The Gainesville Ripper -Serial Killer- Daniel “Danny” Harold Rolling

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode contains graphic and disturbing
depictions of sexual assault,rape and mutilation that might
be disturbing for some listeners.
There is also some discussionof child abuse and the murder of
a child, so please use cautionas listener discretion is
extremely advised.
Gainesville, florida in 1990was a scary place to be,

(00:24):
especially if you were on theUniversity of Florida campus.
Most of us listening to thisepisode will already have a
general idea of who and whathappened with the Gainesville
Ripper case, but if you listenclosely, you may learn something
new.
Join us today for aninteresting deep dive into the

(00:47):
background and origin story ofDaniel Harold Rowling, also
known as the Gainesville Ripper,on today's episode of Senlaw.
Hello and welcome to thisepisode of Sin Law.

(01:13):
I'm Kelly and I'm Kyler, andhe's finally back.
Yay, maybe, yay, we'll see howthat goes, not that Back again.
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

(01:34):
on lately.
Right, and that's my point is,I am about to try to, in this
next week, at least get twoepisodes pre-recorded to be able
to release in the interim,because at the end of this month
we're going to a wedding, goingto visit my oldest soul friend,
and then, you know, we're goingto be doing stuff for like two

(01:56):
weeks solid and it's going to bea lot.
So I'm going to try to geteverything done prior to, just
like I'm doing at work.
So, having said that, we've gota couple of cool things From the
Derek Todd Lee episode.
I think that was last episode.
One of the co-workers of mineshe was actually the perfectly

(02:28):
fitting MO could have possiblybeen murdered by Derek Todd Lee.
She was in Baton Rouge at thetime, two or three blocks or I
think she said blocks maybe justa couple doors down from one of
the victims.
She was a single, independent,financially stable, like all of

(02:49):
these things, like she fit everysingle part of his bill bonkers
.
She said she remembered exactlywhen that happened because she
was there.
It was crazy bananas anyway.
I just thought that was a coolfun fact for y'all.
It's crazy how the world worksin the seven degrees of Kevin
Bacon.
Fun tidbit, fun fact aboutDerek Chobly.
Now we're going to move on toyet another serial killer that

(03:12):
technically wasn't made famousfor any Louisiana murders but,
as you will come to find, he isstrongly tied to the boot.
So let's get started, shall we?
all right, let's go um, I'mgonna go way back 1954, way back

(03:34):
machine.
Yeah, um, we're talking may26th.
That is the day that danielharold rolling born he went by
Danny Um, he, uh, he had areally, really shitty childhood.
Um, so I believe he had I knowhe had at least one brother,

(03:56):
because he comes up later but hewas born into um, a very young
couple.
His mom was 17, I believe, whenshe got married and then got
pregnant two weeks later, towhich his father, james, did not
approve.
He never was happy with thefact that she immediately got

(04:18):
pregnant and that they wereimmediately saddled with a child
.
He was actually a police officerin the entry port, louisiana
and from well there are, thereare mixed, mixed reviews.
Now nobody knows what goes onbehind closed doors.
So when it comes down totalking about family violence or
domestic violence, I tend togive more credit to the people

(04:41):
who are actually in thehousehold, because later we'll
hear an opposing side.
But then again, like I said,people can put up faces.
So in this instance, both Dannyand his mother later said that
it was a very abusive, verytoxic household.

(05:01):
His mother, her name, wasClaudia, toxic household.
His mother, her name wasClaudia, and Claudia had a slew
of mental health issues.
She was, I think, manicdepressive and she was
institutionalized multiple times.
They moved around a lot andfrom all reports, james Harold

(05:29):
Rowling, the father, was very,very abusive.
That was practically from thetime that Danny started crawling
.
He later told people that hespent a lot of time outdoors,
not because he enjoyed it butbecause that was the only way he
could get away from the abuse.
So, very traumatic upbringing.

(05:52):
He was never shown love andappreciation and you know, he
also likely felt betrayedbecause his mom knew what was
happening.
She was always there, she knewwhat was going on, was always
there, she knew what was goingon and she never did anything to
stop it.
Uh, there are reports that shetried to leave a couple times
but she always came back and atjust 13 years old he danny that

(06:19):
is rolling he got into a fightor, um, I say a fight as much as
a 13 year old can fight with anadult, grown-ass man.
After his father had severelybeat him, he had locked himself
in the bathroom.
Well, later, when his momfinally got the door open, there

(06:40):
was no Danny.
He had actually crawled out ofthe window and left a note
basically saying that you knowthis is too much for me.
I can't keep doing this.
It was basically a suicide noteand he said that he took some
of the razors.
He wasn't going to come back,but he did.

(07:00):
You know, unfortunately forlater.
But I mean a 13-year-old Dannywe can feel sorry for, because
that's nobody should have todeal with that.
No, no child should have to bein that kind of situation to
where suicide is the best optionat age 13.
So at any age, but specificallywhen you're a child, it's just
not fair.
So obviously there were somemajor issues.

(07:26):
His father, like I said, he wasa police officer.
He was also a Korean veteran.
He was also a police officer.
So you can imagine that it wasvery structured, strenuous, very
military style you can't doanything right and on top of
everything else, they were alsoPentecostal.
So a lot of just bad news bearsall the way around.

(07:48):
So this, you could see, wouldbe an issue for any child
growing up in that situation and, like I said earlier, danny
actually spent a lot of timeoutside and what he would do
with his time most of the timewas people watch, which turned
into peeping tom, which turnedinto initially he said it

(08:09):
started off as more like ajealousy, like he wanted, with
the other people he saw likethem having dinner together as a
family of them, smiling andlaughing, and he would just be
jealous and feel jealous.
And then it became more of adeep-seated well if I can't have
that in my home, I am gonnajust watch theirs.
And it eventually turned sexualas he got older.

(08:32):
The crimes and things that hewas actually arrested for later
ended up being more likerobberies, burglaries from like
business places.
I don't recall ever seeing anyarrests for any of the voyeurism
or peeping tom type stuff.

(08:53):
By the time he hit, I believe itwas his junior year.
He dropped out.
I don't think he made it pastum 11th grade and he figured
that the best way to get awayfrom his father's abuse and from
his shitty home life that hewould just join the military.
So at 17 he, in 1971, he joinedthe air force and he didn't

(09:21):
make it very far um he wasactually discharged about a year
later.
He had a severe drug, alcoholand mental instability and I
think mental instability wasactually what he was discharged
under.
It wasn't a dishonorabledischarge, it was just like
basically like a medicaldischarge.
He couldn't withstand thestringent atmosphere or what

(09:44):
have you.
So discharged due to mentaldisability, but it was mostly
the drugs and the, the lsd,specifically 1971 he joined with
but before 1972 ended he wasalready back home and back in
the same shitty cycle.
He actually ended up going.

(10:06):
He was going to a church therein Shreveport with his parents
and he was spiraling basically.
And one day in church he'ssitting 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, ifthere's some reason, reason, you
know, some good that I can doin this world.
Because at this point he feltpretty hopeless.

(10:27):
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 aconstant reminder of that.
So at that very moment it justso happened that apparently to
him, god sent him a wife,because as soon as he opened his

(10:50):
eyes he saw this beautifulbrown haired, brown eyed, petite
woman and she was backlit bythis beautiful, glorious light
and he knew that it was a signfrom God.
That's the woman he wassupposed to marry, and by 1974
he did, despite the fact that hehad no job, was living at home

(11:12):
with his parents, had flunkedout of the military and never
graduated high school.
He got married at night in 1974to his first wife, which I
think he only had one, but Ithink he got engaged a couple
times Either way 1974, he wasmarried, he had their, they had
their first daughter within thatsame year.
But you know somebody with thatmany issues they're not going to

(11:37):
be able to cohabitate well andany good parent, good mother, is
going to be concerned for thewell-being of of their child.
And this woman did the rightthing, um, and within three
years she filed for divorce andran as far as way, as far away,

(11:59):
as fast as possible, and neverreally looked back, which good
for her because, thank goodness,according to the wife and then
ex-wife, she said that abuse wasprevalent verbal, emotional,
physical and that, you know, shetried to deal with it.

