Crime Weekly - S3 Ep235: Gainesville Ripper: A History of Violence (Part 3)

Episode Date: August 23, 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. ShipStation.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your free 60-day trial! 2. TryFum.com/CrimeWeekly - Get a FREE gift with your journey pack! 3. Thorne.fit/Crime10 - Use code CRIME10 to get 10% off your first order! 4. EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off and FREE shipping! 5. DailyHarvest.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 15% off your first box of $100 or more!

Going to the gym can be discouraging, especially if you're putting in the work but barely seeing changes. But with Tonal, you can actually see your progress with every workout. Tonal provides the convenience of a full gym and the expertise of a personal trainer anytime at home with one sleek system. Designed to reduce your mental load, Tonal is the ultimate strength training system, helping you focus less on workout planning and more on getting results. No more second-gu second guessing your technique. Tonal gives you real-time coaching cues to dial in your form and help you lift safely and effectively. After a quick assessment, Tonal sets the optimal weight for every move and adjusts in

one pound increments as you get stronger, so you're always challenged. Tonal lets you choose from a variety of expert-led workouts, from strength to aero hit to yoga and mobility to keep you coming back for more. For a limited time, go to tonal.com to get $500 off your tonal purchase, plus a free four-year warranty. That's tonal.com for $500 off, plus a free four-year warranty. Tonal.com. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into part three of the Gainesville Ripper case. And I know, do you want to talk really quick about the hats

before we dive in? In case you're someone who just watches Crime Weekly, not Crime Weekly News, I got your DMs, I got your emails. We talked a lot about the stay safe out there hat, and then they sold out. So on one hand, thank you. On the other, I'm ordering more. They should take about a week or two to come in. I do apologize. So it says out of stock on the website right now. When they come back in, I'll let you guys know. My apologies, but also thank you. Good problems to have. Great hat. We'll get them back in stock as soon as possible. Let's dive in. Yeah, let's do it. So in November of 1989, Tom, Julie and Sean Grissom were brutally murdered in Shreveport, Louisiana. Less than a year later, in late August of 1990, five college students, Sonia Larson, Christy Powell, Krista Hoyt, Manny Tabato, and Tracy Paul as were murdered in Gainesville, Florida, by a serial killer nicknamed the

Gainesville Ripper. Months after these horrific murders, a woman contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement with a chilling suspicion. She believed a man named Danny Rowling was responsible for both the Grissom family murders and the Gainesville Ripper killings. FDLE agents launched an investigation into Danny and soon discovered that he was the perfect suspect. He'd been in Shreveport at the time of the Grissom murders and had even attempted to kill his father there in May of 1990. He had then fled the area and ended up in Gainesville at the same time as the Ripper murders and a bank robbery. A few days after the last bodies were found, Danny left Gainesville and went on a robbery

spree in multiple cities before he was ultimately arrested for robbing a grocery store on September 7th. After testing Danny's blood type against evidence from all the murder scenes, agents found a match and Danny was subsequently charged with the Gainesville Ripper murders, though he was not charged with the Grissom family murders as they had happened in a different state. So while Danny was behind bars, FDLE agents continued putting together a timeline of his movements after he had tried to murder his father in Shreveport, Louisiana on May 18, 1990. They learned that Danny had made his way to Kansas City, Kansas and stayed in a motel. Then, in early June, he burglarized the home of a couple, stealing several items including the identification of their deceased son, war veteran Mike Kennedy. On the same day as the

burglary, Danny used a payphone to call relatives and friends in Shreveport. One friend begged him to surrender for the attempted murder of his dad, but Danny refused, saying that he, quote, feared for his life and possible retaliation from his father and the police. Danny stayed in Kansas City until July 10th and then went to Tallahassee, Florida and checked into a local motel using Mike Kennedy's name. And remember, Mike Kennedy was the deceased war veteran whose identity and identification he stole from that couple's home. On July 18th, he visited an Army-Navy store and purchased a Marine Corps K-Bar knife for $34 plus tax.

According to the medical examiner who performed autopsies on the Gainesville Ripper victims, this knife matched the murder weapon used to kill all five victims. Another K-bar knife. I don't know what the deal is. I mean, I get it. I do get it. I do understand. They're probably easy to get, right?

They're easy to get. And I feel like there's this like underbelly of these killers. Just they have this fascination with. With the military. With the military and like special ops. And I don't know. They think in a weird way like there's some type of assassin. I don't know.

Because we saw it in the Idaho murders as well where allegedly a K-bar knife was purchased and then used in the commission of those crimes. So I just, I don't understand it. Yeah. But it seems, there seems to be a pattern there. Yeah. And I think you're right. It's kind of like maybe this, you think they're kind of like a GI Joe, like you get, you get off on it in some way. It's definitely weird.

See a lot of the school shooters too. A lot of the school shooters, same thing. They're wearing the vest. They got the tack gear on. Like. You think there's a connection to video games? Absolutely. A lot of the school shooters, same thing. They're wearing the vest. They got the tack gear on. You think there's a connection to video games? Absolutely. You know, we've talked about that before when we get hammered for it, but I don't think it's the reason, but it's definitely part of it.

Contributory. Yeah, I just don't understand why these people just don't sign up for the military. Go serve your country. Do what you got to do. Become a police officer. Something. Well, they don't want to do that, Derek. Come on. That's hard work.

That requires getting off the couch. So on July 22nd, Danny traveled to Sarasota, Florida, where he stayed in local motels, and he bought a Taurus 9mm handgun from a private seller. On August 17th, Danny left Sarasota and took a bus to Gainesville, where he again checked into a motel under the name Mike Kennedy. He stayed there until August 23rd when he checked out. That was the end of Danny's motel stays, which led FDLE agents to theorize that Danny then moved into a campsite in the woods. Like we talked about in Part 2, agents knew Danny robbed the First Union National Bank of Gainesville on August 27th,

and later that night, the police discovered his campsite in the woods across the street. On August 30th, Danny stole a car from a Gainesville student housing complex and drove to Tampa, and on September 2nd, he robbed a Save and Pack grocery store and escaped the scene. He went on to break into three apartments before stealing another car. Then he made his way to Ocala, Florida, where, on September 7th, he robbed the Winn-Dixie supermarket and was subsequently arrested.

I find that we're always hearing about the Winn-Dixie, now that we've covered it once and got it wrong. Now it seems like it's haunting us. We said it was like a gas station, and people were like, how dare you? Every series now, Winn-Dixie's like, remember me? How dare you? Not just a gas station. Every time. I am an

experience. Well, Danny was charged for the car thefts, the burglaries, and the robberies he committed in Gainesville, Tampa, and Ocala and he went on trial for the August 27th robbery of the bank in Gainesville where he was found guilty and sentenced to life.

Damn, sentenced to life, huh? In Florida? They're not messing around down there. Yeah, that's crazy. It's because it's like, so apparently he was sentenced to three life sentences plus 160 years. But is this just for like the robberies and in the bank robbery? Because man, if that's true, Florida does not mess around. And now they dropped they dropped the hammer on him. And it does. I can see it. I can see it where they're seeing this individual being a menace to

society in the sense where they're there. This is their career. They're not just it's not a one off three different bank robberies. So, and he's using a gun. And using a weapon, yeah. So there's a danger to not only the people that work at the banks, but also any community members who are going in there to, you know, make a deposit or whatever. So it is, it does have an extreme impact on that surrounding community, not knowing if they're safe to go in there and do what we all do on a daily basis, you know, stop by the bank, make a deposit, make it to take a withdrawal, scary, scary times. And it also, like we've said in other cases, giving this type of sentence where obviously it's, it's supported by Florida statutes, right? By giving this type of sentence, it not only drops the hammer on this

person, but also serves as a deterrent and a warning to anyone else who's considering Doing something like this, right? If you know if you're sitting at home And you see someone go down for three robberies and they end up doing a year or two in prison still too long for me, i'm not trying to go to prison for even six months, but You may have someone out there who goes, huh? Well, i'll well, I'll do what I got to do. Worst case scenario, I'll spend a couple of years in the can. Not a big

deal. But when you see three life sentences, maybe that makes you reconsider the idea of doing something like this. So I always think that's part of it. So from what I can tell, the prosecutor or the U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul, who imposed the sentence, basically said that Danny Rowling, who was only 37 at that point, he said, quote, his whole life has been four life sentences for robberies in central Florida. Paul sentenced Rowling to 300 months for robbery, life for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon with the sentences to run concurrently, and 60 months for possession of a firearm in the commission of a dangerous felony. Asked by Paul if he had anything to say, Danny Rowling replied, quote, this is going to be a little unusual, so I hope you and these people will bear with me. He then sang a song that began, After the song, Rowling told Paul, quote, So yeah, most likely the weapon that he used and the fact that he was already a convicted felon and the fact that he was on the run for, you know, attempting for shooting his father twice.

