Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murder - Ep. 119 | The Real-Life Scream Killer | Danny Rolling

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life, when you head to https://Smalls.com/CCCM. Start your free trial today at https://shopify.com/cccm Five students. A city paralyzed by fear. And a killer whose gruesome crimes would forever change true crime history. This is the terrifying story of Danny Rolling - the man many know as the real-life inspiration behind Scream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are created equal. Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive. When it comes to gut health, Activia is the number one family doctor-recommended probiotic yogurt brand. Choose Activia. Feel good from the inside out. Visitactivia.ca for more details. Every fall, thousands of students showed up. They moved into apartments, unpacked their things, and prepped for the upcoming semester.

It was a college town where the biggest worry was when your next assignment was due, or whether your roommate would get along with you. But in 1990, someone was already in the trees nearby, watching. He had come from elsewhere carrying something no one could have imagined. And by the time the first week of classes was over, five students were dead. And the man responsible was closer than anyone. thought. This is the story of the Gainesville Ripper. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder. All things that I love to consume and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful,

intellectually minded freak. And today we are talking about a very infamous killer that I think a lot of people don't know about. And he is the killer that inspired the franchise scream. So without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and bustle the windshield into this infamous case together. Let's take a quick pause to talk about something I love, and the pun pause is intended, because I'm talking about my kitty cats. Now, my cats are my children, and they deserve the best.

So when they started dealing with constant hairballs and getting a little chunky, I actually looked at what was in their food, and it was mostly fillers and mystery ingredients I couldn't even pronounce. And that's when we switched to smalls. Smalls is fresh human-grade cat food, made with preservative-free 100% human-grade ingredients, the kind of stuff you'd actually find in your own fridge, and it's delivered right to your door. And since switching, I mean, the hair bowls have basically stopped, and honestly, their litter box is a lot less stinky, which is nice.

And here's why it works. Cats are little carnivores, and smalls is gently cooked with no fillers and no artificial junk. So more of the nutrients actually get digested, if that makes sense. Which means more energy and a silkier coat and fewer hairballs and less stinky poops and a healthier cat all around. My cats go absolutely feral for these recipes. But don't take my word for it. Forbes ranks smalls the best overall cat food and BuzzFeed said that their cats went completely ballistic for the stuff can confirm. And after switching, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements. And if you're at all spooked by commitment, which I totally get, you don't have to be because you can try Smalls risk-free.

If your cat won't need it, then they will refund your order. So stop serving your little carnivore, a bowl of processed shortcuts. And for a limited time, because you are a crime, conspiracy, cult, and murder listener, you can get 60% off your first order. Plus, free shipping and free treats for life. When you head to smalls.com slash cccn, that's 60% off your first order with free treats for life. for life and free shipping when you go to smalls.com slash cccm. Thank you so much to smalls for sponsoring the video and supporting the channel and let's get back to it. Danny harold rolling was born on may 26, 1954 in shreveport, Louisiana. And his parents, James and Claudia had married roughly a year earlier

when Claudia was in her late teen slash early 20s. And it only took James about two weeks of marriage to show Claudia who he really was. And the violence started almost before their life together had a chance to begin. Now, James Rowling was a police officer on the Shreveport force, and he carried a badge professionally and brought the authority that came with it into his home every single night. To the outside world, he was, you know, law enforcement. But behind closed doors, he was the very thing people call law enforcement about. And when Claudia found out she was pregnant, James didn't celebrate. And James resented the pregnancy and told Claudia the child was her own doing. Don't think that's how that works, James. I think it takes two to tango, James, you fucking idiot. And he said that he

never asked for it and didn't want it. There's these crazy things called condoms, James, look them up. And when Danny finally arrived, that resentment didn't fade away with time. And Claudia and James would go on to have another child. He did not learn his lesson, and his name would be Kevin. So Danny had a younger brother named Kevin. And Kevin's arrival didn't make things any better with James. It just gave him two targets instead of one, or actually three targets instead of one, since he was a jackass to his own wife. Now, Claudia left James again and again across the span of the marriage, and she would disappear for weeks, sometimes even months, in an attempt to build real resistance between herself and her violent husband. But no matter how long she stay gone, she always came back. And every time she returned, the cycle picked up exactly where it had left off. So James just ran the household through control and violence and neither had a limit, unfortunately.

And he would beat Claudia regularly and put hands on both boys from the time they were toddlers. And the triggers for his violence were very unpredictable and absurd. And something even as minor as the way one of the boys was breathing could set him off. And on the days when his fist stayed down, his mouth took over because he was verbally abusive as well. So James would just lay into Danny with words instead, calling him unwanted and telling him he should never have existed. So there was no version of daily life where the boys felt safe in their own home, which is incredibly sad. And being a cop just gave James tools that most abusive fathers didn't have, and he made sure to use every single one of them. And one time he threw Danny to the ground and snapped a pair of handcuffs on him.

