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The Gainesville Ripper -Serial Killer- Daniel “Danny” Harold Rolling
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Ever found yourself walking through the darkest corridors of the human mind? Kellye and Kyler are your guides on a spine-tingling journey into the abyss, where we unravel the twisted saga of Daniel Harold Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper, whose grotesque spree shook the University of Florida campus and bled into horror cinema. This episode isn't just about the crimes; it's a stark portrayal of a man's descent into darkness, from a troubled divorce to a clash with his father that catapulted him into infamy. Join us as we piece together the origins of a killer and the harrowing details of his notorious acts.
The panic was palpable in Gainesville as Rolling's shadow loomed over the community, leading to an exodus and surge in self-defense measures. In this deeply personal recounting, we share a connection to the victims that brings this tragedy uncomfortably close to home. As we dissect the investigation that finally cornered Rolling as a prime suspect, retired FBI profiler Candace DeLong, with her psychological insights from her podcast, shedding light on the eerie behaviors that betrayed the Ripper. Our gratitude goes out to you, our listeners, for joining us on this exploration into a real-life horror story.
Wrapping up, we'll take you through the final chapters of Rolling's grisly narrative, from his courtroom antics to the profound impact his actions had on the legal system and the community. We discuss the chilling confessions and the murderer's complex psychology, alongside the Louisiana triple homicide that brought our story full circle. As we pay tribute to the victims and their families, we also announce upcoming content influenced by your suggestions, promising enthralling tales that step away from the Louisiana backdrop. Our heartfelt thanks for tuning in; remember to hold on to the love and courage that keeps darkness at bay.
Sources:
Penalty Phase - Opening Statements: >Prosecution >Defense
- Oxygen article
- Supreme Court appeal
- AETV Article
- Tampa Article about Rolling's Ex-wife testimony
- NBC Article - WBNA
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This episode contains graphic and disturbing depictions of sexual assault, rape and mutilation that might be disturbing for some listeners. There is also some discussion of child abuse and the murder of a child, so please use caution as listener discretion is extremely advised. Gainesville, florida in 1990 was a scary place to be, especially if you were on the University of Florida campus. Most of us listening to this episode will already have a general idea of who and what happened with the Gainesville Ripper case, but if you listen closely, you may learn something new. Join us today for an interesting deep dive into the background and origin story of Daniel Harold Rowling, also known as the Gainesville Ripper, on today's episode of Senlaw. Hello and welcome to this episode of Sin Law. I'm Kelly and I'm Kyler, and he's finally back. Yay, maybe, yay, we'll see how that goes, not that Back again.
Speaker 1:Okay, I apologize in advance, I'm gonna do better. Actually I'm hoping. No, no, definitely, because, um, we've had a lot of shit going on lately. Right, and that's my point is, I am about to try to, in this next week, at least get two episodes pre-recorded to be able to release in the interim, because at the end of this month we're going to a wedding, going to visit my oldest soul friend, and then, you know, we're going to be doing stuff for like two weeks solid and it's going to be a lot. So I'm going to try to get everything done prior to, just like I'm doing at work.
Speaker 1:So, having said that, we've got a couple of cool things From the Derek Todd Lee episode. I think that was last episode. One of the co-workers of mine she was actually the perfectly fitting MO could have possibly been murdered by Derek Todd Lee. She was in Baton Rouge at the time, two or three blocks or I think she said blocks maybe just a couple doors down from one of the victims. She was a single, independent, financially stable, like all of these things, like she fit every single part of his bill bonkers. She said she remembered exactly when that happened because she was there. It was crazy bananas anyway. I just thought that was a cool fun fact for y'all. It's crazy how the world works in the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. Fun tidbit, fun fact about Derek Chobly. Now we're going to move on to yet another serial killer that technically wasn't made famous for any Louisiana murders but, as you will come to find, he is strongly tied to the boot. So let's get started, shall we?
Speaker 1:all right, let's go um, I'm gonna go way back 1954, way back machine. Yeah, um, we're talking may 26th. That is the day that daniel harold rolling born he went by Danny Um, he, uh, he had a really, really shitty childhood. Um, so I believe he had I know he had at least one brother, because he comes up later but he was born into um, a very young couple. His mom was 17, I believe, when she got married and then got pregnant two weeks later, to which his father, james, did not approve. He never was happy with the fact that she immediately got pregnant and that they were immediately saddled with a child.
Speaker 1:He was actually a police officer in the entry port, louisiana and from well there are, there are mixed, mixed reviews. Now nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. So when it comes down to talking about family violence or domestic violence, I tend to give more credit to the people who are actually in the household, because later we'll hear an opposing side. But then again, like I said, people can put up faces. So in this instance, both Danny and his mother later said that it was a very abusive, very toxic household. His mother, her name, was Claudia, toxic household. His mother, her name was Claudia, and Claudia had a slew of mental health issues. She was, I think, manic depressive and she was institutionalized multiple times. They moved around a lot and from all reports, james Harold Rowling, the father, was very, very abusive. That was practically from the time that Danny started crawling. He later told people that he spent a lot of time outdoors, not because he enjoyed it but because that was the only way he could get away from the abuse.
Speaker 1:So, very traumatic upbringing. He was never shown love and appreciation and you know, he also likely felt betrayed because his mom knew what was happening. She was always there, she knew what was going on, was always there, she knew what was going on and she never did anything to stop it. Uh, there are reports that she tried to leave a couple times but she always came back and at just 13 years old he danny that is rolling he got into a fight or, um, I say a fight as much as a 13 year old can fight with an adult, grown-ass man.
Speaker 1:After his father had severely beat him, he had locked himself in the bathroom. Well, later, when his mom finally got the door open, there was no Danny. He had actually crawled out of the window and left a note basically saying that you know this is too much for me. I can't keep doing this. It was basically a suicide note and he said that he took some of the razors. He wasn't going to come back, but he did. You know, unfortunately for later. But I mean a 13-year-old Danny we can feel sorry for, because that's nobody should have to deal with that. No, no child should have to be in that kind of situation to where suicide is the best option at age 13. So at any age, but specifically when you're a child, it's just not fair. So obviously there were some major issues.
Speaker 1:His father, like I said, he was a police officer. He was also a Korean veteran. He was also a police officer. So you can imagine that it was very structured, strenuous, very military style you can't do anything right and on top of everything else, they were also Pentecostal. So a lot of just bad news bears all the way around. So this, you could see, would be an issue for any child growing up in that situation and, like I said earlier, danny actually spent a lot of time outside and what he would do with his time most of the time was people watch, which turned into peeping tom, which turned into initially he said it started off as more like a jealousy, like he wanted, with the other people he saw like them having dinner together as a family of them, smiling and laughing, and he would just be jealous and feel jealous. And then it became more of a deep-seated well if I can't have that in my home, I am gonna just watch theirs. And it eventually turned sexual as he got older. The crimes and things that he was actually arrested for later ended up being more like robberies, burglaries from like business places. I don't recall ever seeing any arrests for any of the voyeurism or peeping tom type stuff.
Speaker 1:By the time he hit, I believe it was his junior year. He dropped out. I don't think he made it past um 11th grade and he figured that the best way to get away from his father's abuse and from his shitty home life that he would just join the military. So at 17 he, in 1971, he joined the air force and he didn't make it very far um he was actually discharged about a year later. He had a severe drug, alcohol and mental instability and I think mental instability was actually what he was discharged under. It wasn't a dishonorable discharge, it was just like basically like a medical discharge. He couldn't withstand the stringent atmosphere or what have you. So discharged due to mental disability, but it was mostly the drugs and the, the lsd, specifically 1971 he joined with but before 1972 ended he was already back home and back in the same shitty cycle. He actually ended up going.
