Crime Weekly - S3 Ep231: Gainesville Ripper: A Pattern of Violent Behavior (Part 1)

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

In late August 1990, Gainesville, Florida, was bustling with the excitement of college students returning to the University of Florida for the Fall semester. However, the anticipation of a new school year quickly turned to horror on August 26, when two students, Christi Powell and Sonja Larson, were discovered brutally murdered in their off-campus apartment. This gruesome discovery was only the beginning. Within two days, three more students were viciously killed in their own apartments. The once vibrant town was now gripped by fear, as students worried they’d be the next victim of the serial killer nicknamed the Gainesville Ripper. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. Smalls.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get 50% off your first order and FREE shipping! 2. JoinDeleteMe.com/Crime - Use code CRIME to get 20% off! 3. LiquidIV.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY and get 20% off your first order! 4. EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 to get 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping!

In late August 1990, Gainesville, Florida was bustling with the excitement of college students returning to the University of Florida for the fall semester. However, the anticipation of a new school year quickly turned to horror on August 26th, when two students, Christy Powell and Sonia Larson, were discovered brutally murdered in their off-campus apartment. This gruesome discovery was only the beginning. Within two days, three more students were viciously killed in their own apartments. The once vibrant town was now gripped by fear, as students worried they'd be the next victim of the serial killer nicknamed the Gainesville Ripper. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into a new case. And I don't know if a lot of people know this, but I really like horror movies. And this case actually inspired the very well-known horror movie franchise Scream.

So I'm very excited. Yeah, I'm excited to tell you the story today and bring everybody along with us and kind of go through it piece by piece. Have you heard of the Gainesville Ripper? I have not. I know everyone's clutching their pearls right now. They're like, oh my God, how does he never hear of these cases? But never heard of it.

Well, you're about to. I'm about to hear about it. Can I do a shameless plug like I did on Crime Weekly before we start? Crime Weekly News, I should say. Mm-hmm. Yeah. T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, hats, everything. Crimeweeklypodcast.com.

I'm wearing the exclusive Crime Weekly Nashville shirt right now. Unfortunately, this is not available. So probably not the best shirt to wear today. But they're just so comfortable. I wanted to wear them. But if there's something else out there that you're looking for, whether it's a different style t-shirt that we have, we have a ton of different logos. We have some new hats out there as well. Go check it out. Crimeweeklypodcast.com. And if you're a Patreon member, you save 10%. That's all I got.

Do we have the hat on the website that we had at CrimeCon? We do. We just got more in. We sold out. We just got more in it. Basically, we can throw it up right here. Shannon can throw it up. It says, stay safe out there. It was actually a hat that was created by my assistant, Ashley and Bella over at J&R

Marketing. Personally, it was kind of a running joke. I didn't think the hat was going to sell that well. I thought it was a really cool color and I liked the style of it. But it was just kind of something that I said at the end of the episodes and it stuck. And they were like, no, it's going to sell. It's going to sell that well i i thought it was a really cool color and i liked the style of it yeah but it was just kind of something that i said at the end of the episodes and it stuck and they were like no it's gonna sell it's gonna sell so we brought it down to crime con as like a just kind of a small sample size we sold out yeah we sold out so now it's on the website i grabbed one because i loved it i loved the style i loved the colors it's like this cool baby blue and kind of like cream color scope, color, color,

I don't know, color palette. I don't even know what scope color is. I don't know. I think I just made that up, but I thought it was so cute. I wore it many times during CrimeCon because I loved it so much. And yeah, they sold out very fast, actually. I think that by the middle of the second day they were sold out. So yeah, go check those out fast, actually. I think that by the middle of the second day, they were sold out. So go check those out. Those hats are great. So are you ready to dive in? Ready to dive in. Thank you for the shameless plug. You're very welcome. Thank you.

All right. Born on November 30th, 1972, Christina Christie Powell grew up in Florida with her parents, Frank and Patricia, and her many siblings. She graduated from Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, Florida, and during her time there, she was very active in volleyball and softball, and she contributed to the school's literary magazine. One of her teachers described her as a, quote, fantastic, fun-loving young woman, one of the most well-adjusted teenagers you could imagine, end quote. After high school, Christy enrolled at the University of Florida with plans of earning a degree in architecture. During the summer before her last semester, Christy met Sonia Larson, who was also about

to begin her journey at the University of Florida in the fall. The two decided to be roommates and rented an off-campus apartment at the Williamsburg Apartments located at 2000 Southwest 16th Street Sonia's mother hated the fact that Sonia would be living eight blocks away from campus, but due to the dorms being full, the girls had no other choice. Sonia Larson was born on January 1, 1972, to her parents, Ada and James. Growing up in Florida with her older brother and sister, Sonia was known for her outgoing and helpful nature and her talent for drawing and painting, which she won awards for. In the late 1980s, she attended Eli High School in Pompano Beach, where she excelled as an honors student and was highly involved in extracurricular activities. She was a softball player, the girls' varsity basketball team manager, and a member of the Mu Alpha Theta Mathematics Society and Students

Against Drunk Driving. During her summers off from school, Sonia worked at the daycare center at the First Baptist Church of Pompano Beach, where her family remembers. She also sang in the church choir with her mother and played handbells in the church bell group. I feel like both of these girls did way more in high school than I've done my entire life, by the way. Yeah, I'm feeling bad about myself right now. I'm like, wow. I mean, was I an underachiever? Yep. I think we were underachievers. All I did was try to get away from school as fast as possible so I could go home and read. And I definitely did not want to do clubs or extracurriculars.

And they're just doing everything during school, after school. I mean, Students Against Drunk Driving, the Mathematics Society, these are intelligent, motivated go-getters. And it's really sad to think about what they could have achieved. Everything they achieved in just their early teenagers, what could they have achieved had they been allowed to live their entire lives? So after graduating from high school, Sonia enrolled at the University of Florida with plans to major in early childhood education. Sonia loved working with children and was described as having a special way with them. One woman who worked with Sonia at the church said, quote, she was great with those children. When she spoke, they listened to her. It seems like every time you saw her, she had a couple of those kids on

her lap, end quote. And Sonia loved children so much that she wanted to be a teacher. She and her mom, Ada, actually shared a dream of becoming teachers together. They were going to start college at the same time in the fall of 1990. Sonia at the University of Florida and Ada at Florida Atlantic University. Oh, that is so cute, though, and so sad. They seem to really close, Sonia and her mother, Ada. And it's just, I mean, you can clearly see, obviously, that is so cute, though, and so sad. They seem to really close, Sonia and her mother, Ada. And it's just, I mean, you can clearly see, obviously, Ada is going to be older than Sonia. You know, not significantly. I don't want to say that, but at least old enough to have given birth to her.

And you can see that this motivation and this desire to make something of yourself and make an impact on the world was taught to Sonia from a young age because her mother, even later in life, is trying to start a new career, something that both she and her daughter are passionate about, something that both of them can share. So what do you think about the parents being upset, nothing they can do about it, but being upset that the girls were going to have to live eight blocks from the campus due to the dorms being full. What, as a parent, you know, you have your two young ones that eventually may be going to college. They may be living at the university. What's your feelings on that as far as them living off campus as opposed to at the dorms? So my kids might want to live at the university,

but they're just going to stay here with me forever where I can keep them safe. Because, yeah, I totally get having a problem with that eight blocks away. I mean, you already have an understanding that college towns are hunting grounds for predators, right? Because you've got a bunch of young kids together, most likely their first time being away from home, living away from home for an extended period of time. There's alcohol, there's drugs, there's partying, there's a lot of situational sort of occurrences that can really make a predator or somebody that has an intention to hurt you feel safe operating amongst this kind of chaos of college life. And living eight blocks away, at least if you're on campus, there's a set of dangers

that come with that all on its own. But at least you could just get up, leave your dorm, and walk a few minutes to school. Whereas here, you're going to have to walk further or take some sort of transportation. And it kind of reminds me of the Idaho murders where those four students lived off campus. And you want them to be as close to the campus as possible. Campus has security. They have security lights. They've got measures in place to protect students, whereas if you're off campus, you're not going to be, those things aren't going to be readily

accessible to you where you're living. Yeah, this case on the surface, not knowing much about it at this point, it just reminded me of the Lauren Spear case that we covered very early on in our podcasting career, I guess. And it's one of those situations where you have this college atmosphere, a lot of young individuals drinking, walking home and being susceptible to an attack because they're not always in the right state of mind. And even when that's not the case, as you mentioned, it could be a hunting ground for individuals who have malicious intentions where they know that there are young men and women walking around many times by themselves. Not super vigilant, right? Not super vigilant.