(12:22):
She couldn't really explain whyshe fell for him, despite all
of the things that you knowshould have been red flags.
She said that, um, she wasaround when you know he, because
apparently he got like not notin trouble or not arrested, but
he got like reprimanded forpeeping.

(12:43):
And she said it was veryembarrassing and humiliating in
that she put up with the abusefor a while but then, when she
started to get worried moreabout the safety of her child
that the final straw she saidthe final straw was when he held
a shotgun to her head andthreatened to shoot her that's

(13:04):
pretty good.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Final straw yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
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 thefather, her father-in-law he
actually gave her money aftershe left to help support her and
the child and thosefather-in-law and the

(13:29):
mother-in-law, claudia and James, they would actually come and
visit and spend time with theirgranddaughter, but never Danny,
he never did.
A lot of the hostility andaggression between her and
Rowling in their marriage camefrom him, constantly and forever

(13:49):
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 thisguy is psychotic.
So he was just looking for any,any excuse and that's the
easiest one.
It really is.
You know you're beingunfaithful, I don't have a job,

(14:12):
but I can't trust you, becausewhy would you like me, right?

Speaker 2 (14:16):
you must be liking somebody else, right?

Speaker 1 (14:18):
right.
Right.
So she got out.
She got out of.
But, like I said earlier, therewas a little bit of conflict
there because she said that shenever saw any bad relationship
between Danny and James and thatshe never noticed anything and
she said it seemed like they hada normal father-son
relationship, even if it was alittle strained.
So take that at whatever facevalue.

(14:41):
He gets divorced.
So there's another tick on theI'm a loser and I can't do
anything right list Then we'regoing to talk about.
I guess you can't really go upfrom the spot that he was in.
He went through different boutsof suicidal ideation.
He went through moving out andjust preferring to be homeless

(15:05):
instead of having to be in thehome, which also would put him
into these severe depressionswhich would lead back to the
suicidal ideations.
And it was just this big asscircle right, homeless, he
started burglarizing and robbingdifferent places and trying to

(15:28):
earn his own money that way,which didn't and will never work
out well for anybody really.
Um, because eventually you getto the point where you know you
get sloppy, and he did, and sothe majority of his adult life
after the divorce and everythinghe was in and out of prison a
lot.
He, um sir, ended up servingmore time in prison than he was

(15:52):
out by the time, by the end ofhis life, which just kind of
shows you like, yeah, so by thetime, I mean if he lived a full
life, that probably would havechanged.
But let me like 52 oh shit.
Well, maybe not then yeah,that's what I'm saying.
In may of 1990 he gets into amassive.

(16:12):
In may of 1990 he is I think itwas a little bit before his
birthday, so he would have been35, about to 36 and he gets into
a massive argument as per theusual.
Except this one gets so out ofhand with his father that he
actually ends up taking a gunand shooting him twice in the

(16:36):
stomach and once in the head.
But this isn't the murder thatattaches 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 thatsurgeries.
He also lost an eye and an ear,but he survived.
But that was the end of DannyRowling's stay and stint in

(17:02):
Louisiana.
At that point, what's the shortstint?
Well, he was 35, 36, almost.
So right after that argument heimmediately leaves.
He doesn't even know if hisfather's dead or alive, he just
rolls out.
So he takes off and he ends upin you guessed it Gainesville,
florida, and he's down theredoing the same thing, same thing

(17:24):
basically that he was doing inLouisiana, um, subsisting on
burglarizing and robbing peopleand mostly getting away with it.
Um, kind of come to a head inAugust of 1990 when the infamous

(17:48):
, turned cult classic moviefranchise Gainesville Murders
occur.
So over a three slash four dayperiod if you're counting
midnights over in that four dayperiod, he kills five people.
Yeah, so on august 24th 1990 hehad been stalking a pair of

(18:14):
freshman college students andwatching them and doing his
stuff.
And now, before we get too farinto that the set here, let me
go back just a little bit.
So when he moved to Gainesvillehe didn't actually have a place
to live.
Like I said, he was basicallydoing the same thing he had been
doing in Shreveport, except inGainesville.
He actually set up like alittle encampment right outside

(18:38):
or right off the campus groundso he could actually like watch
people through the woods and thetrees and he had his own little
tent, he had all of his stuffand after, um, everything kind
of fell out and they werelooking for whoever did this.
They found this camp right andthey actually had found and they

(19:01):
released it because, I've heardthem, he had recorded himself,
because he fancied himself anartist.
He had recorded himself singing.
They had journals with lyricsand poems and things that
actually had details thatalluded to what he did and he
was calling himself the Watchmenkiller or something along those

(19:25):
lines.
If you need it, if you want tolisten to him, there are so many
episodes, podcasts, forensicfiles, a&e movies, like there is
undeniable massive amounts ofcoverage of his case and, like I
said, those audios are outthere.
I'm pretty sure the first timeI heard him was on Forensic
Files and he's playing hislittle guitar and singing his

(19:49):
songs and it's a lot creepy.
It's a lot creepy, especiallywhen he's talking about the way
he sneaks in and takes them bysurprise while they're sleeping.
It's very, very creepy.
So it's well, if you're like meand you're morbid as all hell,
then you'll enjoy that.
So just give it a gook.
That evening he had followedthese two freshmen, 17 year old

(20:14):
christina powell and 18 year oldsonja larson, back to their
off-campus apartment and this iswhy we say fresh air is for
dead people.
Close your windows, lock yourfreaking doors, because these
girls didn't.
He didn't even have to break in, so of course there was no sign
of forced entry.

(20:34):
They just left the doorunlocked, yeah.
So he walks in and he sees 17year old christina sleep on the
couch.
He stands over for a fewseconds because he knows there's
two girls in the apartment.
So as he's doing his mentalgymnastics trying to figure out
which one of these women he'sactually going to do what he
came here to do, he looks atChristina again on the couch and

(20:56):
then makes his way upstairs.
He gets upstairs and he finds18 year old Sonia Larson asleep
in her bed.
He proceeds to take a strip ofduct tape and duct tapes her
mouth so that she can't be heard, and then he proceeds to start
a vicious knife attack, becausehe has brought with him a US

(21:18):
Marine Corps K-Bar knife.
He also had a pistol and ascrewdriver, because the knife
and the screwdriver wereactually his method for opening
doors.
But he didn't have to do thatin this case.
And the gun he never used.
But it was a form of crowdcontrol.
It was his way to subdue hisvictims into doing what he

(21:39):
wanted.
And then eventually, his methodof murder was not to shoot them.
Instead, like with Miss Sonjahere, he was viciously attacking
her, stabbing her in the chest,in the arms.
She actually had a big slashmark across her thigh and within
a few minutes she died fromblood loss.

(22:02):
But because he duct tape hermouth shut, he made his way back
downstairs, where christina wasstill asleep on the couch, at
which point he again took theduct tape, put it over her mouth
, but with her he took his time.
He duct taped her hands andthen he used his k-bar knife to

(22:23):
methodically cut all of herclothes off, sexually assault
and rape her and then made herlay face down on the floor, at
which point he took his K-barknife and stabbed her five times
in the back.
He wasn't done, because at thispoint he has fulfilled the
fantasy it gets.