Speaker 1:He was going to a church there in Shreveport with his parents and he was spiraling basically.
Speaker 1:And one day in church he's sitting there and he's praying and he said, god, if you'll just, you just, give me a sign of what I'm supposed to do, if there's some reason, reason, you know, some good that I can do in this world.
Speaker 1:Because at this point he felt pretty hopeless. He hadn't graduated high school, he flunked out of the air force, he couldn't keep a job, he couldn't do anything right, apparently, and his father was a constant reminder of that. So at that very moment it just so happened that apparently to him, god sent him a wife, because as soon as he opened his eyes he saw this beautiful brown haired, brown eyed, petite woman and she was backlit by this beautiful, glorious light and he knew that it was a sign from God. That's the woman he was supposed to marry, and by 1974 he did, despite the fact that he had no job, was living at home with his parents, had flunked out of the military and never graduated high school. He got married at night in 1974 to his first wife, which I think he only had one, but I think he got engaged a couple times Either way 1974, he was married, he had their, they had their first daughter within that same year.
Speaker 1:But you know somebody with that many issues they're not going to be able to cohabitate well and any good parent, good mother, is going to be concerned for the well-being of of their child.
Speaker 1:And this woman did the right thing, um, and within three years she filed for divorce and ran as far as way, as far away, as fast as possible, and never really looked back, which good for her because, thank goodness, according to the wife and then ex-wife, she said that abuse was prevalent verbal, emotional, physical and that, you know, she tried to deal with it. She couldn't really explain why she fell for him, despite all of the things that you know should have been red flags. She said that, um, she was around when you know he, because apparently he got like not not in trouble or not arrested, but he got like reprimanded for peeping. And she said it was very embarrassing and humiliating in that she put up with the abuse for a while but then, when she started to get worried more about the safety of her child that the final straw she said the final straw was when he held a shotgun to her head and threatened to shoot her that's pretty good.
Speaker 2:Final straw yeah.
Speaker 1:So she took that baby and ran and then this is where it gets kind of conflicting, because she did say that her after she left, that james the father, her father-in-law he actually gave her money after she left to help support her and the child and those father-in-law and the mother-in-law, claudia and James, they would actually come and visit and spend time with their granddaughter, but never Danny, he never did. A lot of the hostility and aggression between her and Rowling in their marriage came from him, constantly and forever accusing her of cheating, always being jealous of a non-existent significant other, and she vehemently denied ever cheating on him. And I believe her, because this guy is psychotic. So he was just looking for any, any excuse and that's the easiest one. It really is. You know you're being unfaithful, I don't have a job, but I can't trust you, because why would you like me, right?
Speaker 2:you must be liking somebody else, right?
Speaker 1:right. Right. So she got out. She got out of. But, like I said earlier, there was a little bit of conflict there because she said that she never saw any bad relationship between Danny and James and that she never noticed anything and she said it seemed like they had a normal father-son relationship, even if it was a little strained. So take that at whatever face value. He gets divorced. So there's another tick on the I'm a loser and I can't do anything right list Then we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1:I guess you can't really go up from the spot that he was in. He went through different bouts of suicidal ideation. He went through moving out and just preferring to be homeless instead of having to be in the home, which also would put him into these severe depressions which would lead back to the suicidal ideations. And it was just this big ass circle right, homeless, he started burglarizing and robbing different places and trying to earn his own money that way, which didn't and will never work out well for anybody really. Um, because eventually you get to the point where you know you get sloppy, and he did, and so the majority of his adult life after the divorce and everything he was in and out of prison a lot. He, um sir, ended up serving more time in prison than he was out by the time, by the end of his life, which just kind of shows you like, yeah, so by the time, I mean if he lived a full life, that probably would have changed.
Speaker 1:But let me like 52 oh shit.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe not then yeah, that's what I'm saying. In may of 1990 he gets into a massive. In may of 1990 he is I think it was a little bit before his birthday, so he would have been 35, about to 36 and he gets into a massive argument as per the usual. Except this one gets so out of hand with his father that he actually ends up taking a gun and shooting him twice in the stomach and once in the head. But this isn't the murder that attaches him to Louisiana. Oh no, because his dad lived. He, he had massive injuries, obviously to his abdomen and gut stuff and had to have all that surgeries. He also lost an eye and an ear, but he survived. But that was the end of Danny Rowling's stay and stint in Louisiana.
Speaker 1:At that point, what's the short stint? Well, he was 35, 36, almost. So right after that argument he immediately leaves. He doesn't even know if his father's dead or alive, he just rolls out. So he takes off and he ends up in you guessed it Gainesville, florida, and he's down there doing the same thing, same thing basically that he was doing in Louisiana, um, subsisting on burglarizing and robbing people and mostly getting away with it.
Speaker 1:Um, kind of come to a head in August of 1990 when the infamous, turned cult classic movie franchise Gainesville Murders occur. So over a three slash four day period if you're counting midnights over in that four day period, he kills five people. Yeah, so on august 24th 1990 he had been stalking a pair of freshman college students and watching them and doing his stuff. And now, before we get too far into that the set here, let me go back just a little bit. So when he moved to Gainesville he didn't actually have a place to live. Like I said, he was basically doing the same thing he had been doing in Shreveport, except in Gainesville. He actually set up like a little encampment right outside or right off the campus ground so he could actually like watch people through the woods and the trees and he had his own little tent, he had all of his stuff and after, um, everything kind of fell out and they were looking for whoever did this. They found this camp right and they actually had found and they released it because, I've heard them, he had recorded himself, because he fancied himself an artist. He had recorded himself singing. They had journals with lyrics and poems and things that actually had details that alluded to what he did and he was calling himself the Watchmen killer or something along those lines.
Speaker 1:If you need it, if you want to listen to him, there are so many episodes, podcasts, forensic files, a&e movies, like there is undeniable massive amounts of coverage of his case and, like I said, those audios are out there. I'm pretty sure the first time I heard him was on Forensic Files and he's playing his little guitar and singing his songs and it's a lot creepy. It's a lot creepy, especially when he's talking about the way he sneaks in and takes them by surprise while they're sleeping. It's very, very creepy. So it's well, if you're like me and you're morbid as all hell, then you'll enjoy that. So just give it a gook.
Speaker 1:That evening he had followed these two freshmen, 17 year old christina powell and 18 year old sonja larson, back to their off-campus apartment and this is why we say fresh air is for dead people. Close your windows, lock your freaking doors, because these girls didn't. He didn't even have to break in, so of course there was no sign of forced entry. They just left the door unlocked, yeah. So he walks in and he sees 17 year old christina sleep on the couch. He stands over for a few seconds because he knows there's two girls in the apartment. So as he's doing his mental gymnastics trying to figure out which one of these women he's actually going to do what he came here to do, he looks at Christina again on the couch and then makes his way upstairs. He gets upstairs and he finds 18 year old Sonia Larson asleep in her bed. He proceeds to take a strip of duct tape and duct tapes her mouth so that she can't be heard, and then he proceeds to start a vicious knife attack, because he has brought with him a US Marine Corps K-Bar knife. He also had a pistol and a screwdriver, because the knife and the screwdriver were actually his method for opening doors. But he didn't have to do that in this case. And the gun he never used. But it was a form of crowd control. It was his way to subdue his victims into doing what he wanted.