Let's be honest. So, yeah, I'm sure all of that had had something to do with it. Makes sense. It all lines up. So Danny faced another trial for the string of crimes he committed from August 30th to September 2nd, including stealing the car from the Gainesville student housing complex, robbing the pack and save in Tampa, and burglarizing three apartments in Tampa. And a jury found Danny guilty of all these crimes except for burglarizing one of the apartments, and he was once again

sentenced to life. For the September 7th robbery of the Winn-Dixie in Ocala, Danny pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to life as a violent offender. He was sent to Florida State Prison, or FSP for short, to serve his time and await trial for the Gainesville Ripper murders. So before we start talking about that, I do want to take our first break, but we will be right back. So we're back. And at first, when Danny goes to prison, he was confined to a cell in the psychiatric unit known as W Wing. While there, he became friends with fellow inmates Bobby Lewis and Russell Binstead. Now, both men worked in the wing and had unrestricted access, which is crazy

if you think about it, considering both of these men's rap sheets. Russell was serving a 109-year sentence for multiple felony offenses. He also had an extensive history of escaping and had stabbed another inmate just three years prior. Bobby, on the other hand, was the first man in Florida history to escape prison while on death row. And even though he escaped and he was captured, his death row sentence would later be overturned and then he'd be resentenced to life in prison. So basically, they got the guys who escaped from Alcatraz, they put them in prison and they were like, here you go. You can, you can, you know, have free reign of this, this W wing. Well, I, what are they supposed to do? What would you be your, your suggestion? They're there forever. So. I mean, I just wouldn't give them unrestricted access if

they have a history of trying to escape or escaping, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's on the prisons to do a better job of keeping them in too. But I'm with you. I mean, it's like these guys are there forever. With a 109-year sentence, they're not going anywhere. So they have to, I think at some point it almost becomes inhumane to keep them in like a 10-by-10 cell unless they're in there actively stabbing other prisoners. Let them go around,

but you don't have to give them so much responsibility and access, you know, because I think we're going to find that maybe that wasn't the best idea. You know, I can see where this is probably going based on what you're foreshadowing here, but maybe some CEOs out there will give me a hard time on this. But I always think with every single prison escape, I know we had a prison in my jurisdiction. So I worked in Central Falls, Rhode Island. We have a federal prison right inside Central Falls, like right in the city, which is only 1.2 square miles. So it was something that we were constantly monitoring, even though we weren't in charge of security. And we had a couple of prison escapes. And I can tell you every single one that we had, even though we weren't in charge of investigating the actual

escape, it would be a federal jurisdiction thing where they would look into it. There was always a lapse by the guards that were there. They were not where they were supposed to be. They weren't monitoring the cameras. They allowed them access to something, a tool or whatever that they weren't supposed to have. Are you talking about Jeffrey Epstein? No, Jeffrey Epstein was, no, I'm talking about prisoners that escaped in Rhode Island, but sure, Jeffrey Epstein too,, I'm talking about prisoners that escaped in Rhode Island. But sure, Jeffrey Epstein, too. Go with that one. Same kind of thing, right?

Well, these prisoner escapes, I think there's always, they were avoidable. Maybe, like I said, maybe there'll be some COs in the comments that will say, well, you tried doing it, but, you know. I think we have a lot of people, too, that are, like, that prisons don't have enough staff and a lot of prisoners. Oh, for sure. So there's, like, one CO one CO to like 75 prisoners. So it's probably difficult. It's the theme for the majority of things in our society where we're so understaffed, especially government jobs where we just don't have the resources or the personnel and the quality of care isn't there. We'll just put it that way. Absolutely.

But I mean, in this case, I just think if somebody's got a history of escaping, because you were like, they're in there for life. You know, what are you going to do? It's like, are they in there for life? Because they probably don't want to be. And if they have an opportunity to not be, they'd probably take that.

I mean, it's an incentive, right? You're not going anywhere. What do you have to lose? What are they going to do? Put me in prison for the rest of my life if they catch me that's what i'm saying though isn't that crazy like you you have nothing to lose no especially that one guy that had a like a death he was on death row he's like well what are they going to do kill me twice right now i get it i don't blame them for trying to escape it's not and listen oh yeah i would do the same thing you would if i'm in prison and i got nothing but free time i'm gonna have some fun with it i guess don't

end up making a movie about you that's usually the case what happens with these things so go for it have some fun with it yeah you know let's make the most of the experience i mean i guess it's like uh who was sherry papini you know she was really trying to escape her captors hardcore. So she gets it. Yeah, there's always something. I know the Rhode Island one. One more thing. It was a camera.

It was a camera that had been out for like three months. Hadn't fixed it. So the guy just literally scaled the wall and nobody saw it because the camera was out and it had been out. So it's just like negligence, you know, stupidity, negligence, whatever you want to call it. So little things like that. Not paying a ton of attention. Yeah. Not paying a ton of attention. Those little things. And it was the overnight shift. So more than likely had someone dozing off in the control room. Tired. Yeah. You know, you get all of that.

So there's always a reason why they're able to be successful. It has to be an exhausting job, by the way, being a CEO. Like, yeah. Yeah. I feel like your work's never done. It's like you have 40 children all at once. Yeah. And you can get complacent. And another thing is these correctional officers get comfortable with the prisoners. Some of them are very charismatic. Well, they see them every day. They become friendly. Yep. They give them a little thing here. They help them out here. You develop an understanding, I guess know and then they can betray you yeah they will so when danny arrived in w wing bobby and russell immediately recognized an

opportunity to profit from his highly sensational story both men had previously worked as police informants which is what we were just basically saying and they believed they could befriend danny get him to confess and then take those confessions to the prosecution in hopes of reducing their own sentences. They also thought they could sell it. Pretty freaking smart. Yeah. I mean, are you allowed to do that though? Are you allowed to coerce somebody to confess? Not coerce. So we can talk about this later. I don't want to get too off the path here, but they are not. The technicality here is if law enforcement is advising them or instructing them to go do this, then they are considered agents of the state. And therefore, it can be entrapment. There could be some legality there that could jeopardize the confession itself. However, if a regular citizen decides on their own accord to go out there and get someone to confess to a crime, whatever circumstances they want to use, it could be a female who uses sex as a way of getting this individual to confess to something.

It's all fair game. As long as that person is not being directed by a law enforcement entity, anything that that person confesses to, to this individual can be used in a court of law if it can be verified. So as far as this is concerned, fair game. So I thought it was sort of like, it had to be a, it had to be a spontaneous confession. Like you're just sitting in the cell with your, your jail buddy. And all of a sudden he's like, I killed these kids, you know? And then you're like,

ah, and then you go to the police. I didn't know you could like set someone up. That's messed up, man. So I have a soft spot for this because, and I talked about this maybe with you off record, maybe on record,

but I had a hit put on me. And the, the reason that I was able to find out about this hit was i come into work at the police station and i had conducted this undercover operation a while back and i was not currently undercover but i come into the station the chief pulls me into his office with a lieutenant who i was very close with they had this they had this weird look on their face and they sit me down and they say hey we we got something to tell you And this isn't a conversation you get, you hear often. And they said, listen, we just got word from the prison that this person has put out a hit on you. They got guns. They've already got the guns for it.

They're near your house. There's a river. They put the guns in the river in a bag and they're going to grab them. They're going to shoot you when you're outside and they're going to keep going. And I, my first question to them was, how do you know this? And the reason they were able to find this out is because someone who I had arrested, but then turned into an informant and worked for me for many years. And we had developed a friendship. I talked about this before where you treat people with respect. They will not only work for you in that moment, but we'll come back to you down the road because even though they've committed a crime, a lot of times good people make bad decisions and that's how I always treated them. So by treating this person with respect and dignity, they weren't working for me anymore,

but they were in prison. They overheard some conversations that they were not part of and then decided on their own to befriend this person and start to gain more information and get the details. They then went to a correctional officer and said, Hey, get this to Derek Levasseur. And that is the whole reason why I'm sitting with you right now today is because of that relationship. And because of that person's willingness to go out there and put themselves at risk to protect me and my family.