They've been sheltered at home and they've never been out in the real world by themselves. And so they're sort of feeling safe because they're at college, but they're not. They've been in their bubble. Yeah. And now they're outside that bubble. And this was obviously in 1990. So it was a little different as far as the distractions you would have. Now it's even worse with the cell phones and headphones that you can be on. People are literally walking the streets with no clue of anything going on around them. I was just in New York, last weekend for work and just watching people walk across the street. They got their AirPods in, they, you know, they're getting

beeped at because cars are trying to go and they don't even hear the cars around them that they almost just got taken out by a taxi driver. But, um, I don't know how I would feel about this. I think no matter where you are, whether you're on, you in the dorms or you're off campus, they both pose different threats that you have to be aware of. I think what you're saying right now, these conversations that you and I are having are the conversations you just have to have with your children. If you're someone out there who's getting ready to send, school's starting up soon. If you're someone out there who's getting ready to send your child off to school, just have these conversations with them. Maybe give them some examples. You don't want to push them too much because at this age, they really kind of just want to be independent and do their own thing. But just remind them nicely and politely that there are people out there, regardless of what they've experienced up to this point in their life, who just are bad people and just are looking for someone to take advantage of.

And even if they're not too receptive to what you're saying at that moment, most of the time it will stick with them. And all you can hope is that when they're walking home or deciding to walk home by themselves, they may say, you know what? I remember what mom or what dad said to me. I'm going to wait for Joey or Jane to get out of the library. I'm going to walk with them because probably nothing's going to happen, but just in case. But that's not what we have here. From what you're telling us, Christy and Sonia were inside their own apartment.

So what we're looking at here more than likely is a situation where this individual had been following them or I should say gathering intelligence on them for at least some period of time to know that they were home and to also know that it was probably just the two of them. But what that entails, was it someone they knew? Was it just someone who had been lurking in the area? We don't know, but I'm interested to find out about this case, especially when you talk about the Idaho four and that, that case as well. This is something that's prevalent today in our society, even though we have cameras and cell phones and the ability to keep GPS coordinates on individuals, even still, these things are still happening in the Idaho four is proof of that. So although this case is a little older, like I say, with all the cases we cover, there cover, there's information that can be received and there's also lessons to be learned.

So unfortunate for these two women. I'm hoping we come out of this knowing a little bit more about what happened. Can you say yet or not where this case was solved? It is, yes. It is solved. Okay. So we're going to get the full arc here. And we're going to have a better understanding of the who, what, where, when, and why, hopefully.

Which, unfortunately, on one hand, it sucks that we have to go through this. But on the other hand, we get to find out what happened and we can get the most out of what happened and use it in our own lives. Yeah. And I feel like for, you know, for the parents of these two girls, like you're also, they both lived in Florida, right? So you're also going to know Florida's not the most safe state when it comes to crime, right? Like it just, it isn't. There's crime there that happens quite a bit. I mean, it was Ted Bundy. I mean, Ted Bundy was active in Florida during the, I think, 1970s and 80s. David Alan Gore was another serial killer that committed six murders in Vero Beach and Indian River County in the 1980s. Gerald John Schaefer, also an American murderer and suspected serial killer who was

convicted of the 1972 murder and mutation of two teenage girls in Port St. Lucie, Florida. And he actually is suspected of committing another 34 murders. So I don't know why Florida seems to attract. Eileen Wuornos was Florida, I believe, as well. It's a big state. It's a big state. I know. Do you think it's a big state. It's a big state. Do you think it's because it's warm there? I have no clue.

I will say I'm just I was looking it up as you did it. It looks like in the 1990s specifically, because that's what the time frame we're talking about here. Florida's violent crime rate was at an all time high. It was. Of twelve hundred forty four arrests per 100,000 people. However, this does note here that since then, property crime arrests have steadily decreased, even with the population growth. So for anybody who's from Florida now who may be like, no, it's safe to live here now, we have to keep it in the context of 1990 and what was going on during that time frame. I mean, yeah, every state has places that are safe to live in and then other places that aren't so safe to live in, right? But as Florida residents, these students' parents would know, you know, like right on the heels of Ted Bundy and these other sort of serial killers that had operated during the 70s and 80s, they're going to have an awareness. And who do these serial killers usually target?

Young women, young women. So they're going to have an awareness that their daughters are leaving home and you're not going to have as much access to them. They didn't have Life 360 and all these tracking apps like they do now. You're not going to have as much access to them. They're going to be getting more independent, making new friends, meeting new people. You can't protect them all the time. So even just expressing discontentment at the fact that they're going to be eight blocks away from the actual campus is an attempt to control a situation that you can no longer control.

It's a scary feeling as a parent. All we can do is do our best. Just be there for them, talk with them, have open lines of communication. But in situations like this, as you said, they're going to meet new people. They're going to involve people in their lives that you're not necessarily privy to. And unfortunately, even if they're making the right decisions, someone could be a Trojan horse. You just, you never know for sure. Exactly. Let's take our first break really quick. We'll be right back. Classes at the University of Florida were set to begin on August 27th. So around a week before, Sonia and Christy moved into their Williamsburg Village apartment in Gainesville.

They were actually expecting a third roommate to join them on the 26th. And then the girls would all start classes together the next day. But tragically, Sonia and Christy would never make it to their first day of classes. Within a few days of moving into their apartment, their parents were unable at least think something may happen. We may have an issue. Maybe they try drugs and it doesn't go well. Maybe they drink a little too much and, you know, something happens. But you don't expect them within just days of arriving to their new college or their new apartment that you're just going to lose contact with them and not be able to speak to them that quickly. Obviously, they were concerned. So Christy's parents, the Powells, decided to go to the apartment and check on the girls since they lived closer than Sonia's parents. On August 26th, the Powells went to the apartment and knocked on the door, but there was no answer, so they asked

a maintenance worker to open the door. The worker called the police, and an officer arrived to help enter she had been raped. After the maintenance man saw what was inside the apartment, he ran down the stairs, screaming, oh my god. When he got outside, he threw up right in front of the Powell's. The police officer called for backup, and when detectives arrived, they found 18-year-old Sonia in her second-floor bedroom. All her clothes had been removed, and she was posed with her back lying on the bed, her hair fanned out, and her feet on the floor. She had been stabbed repeatedly in the upper chest area and it was clear from wounds to her arms that she had fought back. Detectives then closely examined both victims' bodies and it seemed like they had been dead for around two

days. There were a few notable things about the bodies that stood out to detectives. One of the women had soap residue on her body, and both had duct tape residue on their skin. The police theorized that the killer used duct tape to bind and silence the women, but removed it before leaving in an effort to clean up evidence like DNA, blood, and fingerprints. Detectives looked over the rest of the apartment for clues and noticed that there was no sign of forced entry. However, the lock to the rear door was not working properly, so it was possible that the killer had been able to essentially just open the door and walk in. Detectives further noticed that the rear door backed up to a wooded area

with Spanish moss draped pines and oaks, which could have allowed the killer to get in and out without being noticed. So this kind of reminds me of another case we covered of Faith Hedgepath

because remember, there was no signs of forced entry into her apartment either. And that's why a lot of people think that her friend and her roommate is possibly responsible for what happened to her because there was no sign of forced entry.