Speaker 1:And then eventually, his method of murder was not to shoot them. Instead, like with Miss Sonja here, he was viciously attacking her, stabbing her in the chest, in the arms. She actually had a big slash mark across her thigh and within a few minutes she died from blood loss. But because he duct tape her mouth shut, he made his way back downstairs, where christina was still asleep on the couch, at which point he again took the duct tape, put it over her mouth, but with her he took his time. He duct taped her hands and then he used his k-bar knife to methodically cut all of her clothes off, sexually assault and rape her and then made her lay face down on the floor, at which point he took his K-bar knife and stabbed her five times in the back. He wasn't done, because at this point he has fulfilled the fantasy it gets.
Speaker 1:It gets a little bit worse than that. He not only took their lives and brutalized them while they were alive, now he's going to humiliate them in death. He took their clothes, put them in the washing machine, washed and dried them and cleaned up all the clothes. He himself took a shower and then he cleaned off both of the bodies and left them posed to be found in provocative positions, which sonia was left bending over the bed, to where, when the person who walked in to find them found her bent over and presenting her rear end straight towards them as they walked in the door. I believe, christina, that he had left her. It was obviously sexually provocative pose, because that was kind of his stick, but I think her legs were open and like almost spread, eagled on the on the couch there. Then he leaves and continues on with his day. I guess you could say that Probably goes back to his little camp and jerks himself off to the thought of what he just did, which is vile.
Speaker 1:They didn't find Christina and Sonia's body until later the next day because it had taken them that long for their family to be like, hey, we haven't heard from them. Yada, yada, yada. So by the time they're wise to their deaths, they find the 17-year-old murdered in their apartment and posed. They get another call within hours to go to another murder site, and this was at an isolated duplex, off campus again, and that was at the home of Christina Hoyt, an 18 year old, and she was the only one of the five that were not actually enrolled at the University of Florida. She was going to the um community college, santa Fe, I believe, and this one's pretty rough, pretty rough. Um, just fair warning.
Speaker 1:So on the 25th, this was another one of the stalking victims that he had been watching for some time and he waited. Well, I don't know if he waited or not, but he got there to her duplex. When she was not there, he used his knife and the screwdriver to pop open. Uh, I believe it was a window. The back window waited, just hung out, waiting for her to come home. And when she came home, I believe it was like 11 am, like it wasn't in the middle of the night, it wasn't anything.
Speaker 1:He begins his same mo type situation where he duct tapes her mouth, duct tapes her hands, and then he proceeds to brutalize her, assault her and rape her, at which point he then tells her to turn over, lay on her belly, and then he stabs her in the back. But that's not all he does, and the the viciousness and strength at which he's stabbing her. He actually ruptured her heart, but from there it doesn't. It doesn't get better at all. So he proceeded to tear open her torso, completely decapitate her and cut off her nipples and left them on the bed beside her.
Speaker 2:I don't mean to laugh, but like what the fuck?
Speaker 1:Oh, it gets worse. He then took her head that he had just cut off of her body and placed it on a bookshelf, overlooking her own mutilated body, and that's how the police found her. That's the room that they walked into, which can absolutely be the entire reasoning for the inspiration of the gory Wes Craven massacre flick that he argued with ratings people over because they thought it was too graphic and literally scarring the opening scene of that movie. I mean, one can argue in one way or the other. Yeah, so that's how they found her. And they found her body within a couple hours of finding the other two, even though the other two had been killed the night before.
Speaker 1:Just awful, absolutely awful. At this point they realize that they've got a serious problem and they're warning people and they're letting everybody know serious problem. And they're warning people and they're letting everybody know and everybody on the florida campus is absolutely losing their mind. And it's very eerily similar to how it's portrayed in the movie. You know that basically everything shuts down. I'm pretty sure that they had a mass exodus of people that left the college campus. I think they had something like 3,200 people that actually never went back. Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, 700 students left and never came back. There was about 30,000, just people and women in that area that left the area and eventually came back like just absolute sheer panic. They said that the uptick in buying of weapons mace um baseball bats and padlocks and all of those things that you would think would help keep you secure.
Speaker 2:You would think, no, maybe so the only thing that's going to keep a determined person from killing you was killing them, no.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe no. So the only thing that's going to keep a determined person from killing you is killing them. No, no, I hear you, I got you, but that's basically what happened.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's my opinion at least.
Speaker 1:The song that I was talking about earlier is called Mystery Rider. So Mystery Rider, gainesville Ripper, danny Rowling, rolling any of those combinations that'll get you there. So that was on the 25th that he broke in and waited, decapitated or had the head looking the body over, and then two days later he struck again and this time it was at the apartment of 23-year-old Tracy Pauls. Tracy had been listening and watching the news, as everybody had heard. At this point there's no way you could have freaking missed it. But because of all of the warnings and discretions, tracy had been paying attention and, like any you know relatively intelligent person in the area at the time, either you leave or you take measures to protect yourself. Her measure to protect herself was in the form of a quote-unquote bodyguard, good friend of hers, who was a linebacker playing football in college. His name was manny taboda taboda. I don't know to say that and I apologize if I butchered it, but Manny was staying with Tracy to act as a bodyguard and the off chance that something happened. Unfortunately, something did happen and same situation, same scenario. He actually, rolling, broke in with the knife and the screwdriver and was kind of caught off guard because he did not expect manny to be there because he, like I said, he stalked all of these women well in advance and knew their habits and um usual routines, but she kind of threw over a loop by having Manny there. Well, when he came across Manny, he immediately went to eliminate that threat first, and him and Manny got into it big time enough to be so loud as to cause Tracy to awaken and come see what was going on. By the time she got in there, danny had gained the advantage and successfully unalived Manny, and at which point she attempted to flee and barricade herself into her room. Unfortunately, that didn't stop him barricade herself into her room. Unfortunately that didn't stop him.
Speaker 1:Danny eventually made his way into the room and proceeded to go through his normal ritual of duct taping hands, mouth and violently assaulting, raping and then murdering and stabbing, yes, and then she was stabbed three times in the back and so, manny, he was stabbed repeatedly in the chest, arms, hands, legs and face, anywhere he could reach. And this is where we get a better look into inside of his head. Because, danny, when they found manny sorry, when they Manny he was exactly as he would have been when he died. So he was murdered, stabbed, fight, argue, whatever. Dead never touched again, never touched Tracy. On the other hand, she was cleaned, washed, everything was all prepped up nicely and then she was provocatively posed in a suggestive sexual manner. Although he had done pretty much the the same exact thing, he was thrown off by manny being there, so it was a variable. He didn't take as much time like he did with um hoyt, with the mutilation and the you know staging all of the things he still posed her, but he didn't mutilate her in the same fashion.
Speaker 1:There was no cutting off of the nipples or anything like that for Tracy, so her body was actually laying in the hallway between the two bedrooms and just posed. To make it shocking, when they opened the door after the gainesville police discovered those two bodies they went into like hyperdrive right, because they're trying to figure out who the hell did this. They're trying to figure out how they could stop it. Um, but little did they know that. I think he may have gotten spooked at this point and decided it was time to bounce, because you know the close call with manny, he didn't like it right. It did not fit into his narrative he had, he didn't have the control that he wanted, that he had had in the other murders. So he bounced and on his way out of town he hit up a grocery store, robbed them and then he tried, attempted to rob some another place and on his way out and eventually he made his way I think it was to Ocala.
