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How A Man Became A Monster: The Gainesville Ripper · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

0:03
Speaker 1: Imagine growing up in a house where love is a
0:06
Speaker 1: word that's as foreign as a summer snowfall, where your
0:10
Speaker 1: father's idea of affection is a glare that could chill
0:13
Speaker 1: your bones, and the only thing you can rely on
0:16
Speaker 1: is his fist. Now, imagine what happens when that house
0:19
Speaker 1: of horrors becomes the breeding ground for something much darker.
0:24
Speaker 1: What kind of man does that create? This is the
0:27
Speaker 1: story of Daniel Rolling, a boy raised on cruelty and
0:31
Speaker 1: control who eventually transformed from a tormented child into one
0:35
Speaker 1: of the most feared serial killers in American history. What
0:39
Speaker 1: was it that turned him from the bullied to the butcher?
0:42
Speaker 1: And just how far does one man go to make
0:44
Speaker 1: the world feel his pain. Today, we're peeling back the
0:48
Speaker 1: layers of Daniel Rolling's twisted life, tracing every step from
0:53
Speaker 1: Shreveport to Gainesville to see how a father's rage gave
0:57
Speaker 1: rise to a serial killer's wrath. Stick around, because this
1:01
Speaker 1: story goes from deeply unsettling to downright horrifying in the
1:05
Speaker 1: blink of an eye. Daniel Rowling had a childhood unlike most.
1:21
Speaker 1: His father, James Harold Rolling, was a Korean War veteran
1:25
Speaker 1: turned Shreveport police officer. In nineteen fifty three, he married
1:29
Speaker 1: Daniel's mother, Claudia, when she was only nineteen years old,
1:33
Speaker 1: and it was only two weeks into the marriage that
1:35
Speaker 1: James would turn on her. It started when Claudia found
1:38
Speaker 1: out that she was pregnant. What is normally a joyous
1:43
Speaker 1: and happy occasion first went sour then turned violent when
1:48
Speaker 1: James revealed his true colors. He blamed and resented Claudia
1:52
Speaker 1: for the pregnancy and claimed that she had forced a
1:55
Speaker 1: child on him when he did not want a child
1:58
Speaker 1: helpless and not want to be a single mother. In
2:01
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, Claudia brought her son Danny into the world,
2:05
Speaker 1: hoping that James would eventually come around. He didn't. In fact,
2:10
Speaker 1: he would often beat both Claudia and Danny as punishment
2:13
Speaker 1: for the situation that they were in and didn't take much.
2:17
Speaker 1: All either of them had to do was breathing away
2:19
Speaker 1: that annoyed James, and that would set him off. If
2:23
Speaker 1: he didn't turn outright violence, he would become verbally abusive
2:27
Speaker 1: and remind Danny that he had been a mistake and
2:30
Speaker 1: he was not wanted. The abuse continued when Claudia gave
2:34
Speaker 1: birth to a second son, Kevin, and only seemed to
2:38
Speaker 1: escalate from there. Claudia was once hospitalized after an incident
2:42
Speaker 1: in which she claimed James had forced her to cut
2:45
Speaker 1: herself with a razor blade. She tried to leave him
2:48
Speaker 1: several times throughout the course of their marriage, but always
2:51
Speaker 1: found herself coming back, Especially because her two sons were
2:54
Speaker 1: still living in James's household, The boys themselves were experiencing
2:59
Speaker 1: their own version of James's abuse. They weren't allowed to
3:02
Speaker 1: have birthdays or celebrate holidays. When Danny became especially close
3:07
Speaker 1: to the family dog, James would then direct his anger
3:10
Speaker 1: towards the dog. Instead, he beat the dog so brutally
3:14
Speaker 1: and so often that it ended up dying in Danny's arms.
3:18
Speaker 1: There was never a kind word or any encouragement from
3:22
Speaker 1: their father. Instead, James used his position on the Shreveport
3:25
Speaker 1: police to terrorize his own children. Danny was once pinned
3:30
Speaker 1: to the ground and handcuffed by his own father. He
3:33
Speaker 1: was then taken away into custody by James's fellow police officers.
3:37
Speaker 1: Danny's only crime that day was that he embarrassed his father.
3:42
Speaker 1: It's perhaps no surprise that the abuse at home then
3:45
Speaker 1: started to affect Danny's behavior. When he was a teenager,
3:49
Speaker 1: Danny was caught spying on women as they were getting dressed.
3:52
Speaker 1: He was also arrested several times for committing robberies. Claudia
3:57
Speaker 1: claimed that during this time in Danny's life, tried to
4:00
Speaker 1: seek psychological care and counsel for her son, but that
4:04
Speaker 1: was stopped by James. James didn't believe that there was
4:07
Speaker 1: anything wrong with Danny, that all of his wayward behavior
4:11
Speaker 1: was simply a phase that his son would eventually grow
4:13
Speaker 1: out of. That was until Danny realized that he was
4:17
Speaker 1: old enough and big enough to fight back when his
4:20
Speaker 1: father abused him. In May of nineteen ninety, after a
4:24
Speaker 1: serious argument, Danny showed his father the man that he
4:27
Speaker 1: had become and his hands was a gun, and he
4:31
Speaker 1: shot James several times in the stomach and the face.