So they did it on their own. It was, we could have used it in the courts to make a long story short because this isn't about me. We decided not to because it would have exposed this person and that's, they weren't looking for time off their sentencing. They were just doing it because it was a payback to me, a thank you to me. So it all worked out. I'm not.

And I get that. That's awesome. Like, obviously, that is pretty awesome. It's really good luck for you. Obviously, it worked out well. But whenever we see like I remember the Aaron Hernandez case. Right. And you had these people coming in like, oh, he confessed and this is that. And the

defense attorney would always say, oh, well, did you make a deal for time off your sentence and kind of make it seem like this sketchy thing? Like if you are benefiting from this in some way, it's less reliable. It's less believable. I think timing is everything in that. If a deal was made prior to the confession being said, then yes, you have an argument there because they're making a deal for that information to go get that information. But if an informant comes forward and says, I have something, it is the job of the defense to say, hey, how do we know what they're saying is true? What's their motive here? They could be just making this all up because they're looking for a deal. So that is still

going to come into question. And I'm sure it would come into question here where if these guys were successful and you're going to let us know if they were or not, if they come forward with this information, law enforcement can obtain it legally. But when it goes to court, it would be the job of the defense to say, first and foremost, who instructed you to do this? And then secondly, how do we know what you're saying is true and that you're not just doing it to get a deal? And so that's just the game. That's just the game we play. All right. Well, it seems a little sketchy to me, but we're going to go with it.

We're going to see. Allow them to do the right thing here. They're in prison for the rest of life. They're bored. I mean, are they doing it for the right reason? I know. It just feels like entrapment. But if it's not police, yeah.

No, it's for self-serving reasons. But that's sometimes how we get the job done. I'm not caring about it as like, oh, I really hope they don't like trick this guy. It's almost like I don't want this to be turned around in court. Yeah. And then have this perfect confession, like have it like a shadow cast upon it because of their intentions going into getting the confession. Oh, I'm sure it would be questioned. There's no doubt about it.

Well, Bobby and Russell not only were planning to get this confession so that they could reduce their own sentences, they also thought they could sell information to reporters or authors who wanted insider details on Danny. So they're entrepreneurs here, man, they are. So within hours of Danny's arrival at FSP, Bobby and Russell began working to win his trust by being kind to him and standing up for him against other inmates and guards who were harassing him.

It did not take long for Danny to open up and start sharing small details about the Ripper murders, because let's be honest, I don't think Danny Rollins was the sharpest knife in the drawer, right? He doesn't seem to be a smart criminal. He just seems to be a persistent one. Yeah, I mean, he's basically confessing at court, right? In a roundabout way, do music. Yeah.

So he starts sharing small details. And as the weeks passed, Danny became especially close to Bobby and they would talk for hours and hours every day. However, around 30 days after Danny showed up in W-Wing, he was scheduled to be transferred to a regular wing where Russell and Bobby would not have access to him. Realizing this would not benefit them, the two men came up with a plan to keep Danny in the psychiatric wing. Russell began telling Danny horror stories about his life in a regular wing, convincing him that he would be killed if he was sent there. Danny became scared about the transfer, and Russell suggested a way to keep him out of the regular wing.

He could stage a suicide attempt. Danny agreed, and Russell assisted in the suicide attempt by tying a sheet around Danny's neck, and then Bobby would call the guards to rescue him. The staged suicide attempt was sort of successful, and Danny was allowed to stay in the psychiatric wing. However, not long after this, the W wing was shut down, and then Danny was transferred to a completely different prison for about five months to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Now, on the same exact day that Danny was transferred to another prison, Bobby met with FSP officials to share what he knew about Danny and the Ripper murders. He handed over Danny's artwork, stories, and notes

from their conversations. He also disclosed three key details Danny told him about the crimes. One, that one victim's breast was cut off and the body was posed in a sexual position on the floor. Two, that tape was used on the victims. And three, that a screwdriver was used to enter their apartments. Prison officials then passed this information along to FDLE agents, and around two weeks later, they went to the prison and they met with Bobby. During this meeting, Bobby admitted that he wanted to make a deal with the prosecution

in exchange for information on Danny. He hoped to get time off his sentence and or to be released from prison altogether. After hearing Bobby's request, the agents asked what he knew about the murders, and he repeated the same three details he'd previously shared with prison officials. Because Bobby shared the same exact details, the agents felt that Danny hadn't actually disclosed much about the crimes to Bobby or else he'd have more to talk about. So they asked whether Bobby thought Danny would ever tell him the whole story. And he responded, quote, it's just a matter of him

getting a little bit of money. And I can even set up where he tells it to you all direct. End quote. OK, is this entrapment? I think we're not entrapment, not entrapment yet. We're getting in some muddy territory, aren't we? We're in a gray area. And I definitely think at this point, everyone watching or listening, wait on in the comments below. Just what's your thought on this? We have a situation here where law enforcement is trying to solve the murder of multiple people. And you have a situation here where you may have the person responsible in custody right there for

the taking. So what are you willing to do to get that confession? And I think the fact that Bobby initiated this conversation, I think it's still fair game, but I won't lie and say that my judgment is slightly skewed as someone who had to deal with these hurdles all the time in law enforcement, where you're trying to get the answers for the families while also staying within the lines of what we're allowed to do. So I'll step back from this one and I'll let you guys weigh in. What do you think? Fair game or not? Would you be okay with this moving forward? I'm actually interested to hear people's opinions. If you were on like a jury. If you're on a jury here, is this fair game?

It seems like Bobby is the initiator. They didn't go to him and say, hey, we want you to do this. Well, the FDLE went to him after hearing from the prison guards. And then they're like, do you think you could get him to tell you more? Right. Yeah. And so it's a gray area. I've talked about this with John's things before where when I was undercover, if I had someone come up to me and I knew they were a sex worker, if it was someone where even though I knew it, if I put out any dollar amount, if I initiated that conversation where I said, you know, what about $50 for this? That's entrapment, period.

If they bring up money, then it's fair game. So that's the application that I'm putting here where Bobby's bringing up the idea of money. I don't know if the law enforcement agents agreed to that. We'll have to see. Let's take a break. Way down below. Let us know what you guys think. Are you okay with this?

Do you not feel great about it? Is it getting kind of sketchy? Getting kind of sketchy. How far are we willing to go to get a serial killer? So take a break. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. So over the next few months, Bobby continued reaching out to FDLE agents about Danny, hoping to strike a deal with them while they never explicitly offered him a deal. Yeah, here we go. As far as we know, as far as we know,

that's what I'm saying. That's what they're saying publicly. That's what they're saying publicly. I'm not saying you're not right, but they know the parameters. I don't see Bobby going forward with this unless he had some sort of assurances that he was going to get something out of it. Listen, I have no doubt in my mind if I were sitting there as the investigator, I would say, well, you know. We'll see what we can do.

We'll see what we can do. No doubt. No doubt. I got you, Bobby. I got you. I got you. Let's see what you get. Let's see what you can do, man.

Maybe you'll be a police officer when we let you out of prison. We'll give you a little badge. Yeah. So they never explicitly offered him a deal. They did jointly come up with a plan. Once Danny was back at Florida State Prison, he would be moved into the same unit as Bobby so that Bobby could try to extract more details from Danny. However, no further deals were made with Bobby,

and the prosecution told him that his price, meaning his release from prison, was way too high. Despite this, Bobby believed the state was just playing hardball with him, and he firmly believed that he would get a deal if he could get more info out of Danny. But once again, why do you firmly believe that when they're allegedly telling you that it's not going to happen? You firmly believe it because you've heard something or you were communicated

with in some way where it was like, yeah, we can't really be like super obvious about this because this Bobby's he's an entrepreneur. OK, he's he's an escape artist. He's not a stupid guy. He's not going to do things for free. I also think it's important to note here that we're talking about one specific argument, and it may not even apply because it is fair game legally for investigators to bring on cooperating witnesses or confidential informants. That's fair game. And entrapment would be setting someone up in order to commit another crime while inside the prison. So getting someone to confess to a crime that was already committed would not qualify under the entrapment statute.