Speaker 2:Ocala.
Speaker 1:Ocala and I'm sorry, Rodney Ocala was also a serial killer, but he made his way up and I think he actually made it over to Mississippi bank robbing and doing all the things, to where he actually eventually he got caught because he botched one of them and he was in jail Just chilling.
Speaker 1:So you know they're still working hard, they've got task forces on this and you know they've got at this point it's national news that everybody's kind of listening and watching, but it's still, you know, if you're not in the state, it's not going to be as hyped as as it would be if you were in the same area, right?
Speaker 1:so yeah, that's the difference of look at what's going on over there exactly. So while it was in the news and it was getting coverage, it wasn't as blasted in other places like, oh, let's say, louisiana. And just by happenstance, you know, a turn of fate, a member of the church that danny attended when he was younger, when he was still in shreveport, that his family had attended a member of that church was traveling through the Florida Panhandle and got wind of these vicious, brutal murders and they reminded her of a triple murder from Shreveport. And she said I wonder, I bet you that's the same guy Because the triple murder that she's remembering, I bet you that's the same guy because the triple murder that she's remembering. Everybody pretty much suspected the same person. Y'all don't know who that is yet. We're not there yet, right? Nobody knows. So this uh this lady.
Speaker 1:I know they know. So at this point, miss Cindy, juristic, juristic I don't know how to say her last name, it used to be Dobbins, so that one's way easier. And I didn't even catch this until I was writing the notes, when I was doing my bullet points for my days, like the dates or whatever you know. In the movie scream, hello sydney, real close to cindy. I don't know if that was on purpose, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. Anyway.
Speaker 1:Cindy is basically the reason, um, for the eventual downfall, because she makes the connection and thinks, oh, that sounds familiar, that sounds just like how they died the triple murder back in Shreveport a year ago almost, but I think it was actually 10 months, um, from the time that that triple murder happened in Shreveport to the time that the Florida murders happened. And so she contacts her Shreveport police, the officers and investigators, detectives, over there, and lets them know like, hey, have you guys looked into this? Have you, have you seen this? You talk to them, you let them know because that sounds kind of like what y'all are dealing with. And sure shit, the um, shreeport police, they contact the Gainesville police guys and they're like hey, have y'all looked into this guy. He's kind of a drifter. He might be down there.
Speaker 2:We've heard reports and these look a lot like ours and again, good on her, because that takes both actually thinking and initiative, which is a combination a lot of people don't have.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, miss Cindy used to actually be really good friends with danny rolling. Like I said, they attended the same church, but it was more than that, danny and her first husband. They were really good friends all the way up until the point when it was actually after the triple murder, but before he left in may of 1990, that they were hanging out and he was always a little off. She said that he was always a little bit weird, but he made a comment that she couldn't just brush off and the comment was he was talking to her then-husband and he said yeah, I like sticking knives in people, yep.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Yep, and at that point they no longer were friends. That friendship ceased, in whatever capacity it was before, it was no longer. I see dead people, yeah, well, after I kill them, yeah, yeah, you see dead people. And then you pose dead people and then you clean dead people. It's weird.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you probably fucked dead people.
Speaker 1:That was in a. Yeah, that was something that they said happened actually with the first two girls. They said that after he got done downstairs with Powell, that he went back upstairs and necroed that body. So that's just a whole other level.
Speaker 2:It's a whole yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no-transcript, kind of synced up and the gainesville uh investigators like you know what. We can look into it Now we have some ideas. Dna we're talking this is still 1990, so we're early, early infancy but they had enough to do, you know the typing which would have been the ABO, and secretor non-secretor and we went over that in one of the other episodes. And secretor non-secreter, and we went over that in one of the other episodes. But they had DNA at pretty much every scene.
Speaker 1:Quite a bit of it, some of them, yeah, and they had a good amount at the Danny Tracy or Manny I'm sorry shit, manny Tracy scene, because Manny didn't go quietly, he held his own for as long as he could and still lost. But I mean, like you can't expect somebody to get stabbed as many times as he did and actually come out of that. Um, it has happened, but it's it's not expected. So they eventually. That was November of 1990 when Cindy called them in and let them know like hey, you guys might want to check into this. And it wasn't until May about six months later, may of 91, that the Gainesville police actually named Danny Rowling as a prime suspect in the Gainesville murders. They said that they had linked the DNA as well as the tool marks which they had recovered because they were actually in evidence, because they didn't have to look real far for Danny because he was in jail.
Speaker 2:Hold on, hold on. So you're saying that not only did he use the same type of weapon in each, no, the exact same one. Oh my god.
Speaker 1:Exact same one, exact same screwdriver, exact same pistol, every single time.
Speaker 2:Yep, Just in case for those of y'all that aren't aware, tool marks are a thing.
Speaker 1:But yes and no but also yes in more recent years they've actually started calling it more of a junk science because it's not as precise as people would like to make it seem. It can be. No, it's not as precise, but it's a very good benchmark. It is and it can be, like I said, but you know a lot of the earlier forensics they always wanted to say like DNA.
Speaker 2:It's going to get more and more unique, like I said, but you know a lot of the earlier forensics. They always wanted to say like DNA, if you decide to use the same tool for each and every murder. It's going to get more and more unique. And just don't do that. I mean also don't murder people, I mean. But like, if you're going to, we're not doing that, bury your arsenal Right and bury it all across the country Like the one. He was smart, yeah, and terrifying yeah.
Speaker 1:Israel Keys. We're not doing that. No, terrifying. We might do a special episode on it. It's terrifying. If only to make sure that everybody that ever could possibly need the knowledge of Israel Keys, that there are Israel Keys out there, then yes, abso-fucking-lutely.
Speaker 2:I just want to do the episode because I want to learn more about him.
Speaker 1:Okay. So before we do that too big, like I said, he was doing the robbery. He committed an Arab robbery of a bank before he left Gainesville, which is always a great idea, and they actually found like I told, told you earlier, they found his campsite. That was right out, right off the campus. They actually found the money, or a lot of the money, from that bank robbery at that campsite nice, yeah, along with his other recordings and journals and ski masks, pubic hair, all this clothing and stuff also bad ideas, all bad ideas. So he stole a car and committed several other robberies on his way out and eventually got caught and arrested. They eventually ended up using the dna that they found on the clothing, the ski masks and stuff there, the blood he still had blood on his pants that he left at his campsite. Okay, so they used all of that to tie in with the dna. Now, not the brightest?
Speaker 2:no, not even a little bit yeah, give me like the highlight reel and then bring us back down to reality oh, this is a fun fact.
Speaker 1:When he moved to florida, or made his way to florida, after he got into the argument with his dad and shot him in the head and the stomach, he changed his identity to michael kennedy jr. Yeah, why? Because he didn't want to be the same person.
Speaker 2:I'm aware of that but like why pick a jr?
Speaker 1:I don't know, maybe because he could get away with it and try to make the excuse like you know, you had your issues with you being the jr and issues of that nature. The robbery that actually got him caught was, um, he was attempting to hold up or armed robbered a wind, dixie um on september 7th he was trying to rob a Winn-Dixie give me a grand baby.
Speaker 1:He got caught. They eventually got him for the robbery and connected that. Well, they got him at the Winn-Dixie but they had connected that one to the other robbery that was down in Gainesville but they hadn't connected him to the murders yet. So they basically just took him to the murderers yet. So they basically just took him in and, like I said, they got the tools and everything that they later connected to the murderers and the break-ins that they found, those in the evidence locker, because they didn't, you know, they held no significance at the time.