And then he called in his fellow officers who came and took the boy away. And all Danny had done was embarrass his father, and James had his own son hauled off like a suspect for it. Guy's ego is as fragile as an eggshell. So normal childhood milestones didn't exist under this roof. Birthdays went uncelebrated and so did every holiday. And the small rituals that most families build a childhood around were just stripped away entirely. And when Danny brought home a puppy at one point, James directed his violence at the end. animal. This guy's just the mega piece of shit. And he would keep at it day after day until one day

the dog actually passed away in Danny's arms. And Claudia's suffering went well beyond the routine beatings as well. And she ended up in the hospital at least once that we know of telling the staff that James had put a razor blade in her hand and made her turn it on herself. And through it all, she could see what was happening to her older son. And she tried to get Danny in front of a psychologist someone who could evaluate and maybe even help him, but James shut down every single attempt that she made. And according to him, there was no problem. Danny was just going through something,

and sooner or later, he would snap out of it on his own. Now, the professionals who did manage to observe Danny at school saw something different. And school counselors flagged him before he finished the third grade, noting aggression and an inability to control his impulses, similar to his father, because sometimes history repeats itself in these cases. And his behavior problems bled into his academics, and he fell behind in the classroom.

And still, without parental cooperation at home, those assessments pretty much went nowhere. And Danny's teenage years brought an escalation of his behavior on every front. And he would start drinking and using drugs early into his teens. And police even arrested him at least twice for alcohol alone. And he would run away from home repeatedly, likely a vain attempt. to get away from his abusive father on any terms he could find, but he also began creeping out to windows at night, peeping in to watch girls as they untressed.

And he was caught doing it more than once, but the behavior didn't stop. And it started to become a compulsion, so Danny's kind of becoming a creep at this point. And crime just kind of caught his attention while he was young, and he moved from shoplifting and petty theft to breaking into home. to homes. And police picked him up multiple times leading to his stints in one juvenile facility after another. But still, none of it slowed him down. And each criminal release only brought on worse behavior. And Danny eventually dropped out of high school entirely and unable to shake his behavioral issues. He never gained footing that might have offered him another path. And he left

with no diploma, a juvenile record, and a childhood that handed him almost nothing positive to carry forward. Everything that happened while growing up inside that house followed him out the door. And it showed itself plainly in his volatility with authority and his inability to connect with anyone around him. So after dropping out of high school, Danny joined the U.S. Air Force. But the military didn't hold him long. And within a year, he picked up a drug possession charge and got written up for disobeying orders. And in 1972, the Air Force discharged him, and he was back in Shreveport with nothing to show for it. And upon his return, he landed at his grandfather's place. And for a short while, things seemed to kind of level out. And he started attending church regularly. And it seemed that something

resembling stability started to take shape around him for the very first time in his life. But substances kept pulling him away. And the drinking that had started in his teens never really stopped. And the drug use that ended his military career carried right along with it. And just like everything else, work never really stuck either. Danny couldn't hold a job any longer than he could hold an address, always moving before anything had a chance to even take root. But in his time at church, Danny met a young woman named O'Mathar Halko, and the two were married on September 6, 1974, at the United Pentecostal Church in Shreveport. Now, she was 19, and the couple had a daughter together pretty soon after, and Danny resorted to alcohol and marijuana to try and handle the pressures

of marriage and fatherhood. And the voyeurism that had started in his teenage years managed to return even while the marriage was still intact. And that abuse that he had grown up with became the abuse he handed down, unfortunately. And he drove O'Mathar away with the same sort of violence that had been constant in his own childhood. So she would leave and the divorce would be finalized. So at this point, troubled by... disturbing thoughts and a habit of peeking into windows as we know, Danny went downhill after this divorce. And this is when he would commit what is believed to be his first essay, or rape. And the resemblance of the woman to O'Mathar was unmistakable. And whatever restraint that had once kept him at the edges of other

people's lives, watching from the dark was now gone. And from that point forward, he followed a grim pattern. And he crossed the country by himself robbing people and sexually assaulting women along the way. And the robbery started not long after his marriage dissolved. And two Win Dixie supermarkets were among his targets, along with a string of other stores. And these weren't by any means sophisticated jobs, and they weren't hard to trace back to him. And by the end of the decade, his robbery spree had stretched across state lines. And he hit targets throughout the south, moving fast and recklessly, enough that law enforcement eventually caught up. And in 1979, he was locked up in Jackson, Georgia for armed robbery. And he walked out of prison in 1984 and was just back to robin within months.

In the 1980s, repeated the cycle on a wider scale. And Alabama locked him up for armed robbery as well, and so did Mississippi. And the charge never changed, and neither did rolling. Why, I don't understand, like, this is multiple charges. Just lock him up for life. He's just going to keep robbing shit. What the, what is happening? But he would serve his time, walk out, and pick up exactly where he left off. And by his mid-30s, Rowling had spent the majority of his adult life either locked up or running from the consequences of what he had done while free. And he had no home, no family willing to claim him, and a criminal record that stretched across several states. So in November of 1989, Julie Grissom was 24 years old and living in Shreveport, Louisiana,

as well as her father William Grissom, who also went by the name Tom. Now, Tom's eight-year-old grandson, Sean, rounded out a tight family circle. And a year earlier, Julie had fallen in love with a man named Hal Carter. And the two talked about getting married, though they couldn't agree on the timeline. And Carter wanted to date for three years first while Julie pushed for one, and they settled on two. But before the wedding could happen, the relationship ended over timing. But the way Carter remembered Julie had nothing to do with how things fell apart. Saying, quote, she'd open that door and she had this smile like she had just been waiting for me and she could hardly bear to wait any longer.

