Crime Weekly - S3 Ep239: Gainesville Ripper: The Making of a Serial Killer (Part 5)

Episode Date: September 6, 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. ZipRecruiter.com/CrimeWeekly - Try ZipRecruiter for FREE! 2. Smalls.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY and get 50% off your first order and FREE shipping! 3. RocketMoney.com/CrimeWeekly - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and more today! 4. FactorMeals.com/CrimeWeekly50 - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY50 and get 50% off! 5. HelixSleep.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 25% off ALL mattresses and two FREE pillows!

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On February 15th, 1994, just as jury selection was about to begin for Danny Rowling's trial in the Gainesville Ripper murders of Christy Powell, Sonia Larson, Krista Hoyt, Manny Tabato, and Tracy Paul as Danny shocked the courtroom and all of us by pleading guilty. But the trial was far from over. Danny still had to face the penalty phase where the judge and the jury would decide if he should receive life in prison or the death penalty. During the opening statements of this phase, the prosecution argued that Danny deserved death, citing several aggravating factors, including the heinous and cruel nature of the murders. But on the other hand, the defense urged the jury to consider a life sentence pointing to mitigating factors, such as Danny's abusive childhood and the impact it had on his mental

state at the time of the crimes. So that's kind of where we're at here. Mitigating factors versus aggravating factors. Which is the jury and the judge going to lean more towards? And is the defense going to be able to put up compelling enough mitigating factors to convince the jury that a man who's admitted to committing these five heinous murders deserves a break in any way, shape, or form? That's where we're at. Yeah. And you would think that automatically the answer to that question would be no, they're not willing to give him a break based on not only the, how many people he murdered,

but also the manner in which those deaths were carried out. As we've talked about over the last four episodes, horrific. This guy's a sick, sick, sick person and uh should never ever be given any type of leniency uh for what he did but uh and that's just murder in general never mind what he did here and some might people some people might say like oh you know life sentence death penalty both of these are bad some might even argue that uh the death penalty is a less bad punishment because he gets to not live with the the guilt of the crimes he committed but you know i i would like to then point to the fact that i don't believe these people feel guilt for the crimes they committed i think they enjoy reliving them and things so yeah in in danny rolling situation

i think the death penalty is probably the best because it stops him from taking pleasure in reliving the murders of these innocent people. But right. And to get gratification off the hurt that he causes the families, seeing to believe that Rex Hererman's guilty, that's literally what he was doing, reaching out to the victim's family members to kind of bring up what was going on and talk about their loved one and talk about what happened to them right before. He wasn't doing that for any other reason than his own gratification. So by being around and having the opportunity to watch TV and see these people discuss the hurt that he has caused in a way might make him feel good about the situation. I would also argue, and this is maybe a hot topic, but some would say that it's a little too easy in prison for some of these guys.

They got cable TV, meals all, you know, three meals, four meals a day. They're playing games. They got access to gym equipment, basketball courts, all these meals, four meals a day. They're playing games. They got access to gym equipment, basketball courts, all these different things. I'm not saying I want to be in prison. It's not what I'm saying here, but I pose this question to all of you. If you had someone who was taken from you and you knew that the person responsible was playing in a five-on-five basketball game at the local prison or at the federal level, even, whatever it is. Would you feel good about that? Would you feel like they're paying for what they did?

Or getting his college degree, you know? Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Like your children went to college or attending classes. They don't get to graduate, but this person gets to go to prison, get their GED, and then get like their master's degree in prison. Yeah. Different conversation for a different day. But I personally believe that if we know for certain that these, I'm saying certain, and we've talked about it with Scott Peterson and others, if there is no doubt based on tangible evidence that supports the notion that they killed someone,

then at that point they should go. They should go. Now, if there's any question and I say Scott Peterson for a perfect example, because I believe he did it, but there, I would be a fool not to, you know, not to admit there is a world where he didn't do it. In that case, I do not see a situation where he should be given the death penalty because there is a world where it comes out that he's not responsible. So it has to be clear cut and convincing to go the death penalty route. But if it in fact is the case, then see you later, buddy, or see you never. People like this, they definitely don't deserve to live and they don't deserve to have access

to all of these things when their victims no longer have access to anything. But that's just, that's my opinion. But either way, you're going to prison for life or you're dying. You know, neither of these options in front of you are ideal. No, not good. Yeah. We just kind of got to see what kind of arguments either side's going to make. And honestly, it's pretty much standard. And this was, you know, back in the 90s, and we still see it, where the defense attorneys will come out, oh, and the sob stories and the sad, this person was never loved, and this person had so much hate in their life, and they were beaten by their parents, and this, this, and that. And it's just it bothers me because it's like I don't consider

these to be mitigating factors because we we know for a fact thousands and hundreds of thousands of people have terrible, terrible childhoods, get beaten, get sexually assaulted, get neglected to such an incredible extent that psychologically they are they're screwed up forever. But they still do not take that out on others, you know, and sadly, they're mostly taking it out on themselves. They don't take it out on others. So what's the difference between somebody like Danny Rawlings and the other hundreds of thousands of people who had childhoods just like his, if not worse, who didn't decide

to become serial killers? And that's kind of my thing where it's like, is there any mitigating factors that make this okay? No, at the end of the day, it's self control. And it's a feeling of this is my decision. This is a decision. And I read a comment on the video that just posted, because we're filming this on Monday and our videos went out yesterday. So part four, and somebody said, you know, people with multiple personality disorders aren't necessarily aware of the other personalities. They wouldn't be aware enough to like describe these personalities, have them by name. And I don't know how that works, you know, clinically in a clinical. And actually I have a call with

Dr. Chris Mohandy later for another piece. Love him. And I'm going to ask him about this multiple personality disorder or what they used to call split personalities, things like that. I want to ask, like, are the people who are involved in this kind of psychological condition aware of these other personalities almost to the point where they're like, they actually look at them as separate entities, as separate individuals. I am curious about that. So I will ask him and then later when we, because we're starting a new series at the

beginning of that, I'll just kind of update you on what he told me. But it is an interesting statement. Yeah, that is a good observation. He's very aware of these personalities. Yeah, they have names. He knows what their motivations are, you know. Yeah. When opening statements of the penalty phase were over, the prosecution set out to prove four aggravating factors.