Speaker 2:He hadn't used them in the robbery.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, so they were stored away. So, like I said on september, what was it seventh? Whatever it was, I think it was the seventh, sure sure, sure, sure, yeah, september 7th, see, I was right.
Speaker 1:Okay. So september 7th which, see, I was right. Okay, so September 7th, which would have been basically like two full months, almost Listen to me Sorry Two full months prior to the tip coming in from Cindy Right. He's making his way to Ocala and he had been burglarizing houses and everything along the way and didn't really do much except leave a trail of evidence, including fingerprints and hair, and he was almost caught as he departed from like a gas station. But he managed to run in the woods and eluded again and, you know, got lucky again. But the wind digs his where it runs out. So he goes in in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, high crowd time and forces the manager at gunpoint to empty the safe. And, as luck would have it, the bookkeeper was actually on her way back in when someone told her like hey, we're being robbed. So she went and got on the phone with the cops and they were well on their way by the time. Rowling was exiting and the store manager had actually followed him and were able to tell the police exactly where he was. And into high speed chase, and into high speed chase, he ends up Crashing the car, then Flees on foot and tries to escape, again by running off into the woods. But they managed to get their hands on him and got him in custody and Was finally arrested Although still Not being connected to the murders, just to these string of robberies and burglaries and things and they locked him up tight and that was in Marion County and it wasn't until September 11th, because it was on September 8th that he was actually trying to rob the Winn-Dixie.
Speaker 1:That Saturday, on September 11th, the Gainesville River story was dropped from the front page for the first time outside of. You know all of the mess Because we're just talking. This was August 24th, 25th, 27th that it happened. So September 11th was the first time it was dropped from the front page. So they were no longer running front page headlines about the Gainesville Ripper because it had already been a whole what two weeks at that point or close to, and they were trying to move past it.
Speaker 1:So they wanted to try to start moving on from the terror and horror of the whole situation and all the gruesome murders and just try to get back to a sense of normalcy as best you can after a thousand people leave Right Mass exodus. So on October, october 10th, they had been investigating another person and they had actually like pulled him in and accused him of the murders. Um, he lived nearby and had been arrested for assaulting his grandmother and he was kind of mentally unhinged but they thought it was him. They had taken his dna and were waiting on those results to come back. On october 10th that guy was convicted of assaulting his grandma and, oddly enough, danny had sent his mother a christmas card from the marion county jail awaiting indictment. From the point that he got arrested, he basically, danny, basically accepted his fate and was totally cooperative. He had been, you know, like a model prisoner up to that point.
Speaker 2:It's almost time for me to read the thing.
Speaker 1:Almost On January 1st of 1991, he actually kind of flipped the script and he ripped a toilet from its mounting in his cell and threw it across the day room inside the jail. That takes more strength than y'all people.
Speaker 2:It's a lot Like wow yeah, why wow yeah, why yeah. Does it say any inkling of why?
Speaker 1:He just got upset about something it doesn't specifically say.
Speaker 1:I couldn't find the actual reason, what he was upset about, but I'm sure it was something nuanced. Those kind of people can turn on dimes. That's just crazy. Yeah, at that point his defense attorney for the robbery case and stuff that they were going to plead to, she decided to ask for motion for psychological testing and withdrew the guilty plea.
Speaker 1:He danny obviously most of serial killers, as you will hear any behavioral analyst tell you. I actually listened to the episode on Killer Psyche, season 3, episode 11. She's a retired FBI profiler and she's worked on all kinds of freaking cases and I just I love her voice, I love the way she sounds. She's very, she's animated, but not overly so. So it's a really nice storytelling voice and she's so incredibly knowledgeable overly so. So it's a really nice storytelling voice and she's so incredibly knowledgeable on all things serial killer, because she's worked on a vast majority of them.
Speaker 1:And anyway, she said that you know he basically fit the bill of all of the things serial killer, wise, but the narcissism. So, in the same vein, that, like sean vincent gillis, he loved to talk, so did, but they just they enjoy talking about themselves, practically bragging, reliving what they've done, and in that vein so did danny rolling he loved to tell his fellow cellmates and bunkmates all about the things that he'd done ended up confessing to way more than just the bank robberies, and it was sometimes it would be braggadocious. Sometimes it would be braggadocious, sometimes it would be like confession, almost where he was repenting for his sins just to get them out. But mostly it's just the reliving of this same event, just to get another shot of it Chasing the dragon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so finally they ended up in May, like I said, of 1991. They had finally connected him and named him as the prime suspect in the Gainesville murders and they had already pulled the DNA from the clothing and stuff that they had found in the campsite and connected that to the murders. And so in may he was named. In november of 91, november of 1991, he was actually charged with five counts of first degree murder for all five of the killings. That happened in aug, august of the year before, and pretty swiftly they I say swiftly, it was about two and a three quarter years later but they had to go through all the rigmarole of the psychological tests and all of that and they ended up going to trial in mid February, soary, 15th of 1994.
Speaker 2:Okay, when you say mid, you really mean it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly being slapped in the middle. So they had this set for at least a month long to maybe two month long trial, because they had over 7,000 task force reports, which totaled over 100,000 pages. Good God, oh, those poor people, yeah. And then they had, you know, the testimonies of all the people and all of the different, everything that they had. Unfortunately, though, or fortunately, because, thank goodness, but in an effort to maintain a visage of that last little bitty bit of control that he could possibly have over his own life and fate, danny rolling stood up on the first day of trial and said no, I didn't, I killed the mom. Y'all aren't getting your show.
Speaker 1:I can't I can't take it back. What did he Hang on? There's an actual quote that he said, which was kind of shitty but at the same time like okay, yeah, right, you win, you did it, good job. So he stood up in court very first day and he said there's some things that you can run away from. This ain't one of them. Something along those lines, pretty close. And he was also, I guess, half-heartedly trying to make the play for like multiple personality disorder.
Speaker 1:There was some talk of it and actually in the sentencing phase, because they still had the jury right, they had the jury, everybody was seated for that, because they went through the whole voir dire process and sat a jury for him to stand up on the first day of actual trial when they're supposed to do opening statements, and he stands up and says and admits to all the murders.
Speaker 1:So the jury still had to be there, they were still seated because they had to do the trial penalty phase. Because this is capital murder, this is death penalty. You life sentence, you have to have a jury decide, in the same way that you would guilty or innocent if that was part of it. But instead of doing that phase, they just accepted the guilty plea and then moved into the penalty phase, at which point they had the same. It's basically like another trial, right, because you have the witnesses that come in, but the rules are a little bit different than the sentencing because it's a lot more lenient. They don't have so many restrictions to the prosecution, so things that couldn't come in before like when you're tried for a crime, you can only be tried for that one.
Speaker 2:They can't bring in your prior crimes or occurrences anything because you're being tried for that, that crime, but in this case you're being tried for your heinousness.
Speaker 1:Right, right. Basically, they're saying what he's done before and what he did this time, does that make it right to put him to death? Right, yeah, so basically you're the judgment, the totality of the crimes and the sins. Right, right, right. The only time I've ever actually seen the word totality was in court, yeah, and the totality of the evidence. And so they've got all these witnesses and people coming and they do still go through the heinousness of the crimes, the mutilation of the bodies, the posing, the decapitation, the stalking, the, the effort and the nipples. But then they also get to prevent mitigating factors. And do you know, sir, what mitigating factors are?