They arrested someone. He hasn't gone to trial yet, but they arrested someone who on the surface from what we know has really no connection to Faith Hedgepeth. So we'll have to see if that one plays out that way. Just as far as what you've described here in this case, initially, it's incredible to me that these women were only at this apartment for, let's just say a couple of days. Yeah. Maybe even not that because they said that they got there. They got a week before. They got there a week before classes started. And within a few days, their parents couldn't get ahold of them. And the police said it looked like they'd been dead for at least two days. So it kind of looks like it may be the night or the day they moved in that night they were

attacked. Yeah, I think they could probably come up with a timeline pretty quickly because I'm just going to go out on a limb and say the parents were probably talking to them every single day. And so the day they didn't hear from either one of them, it was probably when a red flag went up and they said, hey, we got to do, I'm sure they didn't wait too long. So it kind of, it limits your pool of suspects in some ways and then opens up the door in others. You don't know we're so early in this case, even though they had only been there a couple of days, questions in my head initially are who'd they hang out with? Who'd they interact

with? Where did they go? Did they go to some local shopping places to pick up things for their, for their apartment? Did they go to any parties for individuals who lived in the area? Who else was living in that building? Yeah, this is a, this is a terrible situation for the parents and for the, the officer. But as far as the way Sonia and Christy were found, it is interesting. And I think there's some things that can be deduced from it, like law enforcement has theorized at this point, where if you're to believe that it's two people, there's not as much of a need for restraint. It could still be used, but not as much. I think it's more indicative of one person being the offender when you have signs of some type of restraint like tape.

Because what you have here is a situation where one individual, one victim is being restrained or taped up or tied up so that the offender can carry out whatever they want to carry out with the other victim at that time. Some of the questions that I have at this point is, well, you have two different victims. So was this person invited it as a friend? Were they someone who said, Hey, listen, I can help you bring your furniture in. I can help you bring your, your, your groceries in whatever the case may be. They posed as a friend. And so they were already inside the apartment, maybe speaking with Christie or Sonia when they changed their, their mindset, they changed their demeanor and something went off. Or as you're describing here, it looks like this was more of a townhouse, right? Where it's a first and second floor.

So pretty easy access to the apartment at this point. It's not like they're going into a hallway, a communal hallway that's access to everyone. I'm assuming the door is right there. So you could have an individual who's driving or walking by or who lives in the area, sees these two young women walking in and out of their apartment numerous times. They're alone and just decides to use the front or back door by hand checking it. We've seen it on when vehicles are broken into. It's just as easy as going up and twisting the doorknob. Does it turn or does it not turn?

We could have an individual who twisted 15 doorknobs before this, and this is the one that opened. So there's a lot of different things running through my head right now at this point. I think we got to have more information to kind of understand what transpired here, but on the surface, just a terrible set of circumstances. And it sounds like this, obviously this, this crime was sexual in nature. This individual saw these two women and wanted to do something to them and clearly wasn't afraid to do it, even though two women were present, which is concerning because it shows how much they the extent they were willing to go to to conduct this type of crime. Yeah. And, you know, they're going to investigate a little bit further after they find these

bodies. And we found that they had some sort of tape on them. We also found that one of the victims had soap on her body. What do you think that was for? Do you think it was being she was being cleaned in some way to remove the DNA? I honestly don't know. I honestly when you said that, this offender felt like washing the bodies, cleaning the bodies before leaving would decrease the likelihood of them being connected to the case through DNA. Although I will say that only one only one victim had only one victim was cleaned with the soap.

So that could be I don't even know if they were cleaned with the soap or if the soap was just put on the residue. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, we're talking about 1990. So DNA was not that prevalent at that point. Cause you remember the OJ Simpson case was after that and it still wasn't that great at that point. It was still relatively new. It could be something where they just felt like by doing this, it would decrease the likelihood of being identified of, of coming back connected to the case. It also, I'm assuming because you're mentioning it, it does have some relevance, but if I was the initial investigator here, I would also be asking myself, did this individual, the victim, just take a shower or just did they just get out of a bath?

Do dishes or maybe just did dishes or something. So it could be involved with the MO of the offender, which you want to make note of because if you find other victims, like when we talk about the other three victims, if you tell me that they also had soap residue on them, well, now you have something that connects all these victims together to one offender, which is obviously extremely important. But if it was one victim out of the five that had this soap residue, I may cough that up to just them maybe taking a shower or a bath shortly before the incident occurred. Yeah. And then one more thing as they look around more, because remember, they couldn't figure out how this person had gotten in. There was no sign of forced entry. But then they discovered that the suspect had broken in

by wedging a screwdriver into the door jam. So that is interesting. So in one sense, it may be no sign of forced entry. That could be from a previous tenant. That could be from a maintenance man. We all have locks and doors that, if you go look at them right now, there may be signs of some type of damage to it and it may not be nefarious in nature. One other thing I want to point out because I'm reading the

script with you and I'm also looking up articles. We're both doing it. We're not a hundred percent on the, the layout of this apartment. You're, you're seeing this all cut together nicely, but just so you know, in between what we're talking about here, we've had multiple breaks because we're talking to each other about it. We're reading these articles and it's still not clear if this layout of this apartment was first floor and second floor or second floor and third floor. Stephanie found an article that suggests it's the first floor and second floor or second floor and third floor. Stephanie found an article that suggests it's the first floor and second floor. And yet I just found something where one of the victim's brothers said they were on the second floor and therefore that's why they felt safe

in that apartment. So if someone out there has something more concrete, please let us know, because we want to make sure we get this right. And it is very important to know if they were on the first and second floor or second and third floor, because that would make a big difference as far as the offender and their willingness to go to these lengths. If they were on the second floor, it also limits some of the points of entry because obviously they can't come through a window if they're on the second floor, unless the offender went to the extreme of using the fire escape or a ladder. So I just want to qualify that. So people aren't saying stuff like, Oh, it's the second and third floor. You got it wrong. We're seeing multiple accounts and we want to make sure we get it right. So as we're doing this research, if something pops up, we will update

that. The one last thing I will say about it is in this other article that involves someone who lived in these apartments, they stated that Christie and Sonia had one of the bigger units and they were on the second and third floor. Although the back door that led to the woods did lead down to the first floor. So you could come into the back way from the wooded area and still access their second floor apartment. So even though it's on the second floor, you can gain access through the first floor door if that makes sense. So again, we will keep it updated. We'll make sure we clear it up.

If something changes, let us know in the comments. I just wanted to add that last part and we can continue on. Actually looking at pictures of these apartment complexes, it's one of those apartment complexes that has an outdoor pool and then it's kind of surrounded by the units and there's

stairs, I guess, on the outside going up, kind of like a motel, going up to each floor. So the stairs are on the outside, not the inside. Right. So is that the back door that I'm referring to? Yes, yes. Or the back entry, we'll call it. So a little confusing, but that's why it's important to get these facts right. Yes, yeah.