For two of the factors, the proof was very straightforward and the prosecution didn't have to do much to prove them. And one of these factors was that the murders of Christy, Sonia, Krista, Manny, and Tracy were committed in conjunction with other felonies, armed burglary, and in the case of Christy, Krista, and Tracy, rape. The prosecution didn't really have to take additional steps to convince the jury of this factor since Danny had already admitted to these crimes when he pleaded guilty. The other aggravating factor that was easily proven was Danny's history of violent felonies. With 12 prior convictions across 15 years, Danny's record spoke for itself, confirming his status as a violent repeat offender. And with a repeat offender like this, what the prosecution is usually going to do is try to show a recidivism rate.

How likely is this person to do is try to show a recidivism rate. How likely is this person to recommit crimes? When you have someone like Danny, who has 12 prior convictions across 15 years, that's almost one a year. It's pretty likely that this is not a person who can ever rein their behavior in enough to function in society. Or be given the opportunity to try. Right. We say this before, we've said this other times where you think about what you're risking here. If you're on the fence and there's a high likelihood that they're going to reoffend,

the risk here is that another person will die because of it. So if you're wrong, there's another life lost that you can't get back. So I really feel like in this situation, you have to be conservative. And if it's not abundantly clear that this person's not going to offend again, you can't let them back out. And this goes for,

because this guy's either going to prison for life or dying, right? That's right. Some people might say, what does it matter if he's likely to re-offend? Well, you still have other prisoners in there with him. Right. So, oh, yeah, it's not just about the innocent people outside. It's about the people in prison who are genuinely trying to do their time, who are genuinely trying to rehabilitate because they want to eventually get out. Right. And be productive citizens to society. And they are in danger of a person like Danny. The violence doesn't stop when you go to prison. Sometimes you see it almost like find its home. Like, oh, I'm in the zoo with all the other animals and now I can be the feral animal, the pussycat, the wild pussycat that I was intended

to be. I become the lion and now I can just take it out on all these other prisoners. So you still have to protect everybody from him. Although word to the wise, I wouldn't be in prison referring to yourself as the wild pussycat because that could backfire on you. But my maximum man, you can come in and he might be, he might get in the maximum number of boyfriends in prison he's coming in he's calling himself pussycat he's strutting his stuff he's like i'm pussycat i'm the maximum man and i'm the darkness in the wind and they're like dude yeah they're like maybe getting some unwanted attention yeah he's gonna get some attention it's not for his singing not yet but

eventually maybe you know he could start his own band in prison. People do that all the time. So for the most part, the prosecution focused on proving to the jury that the other two factors were true, that the murders were heinous, atrocious, and cruel. Goes without saying. And that they were committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner. Once again, goes without saying. Now, to do this, the prosecution introduced Danny's confessions to Bobby Lewis and Russell Binstead, as well as the confessions made to the police with Bobby. The prosecution also had Russell and Bobby testify, and Russell didn't really have anything new to add beyond what we've already talked about in previous parts of the

series. But Bobby, remember, Bobby and Danny were tight for a while. They were like, you know, they had fused, basically. So he probably had some more insight and some extra closeness and connection with Danny that Russell did not. When Bobby testified, he had some new stuff to say that we haven't already talked about in previous parts of the series. Bobby said Danny told him the victims he raped were alive for a, quote, fairly long time before he killed them. Danny further told Bobby that he decapitated Krista to make a statement. He was trying to terrorize the city of Gainesville and trying to make himself famous. He wanted to be a superstar among criminals,

which makes sense why he would work with someone like Sondra London, who's going to write a book about his crimes. He's not trying to hide these crimes. He's proud of them. The prosecution told the jury that Danny's confessions, along with Russell's and Bobby's testimonies, proved just how brutal, heinous, and calculated the murders of Christy, Sonia, Christy, Manny, and Tracy had been. These weren't your average murders. They were torture sessions where victims were brutally attacked with a knife. Sometimes victims were kept alive for long periods only to be raped and tortured. These were murders worthy of the death penalty. We're going to take our first break. We'll be right back. So when it came time for the defense to present their case, they attempted to counter the prosecution's aggravating factors with mitigating ones, such as Danny's dysfunctional family background and the claim that he committed the crimes while under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. And there was also, you know, some some talk from Danny that that he'd been under the influence of cocaine and that he'd been under the influenceing, right? And knowing that you're already, I don't know, like several screws loose, but okay. as far as what was done to avoid apprehension. There were mechanisms put in place by the offender, Danny,

to try to avoid being caught by the police. So if you're so out of it and you're just emotionally disturbed and on coke and all these other things, you're probably going to make more mistakes than you made, which is going to lead to your apprehension much quicker. But that's not what happened here. So clearly he was coherent enough to understand what he was doing and what he had to do to try to avoid being caught by law enforcement, which tells me he was more than in the right mind state to, to be held accountable for what he did and not make excuses for it. Yeah. If you're like they, cause they're trying,