Speaker 1:No, I do not know what these mitigating factors are oh, but do you know what mitigating factors are in general? Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Now I have to find words Things that would kind of like extenuating circumstances If you would have a decision one way or mitigating factors, meaning that there are things that are lessening the degree of the severity of the outcome. Things that go against what you have already decided Okay, I think is the best way I can put it Things that go against what you have already decided Okay. I think is the best way I can put it Things that lessen.
Speaker 1:You're not wrong.
Speaker 1:Mitigating factor is going to be anything that would lessen the amount of severity based on other factors that have occurred either in their life, whether it be mental illness, whether it be abuse in their childhood, anything that has happened to them that would have caused them to be able to do such heinous crimes, and that would be a mitigation of why and it would lessen the penalty, because you can't really hold someone so accountable if they have all of these reasons to explain why they did such bad things.
Speaker 1:Except you can, except you absolutely can. However, in this case, they had the mother testify Ms Claudia, and they pretty much had her say the same stuff about the abusive. And then they also had the psychiatrist, who testified about his multiple personalities. He even had one specifically that he called gemini, and this was apparently the one who was responsible for the murders. Right, such a creative except it's because the Exorcist 3 had just come out recently and he had watched it and the main evil spirit who gets blamed for the murders and bad doings, evil deeds, that happen in the movie, his name's Gemini.
Speaker 2:And the whole like Greek, like it's a long-standing split personality trope name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, either way didn't do much good anyway, because when the jury went out and came back, he was sentenced to five death sentences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't even know you could do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, apparently yeah, but he was already serving life for the armed robberies that he'd been arrested for, so he wouldn't get out regardless, right? So that's fucking great, though, right, I didn't even I had no idea that was possible yeah, so prior to like not why was?
Speaker 1:obviously, but like yeah no, no, they were each charges, so they had to have a sentence for each one. They could have run them concurrent, because it's not like you can kill them more than once. I mean, technically we probably could, but Now, but that's cruel and unusual punishment, not the mutilation and nipples and decapitating and staging, none of that, but no, definitely don't kill them more than once.
Speaker 2:So, point being we learned from flatliners bad plan bad idea.
Speaker 1:So, funny enough, we're gonna skip back into the past a little bit here, because this whole time we've been talking about a little bit about louisiana, a little bit about shreveport, a little bit about we heard somebody well, cindy, said something about a little bit about Louisiana, a little bit about Shreveport, a little bit about we heard somebody well, cindy said something about a triple murder back in Shreveport, yeah, and the connection that was made to that triple murder, to the murders in Gainesville.
Speaker 1:But you guys stuck around this long because you wanted to hear how it had to do with Louisiana, right, right, at least I hope you're still here. So back in I want to say it was October of 1990, they had kind of tentatively, because, like I told you, in Shreveport they all pretty much had an idea of who it probably was, because everybody knew that Danny Rowling was a peeper, he was aggressive, he was known to flip on a dime, he obviously had left a huge mark by leaving his dad shot three times. I mean, it was obvious this guy had issues and he was not far from this triple murder that occurred and it just kind of made sense. Everybody kind of had that feeling, that inkling, and they were right. He left his mark, and then suspect and so on and so forth, trial, all of that death sentence done.
Speaker 2:You know all of the, everything we just covered, Right that trial, all of that death sentence done.
Speaker 1:You know all of the everything we just covered, right that? So in November, when that happened, when she gave him that tip and said look into this, they basically said oh, dude, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Because these match up perfect. Which I've already given her props to the police department, because they don't always do that.
Speaker 1:But you have to hear the details right, because we've talked about this guy. He is very much a creature of habit. He breaks in or just walks in, depending on if their door is unlocked. He gets rid of a threat. If there is one, then he brutalizes, mutilates, rapes, kills, stabs in the back. Yeah, the only difference in the Florida crimes and the one in Shreveport is the victims and I say that victims. It was a triple murder.
Speaker 2:I believe that's been mentioned. Yeah, I say that. Victims, it was a triple murder.
Speaker 1:I believe that's been mentioned. Yeah, I said that Of a family, but they weren't Okay. So it was a father, a daughter and a nephew. Okay, the father was 55-year-old. Jesus Christ, I lost it. Was it Tom or Sean? No, no, no, no, how? Sean is the nephew. So it was Tom. His name was William, but he went by Tom. He was 55. Sorry, tom was 55. His daughter, julie, was 24. And his nephew, or her nephew, his grandson, sean was 8 years old. Each one of them had been stabbed 1 to 5 times, and all 3 of them were found in different rooms of the house. However, remember how Manny was found as he laid. So Tom. However, remember how Manny was found as he laid as he laid. So Tom and Sean were both stabbed while they slept, and I think Tom maybe had tried to move around, but he had easily been taken out and both of those Right.
Speaker 1:They were killed and never touched again. They were eliminated and forgotten. And Julie, who was obviously and immediately the obvious target of this attack. Interesting insight into his mind that he finds an eight year old a threat Right, Because there's no way there's no way you didn't have to do that Interesting in the worst possible way, but still it's going to break your heart, give me a second.
Speaker 1:So this occurred on November 6th in 1989. The bodies were found on the 7th of november and from the jump they had no idea, they had no suspects, they had no ties, they had no links, they had nothing. Um, they eventually did tie dna in, but this was 89. You're still really early infancy. It's just not a thing.
Speaker 1:And basically in the paper article that I got from the Shreveport Journal back on November 7th 1989, or November yeah, it was November 7th 1989, when they initially reported it, or they were reporting on it, it said that there were multiple stab wounds that caused their death and he uh the. When they asked the investigator what weapon was used, he said a big knife. It's a big knife and they they may have been killed anytime from late saturday night to early sunday morning and that it was probably done by a single assailant, although not everybody believed that theory initially because they thought that they possibly would have. They just thought that that was too much for one person. But again, this is like one of those sleepy neighborhood type situations where nobody locked their doors, people left them in the windows, you could go, let the kids out on the street. It was just that kind of environment.
Speaker 2:And at least two of the kills would have been quick, easy, silent, easy right.
Speaker 1:Not not enough to wake up somebody else in the house so when we get to julie, you'll see here why they almost immediately were like oh yeah, dude, that's that, that's it, that's what it is, that's got to be him.
Speaker 1:Um, because when they found Julie, she had also been sexually assaulted, she had been raped, and then she had posed the body of shock just like all the other victims, and they thought he might have even taken pictures of that crime scene, like he had taken pictures of his own work or whatever it's highly likely, used duct tape over her mouth, on her hands, like he had taken pictures of his own work or whatever it's highly likely, and used duct tape over her mouth, on her hands, and that he brought it with him and took it with him. So he had his own kid that he brought and left with and he had cleaned the body, like I said, and he'd also used household cleaners and stuff to clean up the mess behind himself, because he showered in the house.
Speaker 2:Pro tip anybody that ever comes in your house with a bag.
Speaker 1:Just immediately a little bit less trust so the one big difference, though, was that again like okay, but he didn't he didn't mutilate tracy right when manny was there. It was the same in this case he didn't actually mutilate her after the fact.
