: shotgun to his wife's head and threatens to kill her.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: She takes their baby and leaves, neither see him again.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Until he's arrested. A decade later, Spiraling Danny Rolling attempts
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: to rob a wind Dixie with an unloaded gun. Psychologists
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Laid describe the robbery as reckless, possibly an unconscious attempt
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: to provoke a lethal response. He serves time and is
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: released in nineteen eighty two, and he moves back in
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: with his parents, where the abuse resumes. So in July
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty five, Danny Rowling walks into a Kroger
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: in Jackson, Mississippi, pulls a gun at the checkout, and
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: demands money. He leaves with just two hundred and ninety
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: dollars and is caught the next day. Like before, the
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: crime is impulsive and sloppy, but it's this robbery that
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: changes things because Rolling is sentenced to five years in prison,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: where he struggles mightily with incarceration. He later claims it
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: was the cause of his subsequent murder spree, but this
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: type of justification is not unusual for individuals with severe
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: antisocial traits.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: How prism was with no joke. Uh, it's a pretty
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: harsh prison. It is no that way so far sistek. Yeah,
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: I mean it was fairly was no cakewalk run there
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: so he probably had some pretty bad editions. When he
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: would Mary was it to the extent he said, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: maybe not.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Well incarcerated, a psychiatrist evaluates him. The assessment lists multiple
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: personality disorders, substance abuse, and paraphilia, specifically voyeurism, though it's
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: worth noting that the diagnostic criteria in the nineteen eighties
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: was much different than it is today. Label shift terminology evolves,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: but what doesn't change is behavior. By this point, rollings
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: peeping is no longer occasional. It's compulsive. He admits to
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: spending two or three hours a night looking into windows,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: sometimes for sexual arousal, and that connects to a larger pattern.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Children in constant threat learned to live inside their own heads, hypervigilant, preoccupied,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: reinforcing fantasy through early stalking behavior, and when control feels absent,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: fantasy becomes reality. The internal world grows stronger than the
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: external one. Overtime watching is not enough. This comes to
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: a head. In nineteen eighty nine. Rolling is released from prison,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: and on November fourth, he's living in Shreveport, Louisiana, where
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: he's fired from yet another menial job.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: It was literally the same day that he is fired
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: from the job he'd been working at, and he was
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: fired for grounds that he fought were unfair. You know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: he thought he's gained basically picked on or something and
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: was unfairly cominated though, so it right out the rage
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: of him here, he already had this, already had this
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: anger that was kind of like constantly simmery.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: He wanders his neighborhood. He's agitated, aimless. That's when he
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: sees Julie Grissom, twenty four years old, a college student
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: at Louisiana State University Shreveport, as he has dozens of
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: times before, he follows her. Investigators later estimate Rolling enters
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the Grissom home sometime between six and eight pm. There
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: are no signs of forced entry, no ransacking, no robbery.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: This is not opportunistic theft. It's targeted. Once inside the home,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: he attacks Julie's father, William Tom Grissom, who'd been outside grilling.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Rolling kills him. He also murders Julie's young nephew, a
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: third grader visiting for the weekend. Finally, he finds Julie
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: in her bedroom. Evidence later shows he remains inside the
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: home after the murders.
• 16:55
  Speaker 8: He kind of go back and phrase his behazier to
• 16:58
  Speaker 8: girl behazer. Yet he started out in windows, why don't
• 17:02
  Speaker 8: you win an undress? Things like that, and then you know,
• 17:06
  Speaker 8: he eventually got in through robberies, armed valries and rapes,
• 17:11
  Speaker 8: and then you know, escalated to murders.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Afterwards. Rolling drives home. It's ten minutes away. The proximity
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: is predictable. Serial offenders frequently operate within comfort zones, familiar streets,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: known escape routes, predictable terrain. But despite the brutality and
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: the amount of physical evidence left inside the home, police
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: make no immediate arrest. Rolling watches the coverage and something shifts.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: They're using all their police resources to try to solve
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: this murder, and he slipped through the cracks.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Criminologists describe a phenomenon that often follows a first successful murder.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: It's called perceived omnipotence. When there are no immediate consequences,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the offenders diminishes, control expands, the fantasy becomes reinforced. For Rolling,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: this manifests at home, where for the first time he
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: stands up to his father. In May nineteen ninety, an
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: argument inside the Rolling house escalates into gunfire. Accounts differ
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: about who fired first, but what is undisputed is that
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Danny retrieves a pistol and shoots his father.