(22:44):
It gets a little bit worse thanthat.
He not only took their livesand brutalized them while they
were alive, now he's going tohumiliate them in death.
He took their clothes, put themin the washing machine, washed
and dried them and cleaned upall the clothes.
He himself took a shower andthen he cleaned off both of the
bodies and left them posed to befound in provocative positions,

(23:06):
which sonia was left bendingover the bed, to where, when the
person who walked in to findthem found her bent over and
presenting her rear end straighttowards them as they walked in
the door.
I believe, christina, that hehad left her.
It was obviously sexuallyprovocative pose, because that

(23:27):
was kind of his stick, but Ithink her legs were open and
like almost spread, eagled onthe on the couch there.
Then he leaves and continues onwith his day.
I guess you could say thatProbably goes back to his little
camp and jerks himself off tothe thought of what he just did,
which is vile.

(23:48):
They didn't find Christina andSonia's body until later the
next day because it had takenthem that long for their family
to be like, hey, we haven'theard from them.
Yada, yada, yada.
So by the time they're wise totheir deaths, they find the
17-year-old murdered in theirapartment and posed.

(24:09):
They get another call withinhours to go to another murder
site, and this was at anisolated duplex, off campus
again, and that was at the homeof Christina Hoyt, an 18 year
old, and she was the only one ofthe five that were not actually
enrolled at the University ofFlorida.

(24:30):
She was going to the umcommunity college, santa Fe, I
believe, and this one's prettyrough, pretty rough.
Um, just fair warning.
So on the 25th, this was anotherone of the stalking victims
that he had been watching forsome time and he waited.

(24:54):
Well, I don't know if he waitedor not, but he got there to her
duplex.
When she was not there, he usedhis knife and the screwdriver
to pop open.
Uh, I believe it was a window.
The back window waited, justhung out, waiting for her to
come home.
And when she came home, Ibelieve it was like 11 am, like

(25:19):
it wasn't in the middle of thenight, it wasn't anything.
He begins his same mo typesituation where he duct tapes
her mouth, duct tapes her hands,and then he proceeds to
brutalize her, assault her andrape her, at which point he then

(25:40):
tells her to turn over, lay onher belly, and then he stabs her
in the back.
But that's not all he does, andthe the viciousness and
strength at which he's stabbingher.
He actually ruptured her heart,but from there it doesn't.

(26:02):
It doesn't get better at all.
So he proceeded to tear openher torso, completely decapitate
her and cut off her nipples andleft them on the bed beside her
.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
I don't mean to laugh , but like what the fuck?

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Oh, it gets worse.
He then took her head that hehad just cut off of her body and
placed it on a bookshelf,overlooking her own mutilated
body, and that's how the policefound her.
That's the room that theywalked into, which can

(26:40):
absolutely be the entirereasoning for the inspiration of
the gory Wes Craven massacreflick that he argued with
ratings people over because theythought it was too graphic and
literally scarring the openingscene of that movie.

(27:02):
I mean, one can argue in oneway or the other.
Yeah, so that's how they foundher.
And they found her body withina couple hours of finding the
other two, even though the othertwo had been killed the night
before.
Just awful, absolutely awful.
At this point they realize thatthey've got a serious problem
and they're warning people andthey're letting everybody know

(27:27):
serious problem.
And they're warning people andthey're letting everybody know
and everybody on the floridacampus is absolutely losing
their mind.
And it's very eerily similar tohow it's portrayed in the movie
.
You know that basicallyeverything shuts down.
I'm pretty sure that they had amass exodus of people that left
the college campus.
I think they had something like3,200 people that actually

(27:48):
never went back.
Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, 700students left and never came
back.
There was about 30,000, justpeople and women in that area
that left the area andeventually came back like just
absolute sheer panic.
They said that the uptick inbuying of weapons mace um

(28:11):
baseball bats and padlocks andall of those things that you
would think would help keep yousecure.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
You would think, no, maybe so the only thing that's
going to keep a determinedperson from killing you was
killing them, no.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well, maybe no.
So the only thing that's goingto 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 (28:34):
Oh, it's my opinion at least.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
The song that I was talking about earlier is called
Mystery Rider.
So Mystery Rider, gainesvilleRipper, danny Rowling, rolling
any of those combinationsthat'll get you there.
So that was on the 25th that hebroke in and waited,
decapitated or had the headlooking the body over, and then
two days later he struck againand this time it was at the

(29:03):
apartment of 23-year-old TracyPauls.
Tracy had been listening andwatching the news, as everybody
had heard.
At this point there's no wayyou could have freaking missed
it.
But because of all of thewarnings and discretions, tracy
had been paying attention and,like any you know relatively

(29:25):
intelligent person in the areaat the time, either you leave or
you take measures to protectyourself.
Her measure to protect herselfwas in the form of a
quote-unquote bodyguard, goodfriend of hers, who was a
linebacker playing football incollege.
His name was manny tabodataboda.
I don't know to say that and Iapologize if I butchered it, but

(29:47):
Manny was staying with Tracy toact as a bodyguard and the off
chance that something happened.
Unfortunately, something didhappen and same situation, same
scenario.
He actually, rolling, broke inwith the knife and the

(30:08):
screwdriver and was kind ofcaught off guard because he did
not expect manny to be therebecause he, like I said, he
stalked all of these women wellin advance and knew their habits
and um usual routines, but shekind of threw over a loop by
having Manny there.
Well, when he came across Manny, he immediately went to
eliminate that threat first, andhim and Manny got into it big

(30:31):
time enough to be so loud as tocause 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

(30:55):
attempted to flee and barricadeherself into her room.
Unfortunately, that didn't stophim barricade herself into her
room.
Unfortunately that didn't stophim.
Danny eventually made his wayinto the room and proceeded to
go through his normal ritual ofduct taping hands, mouth and

(31:18):
violently assaulting, raping andthen murdering and stabbing,
yes, and then she was stabbedthree times in the back and so,
manny, he was stabbed repeatedlyin the chest, arms, hands, legs
and face, anywhere he couldreach.
And this is where we get abetter look into inside of his

(31:38):
head.
Because, danny, when they foundmanny sorry, when they Manny he
was exactly as he would havebeen when he died.
So he was murdered, stabbed,fight, argue, whatever.
Dead never touched again, nevertouched Tracy.
On the other hand, she wascleaned, washed, everything was

(32:01):
all prepped up nicely and thenshe was provocatively posed in a
suggestive sexual manner.
Although he had done prettymuch the the same exact thing,
he was thrown off by manny beingthere, so it was a variable.
He didn't take as much timelike he did with um hoyt, with

(32:22):
the mutilation and the you knowstaging all of the things he
still posed her, but he didn'tmutilate her in the same fashion
.
There was no cutting off of thenipples or anything like that
for Tracy, so her body wasactually laying in the hallway
between the two bedrooms andjust posed.