She just made people feel good about themselves, unquote. And during this time, Rowling was back in Shreveport and working at a restaurant. And he'd been fired from the job for repeated absences, losing the last thread of structure holding his daily life together, basically. And it is believed that he saw Julie at her department store job in a local mall and marked her as a target. So on November 4th, 1989, just hours after rolling had been fired from the restaurant, Tom, Julie, and Sean Grissom were stabbed to death inside Tom's home while preparing for dinner. So Shreveport officers responded to Tom's residence and discovered the three victims dead inside. And the scene was violent and organized in ways that unsettled.

investigators, and all three of them died from knife wounds. And Julie was sexually assaulted during the attack. And later, Danny would wash her body and stage it in a deliberate position before leaving. Now, at this point, there was no immediate suspects and no witnesses and no clear motive tying anyone to the family. So the investigation went nowhere. And Rowling's name didn't surface at all during the initial investigation. And instead, suspicion landed on the wrong person entirely. And investigators zeroed in on Hal Carter, the ex-boyfriend, and the weight of that suspicion followed him for years. Because, I mean, usually in these scenarios, they look at people that are actually close to the family, especially when they're this violent and seemingly random. But six months after the Grissom murders, in May of 1990, Rowling turned on the man who had shaped him, and he showed up and shot his father multiple times.

And the bullets struck him in the head and in the stomach. So James would naturally collapse, bleeding badly, but he would not die. And he survived the shooting, though the damage was permanent. And James lost the use of one eye and one ear, injuries he would carry for the rest of his life. So after he shot his father, Danny left and cut a path from Louisiana into Florida, burglarizing businesses and houses and stealing whatever vehicles he needed to keep moving forward. And he would go on to sexually assault another woman

by August in Sarasota, Florida. And then he kept moving north. So Rowling had made his way through Florida and reached Gainesville right as the fall semester at University of Florida was getting underway. And more than three-fourths of the university's 34,000 students lived off campus, scattered across apartment complexes throughout the city. And classes were set to begin around when Rowling arrived. And he set up camp in the woods near the university living out of the trees with whatever he'd carried or, stolen along the way. And to anyone who might have noticed him, he was just, you know, another drifter. And the students moving into the apartments that week didn't seem to really notice him at all. And Christina, or Christy Powell, was 17 years old from Jacksonville. And she was someone who found

the bright side of things without being told to look for it. And she wanted to design homes for people who couldn't afford them. And Christy's best friend was headed to New York for college, and she refused to make it about the goodbye. And her friend dreaded the separation. but Christy kept steering the conversation toward all the trips they would take back and forth. And she really cared for her friend and made plans to stay close. And Christy's roommate was 18-year-old Sonia Larson of Deerfield Beach, who had dreams of becoming a teacher. And she loved children and carried that warmth into every relationship that she had. And she was physically affectionate, always reaching for a hug or holding a friend's hand.

And Sonia carried a boldness that showed up in unexpected places. even teaching one of her friends how to drive. So both Christie and Sonia lived in the apartment together on the southwest side of Gainesville, and they were just settling into their first days of the semester when Rowling chose their home. And on August 24th, 1990, Rowling would enter their apartment and kill both of them. And their bodies weren't discovered until Sunday, August 26, roughly 48 to 72 hours after they had passed away.

And Christy's mother and father called multiple times as the first day of classes approached, and their daughter just never picked up. And when they couldn't get through, they called the police and asked them to check on her. And officers opened the door and found her body in the living room. And Sonia would be upstairs in a bedroom on the second floor. And one of them was unclothed while the other was partly clothed. And Lieutenant Sadie Darnel, a Gainesville police spokesperson, confirmed those details. And the bodies had also been posed and both felt.

victims showed signs of mutilation. And Danny was still not a suspect at this point. And then there was Krista Lee Hoyt. And she was 18 years old and from Gainesville. And her nickname was glowworm, which stuck with her because of her warm spirit. Because she just seemed to draw people towards her, and those in her orbit appear to remain close. And Krista's hobbies included cooking, camping, swimming, and racquetball. And a scholarship covered her tuition at Santa Fe Community College. and she held a job as a records clerk at the Alachua County Sheriff's Office, because she actually wanted to work crime scenes for a living. And she took her future very seriously and was meticulous with her grades.

And after exams, she convinced herself she had bombed, sometimes crying over it, only to find out later that she had done almost better than everyone else. But on Sunday, August 26, the same day Christy and Sonia were found, Krista didn't show up for her shift at the sheriff's office. and deputies went to check on her because that was not like her at all not to show up. And unfortunately, they would find her body inside her apartment in southwest Gainesville, roughly two miles from the complex where the first two victims had been discovered. And the discovery came about eight hours after the first.

And Lieutenant Spencer Mann told the press that Krista's body showed signs of trauma, but he would not go into detail. And the full extent of what was done to her included a stabbing wound in the back, sexual assault, decapitation, and additional mutilation. And the connection between the scenes was becoming impossible to ignore. And according to Gainesville's son, what tied the two crime scenes together was the way the victim's bodies had been mutilated. Now, by the end of August, the city understood what it was dealing with. And Gainesville police chief, Waylon Clifton, addressed the press directly saying, quote,

the two crimes could have been done by the same individual. The method of operation in these cases are similar, unquote. And state university system Chancellor Charles Reed went further saying, quote, it looks like it's part of a serial killer. It's a community problem. It's not just a university problem, unquote. And Governor Bob Martinez cautioned young people against staying alone. And the FBI was already working alongside local investigators,

and Martinez had sent the state police mobile crime lab to the city. And at the crime scenes, investigators recovered biological evidence left, behind by the killer, including semen and saliva. And students on campus couldn't help making a connection to a name Florida knew all too well, and that was Ted Bundy, because Ted Bundy had been executed just a few months earlier at this point on January 24, 1989. Janna Walters, an 18-year-old freshman from Longwood, Florida, spoke for a lot of them saying, quote, that's what we're all saying, It's another Ted Bundy on the loose. Some sicko, it's frightening, really, unquote.