Yeah, so we have that there. Sorry about that confusion, but we want to make sure we get the facts right. Yes. And as the police continued processing the scene, Sonia and Christy's roommate arrived to move in and discovered what was happening, which must have been an absolutely horrible shock. Next, Sonia's parents were called and told the tragic news that their daughter had been brutally murdered. Sonia's mother, Ada, later shared with the media, quote, I screamed. We just got in the car and

headed for Gainesville. I had to have my husband stop at the side of the road and I looked outside. I just looked at God and I said, God, why? How could this possibly happen? Why did this happen? End quote. Now, there was the police chief present at the scene. His name was Wayland Clifton. And he visited the crime scene that day. And he said while he was driving home that night, his greatest concern was that the suspect would commit more murders. And at that point, I'm sure it was just a gut feeling, something that just felt unsettled, but he didn't know how correct he was going to be. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. So as Ada and her husband, along with Christy's parents, began mourning the

loss of their daughters, another college student, Krista Hoyt, was murdered just two miles away from Sonia and Christy's apartment. Born on November 20, 1979, Krista Hoyt grew up in Florida with her younger sister. Her parents, Gary and Ann, recalled that from a young age, Krista always had a smile on her face, and this earned her the nickname Glowwormorm. She was a bright and friendly girl who also had a hardworking and serious side. In the spring of 1989, Krista graduated from Newberry High School. She then enrolled at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, where she studied on a scholarship with plans to become a chemical engineer. Krista moved into her own one-bedroom duplex off of a one-lane dirt road located at 3533 Southwest 24th Avenue

in Southwest Gainesville. To help pay the bills, Krista worked at the Alucha County Sheriff's Office as a night shift records clerk, and in her rare free time, she loved to cook, camp, swim, and play racquetball. And actually, Krista was an aspiring police officer. So she was working part-time at the sheriff's office because she really wanted that to be her eventual career. So on the night of August 26, 1990, Krista didn't show up to work at the sheriff's office, which was a major red flag. She was very dependable, very passionate about her job. So two officers were sent to her house to check on her. They arrived in the morning hours of August 27th, less than 24 hours after Sonia and Christy were found dead. And inside the duplex, officers found 18-year-old

Christa brutally murdered in her bedroom. Her body was posed in a sitting position at the edge of her bed with her feet on the floor and her torso slouched forward. Her clothes had been cut or ripped off and she'd been stabbed in the back. Her head was decapitated and placed on a bookshelf facing her body, which had been additionally mutilated. An autopsy later showed that she had also been raped and had likely been dead for more than a day. When detectives looked over the scene, they noticed that the murderer used a screwdriver to gain access to the rear door of Krista's duplex, which led to a small backyard that was blocked from view by three pines and a worm-eaten plywood fence. This would have

allowed the killer to get in and out without being noticed, just like Christy and Sonia's place. Based on the similarities between all three murders, the police believed a serial killer was operating around Gainesville, which I think is a safe assumption. Saying the similarities between all three murders is an understatement. They're very, very similar, right? Christa was found in the exact same position, sort of staged like Sonia. And the fact that her clothes had been ripped or cut off was very similar to Christy. So besides the decapitation, which looks like an escalation of the MO, everything was pretty much almost identical. Yeah, you have a bunch here. And that's why it was important in the first part to get the means in which you would enter Christy and Sonia's apartment right. Because

now here we are with our third victim and there's the same way of entry. And now we go back to what you also said about the screwdriver impressions, the indentations on the door. And they could be a maintenance worker. They could be a lot of things but now you have it in both cases in both apartments so now where there's smoke there's potentially fire and it kind of starts to all make sense here and then when we talk about the actual killings you have all three victims being stabbed in the back all three victims being raped all three victims being killed around the same time. Although here, there's a little bit of an escalation with the decapitation of the head. And you could cough

that up to a lot of things where as the killer is evolving, getting more comfortable, they're doing different things. It also could have been a situation where, because there was a second victim there, the offender didn't spend as much time doing what they were doing with with each victim where in Krista's case it was just her so they had more time to do what they wanted to do it is interesting here that there doesn't appear to be any soap residue and there doesn't appear to be any tape residue which aligns with what we were talking about in Christy and Sonia's situation where because the offender goes in and there's two victims their MO changes slightly because they have to not only do what they want to do but restrain both victims individually so that one isn't able to escape while the offender is doing whatever

they're doing to the other victim so a little bit different but also makes a lot of sense considering the circumstances of each apartment and And yes, as you said, totally agree. Definitely enough similarities here to connect all three murders. Yeah. So now the law enforcement in Gainesville is like, OK, we have a serial killer. But before they could even process this terrifying theory, they had to investigate another crime, a robbery at the First Union National Bank of Gainesville, which was located around a half a mile from Krista's duplex. The bank robber, a white man with a gun, managed to get away with $7,000, but not before the teller placed a red dye pack in the bag of money. The police searched

for the robber but weren't able to find him right away, but later that night at around 1 a.m., an officer saw a suspicious white man enter the woods across the street from the bank. Believing this man could be the bank robber, the officer called for backup. And once multiple officers were there, they all went into the woods looking for the man. They located him. And when they came within shouting distance, they announced their presence. But the man ran deeper into the woods. Officers eventually lost track of the suspect, so a canine tracking unit was brought in, and they led officers straight to a campsite in the woods. As they approached the site, the police saw a raincoat and red-dyed stained money on the ground.

It seemed like they had located the bank robber's hideout. When an officer looked inside the tent, he noticed a tote bag sitting on top of more red-stained money. Inside the tote, the officer found a gun box and a gun. At that point, the officers called for a crime scene unit. Investigators arrived and gathered multiple pieces of evidence from the campsite and the tent, including a cassette tape and a cassette player and the tote bag with the gun. When investigators looked through the tote further, they found a screwdriver, duct tape, and a dark ski mask. They did not find a knife at the scene, so no one thought that the bank robber's items could be linked to the serial killer responsible for killing three college students. So the robber's items were entered into evidence where they sat untouched for months. Now, we're going to get more into this in part two, but this was a major error.

Had the police listened to the cassette tape, they would have known the bank robber was the serial killer responsible for killing Christy, Sonia, and Krista. And not just that, the killer actually said his full name out loud on that tape. The search for the killer could have ended that night, but that's not what happened. And I don't know why they wouldn't have listened to that tape, because either way, whether you think this person is connected to the death of three girls, you know he's connected to a bank robbery. So why wouldn't you listen to the tape just to see if there was any identifying factors set on the tape, like his name or where he lived or just his voice or anything. Like what's on the tape? Don't you want to know what's on the tape? Not inexcusable. The only thing you would have to do here to make sure you're good is because of what you found and the circumstances surrounding it, just to play it safe. You seize all the evidence. You go get a search warrant from a

judge that night or the next morning so that you can play the tape legally. That's it. That's all you got to do. Within a day or two, you'll have that search warrant and you listen to the tape in its entirety because one, it may connect more people to the robbery. It may give you your suspect for the robbery. And then unintentionally, you may find who the offender is for your serial killer case as well. So just a egregious mistake. Couldn't agree more. Pretty bad. And you talk about what you had here. You think that someone on the police department when they're doing their investigation would have seen a duct tape, screwdriver, ski mask, and maybe a light bulb would have went off. Like, hey, this is something we might want

to look into, especially when you're talking about the woods and you have two different houses where more than likely the offender is not going to walk out the front door. They're going to go out the back door where they're not going to be spotted by someone or have to interact with someone who may potentially identify them later. You did mention one thing about gun versus knife. This reminds me of the Indiana murders, the Delphi murders, because allegedly, if you are to believe what we have here, we covered that case extensively. And as we know now, what it's believed at this point is that they were stabbed in that case. And I still believe, and we have now audio that suggests that a gun was still used. So when I mentioned Christy and Sonia and gaining compliance and control,

you could have a situation where the offender has both weapons. Yes. They use the gun because obviously the gun can cause a lot more damage from a further distance. So you go in there with the gun and the idea of running away from your attacker is now null and void because if you're in a small apartment, even if you turn around to escape, they could shoot you in the back with a knife. If you just, if they're just brandishing a knife, one of the victims may decide, Hey, listen, I'm going to go one way.

You go the other. You can't get both of us, right? So they could use the gun to gain control and compliance. And after taping up or restraining both victims, then they can use their weapon of choice, which in this case appears to be a knife. So even though you didn't find a knife, the tape, the screwdriver and everything else, being in the woods, being in close proximity to your victim's homes, you think someone would have said, hey guys, this may be connected to other crimes.

But yeah, no, they didn't do that. Yeah. And it just happened, right? So this is a big deal now on the police force. They're like, oh, we got a serial killer. And then they go in the woods, they see all this stuff and they're like, eh, it's a gun, not a knife. All set.

Like there's no excuse for it. I will say interesting though, right? This is the first case I've ever heard of where you have a serial killer who's also a bank robber. Well, he's needs money, man. Dude's got to eat. Interesting though, no?

