When terror struck a college town in Florida, everyone suspected a monster to be the one responsible. But no one really expected the news that the monster had struck once before.
Daniel Harold Rolling was born on May 26th, 1954, in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father, James, was a police officer who never wanted children. When his wife, Claudia, became pregnant, James was furious and miserable. He beat Claudia throughout the entirety of her pregnancy. He wasted no time on his first-born son, Daniel, beginning to physically abuse him as young as 12-months-old. The abuse grew worse when Daniel’s brother, Kevin, was born in 1955.
James was a Korean War veteran, and was in all likelihood suffering from PTSD as a result of his experiences at war. At the time, though, this was not something that was discussed, let alone diagnosed or treated. As a result, James likely took his untreated trauma out on his family.
Claudia repeatedly tried to leave James. She would pack up the children in the car, and leave. Shortly thereafter, she would pack up the children again, and always return to James and his abuse. This left both children, but Daniel especially, feeling apathetic towards Claudia. Danielparticularly resented his mother for staying in the marriage.
When Rolling was in the third grade, he struggled academically. He also missed a lot of school due to too many absences due to illnesses. As a result, he failed the grade, and was forced to repeat. Claudia had no idea how she’d be able to deliver the news to James. The stress caused her to have a mental breakdown, wherein she was hospitalized.
By this time, Rolling was already building an angry, rage-filled shell around himself. He watched his father express his anger whenever, and wherever he wanted. And Rolling began mimicking his behaviour. To do anything else would show that he was weak, like his mother. His school counselors began to see the problematic behaviours manifesting, describing him as ‘suffering from an inferiority complex, with aggressive tendencies, and poor impulse control’.
When his mother was released from hospital, the domestic arguments grew in frequency, and intensity. During one particular incident, as witnessed by Rolling, Claudia locked herself in the bathroom. This didn’t stop James’s rage. He simply followed her, and began trying to break down the door.
By the time James managed to break the door down, his wife was laying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. She’d cut her wrists with a razor blade. James merely laughed, and continued to berate his wife. Claudia was hospitalized for the incident.
By the age of eleven, Rolling was finding anything and everything to cope with his father’s abuse. He began abusing drugs and alcohol, developing an unhealthy dependency. He also turned to music, learning to play the guitar, and singing hymn-like songs that he would make up on his own.
As a teenager, Rolling was caught for peeping on a woman through her windows as she got dressed. When James discovered what he’d done, he beat Rolling senseless.
As soon as Rolling turned 18, he fled his home, and enlisted in the Navy. He did not pass the Navy’s preliminary intake. However, he did manage to make it into the Air Force.
Rolling found the rigid structure of military life very difficult to endure. He turned to drugs, indicating that he had taken acid more than 100 times. When the Air Force discovered Rolling’s unhealthy drug habit, he was honourably discharged from his service.
Rolling had no other options but to return home to Shreveport. He moved in with his grandfather, and took to hitchhiking to get around, as he didn’t have access to a vehicle. While hitchhiking home one night, he was picked up by a man who asked Rolling if he wanted to stop by his church and pray. The church was just around the corner from where Rolling was headed. Rolling agreed.
After that evening, Rolling felt changed. He returned to the church the following day, and was baptized. He soon became heavily involved in the social activities of the church. He began driving the church bus, picking up children and the elderly for Sunday mass. He participated in the choir, and also sung hymns and played guitar when visiting the ill in hospitals. Rolling’s life had meaning. But he was missing one thing to truly make it complete.
Rolling began praying for a woman. When he met O’Mather Lummus, he believed that she had been the answer to his prayers. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, and she immediately caught Rolling’s eye. After a whirlwind four-month courtship, the couple were married.
It wasn’t long before Rolling treated O’Mather the same way his father had treated Claudia – with disdain and abuse. He had everything he’d ever wanted, but he felt empty.
Soon, Rolling stopped going to work, and had even been caught peeping on a woman in the neighbourhood. When police escorted him home after being caught, they agreed not to tell his father – who was still on the force – so long as they reported his behaviour to his wife.
O’Mather was at her wits’ end. She had no idea how to break through to her husband. So, she called his parents for assistance. When James arrived at the house, he held a knife to Rolling’s throat, while berating him for his behaviour. Unsurprisingly, this did nothing to encourage Rolling to clean up his act and return to work.