(32:42):
To make it shocking, when theyopened the door after the
gainesville police discoveredthose two bodies they went into
like hyperdrive right, becausethey're trying to figure out who
the hell did this.
They're trying to figure outhow they could stop it.
Um, but little did they knowthat.
I think he may have gottenspooked at this point and

(33:03):
decided it was time to bounce,because you know the close call
with manny, he didn't like itright.
It did not fit into hisnarrative 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 wayout of town he hit up a grocery
store, robbed them and then hetried, attempted to rob some
another place and on his way outand eventually he made his way

(33:29):
I think it was to Ocala.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Ocala.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Ocala and I'm sorry, Rodney Ocala was also a serial
killer, but he made his way upand I think he actually made it
over to Mississippi bank robbingand doing all the things, to
where he actually eventually hegot caught because he botched

(33:52):
one of them and he was in jailJust chilling.
So you know they're stillworking hard, they've got task
forces on this and you knowthey've got at this point it's
national news that everybody'skind of listening and watching,
but it's still, you know, ifyou're not in the state, it's
not going to be as hyped as asit would be if you were in the

(34:15):
same area, right?
so yeah, that's the differenceof look at what's going on over
there exactly.
So while it was in the news andit was getting coverage, it
wasn't as blasted in otherplaces like, oh, let's say,
louisiana.
And just by happenstance, youknow, a turn of fate, a member

(34:42):
of the church that dannyattended when he was younger,
when he was still in shreveport,that his family had attended a
member of that church wastraveling through the Florida
Panhandle and got wind of thesevicious, brutal murders and they
reminded her of a triple murderfrom Shreveport.
And she said I wonder, I betyou that's the same guy Because

(35:08):
the triple murder that she'sremembering, I bet you that's
the same guy because the triplemurder that she's remembering.
Everybody pretty much suspectedthe same person.
Y'all don't know who that isyet.
We're not there yet, right?
Nobody knows.
So this uh this lady.
I know they know.
So at this point, miss Cindy,juristic, juristic I don't know

(35:38):
how to say her last name, itused to be Dobbins, so that
one's way easier.
And I didn't even catch thisuntil I was writing the notes,
when I was doing my bulletpoints for my days, like the
dates or whatever you know.
In the movie scream, hellosydney, real close to cindy.
I don't know if that was onpurpose, but it wouldn't

(36:01):
surprise me if it was.
Anyway.
Cindy is basically the reason,um, for the eventual downfall,
because she makes the connectionand thinks, oh, that sounds
familiar, that sounds just likehow they died the triple murder
back in Shreveport a year agoalmost, but I think it was
actually 10 months, um, from thetime that that triple murder

(36:22):
happened in Shreveport to thetime that the Florida murders
happened.
And so she contacts herShreveport police, the officers
and investigators, detectives,over there, and lets them know
like, hey, have you guys lookedinto this?
Have you, have you seen this?
You talk to them, you let themknow because that sounds kind of

(36:42):
like what y'all are dealingwith.
And sure shit, the um,shreeport police, they contact
the Gainesville police guys andthey're like hey, have y'all
looked into this guy.
He's kind of a drifter.
He might be down there.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
We've heard reports and these look a lot like ours
and again, good on her, becausethat takes both actually
thinking and initiative, whichis a combination a lot of people
don't have.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Right.
Well, miss Cindy used toactually be really good friends
with danny rolling.
Like I said, they attended thesame church, but it was more
than that, danny and her firsthusband.
They were really good friendsall the way up until the point
when it was actually after thetriple murder, but before he
left in may of 1990, that theywere hanging out and he was

(37:29):
always a little off.
She said that he was always alittle bit weird, but he made a
comment that she couldn't justbrush off and the comment was he
was talking to her then-husbandand he said yeah, I like
sticking knives in people, yep.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
What.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yep, and at that point they no longer were
friends.
That friendship ceased, inwhatever 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 peopleand then you clean dead people.
It's weird.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Okay, so you probably fucked dead people.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
That was in a.
Yeah, that was something thatthey said happened actually with
the first two girls.
They said that after he gotdone downstairs with Powell,
that he went back upstairs andnecroed that body.
So that's just a whole otherlevel.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
It's a whole yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, no-transcript, kind of synced up and the

(39:07):
gainesville uh investigatorslike you know what.
We can look into it Now we havesome ideas.
Dna we're talking this is still1990, so we're early, early
infancy but they had enough todo, you know the typing which
would have been the ABO, andsecretor non-secretor and we

(39:28):
went over that in one of theother episodes.
And secretor non-secreter, andwe went over that in one of the
other episodes.
But they had DNA at pretty muchevery scene.
Quite a bit of it, some of them,yeah, and they had a good
amount at the Danny Tracy orManny I'm sorry shit, manny

(39:49):
Tracy scene, because Mannydidn't go quietly, he held his
own for as long as he could andstill lost.
But I mean, like you can'texpect somebody to get stabbed
as many times as he did andactually come out of that.
Um, it has happened, but it'sit's not expected.
So they eventually.
That was November of 1990 whenCindy called them in and let

(40:14):
them know like hey, you guysmight want to check into this.
And it wasn't until May aboutsix months later, may of 91,
that the Gainesville policeactually named Danny Rowling as
a prime suspect in theGainesville murders.
They said that they had linkedthe DNA as well as the tool

(40:39):
marks which they had recoveredbecause they were actually in
evidence, because they didn'thave to look real far for Danny
because he was in jail.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Hold on, hold on.
So you're saying that not onlydid he use the same type of
weapon in each, no, the exactsame one.
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Exact same one, exact same screwdriver, exact same
pistol, every single time.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yep, Just in case for those of y'all that aren't
aware, tool marks are a thing.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
But yes and no but also yes in more recent years
they've actually started callingit more of a junk science
because it's not as precise aspeople would like to make it
seem.
It can be.
No, it's not as precise, butit's a very good benchmark.
It is and it can be, like Isaid, but you know a lot of the
earlier forensics they alwayswanted to say like DNA.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
It's going to get more and more unique, like I
said, but you know a lot of theearlier forensics.
They always wanted to say likeDNA, if you decide to use the
same tool for each and everymurder.
It's going to get more and moreunique.
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 allacross the country Like the one.

(41:49):
He was smart, yeah, andterrifying yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Israel Keys.
We're not doing that.
No, terrifying.
We might do a special episodeon it.
It's terrifying.
If only to make sure thateverybody that ever could
possibly need the knowledge ofIsrael Keys, that there are
Israel Keys out there, then yes,abso-fucking-lutely.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
I just want to do the episode because I want to learn
more about him.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Okay.
So before we do that too big,like I said, he was doing the
robbery.
He committed an Arab robbery ofa bank before he left
Gainesville, which is always agreat idea, and they actually
found like I told, told youearlier, they found his campsite
.
That was right out, right offthe campus.
They actually found the money,or a lot of the money, from that
bank robbery at that campsitenice, yeah, along with his other

(42:40):
recordings and journals and skimasks, pubic hair, all this
clothing and stuff also badideas, all bad ideas.
So he stole a car and committedseveral other robberies on his
way out and eventually gotcaught and arrested.
They eventually ended up usingthe dna that they found on the

(43:02):
clothing, the ski masks andstuff there, the blood he still
had blood on his pants that heleft at his campsite.
Okay, so they used all of thatto tie in with the dna.
Now, not the brightest?

Speaker 2 (43:16):
no, not even a little bit yeah, give me like the
highlight reel and then bring usback down to reality oh, this
is a fun fact.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
When he moved to florida, or made his way to
florida, after he got into theargument 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 bethe same person.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
I'm aware of that but like why pick a jr?