okay. So they're trying to say that Danny Rowling was a victim of constant physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his father during his childhood. Therefore, he was mentally ill. Therefore, he's not accountable for his actions. But he's not mentally ill enough to not try to cover up the actions, which just in that act of trying to cover up the actions means you knew they were wrong, which means you knew the difference between right and wrong, which means you knew what you were doing was wrong, which means you're still responsible. I don't care what happened to you in your childhood. You're still responsible. Yeah. I think both things can be true too. And this doesn't just apply to this case. It applies to any case and you hit on it already. It can be true that one of the people that we're discussing, one of the offenders may have had a traumatic childhood. They may have been

beaten, sexually assaulted, molested, whatever the case may be. It all could be true. And we can sympathize with that and understand that that's unfortunate that they went through that and, and condemn what they went through. Cause obviously it should never happen to any child. But if everybody who experienced trauma in their life was given a pass or, or an excuse made for them to go out and commit crime. It would be the purge three 65. Exactly. I mean, you think about the parents of Sandy hook. Imagine if they went around shooting people that were, were not that reminded them of the, yeah, that were out there committing crimes with guns or anybody who was like a pro

gun person, you know, like that's pretty much what danny's doing here right so so it's like two wrongs don't make a right i know that sounds so just basic but it's basic because it's true we can acknowledge that danny probably went through some shit and also acknowledge that maybe even because of those things he is an absolute monster and a scumbag at this point and should not be allowed around anyone. Both can be true. That's the point I'm trying to make. Right. Like, it sucks.

Sorry. Sorry, but it is what it is. Obviously, they're going to bring up Danny's mother, Claudia, right, to prove and support this argument that Danny had a dysfunctional family. So we've got Claudia. She married Danny's father, James Rowling, in 1953. She was just 19 years old. It was in Georgia. And then she got pregnant with Danny two weeks later. So two weeks after the wedding, she's pregnant. And apparently her husband, James Rowling, was disgusted by this, was not happy about it, I guess didn't want a kid. They don't really say why he was disgusted with it, just he

didn't, he wasn't happy with it. And Claudia testified about how Danny's father, James, began abusing her the year they got married. When she was pregnant with Danny, things didn't change. At one point, James choked her so severely that she nearly passed out. And after Danny was born, James continued abusing Claudia. He would strike her, hold her down, push her, often leaving her covered in bruises. Claudia said that Danny and his younger brother, Kevin, they witnessed the abuse. And as they grew older, they tried to to help her but they were terrified of their father and they begged her to leave and never go back and Claudia tried to do that but it just never worked and yeah obviously I could totally see how seeing these things happen to your mother we saw this in the Menendez brothers case too with Eric and Lyle witnessing they knew their father was terrible to them. They also knew he was

terrible to their mother, Kitty. And even though Kitty was terrible to them, kind of as a result of being abused by Jose, her husband, they still had sympathy for her. They still felt like, oh, she's another victim of our father. We feel bad for her. Like, why won't she get out of this? So that will do a number on your children, especially if you've got boys and they feel like it's their job to protect their mother, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, it's going to be hard to deal with. Now, Claudia testified that James's rage wasn't solely directed at her, and he began abusing Danny very early on. The first incident was when Danny was basically just crawling.

He had just started to crawl. And apparently, James didn't like the way that Danny crawled, so he kicked him down the hall. After this, James continued the abuse. And when Kevin was born, James abused him as well. I have something to say about this. So the physical abuse included whippings with a belt, punches to the tops of their heads, shoving and holding them by the throat against the wall. Claudia said the boys were whipped at least twice a week. However, Danny received most of the whippings because Kevin quickly learned to hide his emotions and stay out of his father's way.

And James would also handcuff or tie up the boys as a form of punishment. So basically what I'm hearing from Claudia is that your two sons, Danny and Kevin, received essentially the same treatment, saw the same things when James was abusing Claudia, received the same type of abuse. And yet Danny was the one who grew up to become a serial killer and Kevin did not. Right? Ah, yeah. great point. So this is exactly what I'm talking about. You can say nature, you can say nurture. And I would say both Kevin and Danny had very similar, both nature and nurture. They were both raised by the same parents. They both received the same treatment. They have the same genetics. You know, it's all very almost identical, as close as you can get.

As far as like a psychological study, this is as close as you can get. One brother turns out to be a serial killer. The other does not. Well, how does the defense explain that? Well, as you said, it's a choice to a certain degree, right? It's a choice to act on impulse. I mean, I can understand if someone's going to come on here and say, well, listen, they can't control their thoughts. I get it. They have an impulse. They're thinking about something, but at the core of it, they know whatever they're thinking about, they know whether it's right or wrong. There's no doubt in my mind that Danny, before carrying out these crimes, envisioned what he was going to do. And at the core, he knew that it was wrong. And yet he still chose do it. If he didn't believe it was wrong, he wouldn't go to the lengths he went to to cover it up. So I feel like there may be some

thoughts, some visions that come into your mind based on previous trauma, but whether you choose to act on it or not is where I am really focused because I feel like other people who have gone through similar types of trauma may have similar thoughts about other people because of what they went through. And yet they chose not to do those things. And that's why maybe Kevin, maybe Kevin did have some similar feelings to Danny and just chose a different path, which is why he's not in prison and Danny is. Well, hold on. Hold on.

I have to talk about that. I want to tell you. Oh, no. Is Kevin in prison? I want to tell you what Kevin says. Oh, Jesus. I thought you were going to say, no, Kevin's actually in prison. No, no, no.

I was going to say, okay, well, then take that all out. Kevin's not in prison, right? Kevin, who's Danny's younger brother and closest friend. Is a priest. He had a steady job at the time this trial's going on. He's never been arrested. And not only that, he didn't remember any beatings, no physical abuse. He said he had an ordinary childhood.