And parents across the state flooded the university and local police with phone calls. And university president, John Lombardi, and his administration fielded calls all day, trying to convince parents their children were safe, which... No, they're fucking not. What are you saying? There's a literal serial killer on the loose. But because most incoming students still didn't have working phone lines, the university opened a free phone bank and urged everyone to remain on campus where they could be reached.

So three young women were dead in the same neighborhood within 48 hours, and hundreds of students packed up and left Gainesville entirely. Don't blame them. And the ones who remained bunched together in large groups at night, and more than a few kept baseball bats with an arm's reach while they tried to sleep. Manuel Taboida had spent most of his life pushing through things that would have stopped many people. He lost his father as a teenager, but he kept going. And his grades dipped, but then he brought him back up.

And he graduated with honors from high school where he played football and wanted to be an architect. And Tracy Paulus was 23 and had enrolled again at the University of Florida, picking up the degree she had left unfinished. And she wanted to become a lawyer, and she'd been salutatorian and homecoming queen at her high school, graduating in 1984. And friends and family described her as smart, beautiful, and very well. spoken. Tracy's older sister, Lori Lay, was two years ahead of her, and the two of them had a special bond. And before Tracy left for Gainesville, Lori called her, quote, Trace, I have this feeling you're going to go to Gainesville, and I'm not going to see you again, unquote. And Tracy responded, quote, what? Why do you say stuff like that to me? You're freaking me out. Stop, I'm going to be fine,

unquote. So Manuel and Tracy had gone to the same high school in Miami and were now splitting an apartment at the Gatorwood complex in Gainesville. And on August 28, 1990, two days after the first three bodies were found, their bodies were discovered inside that apartment. So investigators established a command post in the gap between Gatorwood and the location where Krista's body had been discovered roughly two miles apart. And officially, police would not confirm a link to the three earlier victims, though they acknowledged they were treating the two new deaths as a probable double homicide.

Now, Manuel was the only male victim across the five killings. And because of that, it's possible that Rowling hadn't come for him, but he was in the apartment when Rowling forced his way inside. And Rowling would attack Manuel when he was in bed, but Manuel would put up a fight, but unfortunately he would succumb to multiple stab wounds. And then during that attack, Tracy would hear the commotion, go see what was going on, and she would see Manuel,

either dying or dead on the floor so she would run back to her room and barricade the door, but unfortunately, Rowling would get in. And that is where he would do the same to her and also sexually assault her. And after investigators discovered their bodies, they would contact the family, specifically Lori. And Lori was with her husband when she found out, and they booked a flight home to Miami immediately. And at the family home afterward, Tracy's family and friends gathered. And Lori noticed that every young man who walked through the door had been in love with Tracy at some point, saying, quote,

either when we were seven, eight, 12, 15, 20, whatever it was, and I got a nice interior chuckle about that because that's who she was, unquote. So five students were dead in four days. A city of college kids had become the most frightened place in Florida. So the investigation stretched beyond Gainesville Police and the Elichow County Sheriff's Office, drawing agents from law enforcement agencies statewide. And one of them was Don Mains, a retired Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE, investigator, who had graduated from the University of Florida in 1973.

And the case drew national media coverage and generated a staggering paper trail. And by the time the investigation wound down, the task force had produced nearly 7,000 reports totaling roughly 100,000 pages. And investigators noted a pattern across, all three crime scenes. The killer had entered through back doors and every home sat near a wooded area that provided natural cover. And Mainz would describe the final specifics saying,

quote, this killer had a style about him. He would draw the victims to the edge of the bed and then leave them in a spread eagle position as their final resting place, unquote. Just an absolute monster. Like, as if literally murdering someone isn't horrible enough. You have to desecrate their body by putting them in that position. I just, you know, deepest hole in the ground, bury them, you know? But in the immediate aftermath, investigators didn't have a profile that pointed anywhere really useful. But what they had instead were tips. And the tips pointed to someone named Edward Humphrey.

Now, Humphrey was a University of Florida student in his late teens. So a car accident had left visible scars on his face, and he carried knives on him, and he had stopped taking medication prescribed for a mental health disorder. And several tipsters flagged him by name shortly after the murders. And within days of the killings, Humphrey was behind bars on a million-dollar bond. Just off of tips, because they don't have any proof that he's actually been to these places or done anything. In a search of his home turned up magazines about knives, guns, and girls. but the physical evidence seemed to inch in his direction without ever arriving.

And Mainz explained the problem saying, quote, we have a lot of physical evidence that according to our technology at the time, placed Ed at some of the scenes, some fiber, some hairs. They couldn't say definitively it was Ed's hair, but they couldn't say it wasn't. So circumstantial. But Seaman recovered at all three Gainesville crime scenes revealed the killer had type B blood, and Humphrey's blood was type A. News outlets were already telling the public that the prime suspect was locked up.