Speaker 1 (43:44):
I don't know, maybe because he could get away with
it and try to make the excuselike you know, you had your
issues with you being the jr andissues of that nature.
The robbery that actually gothim caught was, um, he was
attempting to hold up or armedrobbered a wind, dixie um on

(44:07):
september 7th he was trying torob a Winn-Dixie give me a grand
baby.
He got caught.
They eventually got him for therobbery and connected that.
Well, they got him at theWinn-Dixie but they had
connected that one to the otherrobbery that was down in
Gainesville but they hadn'tconnected him to the murders yet

(44:29):
.
So they basically just took himto the murderers yet.
So they basically just took himin and, like I said, they got
the tools and everything thatthey later connected to the
murderers and the break-ins thatthey found, those in the
evidence locker, because theydidn't, you know, they held no
significance at the time.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
He hadn't used them in the robbery.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Right, exactly, so they were stored away.
So, like I said on september,what was it seventh?
Whatever it was, I think it wasthe seventh, sure sure, sure,
sure, yeah, september 7th, see,I was right.
Okay.
So september 7th which, see, Iwas right.
Okay, so September 7th, whichwould have been basically like

(45:13):
two full months, almost Listento me Sorry Two full months
prior to the tip coming in fromCindy Right.
He's making his way to Ocalaand he had been burglarizing
houses and everything along theway and didn't really do much

(45:37):
except leave a trail of evidence, including fingerprints and
hair, and he was almost caughtas he departed from like a gas
station.
But he managed to run in thewoods and eluded again and, you
know, got lucky again.
But the wind digs his where itruns out.
So he goes in in the middle ofa Saturday afternoon, high crowd

(46:00):
time and forces the manager atgunpoint to empty the safe.
And, as luck would have it, thebookkeeper was actually on her
way back in when someone toldher like hey, we're being robbed
.
So she went and got on thephone with the cops and they
were well on their way by thetime.
Rowling was exiting and thestore manager had actually

(46:21):
followed him and were able totell the police exactly where he
was.
And into high speed chase, andinto high speed chase, he ends
up Crashing the car, then Fleeson foot and tries to escape,
again by running off into thewoods.
But they managed to get theirhands on him and got him in

(46:43):
custody and Was finally arrestedAlthough still Not being
connected to the murders, justto these string of robberies and
burglaries and things and theylocked him up tight and that was
in Marion County and it wasn'tuntil September 11th, because it

(47:04):
was on September 8th that hewas actually trying to rob the
Winn-Dixie.
That Saturday, on September 11th, the Gainesville River story
was dropped from the front pagefor the first time outside of.
You know all of the messBecause we're just talking.
This was August 24th, 25th,27th that it happened.

(47:25):
So September 11th was the firsttime it was dropped from the
front page.
So they were no longer runningfront page headlines about the
Gainesville Ripper because ithad already been a whole what
two weeks at that point or closeto, and they were trying to
move past it.
So they wanted to try to startmoving on from the terror and

(47:51):
horror of the whole situationand all the gruesome murders and
just try to get back to a senseof normalcy as best you can
after a thousand people leaveRight Mass exodus.
So on October, october 10th,they had been investigating
another person and they hadactually like pulled him in and

(48:12):
accused him of the murders.
Um, he lived nearby and hadbeen arrested for assaulting his
grandmother and he was kind ofmentally unhinged but they
thought it was him.
They had taken his dna and werewaiting on those results to
come back.
On october 10th that guy wasconvicted of assaulting his
grandma and, oddly enough, dannyhad sent his mother a christmas

(48:34):
card from the marion countyjail awaiting indictment.
From the point that he gotarrested, he basically, danny,
basically accepted his fate andwas totally cooperative.
He had been, you know, like amodel prisoner up to that point.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
It's almost time for me to read the thing.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Almost On January 1st of 1991, he actually kind of
flipped the script and he rippeda toilet from its mounting in
his cell and threw it across theday room inside the jail.
That takes more strength thany'all people.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
It's a lot Like wow yeah, why wow yeah, why yeah.
Does it say any inkling of why?

Speaker 1 (49:18):
He just got upset about something it doesn't
specifically say.
I couldn't find the actualreason, what he was upset about,
but I'm sure it was somethingnuanced.
Those kind of people can turnon dimes.
That's just crazy.
Yeah, at that point his defenseattorney for the robbery case
and stuff that they were goingto plead to, she decided to ask

(49:38):
for motion for psychologicaltesting and withdrew the guilty
plea.
He danny obviously most ofserial killers, as you will hear
any behavioral analyst tell you.
I actually listened to theepisode on Killer Psyche, season
3, episode 11.
She's a retired FBI profilerand she's worked on all kinds of

(50:02):
freaking cases and I just Ilove her voice, I love the way
she sounds.
She's very, she's animated, butnot overly so.
So it's a really nicestorytelling voice and she's so
incredibly knowledgeable overlyso.
So it's a really nicestorytelling voice and she's so
incredibly knowledgeable on allthings serial killer, because
she's worked on a vast majorityof them.
And anyway, she said that youknow he basically fit the bill

(50:26):
of all of the things serialkiller, wise, but the narcissism
.
So, in the same vein, that,like sean vincent gillis, he
loved to talk, so did, but theyjust they enjoy talking about
themselves, practically bragging, reliving what they've done,

(50:47):
and in that vein so did dannyrolling he loved to tell his
fellow cellmates and bunkmatesall about the things that he'd
done ended up confessing to waymore than just the bank
robberies, and it was sometimesit would be braggadocious.

(51:07):
Sometimes it would bebraggadocious, sometimes it
would be like confession, almostwhere he was repenting for his
sins just to get them out.
But mostly it's just thereliving of this same event,
just to get another shot of itChasing the dragon.
Yeah, so finally they ended upin May, like I said, of 1991.

(51:32):
They had finally connected himand named him as the prime
suspect in the Gainesvillemurders and they had already
pulled the DNA from the clothingand stuff that they had found
in the campsite and connectedthat to the murders.
And so in may he was named.

(51:54):
In november of 91, november of1991, he was actually charged
with five counts of first degreemurder for all five of the
killings.
That happened in aug, august ofthe year before, and pretty
swiftly they I say swiftly, itwas about two and a three

(52:19):
quarter years later but they hadto go through all the rigmarole
of the psychological tests andall of that and they ended up
going to trial in mid February,soary, 15th of 1994.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Okay, when you say mid, you really mean it.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Yeah, exactly being slapped in the middle.
So they had this set for atleast a month long to maybe two
month long trial, because theyhad over 7,000 task force
reports, which totaled over100,000 pages.
Good God, oh, those poor people, yeah.
And then they had, you know,the testimonies of all the

(52:58):
people and all of the different,everything that they had.
Unfortunately, though, orfortunately, because, thank
goodness, but in an effort tomaintain a visage of that last
little bitty bit of control thathe could possibly have over his
own life and fate, dannyrolling stood up on the first

(53:19):
day of trial and said no, Ididn't, I killed the mom.
Y'all aren't getting your show.
I can't I can't take it back.
What did he Hang on?
There's an actual quote that hesaid, 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 veryfirst day and he said there's

(53:45):
some things that you can runaway 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 multiplepersonality disorder.

(54:06):
There was some talk of it andactually in the sentencing phase
, because they still had thejury right, they had the jury,
everybody was seated for that,because they went through the
whole voir dire process and sata jury for him to stand up on
the first day of actual trialwhen they're supposed to do
opening statements, and hestands up and says and admits to
all the murders.
So the jury still had to bethere, they were still seated

(54:30):
because they had to do the trialpenalty phase.
Because this is capital murder,this is death penalty.
You life sentence, you have tohave a jury decide, in the same
way that you would guilty orinnocent if that was part of it.
But instead of doing that phase, they just accepted the guilty
plea and then moved into thepenalty phase, at which point
they had the same.
It's basically like anothertrial, right, because you have

(54:52):
the witnesses that come in, butthe rules are a little bit
different than the sentencingbecause it's a lot more lenient.
They don't have so manyrestrictions to the prosecution,
so things that couldn't come inbefore like when you're tried
for a crime, you can only betried for that one.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
They can't bring in your prior crimes or occurrences
anything because you're beingtried for that, that crime, but
in this case you're being triedfor your heinousness.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Right, right.
Basically, they're saying whathe's done before and what he did
this time, does that make itright to put him to death?
Right, yeah, so basicallyyou're the judgment, the
totality of the crimes and thesins.
Right, right, right.
The only time I've everactually seen the word totality

(55:37):
was in court, yeah, and thetotality of the evidence.
And so they've got all thesewitnesses and people coming and
they do still go through theheinousness of the crimes, the
mutilation of the bodies, theposing, the decapitation, the
stalking, the, the effort andthe nipples.
But then they also get toprevent mitigating factors.
And do you know, sir, whatmitigating factors are?