Yep. He said, and he testified, he had an ordinary childhood with a father who liked to take his two sons camping and hunting and fishing. So. Well, I could take that two ways, though. And I hate when I do this because it almost sounds like I'm defending Danny. Maybe you have a situation where Danny was abused and Kevin wasn't. So their childhood. Claudia's testifying here, the mother, and saying they were both abused.

They were both whipped at least twice a week. They both saw me get abused. Why would Kevin say that there was no abuse? Yeah. Because there was no abuse. So it's just his mom and Danny making this stuff up for the purposes of getting him off or getting him some type of sympathy. Check this out.

So Claudia, Danny Rowling's mother, the chief source of the abuse allegations against her estranged husband. The prosecution produced records of a 1980 interview with a mental health official in which Claudia Rowling acknowledged very, very quickly and readily she would lie to protect her son. There you go. Let's consider the source of that information. So the apple didn't fall far from the tree in that sense, where whatever you got to say, you'll say it. And this is another thing that I've dealt with throughout my career. Sometimes you have criminals who commit horrific acts and they start to tell you about their childhood and what they've been through, even in their adulthood.

And although you don't agree with what they did, you understand how, how it came to be. Then there are other situations where you have criminals come in and they give you every excuse in the book as to why they did what they did. And as, as to why, what they did is actually not their fall. It's a societal issue. They're a product of their environment. And they're basically just playing the victim the whole time, even though they're the ones that just killed or robbed someone. So you also have those people as well, where they embellish everything that they've been through in their life in order to justify why they're currently sitting in my interview room being interrogated. But yeah, you get both sides of the coin. So let's continue with what Claudia claims. She said that after one particularly brutal beating

at the hands of his father, James, when Danny was in high school, he escaped through a bathroom window and he left a note that was written on the bathroom mirror in lipstick. And it said, quote, I tried. I just can't make it, end quote. He then went to a nearby drive-in theater and contemplated suicide, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Claudia explained that Danny joined the Air Force when he was 17, but he was discharged not long after. He then became involved with the Pentecostal Church, where he met Omather. Remember, this is his wife. They got married and had a child, but their relationship quickly began to deteriorate. One morning, O'Mather called

Danny's parents saying that Danny wouldn't get out of bed and go to work. Claudia and James went over to their house and James went into the bedroom where Danny was lying in bed. James straddled him, grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head back, and held a knife to his throat. Claudia said O'Mather and Danny eventually divorced, and Danny didn't take it well. But remember, we talked about O'Mather, Danny's wife, and her recollection of his relationship with his father, James. And she was like, James was great. He helped us out with money, anything we needed, he helped us out. He was always there for his son.

She never saw any issues between the two men. And Danny never told her that he was abused by his father and never let on that there was anything, you know, that was between him and his father. So after the divorce, Danny began robbing grocery stores and eventually ended up in prison. When he was released, he returned home to Shreveport, where he tried to work, but he couldn't hold down a job. He told Claudia he was depressed and he felt useless and worthless. Claudia testified that at one point after Danny was back home, she and Danny were sitting at the kitchen table when she noticed something strange. Danny's entire appearance seemed to change. His whole face looked different. It was hard,

and his voice was unrecognizable, coarse and deep. Then he seemed to flip back. His face softened and his voice returned to normal. When Claudia asked what happened, Dani told her that there was a person inside of him, someone who was part of him, and that person had a name. Claudia couldn't recall the name he gave, but she remembered it was a horrible name, not something she wanted to remember.

Yeah, this is already a start to that split personality thing, right? Well, this would be after his divorce, so not long before his crime spree started, but yeah, allegedly. And you had said earlier, as far as the commenter who said, well, this person wouldn't be aware of the different personalities if it was in fact the case. I bet you we can get someone on here who would dispute that and say, no, you can be aware of these multiple personalities and it be a true case of mental health that needs to be addressed. It used to be called multiple personality disorder, and I still think it's interchangeable, but dissociative identity disorder. So according to the internet, some people do have DID without knowing. And some people are aware of their other identities,

but they're not aware when the other identity takes over. This is very complicated. It is complicated. I feel like wouldn't you have a memory gap? Like, wouldn't you be like, where was I last night? I guess one of my other identities took over. You just assume, I guess. I think overall, my takeaway is there's probably some truth that what Danny experienced through his childhood and they them as a young adult contributed to his mental health and and ultimately resulted in him doing what he did I've always said this and people get mad sometimes when I do that if you're willing to kill someone there's there's something different about you

there's something off and people. There's something off. And people are like, oh, no, you can't blame every homicide on mental health issues because there's people with mental health problems that wouldn't kill. Completely agree with you. But your ability to say, I don't like this person or this is something that I need to do to feel better about myself, you shouldn't have those thoughts. So if you do, there's something going on what's where you are on that spectrum i'm not a professional or an expert in that category but there's something off there and the question is why how did you get to that point we're starting to get the background with danny as to what progressed in his life to result in him doing what he did.

I feel like if you were not messed up and broken before you killed somebody, you should be after. I don't know how you would do that, where you would take a life, like remove a person from the earth and be intact after, right? So there is something in people because I don't want this at all to be like, oh, every person with DID or every person with mental health issues or every person with like trauma in their childhood.

And this is kind of the whole zeitgeist that has kind of appeared now. All of these people are a danger for doing something like this. Absolutely not. I don't think that. And I think it's horrible. And I think when these people go up and use their mental illnesses as defenses for why they did it, it makes everybody with that same mental illness look bad. It kind of puts like a, what is it called? I can't think of the word today. Pain everyone with the same brush? Yeah, it puts a stigma.