• 18:26
  Speaker 9: In the head.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: At that point, Rolling believes he's killed him. He hasn't.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: James Rolling survives and Danny leaves. Six miles away, Danny
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: breaks into another home and holds a couple at gunpoint,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: forcing them to call the hospital to confirm whether his
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: father is dead or alive. When he learns his father survived,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: he thanks the couple, accepts a coat, twenty one dollars,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: an apple, some cookies, and he walks out. He abandons
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: his car at a motel six around the corner and
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: boards a Greyhound bus. Records show Danny Rowling checking into
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: a travel lodge in Tallahassee under the name Michael Kennedy.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: Ironically enough, I guess you know he ended up in Kalahassee.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: You know where Bundy did some of his Toya's killings.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: That's where he ended up. Burt, you know, got off
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: the bucks there.
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: Very duly end up grade actually oxious the night at
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: the ended if you've been at fill the students named
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: the Dingram.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Throughout August of nineteen ninety, he moves across Florida, staying
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: in motels, sleeping outside circling apartment complexes. On August fifth,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: in Sarasota, he breaks into the home of Jeanette Frake.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: He restrains her and sexually assaults her, but doesn't kill her.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Two weeks later, on August eighteenth, he checks into the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Universe City Inn in Gainesville, still using the name Michael Kennedy.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: This again is investigative reporter Mike decent.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Gainesville is an idyllic college town. It is a beautiful city.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: It's the college campus that you would see in a
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: movie with ivy on some of the buildings, and the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: town just revolves around the university. Most of the people
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: that live there are associated in some way or another,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: either as professors or they've got friends that work at
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the university. It dominates the town.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: You have to picture rolling at this point. He doesn't
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: look dangerous. He's quiet, withdrawn slight, five foot nine, He's
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: only about one hundred and sixty pounds, not physically imposing.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: He does not stand out in a transient state like
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Florida hitchhikers, drifters, students, seasonal workers. He looks just like
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: another man passing through five days later, on August twenty third,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: he checks out of the motel. He purchases a screwdriver
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: and camping supplies from a Walmart. He sets a campsite nearby.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Who's acting like a hunter, So he was on a
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: camping trip when he was camping, and then he was
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: hunting his victims, and then he would go to the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: campsite again afterwards. That was my take on why he
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: was camping in the woods.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: On Friday, August twenty fourth, nineteen ninety the Florida Gators
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: are preparing to open the season the following weekend. Students
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: are moving into the dorms for the fall semester. This
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: is Laura Azarello Thompson, who is eighteen years old at
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the time a freshman at the University of Florida.
• 21:48
  Speaker 9: I heard good things about the academic program. I was
• 21:52
  Speaker 9: pretty motivated to succeed academically, and I applied to several
• 21:57
  Speaker 9: universities and I was fortunate enough to get a Florida
• 22:00
  Speaker 9: Academic scholarship. So I can't tell you there was any
• 22:04
  Speaker 9: one specific thing that led me to University of Florida,
• 22:07
  Speaker 9: but it was two hours from home, but not home.