(55:59):
No, I do not know what thesemitigating factors are oh, but
do you know what mitigatingfactors are in general?
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Now I have to find words Things that would kind of
like extenuating circumstancesIf you would have a decision one
way or mitigating factors,meaning that there are things
that are lessening the degree ofthe severity of the outcome.
Things that go against what youhave already decided Okay, I
think is the best way I can putit Things that go against what

(56:30):
you have already decided Okay.
I think is the best way I canput it Things that lessen.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
You're not wrong.
Mitigating factor is going to beanything that would lessen the
amount of severity based onother factors that have occurred
either in their life, whetherit be mental illness, whether it
be abuse in their childhood,anything that has happened to

(56:56):
them that would have caused themto be able to do such heinous
crimes, and that would be amitigation of why and it would
lessen the penalty, because youcan't really hold someone so
accountable if they have all ofthese reasons to explain why
they did such bad things.

(57:16):
Except you can, except youabsolutely can.
However, in this case, they hadthe mother testify Ms Claudia,
and they pretty much had her saythe same stuff about the
abusive.
And then they also had thepsychiatrist, who testified

(57:38):
about his multiple personalities.
He even had one specificallythat he called gemini, and this
was apparently the one who wasresponsible for the murders.
Right, such a creative exceptit's because the Exorcist 3 had
just come out recently and hehad watched it and the main evil
spirit who gets blamed for themurders and bad doings, evil

(57:59):
deeds, that happen in the movie,his name's Gemini.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
And the whole like Greek, like it's a long-standing
split personality trope name.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Yeah, either way didn't do much good anyway,
because when the jury went outand came back, he was sentenced
to five death sentences.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Yeah, I didn't even know you could do that.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Yeah, apparently yeah , but he was already serving
life for the armed robberiesthat 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, soprior to like not why was?
obviously, but like yeah no, no,they were each charges, so they

(58:50):
had to have a sentence for eachone.
They could have run themconcurrent, because it's not
like you can kill them more thanonce.
I mean, technically we probablycould, 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 (59:08):
So, point being we learned from flatliners bad plan
bad idea.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
So, funny enough, we're gonna skip back into the
past a little bit here, becausethis whole time we've been
talking about a little bit aboutlouisiana, a little bit about
shreveport, a little bit aboutwe heard somebody well, cindy,
said something about a littlebit about Louisiana, a little
bit about Shreveport, a littlebit about we heard somebody well
, cindy said something about atriple murder back in Shreveport
, yeah, and the connection thatwas made to that triple murder,

(59:38):
to the murders in Gainesville.
But you guys stuck around thislong 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 wasOctober of 1990, they had kind

(01:00:01):
of tentatively, because, like Itold you, in Shreveport they all
pretty much had an idea of whoit probably was, because
everybody knew that DannyRowling was a peeper, he was
aggressive, he was known to flipon a dime, he obviously had
left a huge mark by leaving hisdad shot three times.

(01:00:25):
I mean, it was obvious this guyhad issues and he was not far
from this triple murder thatoccurred and it just kind of
made sense.
Everybody kind of had thatfeeling, that inkling, and they

(01:01:01):
were right.
He left his mark, and thensuspect and so on and so forth,
trial, all of that deathsentence done.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
You know all of the, everything we just covered,
Right that trial, all of thatdeath sentence done.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
You know all of the everything we just covered,
right that?
So in November, when thathappened, when she gave him that
tip and said look into this,they basically said oh, dude,
yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Because these match up perfect.
Which I've already given herprops to the police department,
because they don't always dothat.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
But you have to hear the details right, because we've
talked about this guy.
He is very much a creature ofhabit.
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 hebrutalizes, mutilates, rapes,
kills, stabs in the back.

(01:01:51):
Yeah, the only difference inthe Florida crimes and the one
in Shreveport is the victims andI say that victims.
It was a triple murder.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
I believe that's been mentioned.
Yeah, I say that.
Victims, it was a triple murder.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
I believe that's been mentioned.
Yeah, I said that Of a family,but they weren't Okay.
So it was a father, a daughterand a nephew.
Okay, the father was55-year-old.
Jesus Christ, I lost it.
Was it Tom or Sean?
No, no, no, no, how?

(01:02:31):
Sean is the nephew.
So it was Tom.
His name was William, but hewent 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

(01:02:52):
old.
Each one of them had beenstabbed 1 to 5 times, and all 3
of them were found in differentrooms of the house.
However, remember how Manny wasfound as he laid.
So Tom.
However, remember how Manny wasfound as he laid as he laid.

(01:03:13):
So Tom and Sean were bothstabbed while they slept, and I
think Tom maybe had tried tomove around, but he had easily
been taken out and both of thoseRight.

(01:03:34):
They were killed and nevertouched again.
They were eliminated andforgotten.
And Julie, who was obviouslyand immediately the obvious
target of this attack.
Interesting insight into hismind that he finds an eight year
old a threat Right, Becausethere's no way there's no way

(01:04:00):
you didn't have to do thatInteresting in the worst
possible way, but still it'sgoing to break your heart, give
me a second.
So this occurred on November 6thin 1989.
The bodies were found on the7th of november and from the

(01:04:20):
jump they had no idea, they hadno suspects, they had no ties,
they had no links, they hadnothing.
Um, they eventually did tie dnain, but this was 89.
You're still really earlyinfancy.
It's just not a thing.
And basically in the paperarticle that I got from the
Shreveport Journal back onNovember 7th 1989, or November

(01:04:43):
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 theirdeath and he uh the.
When they asked theinvestigator what weapon was
used, he said a big knife.
It's a big knife and they theymay have been killed anytime
from late saturday night toearly sunday morning and that it

(01:05:07):
was probably done by a singleassailant, although not
everybody believed that theoryinitially because they thought
that they possibly would have.
They just thought that that wastoo much for one person.
But again, this is like one ofthose sleepy neighborhood type
situations where nobody lockedtheir doors, people left them in
the windows, you could go, letthe kids out on the street.
It was just that kind ofenvironment.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
And at least two of the kills would have been quick,
easy, silent, easy right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
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 tobe him.
Um, because when they foundJulie, she had also been
sexually assaulted, she had beenraped, and then she had posed

(01:05:55):
the body of shock just like allthe other victims, and they
thought he might have even takenpictures of that crime scene,
like he had taken pictures ofhis own work or whatever it's
highly likely, used duct tapeover her mouth, on her hands,
like he had taken pictures ofhis own work or whatever it's
highly likely, and used ducttape over her mouth, on her
hands, and that he brought itwith him and took it with him.

(01:06:18):
So he had his own kid that hebrought and left with and he had
cleaned the body, like I said,and he'd also used household
cleaners and stuff to clean upthe mess behind himself, because
he showered in the house.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Pro tip anybody that ever comes in your house with a
bag.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Just immediately a little bit less trust so the one
big difference, though, wasthat again like okay, but he
didn't he didn't mutilate tracyright when manny was there.
It was the same in this case hedidn't actually mutilate her
after the fact.
He that was only done when quoteunquote, nobody was watching

(01:06:56):
right and I I think that thatactually goes a lot to his
mindset.
And that is an even strongertie, to be honest, because in
the one case where he didn'thave, or he had, a male victim,
he didn't mutilate her body.
In the case of the grissoms,there were male victims and he

(01:07:18):
didn't mutilate her body, so itmust have had something to.
Maybe it was even so much sothat it was a like a daddy
complex, like oh, there weredudes here.
I gotta not be as much of mygruesome self as I usually would
be.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
I'm thinking, maybe a little bit of that.
I was thinking the jealousy forthe family and then wanting
Still subconsciously wantingthat and not wanting to mess up
the whole family aspect, maybeInsofar as I think it's just a