But that was not the case. And Humphrey had also been arrested for assaulting his grandmother, which only deepened public suspicion, despite him having a completely different blood type. And the ordeal consumed his life and his families. And his brother George told the New York Times, quote, my brother wasn't well off mentally to begin with. And this has rattled him to his foundations, unquote. And Humphrey was eventually released from jail. until 10 months after the grandmother assault. And his emotional instability and record of violent outbursts had made him look like a suspect.

But the truth was simpler. Wrong place at the wrong time. And state attorney Rod Smith acknowledged what happened, saying, quote, it was the desperation of the time and the need to get that guy. We made a mistake, unquote. So on September 7th, 1990, 10 days after the last bodies were discovered, rolling walked into a Winddixie supermarket in Okala, Florida. with a pistol. And a witness told the Ocala Star banner, he shouted, quote,

this is a robbery, get your money out, unquote. An officers arrived fast and caught rolling after a short pursuit. And arresting officer, Ken Rame, remembered Rowling's reaction saying, quote unquote, boy, you guys are good. Now, O'Connor sits in Marion County, about 40 miles south of Gainesville, a different jurisdiction that had no reason to make a connection between a supermarket at holdup and the serial murder case in Alachua County. So Rowling was booked into Marion County jail on armed robbery charges, and he would later be convicted on a separate federal bank robbery charge and transferred to Florida State Prison. So the man that investigators across the state were hunting was already now behind bars, and nobody knew it. So in August 1990, a woman

named Cindy Gerussich, going by Cindy Dobbin at the time, caught a news broadcast about the Gainesville killings while driving through the Florida panhandle. And one name hit her the moment she heard the report, Danny Rowling. Now, Danny was someone she knew from her church back in Louisiana. And Rowling had once told Cindy and her family something she hadn't forgotten. Quote, one day, I'm going to leave this town and I'm going to go where the girls are beautiful and I can just lay in the sun and watch beautiful women all day, unquote. And her then husband, Stephen Dobbin, had told her something worse. Rowling had confided in Dobbin that he had a problem.

And when Cindy asked what kind of problem, Dobbin answered, quote unquote, he likes to stick knives into people. And at first, she tried to dismiss the connection. But the Shreveport triple homicide from November 1989 and what was happening in Gainesville looked too much alike, and Cindy could not shake the feeling. So in November of 1990, she picked up the phone and called crime stopper,

saying, quote, I think there's one guy y'all need to investigate Danny Rowling, unquote. And the call cracked the case wide open. I want to take a quick pause on the video to tell you something that has quite literally changed my life and my husband's life. And that is Shopify. And if you have been sitting on a business idea, maybe you think about it late at night when you're going to bed thinking that you can't do it.

You can with Shopify. Because Shopify makes it easy to actually make it happen. and everything you need to start selling is included and ready from day one. And that's how we built our own store. Sour Boys runs on Shopify, and we'd be lost without it. Because I'm not a web developer, and I am not an expert on payments. I investigate crimes for a living, basically, and make sketch comedy. It's not my wheelhouse.

But the storefront was live and taking orders faster than we could even make candy. But don't worry, there's enough candy. And it was all through Shopify. And Shopify checkout helps your customers ask. actually finish their purchase. And when they come back, their details are already saved. So it's just one tap and it's done. So you don't have to worry about customers just leaving

an abandoned cart. And that's a real confidence boost when you have a business. And because Shopify handles a setup and checkout, you get your time back to focus on actually growing your business. And Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide. Household names like Mattel and Jim Shark and Sour Boys. And it's all using the same infrastructure day one. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business.

So go make it one. And start your free trial at Shopify.com slash CCCM. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash cccm. Thank you so much to Shopify for sponsoring the video and supporting the channel. And let's get back to it. So FDLE investigator Don Maines traveled to Shreveport and examined the evidence from the Grissom murders. And the way Julie Grissom's body had been arranged matched what investigators had seen at several of the Gainesville crime scenes. and tape residue marked her skin and someone had wiped her body down with vinegar,

a detail that was similar to soap that had been found on the Florida victims. And when the Shreveport perpetrator's body fluids came back as type B blood, it lined up with all three Gainesville crime scenes. And Mainz called it a revelation. And investigators confirmed that Rowling himself also carried type B blood, linking two crime sprees across two states to a single suspect. And meanwhile, a separate threat of evidence had been sitting in storage since August.

And the same day, investigators discovered Christa's body, a bank was robbed about a half a mile from her apartment. And one of the tellers managed to get a red dye pack into the money before it left the counter. And later that evening, an officer spotted a figure disappearing into a nearby tree line and followed the trail to a campsite. And whoever had been there was now gone, but the campsite was not empty.

And left behind were a screwdriver, the dye-marked money bag, and a gun and a cassette piece. player with a tape still inside it. And at the time, no one connected the robbery to the murders. And the presence of a firearm at the campsite seemed to rule out a connection, since no gun had been used in the student murders. And the tape sat in an evidence locker for months, unplayed, which is crazy to me. And Rowling's record of armed robbery convictions changed the picture.

And investigators went back and looked at the bank job from the day Krista's body was found with fresh eyes. and they pulled the cassette player from storage and finally pressed play. Now, on the tape, a man talked and sang, and in one of those songs, you could hear, quote, Mystery Rider, what's your name? You're a killer, a drifter, gone insane, unquote. Between songs, he spoke to family members circling back to how his life had gone off course.