O’Mather couldn’t take it anymore. She informed rolling of her intention to leave him. Desperate and angry, Rolling threatened O’Mather, holding a gun to her head, until she relented and agreed to stay with him. Later, Rolling caught O’Mather having an affair with her ex-boyfriend. Again, he held a gun to her head. When she refused to budge on her stance, Rolling turned the gun on himself. O’Mather talked Rolling down.
Following the incident, O’Mather filed for separation, and Rolling moved back in with his parents.
Angry, and rejected, Rolling let his anger feed his actions. He noticed a woman who looked eerily similar to his ex-wife. Rolling broke into the woman’s home, and raped her in 1977.
Following his divorce, and well into his adulthood, Rolling found it difficult to hold down a job. Between the 1970s and 1990s, Rolling often committed petty robberies for cash and food. He favoured robbing the Winn-Dixie chain of supermarkets.
As a result of his thefts and burglaries, Rolling spent time in and out of prison in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama.
In 1990, Rolling moved back home to Louisiana, and moved in with his father. During an argument, James grabbed a gun, and began shooting at Rolling. Rolling stormed off, and returned to the home with his own gun. Where James’s shots had gone wide, Rolling’s did not miss. He managed to hit his father in the stomach, and the forehead.
Realizing what he’d done, and giving his felled father a few kicks for good measure, Rolling fled the scene. He tore off, driving through Shreveport. He then abandoned his car near the airport, and took to the woods on foot.
Rolling made it to a friend’s house, and proceeded to call the hospital. He was relieved to hear that his father was still alive, having only lost an eye and an ear, but he knew he could never return.
Rolling took to the transient life, and hitchhiked his way to Kansas City, Missouri. There, he robbed the same grocery store twice.
From Missouri, Rolling moved on to Colorado, where he attempted to rape a woman he came across on a hiking trail. She fought him off, which enraged him. Rolling began beating the woman about her head. Fearing for her life, the woman begged Rolling to let her go. Surprisingly, he did.
Following this incident, Rolling kept wandering around, going from town to town, state to state. In July of 1990, Rolling made it to Florida. There, he burglarized several homes, and brutally raped a woman. In August of 1990, Rolling made his way to the college town of Gainesville, Florida. The fall semester had barely begun.
On Friday, August 24th, 1990, 17-year-olds Sonja Larson and Christina Powell were asleep at home at the apartment they shared. Rolling broke in, and found Christina asleep on the couch. Rolling looked down at her, and then proceeded to explore the apartment, heading up stairs to where Sonja was sleeping.
Rolling taped her mouth shut first, to ensure that she couldn’t scream and alert her roommate. Then, he stabbed her to death.
Rolling then returned downstairs, to the living room, where he taped Christina’s mouth shut as well. Then, he bound her wrists together behind his back. He cut off her clothes, and threatened her with a knife. Rolling then proceeded to rape her. Then, he stabbed her in the back while she was face down on the floor.
Rolling then made sure to clean up the scene. He posed the bodies in sexually humiliating positions. Then, he took a shower, and took the duct tape from the bodies, as well as Christina’s bindings. He took it all away with him, to the campsite he’d made in the woods nearby.
The following night, on Saturday, August 25th, 1990, Rolling broke into the apartment of 18-year-old Christa Hoyt with a Ka-Bar at around 11:00 AM. He was armed with a knife, and a screwdriver.
Rolling surprised Christa, placing her in a chokehold from behind to subdue her. As with the attacks on Sonja and Christina, Rolling taped Christa’s mouth shut. He then bound her hands together, and led her to the bedroom. As with Christina, he cut the clothes from her body, and raped her. He then forced her facedown, and stabbed her in the back.
As he’d done previously, he cleaned himself up, and took the bindings and tape with him. By the time he returned to his campsite, he realized that he’d left his wallet at the apartment. After being so careful, something like this couldn’t get him caught. Rolling did what he knew he had to do – he returned to the apartment.
Once he returned, he realized that no one had sounded the alarm in regards to Christa’s murder. After barely a moment’s thought, Rolling proceeded to decapitate Christa. He then posed her head on a shelf across the room, facing her own body.
News of the murders spread like wildfire. As the attacks occurred so early in the fall semester, many students withdrew from their classes, or enrolled in other schools, fearing they’d be next. Those who stayed were encouraged to change their routines, and stay together in groups. Everyone was fearful of the monster the news media had dubbed The Gainesville Ripper.