It puts a stigma over that mental illness because you're using it as an excuse for why you did it. But at the end of the day, the unique factor about you, your choice was the reason you did it. That was just a contributing factor. But you made the choice to use that contributing factor and to allow it to turn you into a victim that made you feel like you had the right and that you were completely justified in hurting someone else. That's the difference between somebody who doesn't use their trauma as a crutch and an excuse and somebody who does. And not only about the before, but the after. It doesn't appear based on what we've covered over the last five episodes that Danny displayed any form of emotional empathy. And by definition, the lack of emotional empathy is a psychopath. So how he got there, we're figuring that out.

But by definition, he is a psychopath and therefore does have some type of mental disorder. Where that came from, you can be the judge. But we have a lot more to cover. We're going to take another break. We'll be right back. So during her testimony, Danny's mother, Claudia, also spoke about her husband, James's family history. She recounted how James's grandfather had killed his grandmother by slashing her throat from ear to ear while she sat at the table, soaking her feet in a pan of water. James apparently witnessed the murder and remembered

looking down into the water and seeing it turn bloody. Claudia continued with the family history, saying James's mother used to become extremely angry, yelling and doing bizarre things. Claudia assumed she had schizophrenia, which ran in the family. Well, now we're trying to set up this thing that like Danny has schizophrenia now. Yep. Claudia also mentioned that one of James's brothers had attempted and completed suicide. Another had died in a mental institution, and the remaining brother was only functioning because he was on medication. In addition to Claudia's testimony, other family members, including Danny's aunt and cousin, as well as a neighbor, testified about similar abuse they had witnessed when they were

around the Rowling family. It seemed like Danny really did grow up in a dysfunctional family with a lot of abuse, just like the defense was claiming, but was that enough to spare him the death penalty? And once again, it seems like he did, but I don't believe that he did. We have his ex-wife saying there was never any issues between him and his father. We have his own brother who grew up in the same house with him saying, no, there was never any sort of abuse. The prosecution had a letter that Danny Rowling wrote during which he recalled one difficult Christmas when there was very little money for presents. And so his father, James, actually surprised him on Christmas Eve with

the gift of a puppy that they named Rocky. So they're kind of showing that they didn't have a lot that year, but James still found a way to make Christmas special. And over and over, the prosecutors showed that James Rowling was there for Danny when he was really struggling through life. When Danny Rowling dropped out of high school, when he got kicked out of the Air Force, when his marriage fell apart, when he was released from prison in Georgia, when he was released from prison in Mississippi, when he violated probation. Each of these times, James Rowling took Danny back into his home. And when he could have just easily been like, I hate this kid. I've hated this kid since he was a baby. Couldn't even stand the way he crawled. You're on your own now, son. You know, like,

I hope the world sucks you up and spits you back out, but I never want to see you again. But instead, he was there for him with money, with a place to live. Just in general, this does not seem like an abusive person. So in my opinion, he might have been. Who knows? Who knows? I don't even have an opinion on it. He shows signs of both. And actually, both can be true. I've seen times where the father will come home, beat the kids up the night before. And the next day he's taking them to the park because inside they feel guilty about what they did. And so they're kind of that Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde,

where they go back and forth and they could show moments of greatness, which is why people choose to stay sometimes. True. But then also in moments be the most dangerous person in the room. And so you can be both. That's true. But still, let's say nobody really even his own brother was like what abuse right yeah that is that is concerning as far as the overall validity and credibility of the story for sure yeah so but let's say it happened

let's say it happened is it enough considering that hundreds of thousands of people go through the same thing is it enough to spare him the death penalty for these murders? So the defense's other main mitigating factor was that Danny committed the murders while under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. To try and prove this factor, multiple health experts testified about Danny's mental health, his childhood, and the murders. And all of these experts told the jury that they diagnosed Danny with various personality disorders, including borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. The experts believe that due to these various personality disorders, which seemed to stem from his abusive childhood, Danny was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance at the

time of the murders. A lot of experts' testimony was focused on why Danny decided to kill the Gainesville students. One expert testified that Danny told him initially he went into the college students' home to rape, not kill them. When asked why he ended up killing them, Danny said, quote, I can't understand. The only thing I can say is somewhere in my subconscious mind there was a need for revenge for all the things that had gone wrong in my life. End quote. Danny explained that he wanted revenge because of his experiences at Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi, the prison where his solitary confinement cell would get flooded several times a week with three inches of raw sewage. Danny said he was tired of suffering and wanted others to suffer as he had.

The homicides were a way for him to release all his pent up frustration, anger and need to obtain revenge for the way he had been treated in prison. I don't see any way he was treated in prison. He's he's trash. And so why is him sleeping in a cell that's filled with raw sewage and trash a bad thing like trash with trash? So Danny described the deaths as symbolic of his past experiences and past punishment. Danny also talked about his supposed other personalities, Gemini and Yenad, and the role they played in the murders. He described them as broken parts of his personality that were also part of a spiritual world. They were demons that influenced and had some control over his life. Once again, he's romanticizing this. Just demons. I have demons in me. No, you don't have demons in you, dude. Okay. If there's a devil, he's not paying attention to you. You're just not, you're not okay. Can I say something

that might be a little controversial? I don't even think it's controversial, but just a thought. Oh, of course. Why is there such a disparity between rape and murder? To me, let's say he didn't murder them. If you rape a woman, I mean, to's, that's almost as bad as killing her. You're killing a part of her. If not worse. So, and I've never, I've never been obviously a victim of something like that, but I've,

I've worked with victims that have, that have gone through, that have been raped. And I've worked with the family members of rape victims and it affects all of them just as if they were murdered. And so I feel like, oh, you know, if he had just raped them, it wouldn't be as bad as what he did to them after. Well, that's how the law looks at it. Let's be honest. That's why I'm saying it. That's why I'm saying it is because that's how the law looks at it. But I don't necessarily agree with it.