Like you usually, the way they're connected, these serial killers are connected to their cases through DNA or witness testimony or a similar case where they're apprehended down the road or they've been arrested before for some type of sexual crime where now the investigators are able to connect it to go outside of that and be a bank robber and a serial killer. Not something I've heard of before. I'm sure it's not the first time ever, but this is a different style case than I've heard here on Crime Weekly and in my career. Yeah, it is.

It is a little odd. It's a little odd because it's drawing attention to yourself in a very recent, only a small amount of time had passed, like hours maybe. So you might be drawing a little bit of attention to yourself that you wouldn't normally want after just committing three brutal murders. Yeah, but like you said, though, if they're carrying out these crimes and they need money because they're living in the woods, this would be a way to do it. So it's not too far of a stretch. Born on September 14, 1966, Manuel Ricardo Manny Taboda was the second and final son born to parents Gladys and Manuel Sr. Tragically, Manuel Sr. died when Manny and his brother were still young. Despite this tragedy, Manny didn't let it hold him back. He stayed as outgoing and charming as ever, and while attending American High School in Miami,

he was a National Honor Society member, a football player, and president of the Thespian Club. After graduating from high school, Manny wanted to be an architect, but money was tight, so he decided to start at a community college. He attended Miami-Dade Community College before transferring to Santa Fe Community College, all while working as a bartender to pay the bills. He then made plans to transfer to the University of Florida and attend classes in the fall of 1990. Wanting to be as close to the campus as possible, Manny and his high school friend Tracy moved into a ground-floor, two-bedroom apartment at the Gatorwood Apartments located at 2300 West Arthur Road in southwest Gainesville,

about a half a mile from campus. Tracy Paulus was born on October 4, 1966, to her parents Ricky and George. She grew up in Florida with her brother and sister, where she was known for being an extremely kind person who had an ease about her. Tracy attended American High School with Manny, where she was a National Honor Society member, homecoming queen, newspaper editor, and class president. She also played left field on the softball team and was a cheerleader. After graduating as salutarian of her class, Tracy had dreams of becoming a lawyer. She started working at a law firm and enrolled as a pre-law student at the University of Florida.

Tracy was supposed to start attending classes again on August 27th. But as we know, she didn't show up. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. On the morning of August 28th, a friend of Tracy and Manny called their apartment's maintenance worker and reported that they hadn't been seen around campus.

Fearing that there had been more murders, the maintenance worker called the police who arrived at around 8.30 a.m. You know what's bad when the maintenance worker of an apartment building is more vigilant about these recent string of murders than the police are. If that maintenance man had gone into the woods

and found the bank robber's hideout and found a screwdriver and duct tape, he would have been like, these are connected. Let's listen to this tape. But instead, we had the Gainesville Police Department there. So when they were inside the apartment, they located Tracy and Manny's bodies. It looked like they'd been dead for more than a day. 23-year-old Tracy was on the living room floor.

Her body had been posed and her clothes had been cut or ripped from her body, which had soap and duct tape residue on it. There you go. She had been stabbed three times in the back and an autopsy later showed she had been raped. Manny, also 23 years old, was found in his bedroom with stab wounds all over his body. It was clear that he had fought back against the attacker. Manny was over six feet tall and over 200 pounds. So whoever the killer was, he had to be big enough to overpower Manny. And this is interesting because when we look back at Christy and Sonia's crime scene, Christy was found in the living room. Sonia was found in her bedroom, separated, so that whoever attacked them could handle one at a time. And here we have Tracy

and Manny, the same thing. Tracy's found in the living room, Manny's found in the bedroom. And I wonder if the person killed Manny first, just so he wouldn't pose a threat as a man who's, you know, pretty physically imposing, and then turned his attention to Tracy. Yeah, I agree with you. I think it does make sense. I think the offender more than likely had no interest in Manny. He just happened to be present. And so it could be a similar situation with Christy and Sonia. It might have, we're giving the offender maybe too much credit here

where he went there for two victims. He might have just went there for one and walked into two, which would explain, as you mentioned earlier, Sonia did have some defensive wounds. Am I correct in saying that? So now you have two victims, the two victims where there were multiple victims inside. One of the victims in each of those cases did have defensive wounds, which would align with what you're saying. I am still very interested about this soap because it's not consistent across every victim. That doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't present for every victim, but it was only found on two victims. I do wonder if it was just missed or if it wasn't just, there wasn't an abundance of it, but it does seem like a critical part of the MO of our

offender where they're using soap as a means of avoiding apprehension, avoiding detection. And so I'm really interested to see how the soap plays out in the situation. But as far as all the other factors of these cases involving these victims, it all lines up. They're all in close proximity to each other, similar circumstances playing out in each of them. And then as we alluded to in the

first one where we said, oh, this soap, it could be something, it may be nothing. Now you have it in two of the victims of our five victims. So clearly there's some importance to it and it will allow investigators eventually to not only connect these cases, but hopefully connect them to a specific person involved. Yeah. And when the police examined the apartment, they noticed that the killer had used a screwdriver to gain access through the back door, just like in Krista's murder. And once again, the apartment was near a wooded area with Spanish moss draped pines and oaks, which as we discussed earlier, could have allowed the killer to enter and exit without being noticed. Yep. All central location, right? You have this tent area. Offender can go in, come back out, go back in, come back out, and now you have

all three locations using the screwdriver. So clearly there's some type of hand checking going on. The screwdriver is being used as a tool to gain entry when it's not accessible. It's all tying back to an individual who's going there with burglary tools, going there with a gun, a knife, and then escaping back into the woods. In some cases, it may be to a vehicle or an apartment nearby. In this case, just so far, it appears that the offender was actually staying in the woods in this tent that you had described. Or at least maybe part-time. Maybe not full-time, but part-time. It's almost like he disappeared like a thief into the night. And you'd think somebody on the police force at this point is gonna be like, all right, we got a screwdriver here again used to enter this building. Hey, where's the last time I've seen a screwdriver? Yeah, I was looking up the Gainesville Police Department while you were speaking because I just wanted to have more background on it. And it looks like now they have about 300 sworn officers. I don't, I'm sure that's more than they had in the 1990s, but it

can't be too much more. They still had a couple hundred. I mean, obviously Gainesville, Florida is not a small area. And I think about the dispersement of, you know, personnel and where to put them and how to protect everyone while still investigating these cases Still no excuse for anything we're talking about here This is a critical investigation and you have to get it right for the reason you said earlier from the chief, which is okay horrific crime We have to solve it, but we also have to prevent it from happening again. So Expedience is important here because our inability to solve this case as quickly as possible may result in more deaths. So time is of the essence.

Well, it was now undeniable, right, that Gainesville had a serial killer on their hands. I think after, you know, the third death that was undeniable. But, OK, it was now undeniable. Five college students had been found brutally murdered over the course of just a few days. Not only that, but there was so many similarities between the victims and the murders. All five victims had moved to Gainesville within 60 days of their death, and four of the five victims were women who were physically active, had brunette hair and slender builds ranging from 5'2'' to 5'6'' tall. Because Manny was the only male victim, the police theorized that he had not been the intended target of the killer.

It was possible the killer didn't know Manny would be home and that he had surprised him. There were so many similarities between the victims that the police tried to find a link between all of them, hoping they'd find the killer that way. I mean, I guess the link would be that they were all attending the same college, but... All the college, but I think it's more so the physical attributes. You described it here.

All the female victims, at least even in the cases where there's two, had some type of similar characteristics where, whether they're walking to and from a convenience store, whether they're bringing stuff inside. This individual from the woods or somewhere else was seeing these victims and was physically attracted to them. Yeah, but I mean, besides that, the police are trying to find links between these girls.

Did they know each other, right? And they couldn't find anything connecting them to each other. None of them took classes together. None of them had used the same moving company. None of them had been visited by the same utility phone or cable or TV employees. Nothing. There was nothing that would have put these victims on the radar of the same person as in this person knew all of them through each other. Yeah. So it's not a connecting friend or family member or someone who was a teacher or T.A.