Speaker 1:He that was only done when quote unquote, nobody was watching right and I I think that that actually goes a lot to his mindset. And that is an even stronger tie, to be honest, because in the one case where he didn't have, or he had, a male victim, he didn't mutilate her body. In the case of the grissoms, there were male victims and he didn't mutilate her body, so it must have had something to. Maybe it was even so much so that it was a like a daddy complex, like oh, there were dudes here. I gotta not be as much of my gruesome self as I usually would be.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking, maybe a little bit of that. I was thinking the jealousy for the family and then wanting Still subconsciously wanting that and not wanting to mess up the whole family aspect, maybe Insofar as I think it's just a lot of. He had somebody watching. Maybe, and he couldn't get his balls up to do it with somebody watching, even if that somebody was dead.
Speaker 1:Right, maybe, maybe.
Speaker 2:That's just where my brain went with it.
Speaker 1:So this family, the grissoms tom, had literally just returned to work at at&t. He had been out for a while on medical leave because he had cancer and he had literally just found out, either in the week or the two weeks before, that his cancer had gone into remission and he was described as the kind of person who would do anything for you. He was easygoing and a very helpful supervisor. He was real nice, according to one of his co-workers there, and just an all-around, just a good guy. And even though he was divorced, his daughter, she had recently started living with him after she was because she was working part-time at at like the Dillard's in the perfume section, and she had just graduated uh, high school in, or no, she was at 83 graduate, so she had graduated a few years before, obviously, and she was working part-time at the mall and she had recently become engaged. And initially the only suspect that they thought they might possibly have was the fiance. But even that didn't work out Like his alibi was pretty solid and they couldn't make that piece fit. So he kind of petered out and, like I said, they pretty much had the idea of who it was. They just had no way of proving it. She was also known and described as really nice and there was one quote where the woman I think it was like a neighbor she said the thing I remember about Julie was that she was beautiful and real sweet. And this is where it gets hard.
Speaker 1:Sean Grisham was a third grader and he was just visiting that weekend. He was visiting his aunt and his grandfather just for the weekend. He was visiting his aunt and his grandfather just for the weekend and the only reason that they were alerted to the fact that something might be amiss was because the grandfather hadn't shown up to drop him off back with his mother. And she alerted the police to go do a well check. And that's what they walked into A triple murder. That went well. Technically it's still unsolved, um, but it's closed. It's a closed case because, hear me out, they never officially indicted or charged rolling okay, he, he had enough going on right, right and the.
Speaker 1:Thing was was when they met up with the Gainesville investigators and they were going over everything the evidence that they had. That was the strongest and the most convincing. The most likely to get a conviction were the Gainesville murders. Obviously they had stronger ties in DNA and such and they eventually did get, I believe, if I remember correctly. I'm pretty sure that eventually did get. I believe, if I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure that they did get a DNA match to the Grissom murders but they never charged, they never did anything with it because he already had five death sentences and like three life sentences and and with all this is the first time I've ever said this not followed by an insult.
Speaker 2:With all due respect to the Grisham family, what more do you want?
Speaker 1:Well, see, and this is the thing, what more can you get Right? That so basically how it turned out, how it played out, like I said in 1994, he was convicted, obviously because he pled guilty to them, and then he was sentenced up to five death sentences on top of that so he was on death row.
Speaker 1:We all know how that works. You spend forever, you go through all the appeals, everything is an automatic appeal. You have to go all the way up to the supreme court. They have to verify all of this stuff, they have to do all of the hoops to be jumped through, and this is all the while he's chilling out down in Florida on death row and I say chilling out, you know what I mean. But he basically sits down there for almost a decade waiting for his execution.
Speaker 1:And this whole time they're going back and forth, and especially in like 1994, after he gets, admits to the student killings and gets sentenced to death, and they're doing a whole lot of talk back in Shreveport because they're wondering like, hey, y'all gonna bring him back here, is he gonna face these charges? Are you gonna? Are you gonna indict him? Yada, yada, yada. And they actually submitted an article or statement to the press that said you know, we're not gonna extradite him, we're gonna leave him right where he's at, because they had security concerns. For one thing, they wanted to make sure he didn't have any opportunities to get away again. They wanted to make sure that he was going to be put to death, as he so needed. So they wait, like I said another, however, the hell long, and eventually it becomes his last day stay and on October 25th of 2006, he has his last meal that consisted of lobster tail, butterfly, shrimp, baked potato, strawberry cheesecake and some sweet tea.
Speaker 2:Two choices at least.
Speaker 1:Right, he had a Pentecostal preacher guy come in and pray with him before he had to get out and he actually got to spend a few hours with his brother before he went to his room, his needle room, and when they asked about his last words, he actually started singing a hymn that he partially was making up as he went. Some of it had, um, actual hymnal verses, but for the most part he just made it up and then he just kept repeating okay. So when they asked him for his last words, he basically started singing the hymnal, like I said, and he kept repeating.
Speaker 1:No, it's like just a couple verses that he made up on his own, but he did keep repeating until he was pronounced dead. Basically, he just kept repeating over and over the same line none greater than thee, oh lord, none greater than thee. And he just kept singing that two minutes, which is an odd one, for a blatant narcissist yeah, and he kept singing even after they turned off the mic in between the two rooms.
Speaker 1:So the gallery that was watching him in his room they could see still his lips moving, but they couldn't actually hear him. But they said it looked like he just kept none greater than thee, o Lord, none greater than thee, and he stopped just before he died. So that was, he was singing until he actually lost consciousness. I mentioned the gallery that was watching his execution. That was watching his execution and there were, I want to say it was like 36 people that they had let's see if I got the number right 47. There were 47 people witnessing the execution, not counting any of the ones that were outside either protesting for or against the death penalty, and that he deserved it.
Speaker 1:I think one lady's sign said finally kill the killer. And so at 5, 12 or 5, 18 pm he was pronounced dead or, I'm sorry, 6.13pm he was pronounced dead at the Florida State Prison and that was the end of the terrible, terrifying serial killing spree that only lasted four days. Serial killing spree that only lasted four days but literally still to this day inspires not just movies but like strikes fear into people.
Speaker 1:When you talk about the Gainesville Rippers and just how brutal and scary I remember them specifically four days, five people, and the amount of damage and mutilation and everything else that he did and the amount of fear that he put into an entire area and to this day it's still lingered. You know what I mean. Like you can't get over that. But, like I said, I know or knew of the Gainesville Ripper and I've watched so many things on so many different things, but I never realized that he was from Shreveport. It never became prevalent. And thank you for our listener suggestion. You know who you are. You asked not to be named and I don't mind that at all. I just appreciate the fact that you keep sending me awesome stuff. But it was you. It was you. And he's actually recommended other cases that we've already covered as well, Like I'm pretty sure he sent me Sean Vincent Gillis as well.
Speaker 2:Good job. Now they know that they've sent multiple ones and it's a he.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was okay with that. He just didn't want me to name him anything. So thank you so much for that. Before we sign off of this episode here, I've got one more little tasty snack detail for y'all. I told you that he had seen his Pentecostal pastor preacher whatever the hell they call him, I don't remember had come in and spoke with him and done his prayers. Well, he actually and this wasn't revealed until much later he actually gave a note to his preacher, pastor, whatever the hell, and it took a little while, but they eventually released it to the press. And, kyler, do you want to read what that said?