I don't think it's going to change. I'm not a legislator, but I just wanted to bring it up. It was just something I was thinking about. I don't want to say specifically why I think it's like that. And I think because there is not in my opinion, but there's a gray area with rape, you know, where it's like, okay, there's a difference between a stranger breaking into your house and raping you. And then like, oh, you're on a date with somebody and then they raped you. Like there's so it's such a gray area where across the board you can't look at rape as the same as murder because then you'd have to prove that this was actually rape and not

a consensual act. And but when somebody is in their home and a man they do not know breaks into their home and rapes them and rapes them. To me, this is exactly just as bad as murder. This person is changed forever. They will never feel safe. They may never be able to have a functional, healthy relationship again. They may never be able to look at sex in a healthy and functional way, especially if this was one of their first times experiencing sexual activity. You're destroying who they are as a

person forever. So electric chair. I just want to expound upon it a little bit because I think some people might raise an eyebrow. Look at it this way. If you have someone who is convicted of murder and there's the idea that they may get out on parole. And I had mentioned it earlier about the risk, right? Risk worth reward. Letting them out to see if they reoffend. Well, if they were a murderer, if you let them out and they do decide

to reoffend, that means someone else will die or be seriously hurt. Let's apply that same methodology to a rapist. Okay. They rape someone, you let them out at the risk that they may do it again, and they end up raping someone else. Risk worth reward. How should we be viewing these parole hearings and allowing them to get out? And what is the risk to society by giving them the opportunity to reintegrate with our community. I don't know if the risk is worth the reward is what I'm getting at. So on another case that I'm doing on my channel, a series I'm doing, this man, before he went on to obviously escalate his crimes in every single way, raped somebody who I think she was just like trying to get a ride. He raped her. He went to

jail for it. He's out in three years. What does he do within a month of getting out? He rapes another one. He goes back to jail. He's in there for a few years. The literal psychiatrist in jail were like, this guy's a psychopath. He's going to reoffend.

They were like, ah, let's let him out. Because all he did was rape somebody. What does he do? Rape somebody again. So you have life after life after life being destroyed. For what? This guy to get a benefit of the doubt? He doesn't deserve it.

So no eyebrows should be raised about you saying rape is as bad as murder and no eyebrows overall harsher penalties for rape that's what i'm getting at here that's the that's here that's the end of what i was trying to say harsher penalties for rape it shouldn't be much under murder all right so listen there was a psychiatrist, Dr. Harry Kropp. We've actually heard this name before in other cases. I just I can't figure out what other cases, but I've definitely heard Dr. Kropp, he spent a total of 22 hours interviewing Danny Rowling, and he testified that Danny was a fairly bright individual whose blighted childhood had left him with an immaturity and the emotional maturity of a teenager. He said that that Rowling suffered from extreme mood swings, unfocused, impulsive thinking. He said he was narcissistic, histrionic, obsessive compulsive. And he said, quote, I think that Mr. Rowling has an incredible amount of underlying anger. But Kropp's primary diagnosis of Rowling is that he suffered from something called paraphilia. Do you know what

that is? Sounds familiar. You're a peeping Tom. You're a peeping Tom, right? You get off on watching people and fantasizing about them and things. Well, when he was just 14 or 15, he would go out at night, look into people's windows for hours on end. Sometimes he would masturbate as he watched from the darkness. Other times he would watch families engaging in like mundane activities, you know, eating dinner, watching TV in order to feel as if he belonged. Now, how did this sexual disorder relate to his childhood? Dr. Kropp never really explained, and he never really explained to jurors why Danny Rowling graduated from voyeurism to sadistic murder. We don't understand how one thing- Yeah, how did he make that leap? Got to the other, right. Apparently, what he did say, Dr. Kropp, under intense cross-examination by the prosecution, is that Danny Rowling was not insane. Danny knew right from wrong when he killed. He showed cunning and calculation in the way he killed. And he was very much in control of his own actions throughout his sadistic rampage. Very much in control. And remember, this is a doctor, a mental health expert hired by the defense. So with that in mind, let's see what else these people say. And just to go back to what you said two seconds ago, as far as the question as to how we went from peeping in windows to raping

and killing people. Yeah, that's a leap, right? I think it can just be as simple as an evolution or an escalation in terms of trying to get the same gratification you got initially. We see it with drug abusers where they'll start off with something small to get that high. And after a while, they become desensitized to that dosage of whatever they were doing. And they need to take more to experience that same high that they experienced initially. The same thing goes for looking in a window. Once you've done it so many times, you don't get the same gratification from it as you would have it when you first started. So you escalate your means of obtaining that same level of dopamine that you're

looking for. And that's where you have to elevate the risk, which therefore elevates the amount of, I hate to use this word, but excitement you get from the act itself. So they say that that happens with porn, too. People who watch a lot of porn, like initially they're just going with your standard porn and then that's creating dopamine. But after a while, it's not giving the same amount of dopamine. So they start to like go even further, find this like kind of dark alley pornography. And then you get into like stuff with animals and all this stuff. And before they know it, they're in this insanely dark place of the internet. And they're like, how did I get here? It's because your brain's chasing this dopamine. And once you become

so used to something that used to give you a high and it no longer does, you've got to keep it going because that dopamine is very addictive, very, very addictive. And so is this the case with people like Danny Rowling, where it's like, OK, I'm peeping and now I'm raping and now I'm killing and I'm robbing banks. And it's like I just have to keep this this level of newness and uniqueness and dopamine in my life. That's a that's a problem. But there's medication for that. I'll just say that there's medication and there's also natural ways to get dopamine that doesn't include murdering people. So in rebuttal, the prosecution presented their own mental health experts. And this was supposed to disprove that Danny committed the murders while under the influence of extreme emotional or mental disturbance.