And according to state attorney Smith, Rowling also went into detail about the best method for killing a deer. And somewhere on the tape, the voice identified itself by name, Danny Harold Rowling. And Detective LeGrain Hewitt remembered the moment, saying, quote, that was exciting. It didn't matter what the lyrics were or what he was saying at that point, unquote. And Mainz saw it differently saying, quote, if we had played the tape before, we would have had this guy three months ago. But for some reason, somehow that tape escaped us and I'll freely admit it, unquote. And DNA evidence gave investigators what they needed. And in May 1991, Rowling was publicly identified as the prime suspect in the Gainesville murders.

And the formal charge came six months later. Five counts of first-degree murder. And inside Florida State Prison, Rowling found an unlikely ally in Bobby Lewis, a death row inmate. Now, Lewis told authorities that Rowling had walked him through the killings in detail and said he wanted to come clean. And Lewis had his own reasons for cooperating with them. because he was serving a life sentence for killing a drug dealer in Jacksonville in the 1970s and was looking for a reduction. And what Lewis put down on paper filled five pages of specifics about the murders. And FDLE investigator Hewitt said the letter contained details only the killer could have known.

And investigators arranged to sit down, but Rowling had a condition. He would only do it if Lewis sat in the room and did the talking for him. So Rowling leaned on Lewis in a way that went beyond. the interviews. He became very codependent with him. And he said he needed Bobby's support and asked not to be separated from him. So the arrangement proceeded and investigators posed the questions and Lewis gave the answers. And Rowling confirmed or denied each one. It was like a translator who didn't need to be translators, really weird situation. Lewis became something between a confidon and a confessor and the one person rolling trusted enough to speak through. And the affirmations Rowling gave were

captured on recording. And as Hewitt put it, quote, it was important because he was participating in the confession, unquote. And the session ended up producing details that hadn't surfaced before. And one of them was, after killing Krista Hoyt, Rowling went back. He was worried his wallet might still be inside her apartment. The decapitation happened on that return trip and was not part of the original attack. And that's when they learned what happened inside Tracy and Manuel's apartment. that Tracy heard the struggle in Manuel's room and came to see what was happening, but the sight of Rowling sent her running back toward her room, and she got the door shut and tried to lock it, but Rowling forced his way through.

And ABC news reporter John Donvan reported that Tracy confronted Rowling directly, and she asked him, quote, you're the one, aren't you? unquote. And Rowling replied, quote unquote, yeah, I'm the one. And Lewis, after hearing everything Rowling described, said, quote, I've never been told nothing in reality. I've never read nothing in a Stephen King novel that comes close to what the reality is of what this man did, unquote.

And despite confessing to the Five Gainesville murders, Rowling refused to admit to the Shreveport killings during the interviews. And as the questions continued, Rowling introduced a different explanation for what he'd done. And he claimed he had, quote unquote, dealt with different personalities all my life

and described two alter egos. And he called the first one, Yanad, his own name reversed, genius, and described it as a bad presence but not an evil one. I beg to differ. And the other, he called Gemini, which Rowling cast as the truly dangerous one, and the personality he held responsible for the murders. Isn't that convenient for Rowling? Isn't it?

I call bullshit, to be honest. And Rowling had lifted that name from the Exorcist. three, a movie he watched shortly before the murders. And in the film, an evil spirit named Gemini is responsible for a string of killings. And state attorney Rod Smith had no patience for the explanation, luckily, saying, quote, Danny committed these crimes for one reason only. He loved it, unquote. And Rowling also told investigators something else. He had aspired to be a superstar in the mold of Ted Bundy.

Hey, Ontario. Come on down to bet MGM casino and see. what our newest exclusive The Price's Right Fortune Pick has to offer. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show only at BetMGM. Check out how we've reimagined three of the show's iconic games, like Plinko, Clifhanger, and The Big Wheel, into fun casino game features. Don't forget to download the BetMGM casino app for exclusive access and excitement on the Price's Right Fortune Pick. Pull up a seat and experience the Price's Right Fortune Pick, only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly.

19 plus to wager. ON only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-260 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. And in an interview with the Gainesville son, Smith said Rowling fell short of that goal, crediting a deliberate effort by authorities to center the victims and their families instead of their killer.

And clinical psychologist Harry Krop first evaluated Rowling in January of 1991 after the Okala armed robbery arrest. And Kropp's evaluation uncovered what he called, end quote, incredible amount of underlying anger, unquote, along with a borderline personality disorder. and the symptoms included violent mood swings, impulsive, and self-destructive behavior, narcissism, and antisocial feelings, unquote. But he rejected Rowling's claim of, quote, unquote, multiple personalities, saying, quote, I didn't buy it. This was Danny looking for something that would make what happened more dramatic and

minimize his own culpability by saying, the devil made me do it, unquote. So by November 1991, Rowling had been formally charged with five counts of first-degree murder for the Gainesville killings, and he pleaded not guilty to all of them, and the prosecution was led by state attorney Rod Smith. And Rowling's lead defense attorney was Rick Parker. And Smith's case rested on the evidence the investigation had already assembled, the DNA, the recorded confessions, and the forensic trail from campsite to crime scenes. And the defense couldn't argue the facts away, so Parker built his strategy around the penalty. And the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Eddings v. Oklahoma required capital juries to consider a defendant's history of abuse and deprivation