On Monday, August 27th, Rolling broke into the apartment of 23-year-old Tracy Paules, and her roommate 23-year-old Manuel “Manny” Taboada. Using a Ka-Bar, a screwdriver, and a knife, Rolling broke pried open a sliding glass door. He found Manny first, killing him after a struggle.
Hearing the fight from Manny’s bedroom, Tracy went to investigate. Upon entering the room, she ran into Rolling. She ran, and tried to barricade herself in her own bedroom. It wasn’t long before Rolling broke down the door.
As with the other attacks, Rolling taped Tracy’s mouth shut, bound her hands together, cut off her clothing, and raped her. He then forced her face-down, and stabbed her three times in the back. He then posed her body, but left Manny where he’d been murdered.
In the course of the investigation, law enforcement identified two suspects, though they were both cleared relatively quickly.
Soon, law enforcement in Florida realized that they had more on their plate than they realized. Upon seeing news of the Gainesville murders, law enforcement in Shreveport, Louisiana felt that they were after the same killer.
Nearly a year prior, on November 4th, 1989, 55-year-old William Grissom, along with his 24-year-old daughter Julie, and his 8-year-old grandson, Sean, were all found murdered in the Grissom family home. Julie’s body had been mutilated, cleaned with vinegar, and then posed in a sexually humiliating manner. The murders bore a striking resemblance to the Gainesville murders.
Thought the killer had mad attempts to clean up, some DNA evidence had been left behind. Law enforcement had the DNA tested, using the technology they had at the tume, and found that the killer of both the Gainesville murders, and the Shreveport murders had one thing in common – the killer had type B blood.
In November of 1990, police received the most promising lead of the investigation so far. Shreveport resident Cindy Juracich phoned Crime Stoppers, and gave them a name. She believed that Daniel Rolling was involved in the murders. She’d seen the news reports back in August, and they immediately made her think of a young man she knew from church, Rolling.
Cindy told law enforcement that Rolling had paid her, and her then-husband, Steven Dobbin, a visit. Steven felt uncomfortable, and approached Cindy, telling her that Rolling needed to go. Rolling had confided in him, stating that he ‘had a problem’. Rolling had told Steven that he liked to use knives on people.
The encounter disturbed the couple, but they chose to ignore it. While uncomfortable with Rolling’s comments, they refused to believe that he was capable of committing the murders that had occurred in Gainesville. But the thoughts wouldn’t let her go. She finally contacted police, and told them that she suspected he was connected to not only the Shreveport murders, but the Gainesville murders.
Police quickly followed up on the lead, and went in pursuit of Daniel Rolling. They found him in Ocala, Florida, where he’d been arrested on September 7th, 1990 for robbing a supermarket. Law enforcement were soon able to determine that he also had type B blood – just like perpetrator of the Shreveport and Gainesville murders.
Honing in on their suspect, police took a look at Rolling’s criminal record. Upon seeing the multitude of convictions for armed robbery and burglary in his file, they considered a possibility.
The day of Christa Hoyt’s murder, a bank had been robbed nearby. Believing that Rolling could be responsible, the evidence locker where Rolling’s belongings was checked again. There, they found a gun, a screwdriver, a bag of money, and a cassette player. From the campsite that Rolling had built himself in the woods, law enforcement found cassette tapes.
When they listened to the tapes, they hit pay dirt. Daniel Rolling had created audio diaries, memorializing his alleged involvement in all of the murders.
In November of 1991, Daniel Harold Rolling was charged with several counts of murder. Three years later, in 1994, Rolling pled guilty to all of the charges.
On April 20th, 1994, Daniel Harold Rolling was sentenced to death.
While on death row, he was visited by his spiritual advisor, Reverend Mike Hudspeth. Rolling handed them a handwritten confession and apology, claiming responsibility for the Shreveport murders, as well as the Gainesville murders.
Daniel Harold Rolling was executed by lethal injection on October 25th, 2006.
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Sources:
Danny Rolling: The Story of the Gainesville Ripper Who Inspired ‘Scream’ – William DeLong & Leah Silverman – All That’s Interesting
When and How Did Danny Rolling Die? – The Cinemaholic
Danny Rolling: The True Story Behind the Killer Who Inspired ‘Scream’ – Tim Ott – Biography.com
Serial Killers Podcast – “The Gainesville Ripper”: Danny Rolling – Part 1 and Part 2
Danny Rolling Wikipedia page