While the prosecution's experts agreed that Danny had an antisocial personality disorder, they told the jury that this didn't mean he was under extreme mental or emotional distress at the time of the crimes. In fact, during all of Danny's interviews, he took full blame for the murders and said he knew what he was doing and when he did it. One of the experts further told the jury that everything Danny claimed about his multiple personalities, Gemini and Enid, likely came from the movie The Exorcist 3, which was released around the same time as the Ripper murders. If you've never seen The Exorcist 3, so did most of people. They didn't see it. It was just not a very good movie. So the expert explained that in one interview, Danny admitted to seeing The Exorcist 3 in theaters right before the murders. So the expert then watched the movie and was shocked by how many parallels existed between Danny's story and the movie. For example, in the movie, the killer was named Gemini, just like Danny's really bad personality.

In the movie, Gemini communicated by writing in backward English, similar to how Danny did with the name of his supposed personality, Yened, which is Danny spelled backwards. And to top it all off, the movie shows a bird dying and lights flickering when Gemini is coming or present. And that's exactly the same things Danny reported experiencing whenever Gemini was around during his time at Parchman Prison. So, hmm. It looks like he did draw a little bit of, you know, inspiration from this movie. It's not the first time we've seen that. No. And I think it says that maybe he's not as much of a creative genius as he thought he was. But let's take a quick break and we will be right back. After having their mental health experts testify,

the prosecution told the jury that Danny did come from a dysfunctional family and he had at least one personality disorder. However, they argued that none of this mitigated or even explained away the horror that Danny inflicted on the five college students. They stated, quote, This case isn't about Danny Rowling having a fight at home or as a young man fighting his parents or something like that. This is about Danny Rowling, a man who has an average intelligence, a certain amount of gift, who at 36 years old, after most of his adult life in prison, comes upon strangers. And because he wants to kill them and rape them, they die. That's how simple this is, end quote. When the prosecution and the defense finished presenting their cases, it took the jury only five hours to recommend that Danny be sentenced to death for each and every murder. In their eyes, the mitigating circumstances did not outweigh the horrific crimes that Danny had

committed. However, the judge was not obligated to follow the jury's recommendation. I don't know if people know that, but during sentencing, the jury is going to give their recommendation. The judge does not have to follow it because the judge is also following along throughout the whole trial, including the sentencing phase. And the judge is going to be the final decision about what kind of sentence the offender gets. So a sentencing hearing was scheduled for the future. In the meantime, the judge would weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors and see which came out on top. On April 20th, the final sentencing

hearing was held, and the judge agreed that Danny came from a bad family and that his background contributed to his mental condition at the time of the offense. However, the judge found that this did not outweigh the heinous and calculated murders Danny had committed. And as a result, the judge determined that Danny did deserve the death penalty for each homicide and formally sentenced him to five death sentences. This really didn't come as a surprise to anyone, as it seemed like the death penalty was basically created for people just like Danny. You know, this is not somebody who could be falsely accused. Yeah, they can't be saved. Yeah. And it's not like we're going to question and be like, oh, do we have the wrong guy? No, he confessed. He confessed multiple times. So now under duress. No, no, multiple times. No promises made. So now because Danny was sentenced to death, he was never charged with the

Grissom family murders in Shreveport, Louisiana. However, the case was closed because the police were convinced that Danny was the killer, even though he hadn't formally confessed. At least, not yet. While Danny settled into death row, he continued receiving a lot of media attention. And before the end of 1994, an episode of ABC News' Turning Point about the Gainesville Ripper murders was released. A screenwriter named Kevin Williamson just so happened to see this episode and was inspired to write Woodsboro Murders, which later became the script for the 1996 movie Scream. Then, the same year Scream came out, Danny was actually connected by DNA to yet another crime, this time a rape. As it turns out, between committing the Grissom family murders and the Ripper murders, Danny raped a woman named

Janet in Sarasota, Florida. Normally, I wouldn't name these survivors because that is their story to tell, but Janet has spoken publicly about her experiences. so in this case, I am going to use her name and tell her story. So one night in the summer of 1990, Janet was in her Sarasota home when Danny slipped in through her bedroom window and attacked her in the bathroom with a hunting knife. Wearing leather gloves and a black ski mask, he bound and gagged her with duct tape. At first, she didn't think the situation she was in was real. She thought someone was playing a joke on her. But then she noticed there was so much rage and anger in Danny that it couldn't be a joke. She realized she wouldn't be able to fight him off as he attacked her, so she stayed calm. Now, Janet was actually a fan of true crime books, so she knew she needed to come up with a plan for what to do after Danny was done raping her, basically so he wouldn't kill her, so he wouldn't hurt her.

And she decided to tell Danny that she had some cold beer in the refrigerator and asked if he would like to take a break. Now, this worked, and Danny went from being one of the, quote, meanest, scariest, most violent sons of a bitches you could ever imagine to being really calm and relaxed, end quote. They went downstairs. Janet poured him a beer, and he asked if he could remove his ski mask, but she told him no. She said, keep it on. She didn't want to see his face and have him decide to kill her. Brilliant. Brilliant. Yes. And Janet said she and Danny spent a long time talking about their childhoods.