4:35
Speaker 1: James survived the shooting, but he was left with permanent
4:38
Speaker 1: damage and the loss of the use of one of
4:40
Speaker 1: his eyes and ears. Danny was then thrown out of
4:44
Speaker 1: the house, but by then there was no writing the
4:46
Speaker 1: trajectory that his life was now on. By day, he
4:50
Speaker 1: struggled to keep down a job and function in normal society.
4:54
Speaker 1: By night. He had taken his stalking and spying of
4:57
Speaker 1: neighborhood women to the extreme. It started early in the
5:02
Speaker 1: morning of August twenty fourth, nineteen ninety, when Danny broke
5:05
Speaker 1: into an apartment in Gainesville. Living in it were two
5:09
Speaker 1: university students, eighteen year old Sonya Larson and seventeen year
5:13
Speaker 1: old Christina Powell. He found Christina first, She was actually
5:18
Speaker 1: asleep on the sofa downstairs. Danny stood over her for
5:21
Speaker 1: a while before deciding on his next move. He then
5:25
Speaker 1: slipped upstairs and found Sonia asleep on her bed. He
5:29
Speaker 1: first taped her mouth shut so that she couldn't cry
5:32
Speaker 1: out for help, and then he began stabbing her. Sonia
5:35
Speaker 1: woke up during the attack and did her best to
5:38
Speaker 1: fight back, but she had already been fatally wounded by
5:41
Speaker 1: the time she realized what was happening. Danny then moved
5:45
Speaker 1: on to his next victim. He went back downstairs to
5:48
Speaker 1: Christina on the sofa in the living room and made
5:51
Speaker 1: his next move just like he did with Sonia. He
5:55
Speaker 1: started by taping Christina's mouth shut. He then tied her
5:58
Speaker 1: wrists together by behind her back and made it impossible
6:02
Speaker 1: for her to escape. With his knife, he cut off
6:05
Speaker 1: her clothes and then had his way with her. When
6:08
Speaker 1: he was finished, he ordered the terrified young woman to
6:11
Speaker 1: lie face down on the floor, but no matter how
6:14
Speaker 1: compliant she was, he had no intentions of sparing her.
6:19
Speaker 1: Danny then stabbed Christina five times in the back, killing her.
6:23
Speaker 1: Still unsatisfied with his work, Danny then went back upstairs
6:27
Speaker 1: to Sonia and her remains. He raped her body before
6:31
Speaker 1: arranging her and Christina in suggestive poses to add to
6:35
Speaker 1: the shock of whoever would discover the scene. He then
6:39
Speaker 1: took a shower and then left. The very next day,
6:44
Speaker 1: he struck again. This time he broke into the apartment
6:47
Speaker 1: of eighteen year old student Christa Hoyt. Using a screwdriver.
6:52
Speaker 1: Danny forced the sliding door of her house open and
6:55
Speaker 1: began to search the property. Christa wasn't home, but instead
6:59
Speaker 1: of calling it day and leaving, Danny chose to lie
7:02
Speaker 1: in wait. Christa came back at around eleven, only to
7:06
Speaker 1: find herself locked in a choke hold. Danny strangled and
7:10
Speaker 1: man handled Christa until he had her under control. He
7:13
Speaker 1: taped her mouth shut, bound her wrists, and then forced
7:16
Speaker 1: her into the bedroom. There, he cut off her clothes
7:19
Speaker 1: from her body and sexually assaulted her. Once he had
7:22
Speaker 1: his fill, he continued to follow his emerging em O.
7:27
Speaker 1: He ordered Christa to lie face down on the bed,
7:29
Speaker 1: and then he stabbed her in the back. Once she
7:32
Speaker 1: was dead, he turned her back around and sliced her
7:35
Speaker 1: body open to leave an extra gruesome surprise for whoever
7:39
Speaker 1: would find her. He then washed and cleaned himself before leaving.