(01:07:54):
lot of.
He had somebody watching.
Maybe, and he couldn't get hisballs up to do it with somebody
watching, even if that somebodywas dead.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Right, maybe, maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
That's just where my brain went with it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
So this family, the grissoms tom, had literally just
returned to work at at&t.
He had been out for a while onmedical leave because he had
cancer and he had literally justfound out, either in the week
or the two weeks before, thathis cancer had gone into

(01:08:29):
remission and he was describedas the kind of person who would
do anything for you.
He was easygoing and a veryhelpful supervisor.
He was real nice, according toone of his co-workers there, and
just an all-around, just a goodguy.
And even though he was divorced, his daughter, she had recently

(01:08:54):
started living with him aftershe was because she was working
part-time at at like theDillard's in the perfume section
, and she had just graduated uh,high school in, or no, she was
at 83 graduate, so she hadgraduated a few years before,
obviously, and she was workingpart-time at the mall and she

(01:09:17):
had recently become engaged.
And initially the only suspectthat they thought they might
possibly have was the fiance.
But even that didn't work outLike his alibi was pretty solid
and they couldn't make thatpiece 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 provingit.
She was also known anddescribed as really nice and

(01:09:41):
there was one quote where thewoman I think it was like a
neighbor she said the thing Iremember about Julie was that
she was beautiful and real sweet.
And this is where it gets hard.
Sean Grisham was a third graderand he was just visiting that
weekend.
He was visiting his aunt andhis grandfather just for the

(01:10:05):
weekend.
He was visiting his aunt andhis grandfather just for the
weekend and the only reason thatthey were alerted to the fact
that something might be amisswas because the grandfather
hadn't shown up to drop him offback with his mother.
And she alerted the police togo do a well check.
And that's what they walkedinto A triple murder.

(01:10:26):
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 chargedrolling okay, he, he had enough
going on right, right and the.
Thing was was when they met upwith the Gainesville
investigators and they weregoing over everything the

(01:10:49):
evidence that they had.
That was the strongest and themost convincing.
The most likely to get aconviction were the Gainesville
murders.
Obviously they had strongerties in DNA and such and they
eventually did get, I believe,if I remember correctly.
I'm pretty sure that eventuallydid get.
I believe, if I remembercorrectly, I'm pretty sure that
they did get a DNA match to theGrissom murders but they never

(01:11:12):
charged, they never did anythingwith it because he already had
five death sentences and likethree life sentences and and
with all this is the first timeI've ever said this not followed
by an insult.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
With all due respect to the Grisham family, what more
do you want?

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Well, see, and this is the thing, what more can you
get Right?
That so basically how it turnedout, how it played out, like I
said in 1994, he was convicted,obviously because he pled guilty
to them, and then he wassentenced up to five death
sentences on top of that so hewas on death row.

(01:11:53):
We all know how that works.
You spend forever, you gothrough all the appeals,
everything is an automaticappeal.
You have to go all the way upto the supreme court.
They have to verify all of thisstuff, 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 ondeath row and I say chilling out
, you know what I mean.
But he basically sits downthere for almost a decade

(01:12:20):
waiting for his execution.
And this whole time they'regoing back and forth, and
especially in like 1994, afterhe gets, admits to the student
killings and gets sentenced todeath, and they're doing a whole
lot of talk back in Shreveportbecause they're wondering like,

(01:12:43):
hey, y'all gonna bring him backhere, is he gonna face these
charges?
Are you gonna?
Are you gonna indict him?
Yada, yada, yada.
And they actually submitted anarticle or statement to the
press that said you know, we'renot gonna extradite him, we're
gonna leave him right where he'sat, because they had security
concerns.
For one thing, they wanted tomake sure he didn't have any
opportunities to get away again.

(01:13:04):
They wanted to make sure thathe was going to be put to death,
as he so needed.
So they wait, like I saidanother, however, the hell long,
and eventually it becomes hislast day stay and on October

(01:13:24):
25th of 2006, he has his lastmeal that consisted of lobster
tail, butterfly, shrimp, bakedpotato, strawberry cheesecake
and some sweet tea.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
Two choices at least.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Right, he had a Pentecostal preacher guy come in
and pray with him before he hadto get out and he actually got
to spend a few hours with hisbrother before he went to his
room, his needle room, and whenthey asked about his last words,
he actually started singing ahymn that he partially was

(01:14:06):
making up as he went.
Some of it had, um, actualhymnal verses, but for the most
part he just made it up and thenhe just kept repeating okay.
So when they asked him for hislast words, he basically started
singing the hymnal, like I said, and he kept repeating.

(01:14:29):
No, it's like just a coupleverses that he made up on his
own, but he did keep repeatinguntil he was pronounced dead.
Basically, he just keptrepeating over and over the same
line none greater than thee, ohlord, none greater than thee.
And he just kept singing thattwo minutes, which is an odd one

(01:14:50):
, for a blatant narcissist yeah,and he kept singing even after
they turned off the mic inbetween the two rooms.
So the gallery that was watchinghim in his room they could see
still his lips moving, but theycouldn't actually hear him.
But they said it looked like hejust kept none greater than
thee, o Lord, none greater thanthee, and he stopped just before

(01:15:13):
he died.
So that was, he was singinguntil he actually lost
consciousness.
I mentioned the gallery thatwas watching his execution.
That was watching his executionand there were, I want to say

(01:15:35):
it was like 36 people that theyhad let's see if I got the
number right 47.
There were 47 people witnessingthe execution, not counting any
of the ones that were outsideeither protesting for or against
the death penalty, and that hedeserved it.
I think one lady's sign saidfinally kill the killer.
And so at 5, 12 or 5, 18 pm hewas pronounced dead or, I'm

(01:16:04):
sorry, 6.13pm he was pronounceddead at the Florida State Prison
and that was the end of theterrible, terrifying serial
killing spree that only lastedfour days.
Serial killing spree that onlylasted four days but literally

(01:16:26):
still to this day inspires notjust movies but like strikes
fear into people.
When you talk about theGainesville Rippers and just how
brutal and scary I rememberthem specifically four days,
five people, and the amount ofdamage and mutilation and
everything else that he did andthe amount of fear that he put

(01:16:48):
into an entire area and to thisday it's still lingered.
You know what I mean.
Like you can't get over that.
But, like I said, I know orknew of the Gainesville Ripper
and I've watched so many thingson so many different things, but
I never realized that he wasfrom Shreveport.

(01:17:08):
It never became prevalent.
And thank you for our listenersuggestion.
You know who you are.
You asked not to be named and Idon't mind that at all.
I just appreciate the fact thatyou keep sending me awesome
stuff.
But it was you.
It was you.
And he's actually recommendedother cases that we've already

(01:17:31):
covered as well, Like I'm prettysure he sent me Sean Vincent
Gillis as well.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
Good job.
Now they know that they've sentmultiple ones and it's a he.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
Yeah, he was okay with that.
He just didn't want me to namehim anything.
So thank you so much for that.
Before we sign off of thisepisode here, I've got one more
little tasty snack detail fory'all.
I told you that he had seen hisPentecostal pastor preacher
whatever the hell they call him,I don't remember had come in

(01:18:02):
and spoke with him and done hisprayers.
Well, he actually and thiswasn't revealed until much later
he actually gave a note to hispreacher, pastor, whatever the
hell, and it took a little while, but they eventually released
it to the press.
And, kyler, do you want to readwhat that said?

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
So in his note he wrote, In order to fulfill all
things, that no stone beunturned.
Hereby I make a formal writtenstatement concerning the murders
of Julie, Tom and Sean Grishamin my hometown of Shreveport,
Louisiana.
Hal Carter, Julie Grisham'sformer fiancé, is 100% innocent,

(01:18:43):
Totally pure, of that crime.
I, and I alone, am guilty.
It was my hand that took thoseprecious lights out of this old,
dark world.
With all my heart and soulwould I could bring them back.
Being a native son ofShreveport, I can only offer
this confession of deep-feltremorse over the loss of such
fine, outstanding souls.