So I don't think it's really applicable here. It's a great conversation to have because we do get into gray areas with law enforcement where they push the envelope in order to get the bad guy. But as far as this is concerned, they're pushing Bobby to get Danny to confess to a crime that's already been committed. Now, if they were in there and Bobby was trying to get Danny to do something while in prison, we got a bigger issue from a legal perspective. So I don't know if it really applies here. It is fair game to bring someone on as a cooperating witness. What was discussed, what was said through a wink and a nod, we may never know the truth, but you can have a deal with someone who's in prison if they're willing to work off something in order to get you the information you need

legally. But it could be used against you in court and it could be used to make that person's testimony seem less. Every case I've ever, every case I've almost worked on, the defense, when there's not a cooperating witness to go after, has gone after me, especially in narcotics cases. Where if there's not someone as the go-between, where I'm the detective, I was the undercover, they try to bring in my integrity. They try to say, well, what did you do to get this going forward? That's the name of the game. You just can't take it personal. But here's the thing.

Like, they placed Danny Rawlings in Gainesville at the time of the murders. He was on the run from shooting his father. He basically, you know, said on this tape that he's a killer, this, this, and that. You've got his blood type in the semen found in the victims. You've got the same kind of knife that he purchased being used on the victims. You've got his history of violence, his history of being a criminal. Do you think you could just go to trial with that stuff? I think so. But, you know, obviously, if you can get him to confess. Yeah, true, true.

So throughout his entire time, dating back to when Danny first arrived in W-Wing, Bobby was also in contact with a woman named Sandra London, a freelance journalist who had gained notoriety from writing a book with her high school boyfriend, suspected serial killer, and former police officer Gerard John Schaefer. After the book with Schaefer was done, Sandra reached out to other prison inmates, offering to help tell their stories. Now, one of the people she contacted was Bobby, and they grew close. And when Bobby first met Danny, he reached out to Sondra, suggesting that they collaborate on a book about Danny with the Prophet Split Three Ways. Sondra began writing to Danny, and he agreed to work with her and Bobby on the book, which is weird. Danny and Sondra continued writing to each other, and after a few months, they fell in love, got engaged, and Sondra tried to visit Danny in prison multiple times, but she was always denied. So super weird. Okay, that's a twist.

So is Danny like, yeah, write a book about me as in I'll tell you about the murders I committed? Or maybe it was the robberies. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if this is before the guilt knowledge was given as far as the way the victims were positioned, the use of a screwdriver. This would have been after. It could also have been going on concurrently. Concurrently, yeah. Either way, Bobby—

Bobby might have been, you know, playing multiple angles here. Bobby thinks that Danny is the Gainesville Ripper, right? And so he's telling Sandra, like, I think this is the Gainesville Ripper. And she's contacting Danny sort of with that knowledge in mind. Oh, yeah. But still falls in love with him. Well, she fell in love with Bobby, right? Not Danny.

Danny. Oh, she fell in love with Danny. Yes. Ooh. Okay. All right. Right? Okay.

Everyone has their, you know, their type. Maybe she fell in love with Bobby too. I don't know. Maybe it was a love triangle. That's a book. That's a book you know, their type. Maybe she fell in love with Bobby too. I don't know. Maybe it was a love triangle. That's a book. Maybe. That's a book. There's a book.

The Journalist and the Prisoners. Yeah. Okay. Now it sounds like something different. Doesn't sound like a book anymore. It could be a book. Have you seen some of these books lately? Anyways, once Danny was released from psychiatric testing and returned to the Florida State Prison, he and Bobby were placed in the same wing, just like FDLE agents said they would be.

And Bobby continued getting information about the Ripper murders from Danny, which he relayed back to agents. He also worked on convincing Danny to meet with him and the FDLE agents. And after months of effort, Bobby succeeded. On January 17th, 1993, Bobby approached prison officials and told them that Danny wanted to talk about the murders. FDLE agents went to the prison, and Bobby handed them a two-page letter, which listed several demands. One of the demands was to let Sandra visit and marry Danny. Also, Bobby would be released after Danny's trial, and they would have to allow Danny to stay

in the general population area for as long as possible and let Bobby visit Danny. Now, if the lists of demands were met, then Danny would tell Bobby everything agents wanted to hear, and Bobby would then relay that information to the agents. He said Danny didn't want to confess directly to the agents because he wanted Bobby to get a deal, which doesn't sound super believable, but let's see. I think it just becomes a huge legal headache because now it could be hearsay. It's not coming directly from the person, not coming directly from the horse's mouth. And it now comes into the whole Bobby's credibility comes into question at court. So I don't see I'm interested to see where you go from here. I don't see the agents taking this deal.

The day after receiving these demands, agents returned to the prison and spoke with Danny directly. They told him that his attorney would likely not want him speaking to them. And Danny responded that this was OK. He would talk as long as his demands were met. He added, quote, when Sandra visits me, I will give Bobby all the information you want, end quote. Does it seem kind of like Bobby and Sandra are like working together to like honeypot Danny kind of? Like Bobby's like, Sandra, go and tell him you're in love with him and like basically dangle this love story and this potential to see each other in person in front of him as long as he like cooperates with me and the agents does it kind of seem like that because like once again i don't know if danny rawlings has the

highest iq and if he's like the most intelligent person he seems a little bit childlike at times also what you're saying is maybe bobby and sand Sandra are in love and they're going to use Danny. And they want to write this book. Yeah. So they're using her to sort of dangle in front of him. Kind of like you said, you know, women will use sex like these agents. Like I know that Russian agents used to do that, use sex to like get, you know, state secrets out of government officials and stuff. So I'm going down the road of Bobby and Sandra are going to use Danny's confession to get Bobby out so that Bobby can be with Sandra.

But then they can also write a book about Danny with all the information they got stuck on this book. Yes, they can also write the book. I'm not stuck on the book. They want to write the book. But I'm saying maybe Bobby wants to get out so he can be with Sandra. Maybe this is about love, Stephanie. It's about love and money.

It's not all about profit. For Sandra and for Bobby, it's about profit. I'm with you. So the agents told Danny that they had no control over who could visit, but they would discuss the matter with prison officials. After the meeting, agents did speak to prison officials who then contacted Sandra and let her know that if she reapplied for visitation, her new application would be expedited. So she started working on the application process while Bobby continued trying to get himself, Danny, and agents in the same room. On January 31st, Danny requested a meeting with FDLE agents. When they arrived at

FSP, he agreed to talk to them on the condition that Bobby could be in the room with them. The agents agreed. Bobby was brought in. But when the agents began questioning Danny, he repeatedly refused to answer, stating that Bobby was his, quote, mouthpiece and confessor, end quote. Only Bobby could provide the confession. The interview was paused while agents stepped outside to discuss how to proceed with these unusual demands. They really wanted to hear what Danny had done, so they decided on a new approach. The agents would ask Bobby the questions. Bobby would provide the answers.

And then a law enforcement officer would ask Danny if the response was correct, to which he would reply yes or no. If it wasn't correct, then Danny could tell Bobby the right answer, and then Bobby would tell the agents. I love this. It seems complicated, but also probably legally okay, right? Well, this is what we were just, this is great. Never heard of this approach actually before. That's why I love covering these cases. Well, I don't think anybody's ever said this before. Like, I'm in the room with you, but I'm not going to speak with my mouth. This guy's going to speak for me. You're dealing with

morons here, right? Let's talk. So, I mean, you're dealing with morons and they're thinking, oh, if I don't say it directly, it gives me an out down the road. If this basically, this is a, this is to cover Danny in case agents go back on their word. Yeah. I think he's saying like, oh, well, if I don't say it directly, I can always go back and say, that's not what I meant. And if the, if the agents go back on their word, however, to counteract that agents are going to say, listen, we're sitting in the room as they're writing up their report. They're going to say that Danny tells Bobby what to say. Bob, and we're witnessing that we're witnessing Danny saying it to Bobby as agents of the state. We, we witnessed him saying something to Bobby. Bobby speaks it out loud.