when deciding between life and death, regardless of whether that history excused the crime. And Parker planned to put Rowling's childhood on trial instead. In my opinion, the child, innocent, you know, the child, pretty innocent in this case. The adult, fully culpable. Put him in a hole, I think. Personally, I don't know. Now, Parker's mitigation case with labor, bear the Rowling household from the beginning. Beatings that started so young, a father who weaponized his badge against his own family, a mental illness that went unaddressed because James Rowling blocked every attempt to get his son evaluated. Fair. And the defense would present Rowling's psychological profile as evidence of damage, not as an excuse. Definitely damage. Damage, for sure. I think there's

a little bit of nature and nurture in there for sure. However, while awaiting trial, Rowling's admission went beyond Gainesville. And he had also confessed to killing three members of the Grissom family in Shreveport, Louisiana, in November of 1989, which put his confirmed total at now eight victims. And no separate charges were filed in Louisiana for those killings, and he would face justice only in Florida. So Rowling's trial opened in February of 1994, more than three years after the murders. And on February 15th, the day set for trial to begin, Rowling stood up and changed, changed his plea. And he actually entered guilty pleas on every murder count and on the additional charges connected to them. And he was 39 years old at the time. And his confession had already

been specific. And Rowling had shown investigators where he buried the murder weapon near his campsite, along with jewelry he had actually taken from the victims and the tools he used to pry open their doors. Because Rowling pleaded guilty before any jury were seated, the question of whether he committed the murders was settled on the spot. So testimony about the crimes, the crime scene, photographs, and physical evidence never reached the jury. So Rowling's plea eliminated the need for a guilt phase and pushed the trial straight into penalty proceedings. And prosecutors sought the death penalty on all five counts. Five young people had been murdered, mutilated in their homes across four days. And the crime scenes showed pre-planning, control, and cruel.

that went far beyond what was necessary to kill. And Rowling had shown no remorse in any of his recorded statements. And as we know, the defense countered with Rowling's life and the abuse that followed. And the argument wasn't that Rowling was innocent, just that the jury should understand what built him before deciding whether the state should kill him. But Rowling would address the court himself, saying, quote, I've been running from first one thing and then another all my life, whether from problems at home or with the law or from myself."

At Rowling cast himself as a victim of violence, not as someone who had chosen it. And still, that distinction carried no weight with the court when it came to assign responsibility. And on April 20th, 1994, Rowling was formally sentenced to death on all five counts of first-degree murder. The jury took about six hours over two days to reach its recommendations. The jurors deciding 12 to nothing that Danny Rowling should die in the electric chair. And Anne Garen, Krista Hoyt's mother, attended every session of the trial. And she said she did it to honor the victim's courage. And after the jury's recommendation, she told reporters, quote unquote,

we got what we prayed for. It's partial relief. And Anne Paulus, Tracy Paulus's cousin, described the moment the recommendation came down, saying, quote, when I heard the verdict, I just started crying. Then a big smile came on my face, unquote. And victim advocates Laura Nudson said the families understood that no recommendation could return what they had lost. But what it did give them

was the certainty that Row would never take another life. So Rowling arrived on Florida's death row already carrying a reputation that preceded him because he had confessed and pleaded guilty and had been sentenced to die. And this caught the eye of Sandra London, a freelance journalist best known for writing a book

about G.J. Schaefer, her ex-boyfriend, and a suspected serial killer. So London began correspondence with Rowling and the relationship quickly turned into something else entirely. And she described meeting him in prison saying, quote, standing before my hungry eyes was one gorgeous hunk of a man, unquote. Clearly she has a type. That's all I'm going to say. And Rowling described the relationship his own way, saying, quote, deep as the Amazon River and just as wild, unquote. Disgusting. I hate this. Gross. So it started as those letters became an engagement and a jointly written book.

The making of a serial killer, the real story of the Gainesville. murders. And prosecutors moved to block the profits. And the state used the son of Sam law designed to stop convicted criminals from cashing in on their own stories to go after them, which thank God that exists. Also, I need to do a video on the son of Sam because that one is freaking crazy. And a judge sided with the prosecutors in 1998 ordering $20,000 in profits tied to London's Gainesville Ripper publication turned over to the state. And Rowling spent years writing from his cell and not just to London, though. In one letter went to the Associated Press in 2000, running 17 pages in which Rowling argued that a, quote, mangy dog gets more consideration, unquote, than the prisoners. Looks like they're

doing their job right over at Florida State, am I right? And then two years later, he wrote again, saying, quote, 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. unquote. I don't care. Shut up, shut up. Take the pen out of this guy's hand. And he eventually told the Associated Press, quote, I do deserve to die, but do I want to die? No, I want to live. Life is difficult to give up, unquote. You should have thought of that before you took the life of eight innocent, beautiful human beings, you piece of shit. And his legal team filed appeals challenging the death sentence. And his central argument was that Lewis had effectively

been working for the prosecution using their friendship to extract statements that should never have been admitted as evidence. And the courts rejected every challenge, luckily. So on October 25th, 2006, more than 16 years after the killings that had empty Gainesville of its sense of safety, rolling faced his death by lethal injection at Florida State Prison. And at the time, he was 52 years old. And in his final hours, he was calm and cooperative, and his brother Kevin visited with pastor and the three of them sat together for several hours and kevin was the same younger brother who had grown up under their father's fists alongside danny and before the injection rolling sang a hymn and he was pronounced dead at 6.13 p.m. eastern time and 62 inmates had been executed since florida resumed the