• 22:10
  Speaker 9: Good academics so that's why I decided to go there.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Laura's experience reflects that of thousands of students settling into
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: campus that weekend. That night, round three am, Rolling enters
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the apartment of Christina Powell and Sonia Larson in a
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: small complex near the university. Sonia Larson is studying to
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: become a teacher. Christina Powell is studying law enforcement. Neither
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: have any connection to Danny Rolling whatsoever. In the early
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: morning hours of August twenty fourth, Rolling enters their apartment
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: through the rear dining room door. The door is locked,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: but it's the only entrance not reinforced with both dead
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: bolt and chain. The frame is slightly warped, allowing him
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: to force it open. Powell is sleep downstairs on the couch.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Rolling stands over her briefly, then he goes upstairs. He
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: enters Larson's bedroom and attacks her in bed. The medical
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: examiner will later describe the injuries as consistent with a rapid,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: overwhelming assault, the kind designed to incapacitate almost immediately. The
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: report notes that Larsen likely loses consciousness very quickly after
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: she's killed. There's evidence her body is moved. Blood patterns
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: indicate post mortem repositioning. Rolling then returns downstairs. Powell is awakened, restrained,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: and sexually assaulted before being led into the living room
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: and killed. When it's over, he doesn't leave immediately. He
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: remains inside the apartment. He wipes down parts of the scene.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Clothing is scattered, objects are moved deliberately. The apartment itself
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: is altered. He goes into the kitchen and eats fruit.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: The brutality is shocking, but what is equally disturbing is
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: the order. This is not frenzy, it is control. Later
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Rolling will claim that during this period he is psychotic,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: that he believes himself to be possessed by a demon
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: called Gemini.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: He saw himself more as kind of a victim of
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: what had happened to him.
• 24:30
  Speaker 8: And you know, he basically a nice guy deep down
• 24:34
  Speaker 8: and all deep look todays.
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: So I think he invented that afterwards as a way.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: To distance himself from the things he had done.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: We need to be precise here. Psychosis involves a break
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: from reality. We're talking about hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking. But
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: what we see in the Powell and Larsen apartment is
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: structured behavior, entry, isolation, staging that does not resemble a
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: mind in chaos. Some offenders construct narratives of madness after
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: the fact, but true psychosis destabilizes planning, It fragments behavior.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: But Rolling's actions here are sequential and deliberate. The next night,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: on October twenty fifth, nineteen ninety, Rolling returns to the
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: home of Christa Hoyt, an eighteen year old chemistry honor
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: student at Santa Fe College whom you've been watching for days.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Once again, this is not psychosis. This is premeditated and
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: carefully planned.
• 25:39
  Speaker 9: No, I know the world.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: This is Melissa Rancourt, a Florida based journalist who attended
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: a nearby school at the time.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: It just shows that he's sick bastard, I mean, or was,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: you know, I mean unfortunately that it's not just Okay,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: I got my thrill of a kill or whatever. It's
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: that I'm on a mission here, you know. I mean,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I'm looking back at it a couple years afterwards, I
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: was like, that's what this guy was doing. He's like,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: I'm just gonna continue to I think, continue to do
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: this until I get caught, you know, because to do
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: it that quickly. I mean again, I don't study the
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: minds of Cereal murders, but usually it is like a
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: day or two, or a couple of days. They spread
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: it out it seems like but he just seemed like
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: he was on a mission to kill as many women
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: as he could.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Investigators later identify a rear sliding glass door as the
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: point of entry. There are pri marks along the frame.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Rolling enters before Christa Hoyt returns home. Inside, he moves
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: a bookcase from behind the front door into the bedroom,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: positioning it so he can ambush his victim once she arrives.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Hoyt spends the evening playing racketball with a friend. She
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: returns home around ten pm. Crime scene investigators later find
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: her racket and a can of balls near the locked
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: front door. The medical examiner concludes the attack is sudden
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: and overwhelming. Survival brief consciousness likely lost almost immediately after
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: killing her. Rolling stages the scene again.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Not only did he murder them slaughter is a good term,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: but then he posed the bodies in sexually suggestive positions.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I mean it was it was more than just that