And then we look at Danny and say confirmed yes or no, that, that mitigates the possibility that Danny could come back and say, well, I didn't know that Bobby said that to you like that. That's not how I said it to him. This is a telephone game. What I actually said was this they're combating that by saying no, no, no You told something to bobby bobby said out loud in front of you what you just said to him And then we looked at you for actual confirmation, which you provided It's not as good as just a direct confession But i'm sure all this is being recorded video and audio. And on top of that, you can articulate that every single statement that was made by Bobby was visually confirmed or verbally confirmed by Danny.

And so not perfect, but better than nothing. So great move here. I like this. I would probably give Danny like an IQ test beforehand so that his lawyer couldn't come back later and be like, oh, he's, you know, got the intelligence of a fifth grader. He would have no ability to even make this kind of deal. He was being manipulated by Bobby. That's why he needed him there. Yeah, I'm sure they're going to. But if he starts providing knowledge that would only be known to the killer, that's going to be the defense's battle to fight. True, because Bobby's been in prison forever, so it could be him.

That's right. So it's going to be a tough one, especially if he provides information that's critical to this case and you're going to have a judge and a jury looking at it. I'm willing to fight that battle, especially when we're talking about a guy who avoided apprehension all these years after committing these crimes. Now you want me to believe he's a potato? Good luck. Well, Danny agreed to this new arrangement and the interrogation continued with Bobby relaying what Danny had told him. Bobby explained that with the Ripper murders, Danny chose his victims at random. Sometimes he

would peep in their windows beforehand, but he never staked anyone out. So he never stalked anyone, never followed anyone home, never chose somebody and followed them around for a few days, etc. It was completely random. Bobby said that late on August 23rd or very early on August 24th, Danny left his campsite, which was not the campsite that police had discovered after the bank robbery. This one was across the highway from a Bennigan's. Oh, my God. I used to work at a Bennigan's. Do you remember Bennigan's?

No. It's like a breakfast place, isn't it? No, it was like an Irish-themed. Oh, my goodness. I still remember the birthday song. Happy, happy birthday from Bennigan's to you, Sláinte. Shannon, turn that into a clip that's going up this week. Bennigan's. All right. It's a restaurant. It's like an Irish theme. That's what's playing in

Stephanie's head half the time when I speak to her. That's what's playing in my head now for the rest of the episode, for sure. So Danny was dressed in all black, wearing a ski mask and gloves, and he carried a bag containing his Marine Corps K-bar knife, 9mm gun, duct tape, and a screwdriver. He left the campsite on his bike. Ah, so there was a gun. Okay, okay. Yeah, which is what you kind of had theorized, right?

Yeah, you gain compliance. Now you can control two people, even though it doesn't appear that that was... Yeah, yes, it does line up. Makes sense. So he left the campsite on his bike. He headed to a residential area searching for a random victim. While he was doing this, a police officer stopped him because the headlight on his bicycle

was out. The officer checked Danny's ID and let him go. Was Danny using his real ID or was he using the ID of the deceased military veteran? That is what I'm curious about. So either way, can we just say that little piece of information might seem like it's insignificant when we're talking about the murder of multiple people, but that's huge because that's something that they can go back and check and cross-reference and then use it to corroborate his story, his validity, his credibility by saying, okay, that's what happened on that date.

Let's go look at the dispatch log. Did a law enforcement officer stop someone in that area? And hopefully they called it in. That doesn't happen all the time. Dude, I was just going to say that. Yeah, but hopefully they called it and let's just assume in a perfect world, they called it in and ran a check on this person, or at least ignore or noted in their files that they had stopped someone on a bike with a headlight out. That's something that only someone in that area at that time would know might seem like nothing, but that's critical huge. Cause

that's something you can go verify with a law enforcement officer and visually ID positively identified Danny as the person that was on that bike, even if he used a different ID. Correct. Yeah. So even though the officer let Danny go, Danny still was like, and maybe this this part of town is too hot. So he moved on to another part of town still intent on finding a victim. However, at the new place Danny stopped at, a security guard confronted him, questioned him about what he was doing, and then called the police. Danny rode off on his bike, still determined to kill someone, and that's when he arrived at Sonia Larson and Christy Powell's apartment complex. Now, here's my question. Huge again. More documentation. called or the police officer that pulled Danny over for the the headlight on his bike even

stopped to think and like, oh, there was like a sketchy guy riding around here, you know, with his bike and the headlight off. And he was in this part of town and I was like suspicious. So I called the police. That never seemed to like, even though you think that during an investigation when these two girls were killed, they would look at police reports from that night and kind of see if there was anything suspicious happening. So to answer your question, if it was done correctly, his name and date of birth and all that information would have been documented during the first stop.

It would have been documented during the second stop. And then when detectives are now assigned to solve these murders, they would have looked up the dispatch log and reviewed any reports of suspicious people in that area at that time. So to answer your question, you would think that would happen. Now let's talk about reality. There's a possibility when they stopped him the first time, they didn't even take his name. They just said, hey, get out of here. You're not allowed to be here. Keep going. Fix that light. He might not have even called it in, right? The second time you have a security official calling law enforcement, you would think that at that point they would document his name and date of birth, make him aware of it.

I don't know if they did or not. I don't know if that was put into an official report. Sounds like he kind of just drove away. That's what I'm saying. When the security guard was like, what's going on? And Danny was like, I'm out. Yeah. So law enforcement arrives.

The suspicious person is no longer there. So there's no way to connect the two. There's no way to connect him to anything down the road. That is the reality of it. So that's where we are. That's probably what occurred. Well, let's take our next break and we'll come back and talk about what happened. Okay. At Sonia and Christy's apartment. Sounds good. At around 3 a.m., Danny tried the back door of Sonia and Christy's apartment, which was located on the second story, and he found it unlocked. He didn't actually know whose apartment he was breaking into. He had not peeped on them before, and he didn't know that more than one person lived inside. He entered the apartment

and found Christy asleep in the living room. He stood over her for a moment before going upstairs to see if anyone else was in the home. There, he found Sonia asleep in her bedroom. He stabbed her in the area of her upper left chest near the collarbone. At the same time, he pressed tape over her mouth to muffle her cries. Sonia fought back, and he stabbed her again. She continued trying to fend off the blows with her arms. As she continued to struggle, he stabbed her once more, and she died. Danny then went back downstairs and stood over Christy, who was still asleep on the couch. She woke up as Danny pressed tape over her mouth and bound her hands behind her back.

He stripped her clothes off and raped her, then led her to the middle of the living room and made her lie and bound her hands behind her back. He stripped her clothes off and raped her, then led her to the middle of the living room and made her lie down on her stomach. Danny stabbed her one time through the heart or upper right lung. Then he went back upstairs and removed the tape from Sonia's mouth. He took off her underwear and posed her body but did not rape her. Danny headed back downstairs, pulled the knife from Christy's body, removed the tape from her mouth and hands, and cleaned the inside of her vagina with a cleanser from the kitchen. When he was done, he turned Christy over on her back, mutilated her breasts, and posed her body. Before leaving the apartment and returning to his campsite, he went into the kitchen and ate an apple and a banana. While listening to Bobby recount these murders,

FDLE agents noted that for the most part, the details matched up with the crime scene and autopsy report. The only discrepancy was that Danny claimed he stabbed Christy one time through her heart or upper right lung. And that wasn't true at all. She'd actually been stabbed five times in the back. Listen, and we're dealing with someone who's killed multiple people. It's probably easy to confuse the manner in which you killed certain people.