This is someone based on what we've been describing was in close proximity to all of them. Just randomly picking victims. Yeah. Randomly, but in the sense also there was essentially a hunting ground for this individual. And he had this radius in which he was going to attack his victims. He was looking for certain features in his victim and they had to be within range of his home base, right? You think about rats, right? Rats will venture out in a certain radius to find food,

but they'll never leave their original nest unless they find food in the secondary location. So they want to be able to gain access and get back to where they originated within a short means of time to bring the food back or whatever they're going to do to get back to home base. This offender was basically a rat's nest. And unfortunately for the victims, they were inside that proximity of where he was willing

to go out to attack. And basically he felt comfortable enough to carry out these incidents, carry out these attacks and still get back without being apprehended or seen by someone. So I think the only quote unquote mistake, if you want to call that, which it's not a mistake, the only thing that caused these victims to become victims is where they chose to live. Unfortunately, what they looked like and what they look like, two factors that you really can't control.

I mean, yes, you can control where you're going to live, but this wouldn't be a circumstance you would consider. Yeah. They're not looking at, they're not going to see apartments and the apartment owners like, by the way, just so you know, we're in the Gainesville Rippers hunting grounds. So I don't know if that matters to you when choosing your next place to live, but I just wanted to, you know, full disclosure. Right. So basically they were victims because of what you just said. The way they looked and unfortunately where they chose to live, it just happened to be, here's another animal analogy,

but the bees nest, they just happened to be right in, in range of this, of this sicko where he, he felt comfortable enough to, to branch out, attack them and still get back to the tent or somewhere close by. Yeah.

And he may have even moved his little campsite around the wooded area, especially when he was pursued by the police. I'm sure he didn't stay in the exact same place, but he's using this forested area in the Gainesville area as a place to sort of become anonymous and just become like a nomad. Like I'm not staying in the same place more than once.

I don't camp out in the same place more than two nights in a row. But in this general wooded area, he's sort of picking different spots to hunker down for the night. Yeah. Well, clearly he didn't expect for law enforcement to find it when they did, because as you mentioned, this cassette tape is extremely incriminating. And more than likely, if he was changing locations at that point, he wouldn't have left that cassette tape behind. likely if he was changing locations at that point he wouldn't have left that cassette tape behind no he was running from that was running from the police we didn't expect yeah so we didn't expect it and then when they got it he was probably like oh shit i'm fucked yeah yeah and then nothing happened and he's like well i guess i'll kill

again so um and and on the same vein of what you were saying there was also these striking similarities with the victim's homes and the crime scenes because the homes were all located within a three-mile radius in southwest Gainesville. And they were all near a wooded area, which allowed the killer to enter and exit without being noticed. And the police knew that the killer always entered through the back door, mostly using a screwdriver to break in, and he brought duct tape to subdue his victims. Many of the female victims had been raped and posed, with their bodies cleaned and the duct tape removed before the killer left. And of course, there was the fact that all five victims had been viciously

attacked with a knife, and this led the media to start referring to the serial killer as the Gainesville Ripper. The Gainesville police and the Alachua County Sheriff's Office quickly realized they couldn't handle this case alone. So they called in agents from across Florida to help Ripper. The Gainesville police and the Alachua County Sheriff's Office quickly realized they couldn't handle this case alone, so they called in agents from across Florida to help investigate the murders. Approximately 100 investigators from multiple agencies, including the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, joined the case. More than a dozen of the investigators were skilled in creating psychological profiles. Some had even worked on the Ted Bundy case. Together, these investigators searched for the Gainesville Ripper in what would become one of

the biggest manhunts in Florida history. On August 30th, just two days after Manny and Tracy were found dead, the police announced that investigators had come up with a profile for the Gainesville Ripper. They believed the killer was one man acting alone and that he was still in the Gainesville Ripper. They believed the killer was one man acting alone and that he was still in the Gainesville area. He probably knew whose apartment he was entering every time he went in to kill someone. He likely selected his victims and watched them for an opportunity to strike. The police believe the Ripper may have killed before, committed sex offenses, and been in and out of prison or mental institutions. Yeah, sounds about right.

Basically what we've been saying this entire episode, it's geo-based. It's all in close proximity to each other. I think when you say he knew his victims, it wasn't on a personal level. More so, he had developed some counterintelligence where he was under the belief that this was a single woman living alone or residing alone at the apartment and they would be able to gain access through the back of the building without being seen by anybody walking by. They would be able to go in, do what they wanted to do, clean up the area as much as they could to avoid any type of connection back to them, and then escape back through the back door into the woods without ever seeing a vehicle or a person who could potentially connect them to the

crime. I do think in knowing what we know now, I would even go on a limb and say in both cases, both the situation with Manny and maybe Sonia or Christy, I don't know which one, there was a second person there that wasn't expected to be there. And unfortunately, the offender had to do what they had to do at that point. But I think this offender being a solo, if it is a solo person, would have been more likely to want the situation to consist of just one victim, easier to control, less variables they have to worry about. But unfortunately, when they entered and they're exposed at this point,

they're violent in nature. And that's why you have those defensive wounds, which would make me lead to believe that more than likely Manny and Sonia were not intended targets initially. Yes, but if the Gainesville Ripper is watching the victims beforehand because he knows whose apartment he's entering or whose home he's entering, would he not have some sort of information that this person didn't live alone because he'd see two people entering? Well, think about what we talked about at the top of the show. When I say counterintelligence, it sounds like something that would have gone on for a prolonged period of time.

That is simply not the case here. We know for a fact that Christy and Sonia were not in that apartment for a very long time, as you mentioned earlier, maybe one or two days. This was an impulsive move. I would even argue that this offender saw them one day, maybe just one of them, walk into the apartment and said, I'm going tonight. There wasn't a lot of counterintelligence conducted because as you just said, if there had been, it would have been easy to come to the conclusion that, hey, this may not be the right choice because there's multiple people living inside. When you talk about Manny and Tracy, he would have learned that Manny was residing there as well, and maybe have opted not to choose that apartment. But because this was so impulsive and it was so

many killings in such a short period of time, I think this person just went for it. And it was maybe a day or two maximum where they saw someone walk in. It was in close proximity to where they were staying in the woods and decided to go for it. And that could have been Christy walking in. It could have been Sonia walking in. I said she wasn't the target, but maybe she was the target, but he encountered Christy first. Well, we may never know that part of it, but overall, I think he saw one woman walking inside for him to use a screwdriver to go in, I'm presuming late at night, enter the apartment and get out before anyone notices. And so I think for this case, it doesn't have to be that deep. This was an impulsive decision. Impulsive, yeah. Which is why there were multiple victims, even though law enforcement has already said it was more than likely not the intention of the offender to encounter two victims.

But because there was such a lack of intelligence gathering beforehand, a lack of research beforehand, that was the situation in two out of three of the cases. All right, we're going to take our last break and then we'll be right back. At this point, everyone in Gainesville was painfully aware of what was happening, and they were beyond freaked out. The town had always had a low crime rate, and brutal murders just didn't happen there. Before the Ripper came to town, residents lived in a state of innocence. But now that sense of innocence was shattered, and everyone began living in a state of fear, especially at night. Everywhere people went, they thought they saw the Gainesville Ripper. Anyone who saw a suspicious man called the

police. And because of this, the police started averaging 1,400 calls a night. That is three calls every minute. Women wouldn't walk anywhere alone. Some people outright refused to go out at night, and those who did armed themselves with guns or other weapons, including bats and knives. Students were on edge, fearing that they could also become victims of the Ripper. Parents started calling the police constantly to find out what was going on. Some parents even moved their children out of town, and by the end of August, around 500 of the university's 30,000 students had left Gainesville. For those who chose to stay, they were allowed to move onto campus where they might feel safer.