Speaker 2:So in his note he wrote, In order to fulfill all things, that no stone be unturned. Hereby I make a formal written statement concerning the murders of Julie, Tom and Sean Grisham in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. Hal Carter, Julie Grisham's former fiancé, is 100% innocent, Totally pure, of that crime. I, and I alone, am guilty. It was my hand that took those precious lights out of this old, dark world. With all my heart and soul would I could bring them back. Being a native son of Shreveport, I can only offer this confession of deep-felt remorse over the loss of such fine, outstanding souls. Of deep-felt remorse over the loss of such fine, outstanding souls. Have wept an ocean of tears by which mournful doth float upon a sea of regret.
Speaker 1:Close quote he was very dramatic, oh yeah, and that's not the only time. He actually got engaged to a lady while he was in jail. And they wrote a book, the Making of a Serial Killer, together in which he drew because he was known for drawing very sexually explicit and graphic, uh, drawings and things. And he loved like again, narcissistic personality trait here serial killers, they love to talk about themselves and to write about themselves and do all the things. So it's right up his alley and in the book, oh shit. So he, you know, wrote a lot of letters back and forth to other people and they put those in the book and I mean, like you can still get this book today? I didn't. I'm not here for that you should probably go and do.
Speaker 1:No, no, I've read enough of the excerpts to know I don't need to read it. You read that much and it was that irritating, so I'm good, it was just the two words doth float. But he's quoting other people's stuff and half the time he doesn't even quote the shit right.
Speaker 2:Oh, and that's the whole focus.
Speaker 1:He has this arrogance of intelligence that he doesn't actually have. Yeah, no, screw that. Anyway, he was full fool of himself, of course, but when it comes down to it, he only ever showed any remorse or regret for any of the doings that he did in that letter, and it was, to confess, to keep someone else from getting in trouble, and that he regretted taking out the lights from the world. They were good, upstanding people.
Speaker 2:And with a heavy undertone of they're only good upstanding people because they're from my hometown.
Speaker 1:Seemingly yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just found that kind of ironic I don't know what's a good word for that. I just don't think it was as sincere as he was trying to make it sound. But then again, you know people when they know they're facing death. Because he actually did make a quote. He said hang on, do I want to die? No, I don't. I want to live. Life is a hard thing to give up. And basically he said that the reason for what he did, or the reason why he did it the way he did it, was because he wanted to be a superstar like Ted Bundy. Yep, Wow, Yep that follows yeah Sad.
Speaker 2:That follows, yeah Sad.
Speaker 1:I do deserve to die. But do I want to die? No, I want to live. Life is difficult to give up. That's what he told the Associated Press and then on the first day of trial, like I said, there are some things you just can't run from, this being one of those.
Speaker 2:Well, you're not wrong, right, You're also a dick.
Speaker 1:That and it does say in the Murderpedia article that they do over their people. The DNA left at the crime scenes in Gainesville matched the genetic material police recovered from rolling during some dental work. But he was never prosecuted for the Grisham slayings. But he actually wrote another letter that he wrote to the AP, the Associated Press, in 2002. He said I assure you I am not a salivating ogre. Granted times past, the dark era of long ago, dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde did strike up and down the corridors of insanity. Yeah, what? Yeah, exactly, that's exactly my point, exactly my point.
Speaker 2:By intentionally trying to be as profound and mystifying as possible, he succeeds. Yeah, because it's mindless rambling bullshit.
Speaker 1:So anyway, long story short, he was the how can I make myself sound way more important than I really am. Right After he was executed, he became the 63rd inmate to be put to death since Florida resumed executions in 1979. And he was actually the third one that year alone. He was the 259th since 1924, when the state took over the duty from individual counties. That is the incredibly twisty, wow, multifaceted story of the Gainesville Ripper and the Shreveport Scream.
Speaker 2:The only twisty part was the knives.
Speaker 1:But you know what I mean, though Like it's very like if he had just not been an idiot and robbed everything and every single stop, like if he could have stopped doing that, he probably wouldn't have been caught.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but well.
Speaker 1:And hell yeah, cindy you the win For the win. Good on you, love Otherwise you know.
Speaker 2:Good job, police departments, for you know.
Speaker 1:Working together, coexisting.
Speaker 2:Working together, taking a tip and running with it, right, not just backburnering it. Yeah, seeing similarities, that one wasn't really that together. Taking a tip and running with it, right, not just backburnering it. Yeah, seeing similarities, that one wasn't really that hard. But you know, the fact that you looked at it in the first place is what I'm giving you credit for right and most sincere, heartfelt condolences to all of the families involved here.
Speaker 1:I'm really glad to report, though, that Danny Rowling's daughter never had a fucking thing to do with him. She literally was raised by the new husband of her biological mom, his first wife that took off and ran when she was under three and never looked back, and, according to all of the documents and articles that I read, she actually held no ill will against Danny because she had basically done what you know most people say they are going to do, and they just let it go and not allowed that to consume her future. And basically, you know, she was happy because she had moved forward, gotten away from him and found someone who she married and then raised her daughter, and they were in a happy place. Like her life went well. So good, good, good for her.
Speaker 1:I do know that eventually, danny Rowling's body and belongings from the prison were released to his brother. There were no details of what happened or where he was buried, if he was cremated, all of that mess, um. After his body was autopsied. His body after he was autopsied. Okay, guys, night night. We love you, yeah, about that. So, kayla, you had his body after he was autopsied. Okay, guys, night night, we love you. Yeah about that.
Speaker 1:So, kayla, you had fun with this. Almost two fucking hours of bullshit. I hope you enjoy it. You're probably not gonna ever listen to all of it, and that's okay, because the edited version is probably gonna be closer to less than an hour, so you're welcome. You asked for this, and everybody in the future. Hopefully we'll have more future Patreons. I will be more consistent. I promise. If I had any kind of help whatsoever, it might be different, but I'm doing the best that I can, okay, okay. So thank you guys for listening. Thank you so much for continuing to come back and continuing to support our show. Don't forget to check us out on youtube, and I put a lot of work into these stupid tiktoks that take forever to make, which I'm a lot of work.
Speaker 1:Please watch them, just so that she has some sort of actual meaning no, they do because, like you know, every time I post a video, I basically get three or four new, um, new followers, and each time that that happens, it creates more of a they they're here for the booty. No, you can't even see the booty. Anyway, point being, I love you guys. You're awesome. Thank you for being here and for listening. If you've made it this far, you're the best. Hey, can I tell you a secret? You're the best. So, as an inside joke, it's fine, it's fine. So don't forget to check out our TikTok, youtube, and I do stuff on Twitter, but it's usually just a copy paste of the either YouTube or TikTok.
Speaker 1:I do plan on some point in the future to do a live, either recording or what have you on YouTube, because I finally have enough subscribers to do so on YouTube. We can finally have enough subscribers to do so on YouTube. We can go live. Yeah, awesome sauce. Not that you guys want to see our ugly mugs, but I figured that might be something interesting for that. That'd be something to do, probably after, hopefully, after things settle down, maybe sometime during the summer when we don't have. Yeah, absolutely, at some point they've got to.
Speaker 2:I think I think you misunderstand how children work.
Speaker 1:But I love it and thank you guys so much for coming back, because I'm going to keep doing this, even if it's not as consistent as I hope it will be. It's still going to happen because I've got so many more suggestions. I just wrote down four more from an email. We still have to do a Hall of Fame week, yeah, yeah. And we have the vacation series that we've got planned of stuff that has nothing to do with Louisiana but are too interesting not to talk about. Same thing, huh, same thing, yeah. So thank you, we love you. Have a wonderful week and try not to worry too much about the things you can't control that's how the cookie crumbles.
Speaker 2:Wait, no, that one's got there take care out there.