So the fact that everything else is lining up and they haven't released this information publicly is a very good sign. We don't even know how many people he killed. We know the Gainesville Ripper murders. That's what we said last episode. The victims, yeah. We said it last episode. Yeah, we got five he's connected to, but how many are there actually? How many over the years? And in different areas. Right. We talk about allegedly

Rex Heuermann and they're still finding bodies. They're still connecting to other crimes. It may be 20, 30, 40 before we get done. We don't know. The same thing can be applied here. The same thing can be applied to all of these serial killers. How many unsolved murders are out there that are connected to people we've already identified and charged with other murders? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that's kind of where we're at now. And like I said, this is a part of this case that still recently there's a family claiming that they believe their loved one may have been a victim of the Gainesville Ripper. Don't doubt it. So Bobby continued with Danny's confession, telling the agents that at around 10 p.m. on August 25th, Danny left his campsite dressed in all black, wearing a ski mask and gloves and carrying his kill kit. That's the screwdriver, the knife, the gun, the tape. This time, though, he had a specific victim in mind, Krista Hoyt. A night or two earlier, he had peeped into her windows and saw

her drying off after a shower. On the night of August 25th, Danny broke into Krista's apartment through her rear sliding glass doors using his screwdriver. She wasn't inside, so he decided to wait for her and prepare the house to make his attack easier. He moved a bookcase from behind the front door, which was in an alcove, to her bedroom. Then he hid in the alcove until he saw her walking across the grass towards her place. After she entered, he ambushed her, and a struggle ensued. He took her to the floor, taped her mouth, and then her hands behind her back. He forced her to the bedroom, placed her on the bed, removed her clothing, and raped her. Afterward, he turned

her over onto her stomach and stabbed her once in the heart through the back. He then removed the tape from her hands and mouth and left. Danny returned to his campsite, but soon realized he had lost his wallet, so he went back to Krista's apartment to search for it. When he couldn't find it, he decided to mutilate her body. He decapitated her and placed her head on the bookshelf. He mutilated her breasts, disemboweled her, and posed her body on the edge of the bed, propping her elbows on her knees. After completing these gruesome acts, he left. He went to a payphone and called 911 to report that his wallet, which he said had Mike Kennedy's ID in it, had been stolen. Then he returned to his campsite.

Wow. Okay, so why do you think he called the police about his ID? I think he's not very self-aware, honestly. I mean, obviously he wants it back because this is like a clean ID, in his opinion. But you just not only brutally murdered a girl, but then you went back to her apartment, you went back to the scene of the crime because you lost her wallet. And then you were like, well, while I'm here, let me just do let me just decapitate her, you know, and play with her body a little bit. And then when I leave, I'm going to call the police and report my wallet

stolen like none of that ever happened. So that level of compartmentalization here is bananas. Well, I mean, clearly he's not in the right mindset. How would you be if you're doing stuff like this? But my thought on why he called about the ID and the wallet is, yes, he went back to the apartment. He was very concerned about the wallet or ID being found at the crime scene, which would come back to him clearly. So what he tries to do is get in front of it. He calls and reports his wallet stolen so that if it is found by detectives at one of the crime scenes, he can say, Hey, listen, I reported my wallet stolen. The same

guy who stole my wallet must've committed these crimes. And we see that with other incidences where someone's involved in a high-speed pursuit. They'll then report that their car was stolen. Yeah, but it's got Mike Kennedy's ID in it. But maybe there's something else in that wallet, like a social security card or something. I don't know. A picture, something that they could potentially tie back to him. Or why would he go back and try to find

that wallet at the crime scene? He was clearly concerned about it. You run the risk by going back there that someone could show up while you're there. So I think he preemptively tried to get in front of this to say, hey, my wallet was stolen in case you find it. I think he just wanted that ID back because if you think about it, he's on the run from the police in Louisiana for shooting his father twice. So he can't use his own ID. Now, just the night that he was at Krista and Sonia's house or Christy and Sonia's apartment, he got pulled over by a cop because the light was out on his bike and he had to show Mike Kennedy's ID. So now what happens if he's pulled over again? He has no ID to show. They start looking into who he is and they figure out that he's who he is and he's on, you know, wanted for attempted murder of his father. And so having that ID just gives him

basically like a mask to walk around the world with, a safe mask. So I think he just really, really wanted that ID back. Really wanted that ID, was willing to risk being connected to multiple murders for it. Yeah, well. Smart. But this is another thing, right? Like you said, they can check and see if someone called 911 from a payphone that night to report that their wallet was missing. Yeah. And that's why I think that's really what it was about, is he didn't know where the wallet was.

At that point, he probably felt maybe it still is in the apartment somewhere. I was moving furniture around. I very well could have missed it. It might be inside there. And if they find this wallet and there's something in there that connects back to me, I'm in trouble. And so by reporting it missing, it does give you a little bit of a buffer where you can say, Hey, I'm a victim here as much as them.

My wallet was stolen by the guy who killed him. So if you find him, please let me know because I'm a victim too. Because, yeah, I want my wallet back. Yeah. Mike Kennedy wants his wallet back. Mike Kennedy wants his wallet back. Yeah. So when Bobby finished telling agents about Krista's murder, they noted that for the most part, the details matched the crime scene and autopsy report.

Bobby then recounted the final Ripper murders. At around 3 a.m. on August 27th, Danny, dressed in all black, wearing a ski mask and gloves, carrying his kill kit, he went out to find a new victim. He found himself at the Gatorwood Apartments, peeping into Tracy Paul as his window. He stayed in the area until he decided to break in. He then used his screwdriver to pry open Tracy's double glass sliding doors. Once he was inside, he didn't go straight to Tracy's room. Instead, he checked the other rooms for any potential roommates, and that's when he found Manny Tabato asleep on his back in his bedroom. Danny stabbed Manny through the stomach,

driving the knife upwards into his heart. Manny woke up and fought back, and Danny stabbed him eight or nine more times before Manny died. Bobby told agents that Tracy heard the commotion and opened her door to investigate. She saw Danny, she screamed, ran back into her bedroom, locking the door. Danny kicked it in and grabbed her, taped her hands behind her back, and taped her mouth. He also taped the curtains to her windows shut. He knew he was going to be in there for a while, and he didn't want anyone to be able to look in, which is a little bit of projection. I don't think most people go around looking into people's windows except for Danny and peepers and creeps like him. So he then removed Tracy's t-shirt. He raped her. He then

turned her over on her stomach and stabbed her once in the back through her heart. After she was dead, he removed the tape and dragged her into the hallway. Then he went into the bathroom, wet a washcloth, and used it to wipe the blood from Tracy's face. He raped her again, and when he was done, he cleaned her vagina with a cleanser, posed her body, and left. Just like with the other confessions, Bobby's details about Tracy and Manny's murders were mostly consistent with the crime scene and autopsy reports. However, there were a few significant discrepancies. Danny claimed he stabbed Manny around 10 times, but that was far from the truth as Manny suffered approximately 30 stab wounds.

Another discrepancy was that Tracy's autopsy revealed she had been stabbed three times and sodomized. When agents asked about this, Bobby was adamant that Danny had not sodomized Tracy. So there's a lot to talk about here. I think getting it confused about, you know, stabbing Manny 10 or 30 times, I think you're in the heat of the moment. You're just stabbing like crazy. This is a man who is stronger physically than your usual woman victims. And I think maybe Danny didn't expect Manny to wake up and fight back as hard as he did. So he probably just like frenzied, frenzied, stabbed him. And I'm sure he wasn't counting. However, the discrepancy with the autopsy report, that's a hard one to confuse, I think. So I don't think this is the case, but as we're sitting here, detectives listening to this person, I'm sure some thoughts are running through their minds as far as, okay, it definitely sounds or it

appears that Danny was there. He's part of this he knows too many details to not have been there or is he covering for someone does he know a lot of the details because someone else conveyed them to him and he's just regurgitating it from memory so that may be something that they're considering at this point because of the discrepancies with the autopsy report. As you also mentioned, you could chalk it up to the idea that he just doesn't remember it because he's killed so many people and you start to mix up what actually happened. Because as you just said, you're in the middle of a fight and you're not expecting a victim to fight back as hard as they did. And in the process of gaining control of them, you're stabbing them multiple times, not keeping count of what you actually did. So there's a lot of explanations for it, but I do think the hesitancy here on the behalf of

investigators could be, man, we really got to make sure we got the right guy. Yes, he has guilt knowledge, but does he have that information because he's the person who did it? Does he have that information because he had a co-conspirator that was there with him? Or does he have this information because the actual killer is someone who he knows? You never want to go forward with it and put all your eggs in this basket and be wrong. So it's important that they have these questions, especially when all the facts aren't lining up perfectly. Sure, exactly. I agree. And you don't want to go to court with this information and then have the defense, right? Yeah, throw a curveball out there. And be like, wait, I thought you said that Tracy's

autopsy said she was sodomized, but our client did not confess to that. So how do you know you have the right person? Yeah, exactly. Now, of course, you got to play defense attorney as well when you're doing these cases. So it is concerning. You would rather be on the money with everything, but there can be a way to simply explain this away. However, there's enough to connect him enough to connect them for sure. But even if you can explain why they may have gotten certain facts wrong, as you just said, the defense is going to capitalize on that and they're going to magnify it for a jury. And what does that do? Creates reasonable doubt. The question is, is it enough doubt to have a jury member say, you know what? I don't think he's responsible. That's the question.