To provide parents with peace of mind, a telephone company brought in extra workers to set up phone lines, making it easier for students to reach their parents from their homes or dorm rooms, instead of students having to find payphones to check in. The city of Gainesville also brought in mental health experts to help residents cope with the feelings that they were experiencing. And it didn't help that news of the Ripper had gone national, attracting numerous news crews to the area and fueling rumors around town. Some of the rumors included claims that the Ripper had killed as many as 30 people, that he could be a doctor or someone in the health field.

Another rumor suggested that the killings were related to the recently released movie, The Exorcist 3. The police told the public that all of these rumors were false, but it didn't really make people feel less scared. As fear gripped the town, multiple agencies continued to investigate the murders, and on August 31st, the police announced that they were questioning 18-year-old Ed Humphrey in connection with the Gainesville River murders after multiple tips suggested that he could be involved. On the surface, Ed did look like a solid suspect. He was known to carry knives. He'd been off of his medication for a mental health disorder. He left town right after Manny and Tracy were found dead and soon

after he was arrested for assaulting his grandmother. Ed became an even more likely suspect in the Ripper murders when police searched his home and found magazines about knives, guns, and girls. While this seems suspicious, nothing found in that search conclusively tied Ed to the Gainesville Ripper murders, But it was clear that the police thought they had their guy because Ed was publicly named as the number one suspect in the Ripper case. He was then held on a $1 million bond for simple assault on his grandmother. And I'm not saying that assaulting your grandmother is not wrong. Obviously, it's terrible. Don't do that. That's horrendous. But I think the point

that's being made here is because they thought he was the Gainesville Ripper, they made his bond so much higher than it normally would have been for the assault of his grandmother. Yeah, well, they thought it was a flight risk. If he is the Gainesville Ripper, he's going to take off. So basically, bail is to ensure that someone shows up for their next court appointment, where if you're a serial killer and you get out, you're not going to show up. So I understand it. Well, believing the killer was behind bars, the town of Gainesville seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Over the next month or so, Ed was aggressively investigated as the Ripper.

The police took hair, blood and saliva samples from him. His car and his grandmother's house were thoroughly searched. A pond near where Ed had been seen was drained in hopes of finding the murder weapon. The woods near Ed's apartment were searched with cadaver dogs and military troops, but not a single piece of evidence linking Ed to the Ripper murders was found. In fact, Ed's DNA did not match the semen found in the Ripper cases. Despite this, the police continued to call Ed their number one suspect, which is ridiculous because if you have DNA evidence, you have semen from the murders, and this person's DNA does not match that semen, what are we doing here? And you already said the profile said it was only one guy. Okay, so what are we doing here? And you already said the profile said it was only one guy. Okay, so what are we doing here?

Isn't that supposed to exclude suspects when you do this DNA testing? It is exculpatory in nature. And let's add on to that, that while this is all transpiring, there's currently a cassette tape in the evidence room with the name of the suspect. So, man. With the name of the actual Gainesville. Right. Right. So yeah.

And this poor 18 year old kids. Oh, I mean he, he attacked his grandmother, but he's struggling with mental health issues. So let's keep that in mind. Doesn't seem like he's the, you know,

a model citizen, but yeah, to your point, when you have something where law enforcement on from one side of their mouth is saying, we believe that this is someone acting alone. And yet they have DNA evidence from multiple crime scenes. And that DNA evidence definitively does not match the person that they believe is involved.

That they have in custody that they've publicly named as a suspect. Well, he's in custody for the other crime. So either way, he's going to be in there. But yes, to your point, they're publicly naming him as the Gainesville Ripper. They're saying, hey, listen, everyone can feel safe again. We got them. And yet the evidence doesn't match. The evidence doesn't match. But I feel like there's a lot of pressure here. The university's losing students. This is a big tax thing for the community. But it is interesting that maybe what I had said earlier does apply as far as DNA. DNA is very new at this point. So it's not like it is now where if it doesn't match,

it's not their DNA. Back then, there may have been people involved in this case who said, yeah, it doesn't match, but how good is DNA evidence? Is it a done deal that it's not him or could it just be a mistake in the laboratory process? I think there was still a lot of questions surrounding DNA, which is why in the OJ Simpson trial, they basically had to educate the jury on what DNA evidence was. So that could be a situation here where you have some old school investigators saying, I don't really care that the DNA doesn't match. We don't know if that's right or not. This is our guy.

Yeah, but you know very well if that DNA had matched, they would have thrown the book at him and nobody would have been like, oh, but DNA is not 100% reliable. That's what I'm saying. It's one of those things where because it didn't work for them, they were discrediting it. However, if it did match, they would be using it as the final nail in the coffin to bring this guy up on these charges. So I agree with you completely. They didn't line up with what they wanted, which I've said in numerous cases before where you have investigators who get tunnel vision on a specific suspect. And anything that aligns with that individual, they bring it to the surface. And anything that doesn't,

they put the blinders on and keep moving forward. So that's a problem and investigations can't do that. And I mean, it didn't even like stop them in their tracks for a second because despite the DNA not matching, the police continued to call Ed their number one suspect and some journalists covering the Ripper case began to question the police department's actions. They believed the police knew Ed wasn't the Ripper, but pretended he was in order to

relieve pressure on themselves to find the real killer and to make the townspeople feel safe, which is messed up because those townspeople were not safe. Okay. That's right. They weren't. Yeah. That's right. The guy's still out there. So in October, Ed went to trial for assaulting his grandmother. And during the trial, Ed's family testified about how he needed to take medication for a mental health disorder, which he hadn't been doing in August when the attack happened. Ed's grandmother also testified that Ed did not physically assault her. As the police alleged, she claimed her injuries came from a fall. Oh, grandma. That's so sad. Despite this testimony, the jury convicted Ed of assault, which was incredibly upsetting to his family. His grandmother told the media, quote,

this whole thing is a charade of injustice. It was totalitarian, end quote. At Ed's sentencing hearing, the prosecution asked for the maximum sentence of 22 months while Ed's family begged the judge to give him the minimum sentence and to get him mental health treatment. In the end, Ed was sentenced to serve 22 months in a prison psychiatric unit. Now, at this point, everyone was wondering if Ed would ever be charged with the Ripper murders. But all the police would say is that they believed Ed had been present at the murder scenes. They wouldn't say what evidence led them to believe that, because they didn't have any.

And for the next year or so, the police continued publicly pretending as if Ed could be the Ripper, even though behind the scenes, they no longer seriously considered him to be a suspect. The state attorney later admitted that arresting Ed was, quote, the desperation of the time and the need to get that guy. We made a mistake, end quote. Oh, well, I'm sure Ed's really understanding of that. In November of 1990, just one month after Ed was convicted for assaulting his grandmother, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement received a tip from Shreveport, Louisiana police, who believed the 1989 unsolved massacre of an entire family in Shreveport could be connected to the Gainesville Ripper murders.

In November of 1989, 50-year-old Tom Grissom, his 24-year-old daughter Julie, and Julie's 8-year-old son, Sean, were found stabbed to death inside Tom's home in Shreveport. The Shreveport police specifically believed the Grissom murders were tied to the Gainesville Ripper murders because Julia's body was posed in a similar position to the women in Gainesville. She also had tape residue on her body and vinegar instead of soap had been used to clean her body. The Grissom murders seemed like a really solid lead. So an investigator with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement drove to Shreveport to learn more. Little did he know this lead would take the police on a path

to finally tracking down the real Gainesville Ripper. Wow, incredible. That case out of state is going to be potentially what solves this case. And that's why you always have to keep those blinders off because you never know. It could be something similar, just an MO where you, I don't know what's going to happen with the, the Grissoms as far as how they were killed, the, the specifics of their death, maybe soap was used, maybe screwdriver. We'll see. We'll see what happens. We'll see if it's connected. I do want to, I know we're getting ready to wrap this up.

I do want to go back to something that I find interesting about these killings and about how there was a lack of killings after Ed was kind of put under the spotlight. Right. As the potential gains- Yeah, the killings stopped.