(01:19:04):
Of deep-felt remorse over theloss of such fine, outstanding
souls.
Have wept an ocean of tears bywhich mournful doth float upon a
sea of regret.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
Close quote he was very dramatic, oh yeah, and
that's not the only time.
He actually got engaged to alady while he was in jail.
And they wrote a book, theMaking of a Serial Killer,
together in which he drewbecause he was known for drawing
very sexually explicit andgraphic, uh, drawings and things

(01:19:32):
.
And he loved like again,narcissistic personality trait
here serial killers, they loveto talk about themselves and to
write about themselves and doall the things.
So it's right up his alley andin the book, oh shit.
So he, you know, wrote a lot ofletters back and forth to other
people and they put those inthe book and I mean, like you

(01:19:55):
can still get this book today?
I didn't.
I'm not here for that youshould probably go and do.
No, no, I've read enough of theexcerpts to know I don't need to
read it.
You read that much and it wasthat irritating, so I'm good, it
was just the two words dothfloat.
But he's quoting other people'sstuff and half the time he
doesn't even quote the shitright.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Oh, and that's the whole focus.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
He has this arrogance of intelligence that he doesn't
actually have.
Yeah, no, screw that.
Anyway, he was full fool ofhimself, of course, but when it
comes down to it, he only evershowed any remorse or regret for
any of the doings that he didin that letter, and it was, to

(01:20:41):
confess, to keep someone elsefrom getting in trouble, and
that he regretted taking out thelights from the world.
They were good, upstandingpeople.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
And with a heavy undertone of they're only good
upstanding people becausethey're from my hometown.

Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
Seemingly yeah.
And I just found that kind ofironic I don't know what's a
good word for that.
I just don't think it was assincere as he was trying to make
it sound.
But then again, you know peoplewhen they know they're facing
death.
Because he actually did make aquote.

(01:21:19):
He said hang on, do I want todie?
No, I don't.
I want to live.
Life is a hard thing to give up.
And basically he said that thereason for what he did, or the
reason why he did it the way hedid it, was because he wanted to
be a superstar like Ted Bundy.
Yep, Wow, Yep that follows yeahSad.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
That follows, yeah Sad.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
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 theAssociated Press and then on the
first day of trial, like I said, there are some things you just
can't run from, this being oneof those.

Speaker 2 (01:22:04):
Well, you're not wrong, right, You're also a dick
.

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
That and it does say in the Murderpedia article that
they do over their people.
The DNA left at the crimescenes in Gainesville matched
the genetic material policerecovered from rolling during
some dental work.
But he was never prosecuted forthe Grisham slayings.
But he actually wrote anotherletter that he wrote to the AP,

(01:22:35):
the Associated Press, in 2002.
He said I assure you I am not asalivating ogre.
Granted times past, the darkera of long ago, dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde did strike up and downthe corridors of insanity.
Yeah, what?
Yeah, exactly, that's exactlymy point, exactly my point.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
By intentionally trying to be as profound and
mystifying as possible, hesucceeds.
Yeah, because it's mindlessrambling bullshit.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
So anyway, long story short, he was the how can I
make myself sound way moreimportant than I really am.
Right After he was executed, hebecame the 63rd inmate to be
put to death since Floridaresumed executions in 1979.
And he was actually the thirdone that year alone.
He was the 259th since 1924,when the state took over the

(01:23:31):
duty from individual counties.
That is the incredibly twisty,wow, multifaceted story of the
Gainesville Ripper and theShreveport Scream.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
The only twisty part was the knives.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
But you know what I mean, though Like it's very like
if he had just not been anidiot and robbed everything and
every single stop, like if hecould have stopped doing that,
he probably wouldn't have beencaught.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
Yeah, but well.

Speaker 1 (01:24:08):
And hell yeah, cindy you the win For the win.
Good on you, love Otherwise youknow.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Good job, police departments, for you know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Working together, coexisting.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
Working together, taking a tip and running with it
, right, not just backburneringit.
Yeah, seeing similarities, thatone wasn't really that together
.
Taking a tip and running withit, right, not just
backburnering it.
Yeah, seeing similarities, thatone wasn't really that hard.
But you know, the fact that youlooked at it in the first place
is what I'm giving you creditfor right and most sincere,
heartfelt condolences to all ofthe families involved here.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
I'm really glad to report, though, that Danny
Rowling's daughter never had afucking thing to do with him.
She literally was raised by thenew husband of her biological
mom, his first wife that tookoff and ran when she was under
three and never looked back, and, according to all of the
documents and articles that Iread, she actually held no ill

(01:25:07):
will against Danny because shehad basically done what you know
most people say they are goingto do, and they just let it go
and not allowed that to consumeher future.
And basically, you know, shewas happy because she had moved
forward, gotten away from himand found someone who she

(01:25:29):
married and then raised herdaughter, and they were in a
happy place.
Like her life went well.
So good, good, good for her.
I do know that eventually, dannyRowling's body and belongings
from the prison were released tohis brother.
There were no details of whathappened or where he was buried,

(01:25:53):
if he was cremated, all of thatmess, 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 bodyafter he was autopsied.
Okay, guys, night night, welove you.
Yeah about that.
So, kayla, you had fun with this.
Almost two fucking hours ofbullshit.
I hope you enjoy it.
You're probably not gonna everlisten to all of it, and that's

(01:26:14):
okay, because the edited versionis probably gonna be closer to
less than an hour, so you'rewelcome.
You asked for this, andeverybody in the future.
Hopefully we'll have morefuture Patreons.
I will be more consistent.
I promise.
If I had any kind of helpwhatsoever, it might be
different, but I'm doing thebest that I can, okay, okay.

(01:26:35):
So thank you guys for listening.
Thank you so much forcontinuing to come back and
continuing to support our show.
Don't forget to check us out onyoutube, and I put a lot of
work into these stupid tiktoksthat take forever to make, which
I'm a lot of work.
Please watch them, just so thatshe has some sort of actual
meaning no, they do because,like you know, every time I post

(01:26:56):
a video, I basically get threeor 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 thebooty.
Anyway, point being, I love youguys.
You're awesome.
Thank you for being here andfor listening.
If you've made it this far,you're the best.

(01:27:18):
Hey, can I tell you a secret?
You're the best.
So, as an inside joke, it'sfine, it's fine.
So don't forget to check outour TikTok, youtube, and I do
stuff on Twitter, but it'susually just a copy paste of the
either YouTube or TikTok.
I do plan on some point in thefuture to do a live, either

(01:27:38):
recording or what have you onYouTube, because I finally have
enough subscribers to do so onYouTube.
We can finally have enoughsubscribers to do so on YouTube.
We can go live.
Yeah, awesome sauce.
Not that you guys want to seeour ugly mugs, but I figured
that might be somethinginteresting for that.
That'd be something to do,probably after, hopefully, after

(01:27:59):
things settle down, maybesometime during the summer when
we don't have.
Yeah, absolutely, at some pointthey've got to.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
I think I think you misunderstand how children work.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
But I love it and thank you guys so much for
coming back, because I'm goingto keep doing this, even if it's
not as consistent as I hope itwill be.
It's still going to happenbecause I've got so many more
suggestions.
I just wrote down four morefrom an email.
We still have to do a Hall ofFame week, yeah, yeah.
And we have the vacation seriesthat we've got planned of stuff

(01:28:29):
that has nothing to do withLouisiana 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 trynot to worry too much about the
things you can't control that'show the cookie crumbles.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
Wait, no, that one's got there take care out there.

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