Well, we're going to take our last break and then we're going to come back and finish out this part of the Gainesville Ripper case. So Bobby continued on with Danny's confessions, telling agents that after Danny left Manny and Tracy's apartment, he went down a nearby dirt road and buried his gloves and knife near an old chicken coop. He then returned to the campsite across the highway from Bennigan's and relocated to the woods across the street from the First Union National Bank of Gainesville. And then hours later, he robbed the bank and brought the money back to the campsite, which we've already been down this road.

The police pursued him into the woods. They found his campsite. They found the money with the red dye on it. And they discovered a bunch of stuff, including the recorder and the tape. So when Bobby and Danny finished detailing the five Ripper murders, FDLE agents asked some follow-up questions. They wanted to know if Danny would confess to the Grissom family massacre in Shreveport, Louisiana. Bobby told the agents, quote, Danny is willing to clear up the Shreveport homicides. After the Gainesville murders trial, he will tell everything in detail, including where

to go to find the weapons. Until then, he does not want to deal with the Shreveport homicides, end quote. Agents then asked about Danny's motive for the Ripper murders, and Bobby explained that there were multiple reasons. One was that Danny had been subjected to inhumane conditions while imprisoned for robbery in Mississippi. While facing these conditions, he snapped and decided he was going to take one victim for every year he had been punished. Tracy was the fifth victim for the fifth year he had served in prison, so the moment she died, he was done. That's why he immediately went and buried his knife and gloves. Bobby said the other reason Danny did what he did was because of his multiple personalities, which included his main personality named Danny.

Then there was Enad, which is Danny spelled backwards, so it's Y-N-N-A-D pronounced Enad. And this personality was a Jesse James type. Finally, there was the evil personality that was present at all the murders. And that evil personality was named Gemini. Agents went on to ask why Danny chose Gainesville as the place to carry out the murders. And Bobby said Danny had never been to Gainesville before, and he did not know what brought him there. When asked if there was any special reason why Krista's head was removed, Bobby said Danny didn't understand why he did that, except that he had, quote, strong urge, like a hunger or sexual drive or desire, possession,

a force compelling him to do these things, something he could not control at the time, end quote. Agents also asked about the cassette tape Danny recorded and left at the campsite, and Bobby again answered for Danny, stating that the first part of the cassette tape, which included the songs, was recorded at a motel in Sarasota. The second part, which included messages to his brother and father, was recorded at the Bennigan's campsite. As we discussed in part two, the tape ends with Danny saying to his dad and father was recorded at the Bennigan's campsite. As we discussed in part two, the tape ends with Danny saying to his dad, quote, I let you down. I'm sorry for that. Well, I'm going to sign off for a little bit. I got something I got to do. I love you. Bye.

End quote. Agents asked what that something that Danny had to do was, and Danny answered, but for himself this time. He said it was to commit murder. He recorded that portion of the tape right before he left to find his first Ripper victim. Wow. Wrapping it all up for him. Nice little bow. And he's using his own voice now, which is, you know, progress. You're growing, Danny. You're a big boy now. And you also have this tape that's found at the scene that through voice analysis can be used to compare Danny's voice to the voice on the tape. There's just an overwhelming amount of evidence here, even with some of the discrepancies we had. I'll take this. If I'm the investigator, I'm feeling pretty good right now.

Yeah, I agree. And also, now we're going to have these questions of, OK, his motives. He says his motives was to kill a victim for each of the five years he was in this jail and treated poorly. Bullshit. OK, I don't believe that. You're not a victim, buddy. believe that either. Okay. What I think was more accurate to his motivation was when they asked him why did he cut Krista's head off? And he said a strong urge, like a hunger, sexual drive or desire, possession, a force compelling him to do these things. It's your sickness. You're a sexual predator. You raped these women. Did you get raped in jail? Is there some sort of like symbology behind that? You know, like that, oh yeah, I raped one woman for each year that I was, you know, what's your motive there? Clearly your motive was to peep in on these women. You got excited by seeing them in a voyeuristic situation where they didn't know you were watching them and then you had to make

them yours. That was your motive. But you're using all these other motives to, A, make yourself look like a victim and make yourself look crazy so you can't be held accountable for your crimes. And we see through it. At least I do. And Derek, too. Sure. No, I agree with you.

I definitely do agree with you. I think these guys always have an excuse. I don't care who it is or what the crime. There's always a reason for it. 90% of the time, it's never just, hey, I just did this crime because I wanted to do it. There's always an excuse. They've always been a victim of the system. And this is their retaliation.

But with this case, I do agree with you. It was about control. It was about the gratification of having someone be helpless in that moment. And then the sickening element of this, where even after their deaths, proceeding to have his way with their bodies, uh, when they can no longer defend themselves, just a really sick individual who, uh, should never have even been let out of prison in the first place. But unfortunately, because of the crimes he committed, that just wasn't possible.

The crimes he got caught committing, right? Correct. That's just, it wasn't possible at the time. Yeah. I mean, I feel like the majority of the time, people like Danny Rowling, they do commit these crimes just because they want to, but they never say that's the reason. No, no. So Danny went on to tell the agents about his father, explaining that he didn't hate him. In fact, he loved him.

But things changed when Danny was a teenager and his father discovered that he liked to peep in windows. Even though his dad knew what was going on, the peeping became an obsession for Danny. But it's because you were in prison, right? And you were badly treated in prison. Stephanie, are you telling me he was peeping in windows before he went to prison in Mississippi? Right. Before he was mistreated in prison, he was still a creep. Oh, so, okay. Well, that doesn't line up. That doesn't line up, my dude. Yeah. So. Should have thought this story out a little bit more. Yeah. Well, they don't, they don't care because they just think people like Danny are just going to think like, well,

they've got to prove that my motive isn't what I say it is. And only I know my motive and it's in my head and they'll never get it. I will say just one thing. It is important for investigators to ask these type of questions. Although the why, the motive, if you will, is important. It's more about the who, what, where, when and how, you know, they want to, they want to get those facts together because that's stuff that they can go back and they can, you know, compare, contrast and corroborate through their own evidence, through their own investigatory practices. They're asking the why, and yes, they do want to know, but really it's also an investigative

tactic to get this person to open up more, to let them feel like their voice is being heard because then they'll be more receptive to providing more information. So I will tell you, there have been times when I'm interrogating someone where I'm sitting there listening to the sob story, knowing it's complete bullshit, but I entertain it and I enable them and allow them to continue to tell their story, feeling like they're being heard. When in reality, I just want to talk about the crimes and the victims involved in that case, because that's what I'm there for. But it is a part of it.

And I don't know if they were doing it for this purpose. But to allow him to spew his nonsense is a way of getting him to be more comfortable, which may have contributed to him speaking on his own. So who knows? It all comes together. Well, speaking of a sob story, Danny's got a great one, right? So he said. They all do he he used peeping as an escape from the turmoil in his household peeping allowed him to see how many

other people lived how they were happy and in a way he would become a member of their family so he's just like tiny tim you know he's like oliver twist he's just like oliver twist you know like more please sir he's just a Twist. He's like Oliver Twist, you know, like more, please. He's just a little poor boy just escaping the turmoil of his house, creepily peeping into people's windows to feel like he's a part of their family. So he can kill them. Yeah. So he can kill them later. But yeah, agents then asked Danny for more details about his campsite and murder kit. They wanted to know where the tent, screwdriver, gloves, ski mask,

duct tape, and other items came from. Danny continued speaking for himself, and he said he bought the tent at Walmart, and while there, he stole the screwdriver and gloves. He couldn't remember where he got the duct tape, but he admitted that he bought and stole all of the items specifically to commit murder. After around four hours of speaking with Danny and Bobby, the interview ended and agents went to search for the gloves and knife that Danny claimed he'd buried near the chicken coop. However, they were never able to pinpoint the location due to how big the area was. On February 4th, agents returned to the prison and they met with Danny and Bobby again. This time,

Danny was asked more about his different personalities and he explained that he had been dealing with multiple personalities all of his life, but they became especially prevalent when he was in solitary confinement in Mississippi, where his cell would get flooded several times a week with three inches of raw sewage. He described Enad, the Jesse James-type personality, as not a good person, but not truly evil. The personality he really struggled against was Gemini, who was evil. Danny stated that he wasn't insane when he committed the murders. He had no one to blame but himself. Still, he wanted to understand what happened. And he said, quote, Danny's not that person. Anybody that has ever known me knows that Danny just wanted to be a good person

and a likable person, somebody who cared. And I do care, end quote. Oh, let me get the violin. But this is all great. We're not going into every single line of this interview. But as I just mentioned, by allowing him to open up and talk about his life, his childhood, these interviewers are creating a relationship with him where you saw this progression of even when they're talking directly to him, he's going, I'm not answering anything.