7:44
Speaker 1: By then, Danny was homeless and actually living on a
7:47
Speaker 1: camp site near by. It was only when he made
7:50
Speaker 1: it back to his ramshackle tent that he realized that
7:53
Speaker 1: he was missing his wallet. He thought that he may
7:56
Speaker 1: have left it at Christa's home and that it was
7:59
Speaker 1: a damning piece of evidence that would lead the investigator's
8:02
Speaker 1: right to him, so he returned to the scene of
8:04
Speaker 1: Christina's assault and murder. But once Danny found himself there,
8:08
Speaker 1: he also found that he couldn't resist the temptation to
8:12
Speaker 1: humiliate her further. He decapitated her remains. He positioned what
8:17
Speaker 1: was left of her body sitting on the edge of
8:19
Speaker 1: the bed, and placed her head on a shelf so
8:22
Speaker 1: that it was facing her body. All of this, he
8:26
Speaker 1: later claimed, was done with the intention of further shocking
8:29
Speaker 1: whoever would find Christa. In only two days, Danny managed
8:34
Speaker 1: to terrify the entire town. Students began dropping out of
8:38
Speaker 1: the university, and those who remained took extra steps to
8:41
Speaker 1: protect themselves. They traveled in groups, slept together in the
8:45
Speaker 1: same rooms, and made changes to their daily routines to
8:48
Speaker 1: make themselves harder to track. But despite all of these efforts,
8:53
Speaker 1: Danny would find his next victim only two days later.
8:57
Speaker 1: On August twenty seventh, nineteen ninety, Danny broke into another apartment.
9:02
Speaker 1: He forced open the sliding door with his screwdriver and
9:05
Speaker 1: found twenty three year old Manny to Buddha. Unlike Danny's
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Speaker 1: other victims, Mannie was not a woman with a petite
9:12
Speaker 1: figure and brown hair and eyes. Mannie was none of
9:15
Speaker 1: those things, but his roommates, twenty three year old Tracy
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Speaker 1: Paullus was. Danny first slipped into Manny's bedroom and began
9:24
Speaker 1: stabbing him. Manny woke up during the attack and managed
9:27
Speaker 1: to fight back for a while before succumbing to his injuries.
9:31
Speaker 1: Danny was then free to move on to Tracy. She
9:34
Speaker 1: had heard the fight break out between Manny and Danny
9:37
Speaker 1: and was actually standing in the hallway trying to figure
9:40
Speaker 1: out what was going on when she spotted Danny. Terrified,
9:44
Speaker 1: Tracy then sprinted back to her room and tried to
9:47
Speaker 1: barricade herself in. By then, Danny was able to turn
9:50
Speaker 1: all of his attention on to Tracy, and he managed
9:53
Speaker 1: to break his way into her bedroom before she was
9:55
Speaker 1: done barricading herself in and calling for help. He started
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Speaker 1: with her mouth and wrists before cutting off all of
10:02
Speaker 1: her clothes with his knife. He then raped her before
10:05
Speaker 1: forcing her to lie on her front so that he
10:07
Speaker 1: could stab her in the back. He positioned Tracy in
10:10
Speaker 1: a suggestive pose, but left Manny in the position that
10:13
Speaker 1: he'd died in. Law enforcement all over the state were
10:17
Speaker 1: on the hunt to find the perpetrator behind these brutal killings,
10:21
Speaker 1: and despite the time they would waste wrongly accusing multiple men,
10:25
Speaker 1: they would get their first real break in November of
10:28
Speaker 1: that year. Authorities in Shreveport had noticed striking similarities between
10:33
Speaker 1: the murders in Gainesville and an unsolved triple homicide that
10:38
Speaker 1: involved fifty five year old Tom Grissom, his daughter Julie,
10:41
Speaker 1: and his grandson Sean. Julie's remains had been mutilated and posed,
10:46
Speaker 1: suggesting that the culprit could be the same man that
10:49
Speaker 1: the Gainesville police were after. It was shortly after that
10:53
Speaker 1: that a woman from Shreveport named Cindy called in to
10:56
Speaker 1: leave a tip. In this tip, she claimed that a
10:59
Speaker 1: man she knew called Danny Rowling could potentially be involved
11:03
Speaker 1: in the murders. Both she and her husband knew Danny
11:06
Speaker 1: from church, and after Danny had made some offhand comments
11:09
Speaker 1: about women and how much he enjoyed stabbing people, they
11:14
Speaker 1: felt like they needed to say something. The investigators took
11:17
Speaker 1: this tip seriously, and they didn't have to look far
11:20
Speaker 1: to find Danny. He was actually in custody after being
11:23
Speaker 1: arrested for a robbery, and blood tests revealed that he
11:26
Speaker 1: had the same type of blood as the killer had
11:29
Speaker 1: left behind at the scenes. Back then, typing was as
11:32
Speaker 1: far as DNA evidence could take us, but that was
11:35
Speaker 1: all the investigators needed. Danny confessed to not only the
11:39
Speaker 1: killings in Gainesville, but to the triple homicide in Shreveport, iiO.
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Speaker 1: He was sentenced to death and his execution was carried
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Speaker 1: out in the Florida State Prison in two thousand and six.
12:07
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13:19
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13:22
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13:24
Speaker 1: different thoughts I was having today, for example, if you
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Speaker 1: want an example, during a time when I was not
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Speaker 1: thinking about true crime or about this podcast, I was wondering,
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Speaker 1: it's not. Also, fire drills. When I was in elementary school,
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14:13
Speaker 1: that's a little peek into the mind of me when
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14:18
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