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: he was a murderer. He wanted to leave a message.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Later, he realizes he's lost his wallet and he returns
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: to the apartment to search for it. While inside, he
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: further manipulates the body.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: He didn't want to be a run of the mill
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: serial murderer. He wanted to be spectacular, and he wanted
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to shock the people who would find the bodies.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: When Rolling returns to his campsite. None of the Gainesville
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: victims have been discovered. The following afternoon, on Sunday, August
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: twenty sixth, at around three pm, the bodies of Christina
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Powell and Sonia Larsen are found.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: I watched all this unfold on the news and then
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: was calling my friends up there and was like, what
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: is going on? And they were like, we're freaking out.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: You know, there's obviously a serial killer on the loose.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: We're all starting to pair up and stay together in
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: people's apartments and people's dorms. One of a good guy
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: friend of mine was like, we're trying to find a
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: gun to protect ourselves.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: The response is immediate, police flood the area. News spreads
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: quickly across the campus. Neighbors gather outside the apartment complex.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Parents panicked right away first. One of the first set
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: of murderers, My news director at the time said to
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: me go to Gainesville and find out who's responsible for this.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: And I looked at him, I said, come on, you're
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: kidding me. You know, everybody in the state, all law enforcement,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: said no, go up there. You're an investigative reporter. You
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: won't have to do daily stories, just find out. I
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: couldn't dissuade him, So I get up there to Gainesville.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: But while the media scrambles rolling, is there blending into
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: the crowd watching.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the speculation and again it was that he would
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: kind of hang out there and watch it all and
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: kind of take in that this is all for me. Again,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: this is what people were saying at that time, that
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: that's what he was doing. That he wasn't hiding. He
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: was going out and playing sight and standing around you know,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: the you know, where the media was set up, and
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: going still going to stores and kind of like taking
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: it all in.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: The Next night, August twenty seventh, he begins surveilling another apartment.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Tracy Poullis, twenty three years old, lives there with her
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: roommate Manny Tobata. Phone records later show Paulus is on
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: the phone until one am. Tabata leaves work shortly after.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: In one twenty finishing a bartending shift. While Rolling is
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: outside the apartment watching, another discovery is made across town.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Police enter Krista Hoyt's apartment and find her.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: You can imagine as the police officer arriving at the
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: scene walking in on that, you know, the.
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: Shock of that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 7: Your experience, So that did seem to be a dig
• 30:13
  Speaker 7: at boast a bother, but then also please in general.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Around three am, Rolling enters the apartment of Tracy Pollis
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: and Manny Tabata through the rear sliding glass door. A
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: man living in the apartment directly above later reports hearing
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: a scream sometime between two and three am. Inside Tabada
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: is asleep. Rolling attacks him first. It's sudden, overwhelming. Tabata
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: dies quickly.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: The only reason we figured that he was murdered was
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: he had the unfortunate circumstance of being a roommate the Paulus.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I don't believe they were in any relationship other than
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: they were friends. There a roommate, and when he got
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: there and the battle was there, he murdered him.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Tracy Pollis witnesses the attack and runs into her bedroom,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: locking the door. Investigative notes later show the doorframe is
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: damaged consistent with it being forced open. What happens next
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: is prolonged. The medical examiner documents extensive sharp force injuries.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: There is evidence Polus is restrained. Curtains are tape shut,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: the apartment is contained by mourning. Both Paulus and Tobata
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: are dead. The bodies are discovered the next day.
• 31:38
  Speaker 9: I moved into the dorm somewhere in mid August, and then,
• 31:42
  Speaker 9: you know, once school start, and that's when we heard
• 31:44
  Speaker 9: about the murderers.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: That again, is the voice of Laura Azarello Thompson, who
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: was an eighteen year old student at the University of
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Florida at the time.
• 31:53
  Speaker 9: I really had no experience with anything like this ever
• 31:58
  Speaker 9: in my life. We're all eighteen year old girls on
• 32:02
  Speaker 9: a floor, and I can't say that any of us
• 32:05
  Speaker 9: really had much.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Clues to what was going on.