Bobby's my mouthpiece, as you said, right? Now, as this relationship is growing and these interviewers are doing a good job, Danny's becoming more comfortable. Is he also maybe enjoying retelling this a little bit in his own voice? I think enjoying it, but, and also feeling like he's being heard maybe. And so this is an opportunity where he's seeing Bobby have these conversations with interviewers and probably this entire time wanting to speak for himself. And it wasn't until. He's like, I'm letting this guy talk about my achievements.

Yeah. Yeah. And so he finally, when he feels like he's being heard and it's an opportunity to make himself look like the victim as well, he decides to speak on his own and without probably saying anything, it happened organically and interviewers just immediately turn their attention to Danny and allow him to keep spewing his words because that's what they wanted in the first place. So now they've developed this rapport and they can get the information directly from him. And by allowing him to speak on his own accounts, it does make the whole confession itself more

credible going forward because now you have a situation where the defense can't really use this as a defense because by the end of it, Danny was speaking directly to investigators. Danny's not a bad guy. Danny's a good boy. He just wants to be a part of the family. He's a good boy. So weird. So before leaving the interview, the agents asked Danny if he had anything to say to the victim's families. And he said he hoped they could find it in their hearts to forgive him. That way, the bitterness and hatred they felt toward him wouldn't destroy what was left of their lives. Oh, how kind of you, Danny. Yeah, thanks. He would like them to forgive you for them. Well, it's really, he's very thoughtful and considerate, actually. Danny just wants to

be a good person, a likable person, somebody who cares. And he does care. He does. Danny cares. About himself. Yeah, gross. So the following day, Danny's fiance, Sandra, was finally allowed to visit him in prison for the first time. And unfortunately, it's interesting, but we're going to have to save the details of that visit

for the next episode. This is a great episode. And investigators did a great job once they had an avenue to explore. Although I will say, uh, if Bobby, we talk a lot of shit about Bobby,

if not for Bobby and his own self-serving reasons, we might not be where we are right now. So we can hate on him a lot, but Bobby had his, uh, had some goals and ambitions and regardless of the why as to, you know, his intention behind doing all of this, it was benefiting the families of the victims. So I don't really give a shit his motive behind doing it as long as he's telling

the truth. And the fact that he was doing this for himself and yet still benefiting the case, I'm fine with it. And I'm glad to see that once investigators had someone that they could dive into and explore, they didn't screw it up because that can also happen where they, where they, they go, they take the wrong approach and the, the offender clams up and they don't say anything. So they approach it the right way and give credit where credit's due. It started off with the offender being reserved and they were able to get him to open up and eventually speak to them directly, giving a lot more credibility

to the entire confession itself, which is not guaranteed. So it's great news. And overall, my takeaway from this part is we got our guy, but I'm still left with those questions as to whether or not it's him, it's a co-conspirator,

or a combination of the two where there was someone else involved that he hasn't admitted to yet. I don't think that's the case, if I'm being honest. But that's at least what we're dealing with here, where there's inconsistencies in the story, and they may be just a situation where he's killed so many people he can't remember all the facts, more than likely the case. But you still have to vet those comments. And you have to also discuss those concerns you have.

Because if you don't, the defense will. And that's what I'm concerned about here. I know we got our guy. My concern is, what's the outcome of this case? Because regardless of the facts, there are some holes here. And because you're addressing them, I'm wondering if it's going to be a bigger issue as we get into the outcome of this case, the trial of this case. So we'll see where it goes. about was Danny actually this horribly abused child, right? He says he was. Some members of his family say he was, but his wife said, I don't know what you're talking, his first wife said, I don't know what you're talking about. He had a great relationship with his father. And even Danny says, yeah, I loved my father. He just, you know, didn't really like that I was a peeping Tom when

he was a police officer and that he didn and that it didn't sit well with him. He doesn't really say anything about this abuse right now to the police. So we have that question of was he actually abused at this point, right? And we also have the question of, are you going to go for a defense of mental insanity, claiming you have multiple personalities? You say to the police, oh, I'm not crazy. This is my responsibility. But your defense team is going to feel a little bit differently. And if they can prove with an expert witness that you do have a mental health issue, that's obviously going to bode better for you during sentencing. So we have questions that we have to talk about here

as to the mitigating circumstances behind why Danny might be considered less culpable for his actions and get a better sentence. Yep. And that's why I have the concerns with the trial. I will say as far as his why, I don't think you or anybody else out there feels bad for him. And it's in any way, shape or form a justification for his actions, I will put this out there. Understanding the why, I know I said earlier, I'm not too concerned about it, not for the case specifically, but as far as law enforcement is concerned, there is a lot of information that can be taken from these stories because if it's valid, you can start to use these profiles to hopefully

proactively prevent these things from happening in the future and also identifying individuals who are more susceptible to this type of behavior before they commit these acts. So we talk about profilers and the behavior analysis unit with the FBI and looking for individuals who may have this predisposition to this type of violence. And so if you start to see a pattern with these serial killers where they've all experienced similar things in childhood or early adulthood, then you can create something where maybe there's a system down the road where as we're doing a better job of tracking what people have been through as children

and as young adults, we can give them the resources they need to prevent something like this from happening. So I don't want to diminish or minimize the importance of the why, because although it won't change the outcome of this case, it could help future cases from even happening. So there is value in that. And so you have to let him speak because there may be some information that comes from it that could be advantageous in the future. There is value in it. And like I said, it would affect his sentencing. Of course.

Yeah, that's at minimum. At minimum. So we don't feel bad for him. You and I, most people listening, we don't feel bad for him. The legal system, the justice system is different. They do look at different circumstances and say, well, we can see why this circumstance may have contributed to the behavior that he exhibited. We can you know, they can say that. And I don't know why it matters, honestly, at that point, because it's like you're not safe to be around people. But, you know, at least maybe they would get him some mental health help or something.

I'm looking forward to part four. Any final words from you? Nope. That's it. I'm going to say one thing. This is the last time I'm going to do it. I'll give you guys a little insight if you made it to the end of this episode, because some of you have already ticked off when we start doing our final thoughts, but you stuck around, so you're getting this information. Criminal Coffee newsletter. We send it out once a month or every other month. We just sent one out and we sent it out about a week ago. So if you're on the newsletter, you already got this information, new update in the Criminal

Coffee universe, but also at the bottom of that newsletter, there was a 10% off code, which we don't do all the time. The code is stealth 10 and it's a little tribute to our new latest decaf roast. So it's stealth 10, all one word. I'm going to provide it here, but I'm going to start making it a habit where if you're part of the newsletter, which you can go over to criminalcoffeeco.com, sign up for the newsletter. It's free. We do not spam you. The only real updates we put out there is when we have a new product, a new update in the criminal coffee universe, an update on a case, something like that, or a code like this. So take a second, go over to criminalcoffeeco.com,

sign up for the newsletter. Absolutely free. We will not spam you. You can always unsubscribe, but you're going to get advantages like this for the code, which I'm going to start not putting it in the episodes to allow individuals who are supporting us through the going to get advantages like this for the code, which I'm going to start not putting it in the episodes to allow individuals who are supporting us through the newsletter to get these codes without anybody else knowing about it. Little, little secret form. So stealth,

a little secret code, go check it out for him. You're now undercover agents of the criminal coffee universe. You're now undercover pineapple agents, but I'm a bad witness. Cause I just, I just dimed everybody out. I'm Bobby.

That's all right. You're Bobby. I'm Bobby. You're Bobby and Danny combo. Yes. Yes. God, I hope not. As always, we appreciate you guys being here. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you next week. Bye.