death penalty in 1979 and rolling was the third put to death that year and christa's stepmother diana Hoyt watched the execution occur. And she spoke on the execution saying, quote, this is a tough thing, but is a necessary thing to go through. It is very hard for us to see someone else die, but he deserves it, unquote. And Sean Grissom's brother was also heard from that day, because Sean had just been eight years old when he was killed by Rowling, alongside his grandfather and aunt in Shreveport. And he said, quote, my brother would have been 25, and now Danny Rowling. Payed for what he did." And Rowling himself had actually released a written statement before the execution,

and it was a confession more direct than anything he had ever offered investigators at the time of his arrest, saying, quote, I, and I alone am guilty. It was my hand that took those precious lights out of this old dark world, unquote. It was only dark because of you, Danny Rowling. And outside the prison, a crowd had gathered in a field split between those who opposed the execution and those who supported it. And the scene was similar to the crowds that had gathered for Ted Bundy's execution in the same death chamber in 1989. And the families of the Rolling's 5 Gainesville victims ran a joint advertisement in the Gainesville Sun. And it was addressed to the community that

had held them up through years of investigation, trials, appeals, and grief, saying, quote, We hope you will remember August 1990 and the years that followed without any sense of community shame for what has happened here. You turned a blemish into a rose, unquote. And in the months after the murders, a memorial took shape on southwest 34th Street in Gainesville. And in 2000, the city added five palm trees along the street, one representing each victim with individual name plaques. And on the nearby 34th Street wall, someone painted a mural, which was a black background covered in red hearts, and the five names written in white and the word remember and Sadie Darnell who later became sheriff and has since retired held the role of public information officer for Gainesville police during the killings and

she was the person who had to face the victim's families and deliver updates in those first terrible days and she reflected on what the experience had demanded of a department that had never faced anything like it saying quote for that to happen in a medium-sized community or medium-sized police department was totally unexpected we had to deal with it without any preparation and any sense of having been through it before." But the killings didn't fracture Gainesville and instead they pulled the community together. And neighbors started escorting each other to their cars after dark and porch lights stayed on through the night across the city. And one thing Darnell pointed to was the choice by then

University of Florida President John Lombardi to keep holding classes and playing football games in the weeks that followed. Saying quote, it was a brilliant thing to do because it started the the healing process of our community. It was a start, a return to normalcy, a different normalcy, unquote. And there was also changes that had an impact on safety policies and how security worked at Florida colleges, with improvements to campus lighting, access controls to dorms, and expanded security patrols. And they also had a much needed conversation about how student housing existed outside of campus security before 1990. And institutions in Florida were influenced to look differently at the liability and duty they had

have to care for students who lived off campus. And at 1994, ABC News ran an episode of its documentary series Turning Point focused on the Gainesville Ripper case. And most people who watched it turned it off and went about their evening, but Kevin Williamson did not. Now, Williamson, a screenwriter, happened to be watching it by himself while looking after someone else's house. And partway through the broadcast, he looked up and saw a window standing open. And he was certain he hadn't left it that way, and he got a friend on the phone and pulled a knife from the kitchen and searched every room in the house for intruders. And once the house was clear, the conversation with his friend shifted to horror movies, and they got into the genre's unwritten rules, what separated the great horror

films from the forgettable ones. And one idea that lodged into Williamson's head was that someone could be standing right outside your window, watching you, and you would never know it. And by the time the call ended, the seed of a screenplay had planted itself, and Williamson wrote a script he originally called Woodsboro Murders. But it eventually became the movie we all know to be Scream, directed by Wes Craven, which hit theaters in December of 1996. And the connection between Rolling and the film's mass killer, Ghostface, is loose. And Scream never retells Rowling's crimes directly, but Ghostface watched his victims before he struck, posed their bodies and turned each murder into a spectacle. And the fictional town of Woodsboro also erupted into the same kind of media firestorm

that had consumed Gainesville in 1990. And Scream became one of the most successful horror films ever made and launched a franchise that is still producing sequels three decades later. But regardless of the film's success and the story of the man who inspired it, we must properly remember the victims, because that is the most important part of all of this. And the Grissom family in Louisiana were deeply loved, and any loss of a child is devastating. And I want to remember Tom and Julie and Sean.

And the Gainesville victims had bright aspirations and futures ahead of them. They had so much more life to live. Christina Powell wanted to design affordable homes. Sonia Larson wanted to teach children, and Krista Hoyt wanted to investigate crime scenes. And Manuel Tabuado wanted to become an architect, and Tracy Paulus wanted to practice law. They were 17, 18, 18, 23, and 23 respectively, and five palm trees stand on 34th Street in Gainesville, one for each of them in a city that chose to remember them for who they were. And that is how I will remember them as well, and I hope you do too.

And that is where I want to leave this video. As always, my heart goes out to the families and to the victims. And if you guys would like me to deep dive into any other cases, please let me know in the comments below. I always read them. And until then, please be safe out there. And I will see your beautiful face. All right.

Bye. On July 16th, the hawk lands on Netflix. From the mind of Will Farrell. Oh, mama. I'm back. Come in a new original series. Get ready. Get ready.

That's it. Did I stutter? When an iconic pro golfer. Lonnie. Hock! Takes one last swing at greatness. You were a big shot golfer. I still am a big shot golfer.

No one. Dad, I'm the hawk now. Will stand and hear. his way. That's how it's done. The Hawk, only on Netflix, July 16th.