Correct. So first off, I think it's fair, it's not even an assumption at this point. All of these murders happened, which would appear to be in like a week time span. It was very quick. And so you have this occurring where this killer went out there with this intention to kill as many people in as short of a period of time as possible. And then they shut it down for a little while.

Now, this might not have been their first time doing this. They could have done it somewhere else, which clearly does appear to be the case based on how we're going to be ending this episode. But at this point, just to put it in a vacuum, the offender goes out there, kills five people, and then stops. Now, do you think it's possible?

We may never know. We may find out before the end of the series. But do you think it's possible that it actually backfired on law enforcement by going out and publicly saying that Ed's their guy? Because what it did was give this killer an opportunity to escape without apprehension because by not killing anyone else, it continued the narrative that Ed was in fact the guy, right? So they can basically say at this point, we believe Ed killed these five people. He's been in prison now. He's going to be in prison for 22 months. Since he's been in there, there have been no killings. Coincidence?

I think not. And reality is that the actual killer said, hmm, you know what? If they believe it's this guy, I'm you know what? If they believe this, it's this guy, I'm going to give them what they need to affirm it. Because if I go out there and kill someone else in a similar manner, they will now have to admit that they got the wrong guy. So I'm not going to do that. I want everyone to believe it's Ed and I can go under the radar, stay dormant for the next couple of years, maybe move to another part of the country and do it all over again. So I feel like law enforcement coming out and publicly stating that Ed was their guy was another huge mistake in this investigation. And part of the reason that

it took so long to identify the actual killer because they weren't really looking for him anymore. And on top of that, it allowed the actual killer to change weren't really looking for him anymore. And on top of that, it allowed the actual killer to change their MO to fit the police officer's narrative as far as what they were conveying to the public. Yeah. And I do want to clarify something earlier. So because it was 1990 and DNA is in its infancy, they used the DNA to determine the suspect's blood type. Ah, okay. So there you go. Yeah. Not a full DNA profile, but what they found is the suspect had type B blood, but Ed Humphrey's blood type was type A. However, do you know the blood type of the Shreveport killer? I'm assuming it matches.

It was type B, which matches the Gainesville Ripper. So yes, we have obviously a better connection here. We have a stronger evidence that the same person that's guilty for murdering the Grissoms also murdered the college students in Gainesville. Yeah. And so, but even still, even though it's not DNA where the likelihood of it matching someone else is not there, it still brings into question of why would they say it was Ed when his blood type clearly doesn't match the DNA found at the crime scene? I don't know why. This could still be them questioning the science behind it, right? Relatively new. OJ Simpson was what trial? It went to trial in like 1995. I think, I think that happened in 92. 90. I thought it was 96 that it went to trial, but yeah. Something around there. And so you have this situation where OJ still hasn't even happened yet.

So there's probably a lot of guys on the job who are saying, eh, the blood type doesn't match, but how certain are we that that science is correct and that they may not be wrong? We still think it's this guy. So fascinating case. I'm glad we're covering it. My major takeaway after episode one, we talk about the victims and we talk about how believe at this point, as far as the different accounts that we've had. And yet it didn't matter because unfortunately unknown to them, there was a monster amongst them before they even got there. And this individual may have

lived in the surrounding area. They may have set up shop that week, but within days, we're talking 24, 48 to maybe max 72 hours, the, them being in that location at that specific time, looking the way they did is the reason they are dead. And there's nothing you or I, or they could have done to change that. This individual chose them. And as soon as he did, that was the end of it. There was nothing that could be done. And the only thing that changed the outcome was because of where they decided to live. If they had lived maybe two or three streets over, maybe a mile or two further down the

road, they wouldn't have been a victim. So when you leave this case after episode one, asking yourself, wow, you know, that one fork in the road changed this whole case. Basically it was their decision to choose this address. That was it, which is pretty crazy. The killer. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Where they decided to live in it. It appears that this, this individual decided I'm going to kill as many people as possible in a very short period of time. And then I'm gone.

And I don't know if I'm going to stay in the area. But the fact that he robbed the bank during that same time frame is what's so intriguing to me. Because you would think at that point they would want to stay under the radar as much as possible. Especially when they're going to these extreme measures to avoid leaving forensic or trace evidence behind at the crime scene. And yet you're going to go rob a bank. Clearly, you don't think you're going to get caught. But the fact that you would even risk that as a sign of desperation and maybe to what you said, where they just they needed money, they needed the money, they had to do it.

Yeah, it sounds like desperation. And also, once again, going back to impulsive behavior. Yeah, just not being able to control yourself. Yeah, not really thinking things through, because when you're committing murders, like once again going back to impulsive behavior yeah just not being able to control yourself yeah not really thinking things through because when you're committing murders like it doesn't matter how well you clean up there's still always a chance you're going to get caught so just the fact of going in picking out these girls really quick and then deciding very quickly i'm going to go into their apartments i'm going to rape them i'm going to kill them that's that's an impulsive um that's

an impulsive train of thought. And robbing the bank may have been, too. He may have just been walking by the bank and said, you know what, I'm actually running low on money. I need some money. Let me go in there and rob this bank. And that's going to say a little bit something about his personality and his character. And that's probably why the police profile of the Gainesville Ripper suggested that he may have been in prison or psychiatric establishments before. Yeah. I really can't wait to get to part two, because when we start to talk about the Grissoms, this happened in November of 1989. So we're talking almost a year on the dot. Yeah. But not far from Gainesville.

We're talking Louisiana to Florida. And so this individual was there in Louisiana, carried out these murders. And you had said 24 year old daughter and then also eight year old son. Eight year old son. So three people in total. And what's interesting about this is we also have a female, a little bit older, but a woman 24 years old. we're not going to do it now but i want to get into the specifics of what the daughter looked like because you could have another julie what julia looked like right julia looked like right so what i'm going to go out on a limb here and say that she was the target of this attack and and tom and their son and his son sean were just it was her son sean her son sean okay, Sean. Okay. Her son, Sean, they were collateral damage where this individual saw her and then...

Actually, Julie Grissom looks very different. She's got blonde hair, more round features. I wouldn't say she was petite framed. She's a little bit more voluptuous. So she doesn't really look similar to the other victims. But either way, a situation where there is an evolution, right? There's an evolution. And yeah, it could be a crime of opportunity, one of those kinds of things. And who knows? Because at this point, they don't know how many people the Gainesville Ripper killed before or after he arrived in Gainesville. Just just this year, actually, I think just a few months ago, there was a cold case that authorities are now saying may be connected to the Gainesville Ripper, may have been one of his other victims.

And so they're still finding people that they believe may have been victimized by the Gainesville Ripper, may have been killed by the Gainesville Ripper. So who knows? Who knows? I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to seeing how law enforcement in Shreveport came to the conclusion that the case could be connected, right? There's got to be something there within the MO that allowed them to say, oh, you know what? We might be dealing with the same person here. So we're going to dive into

all that. That's what makes these cases interesting, having multi-jurisdictional operations like you have with like the Golden State killer, right? You have same state, but you have different, different police departments working these cases and using the communications that they have available to say, Hey, let's disseminate this information amongst law enforcement. Let's share what we have. And hopefully, you know, 20 minds working together is better than one. Maybe within the bunch of us, we'll actually solve this one because not to hate on the Gainesville Police Department, if just left up to them, it doesn't sound like we would have gotten there at least at any time soon until someone decided to play the tape on

a rainy day. I don't know. Absolutely. All right. Thank you, everybody, for being here with us today. Join us next week for part two. And until then, stay safe out there, please. Stealing my lines. Yeah. Stay safe out there. By the way, let us know what you think about the mic, too, because I got a new mic for anybody who's on YouTube. I switched up the mics here, so I'm interested to hear what audio people think about it as well. Isn't that my line,

stay safe out there? That's why you put on the hat. Are you kidding me right now? Thank God. I'm glad you're laughing. Why aren't you? My God. My God. Stay safe out there, everybody.

We'll see you next week. Night. Bye. Bye. Bye.