• 32:08
  Speaker 9: That we were just.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Scared, running low on money, Rolling breaks into another apartment
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: in northwest Gainsville on August thirtieth. Well inside, he eats oatmeal,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: leaves dishes in the sink, watches a Playboy video, and
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: leaves the television on when he departs. Next, he steals
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the occupant's car and drives to Tampa. He spends the
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: next week committing small robberies. On September seventh, nineteen ninety,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: he robs a wind Dixie in O'calla, brandishing a handgun,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: but robbery has never been Rolling strength. The store manager
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: follows him out of the shopping center and gives police
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: a detailed description of his location. As Rolling attempts to
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: leave the parking lot, patrol cars are already closing in
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: and he's arrested.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: He was a much better serial killer than he was
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a robber, and so he went back to robbing. He
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: gets caught, and then they go to his tenth He
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: was camping in the woods, and they find evidence that
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: links him to the rapes and the murders. So it
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: was it was serendipitous that they caught him. Had he
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: not done the robberies, or had he not been camping
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: in the woods with all the evidence, he could have
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: gone on to someplace else.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Police quickly realize Rolling is wanted in Louisiana for the
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: shooting of his father. They locate his campsite near the
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: University of Florida. Almost immediately inside his tent is evidence
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: tying him directly to the Gainesville murders. When I spoke
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: to Mike Decent, he recalled seeing Rolling in person.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: He was really unusual. I mean, in some of the
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: court appearances he started singing. He just he was in
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a different world. He was a different type of person
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: that looked like he was trying to be famous. I mean,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: when you get into a courtroom and he starts singing
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: or doing Elvis songs, that's not typical.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Over the next several years, Rolling gives multiple confessions, lengthy, detailed,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: and at times contradictory. Eventually he pleads guilty.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: We're in the courtroom and they're about to begin, and
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: he stands up and he says, he says something like,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I don't want to make this go out any further.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I plead guilty. I mean, they were ready to do
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: their opening arguments and he stood up. I don't even
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: know if his attorney expected him to do that. It
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: was a true shock. But that's Danny Rowling.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Danny Rolling is responsible for what he did. But this
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: episode isn't just about the week in August when he
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: terrorized a college town. It's about what came before the abuse,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: documented and dismissed, the warnings that reached the chief of
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: police and went nowhere. The pattern of escalation, peeping burglary
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: violence all treated as isolated incidents instead of a trajectory.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: When he arrives in Florida, Rolling doesn't appear out of nowhere.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: He's grown up in a house defined by fear. His
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: abuser is protected by a department protecting its own inside
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: a system that repeatedly chooses not to intervene. By the
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: time Danny Rolling arrives in Florida, the pattern is already set.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Gainesville didn't create Danny Rolling. It encountered him at full escalation.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: When early violence is ignored, when authority shields itself, when
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: red flags are dismissed as quote family matters, the consequences
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: don't stay local. We've seen it before with offenders like
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Bundee and Warnos, and like them, Danny Roll is executed
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: by the State of Florida on October twenty fifth, two
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: thousand and six.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: There's been so many serial murderers that we've had in Florida, unfortunately,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: but I have never seen such an intense police manhunt
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: for someone. Because these were college students at the premier
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: university in the state of Florida.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Trauma travels from one state to another until someone finally
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: pays attention. Before we wrap up, a quick note now,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Unmarked takes a lot of work to produce. Every episode
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: comes out of weeks and weeks of research and documents
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: and interviews. So we're starting to work with advertisers to
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: help support us. But you can always listen without ads
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: and get early access to episodes inside Unmarked case files.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: And if it's the Manson murders that interest you, my book,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Charles Manson the Last Words, is available on Amazon and Kindle.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: That book contains interviews I've done with the members of
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: the Manson family for the last decade, including Charles Manson himself.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: This episode of Unmarked was produced by John Adoe and
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: edited by Dave Alderson. Our additional producer is Jesse Demiray.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Until next week, this is Unmarked