But by 1.30 that morning, she was exhausted and talked out. I'm sure the fact that she had to sit there with her rapist and pretend to be his friend and pretend to talk to him and give a shit about anything that happened to him after what he did to her in order to survive. It makes me physically sick. It makes me physically sick. But but once again, this is the best way to handle something like this. I mean, her actions without a doubt saved her life. Yeah. Because like just even the mask, if he had taken it off, it might have crossed his mind actions without a doubt saved her life. Yep. Because like just even the

mask, if he had taken it off, it might've crossed his mind. Like I like her now. I want to keep her alive, but I can't, she knows who I am. Well, there's also this, um, they tell you to do that. If you're kidnapped, like find something you can relate to your captor about, even if it's like a television show, you both watch because people, I guess people like Danny, they, they want to kill you less. If they like you, if they feel like there's something about you that's similar to them. They feel compassion. That's how they feel empathy. They don't feel empathy for strangers. They only feel empathy if something about you reminds you of them. Right. So like if you had an abusive childhood and they had an abusive childhood, suddenly they can relate because this is something they already relate to. But if you have something that happened to you that's horrible, but it didn't happen to them, he's really not going to care, right? So yeah, it's all about them. So Janet's tired and she's like, maybe it's time for you to go so I can go to bed. And he was like, okay, I'm going to leave. But he did ask Janet to wait 10 minutes before she called the police.

And then he left. And then Janet called the police. But unfortunately, they weren't able to identify the rapist. And to me, it's like, OK, she poured him a beer. Poured him a beer makes it sound like that she used a glass. Did he not put that glass to his mouth? Right. I mean, who knows what who knows what was used?

It could be glass. Either way, it could have been taken for DNA purposes, fingerprint purposes. Well, he had gloves on. So, but just the fact that you put it to your mouth. He didn't take the gloves off. He's asking to take off the mask. You don't think he took off the gloves? I mean, I'm sure he didn't actually because of fingerprints.

Remember, he's raised by a cop. He didn't take it off because of fingerprints. He was asking to take off his mask. Yeah, because he was going to kill her. Yeah, I guess. You know? So for years, for years, Janet obviously didn't know who raped her because the police couldn't figure it out. But then in 1994, she saw that Danny pleaded guilty to the Ripper murders, and she immediately recognized him by his voice and body language as the man who raped her. So she contacted the police, but they weren't certain that he was her rapist until 1996 when they sent evidence to the FBI for analysis, which confirmed that Danny was the rapist. Since he was already serving a death sentence, he was not taken to

trial over this horrific crime. However, at least Janet now knew the name of the man who caused all that pain and suffering in her life, which I don't know how that helped her. It doesn't, yeah. So it could be a situation where they did have something there forensically that was- Yeah, his semen most likely, yeah. Well, a rape kit for sure, but there may have also been something in the house.

There may have been something that he touched that she did provide to them and say, hey, as we were moving through the house, he put his hand here, he put his lips here, whatever. Whatever it could be. It could be saliva, could be something. But yeah, minimum, they had that rape kit to go back to as well. So once you have DNA to compare it to, you got them.

You got them. Well, at that same time, Danny was being connected to the rape of Janet. He and his fiancee, Sondra London, we haven't talked about her yet today, they published their book, which they titled The Making of a Serial Killer, The Real Story of the Gainesville Murders. Now, when Janet learned that Danny and Sondra had released their book, she went to read it and discovered that Danny had actually talked about raping her in that book. I know, I know, I know, I know. So obviously this is traumatic. So she falls to her knees. She's completely sickened by the details, seeing it from his perspective, right? I can't even imagine. So other people were also upset about Sandra and Danny's book as they should be. And Sandra and Danny published this book. So the publisher of this book is a publishing house called Feral House. And I believe that Sandra is connected to, unexpected and thought provoking nonfiction, inspired films and cultural trends, exposing crime, malfeasance and stupidity and celebrating artists and thinkers overlooked by popular media. Farrell House and Sister Press Process Media are headquartered in Port Townsend, Washington.

They are publishers of topics of esoteric interest and distinctive voices. It's a formidable force in independent publishing. Yeah. So I believe. Yeah. I don't know what the connection is there, but you would think as they were editing this book maybe there would have been some information that they would have uh omitted or provided to law enforcement before publishing it a little bit more responsible with it usually with the publisher you're assigned an editor and so the editor from the publishing company has to go through and read the book

as you're submitting your pages. So whatever. It's still available on Amazon. I wouldn't, you know. Yeah, but not like on Amazon Prime. Like you can't get the Kindle version. It's not on Kindle or Audible. It's just like you could buy a paperback. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. It looks like Feral House and Sondra London work together quite a bit from what I'm seeing. So that's something. Anyways. Yeah. So obviously other people are pissed off about this, which they should be.

Understandably. Yeah. Yeah. And so Danny and Sandra were eventually sued under Florida's version of the Son of Sam law, which prevents convicted felons from profiting from their stories. A judge eventually ruled that neither Sandra nor Danny could profit from Danny's story and $20,000 in proceeds from the book could be seized from Sandra. Now, things just kept getting worse for Danny and Sandra, who, surprise, surprise, I don't know if anybody's really going to be stunned to hear this, they broke up after the book was released. I know. No, I had high hopes for them.

A love story. I know, a love story for the Times just completely crashed. Romeo and Juliet. Once the book was published? I'm just flabbergasted by this one. I know. I'm stunned. And right after the book's released.

Maybe it was due to declining reviews. I don't know. Or maybe it was due to the fact that Sandra used Danny for everything that she needed him for because the book was really. But here's my question. Genuinely, how do I believe in true love again after this ends? I don't know. If they can't make it work, who can? Who can? Exactly. It's a love story that we basically told over the last five parts.

And now it's over. And now it's over. It's like, where, where do broken hearts go? All right. So they broke up because she used him and sapped him for everything he had. Not that I feel bad about it. Yeah, he's no longer useful at this point. Yeah. That's fine. I am completely fine with her using him and then just tossing him to the side like the trash he is.

But years later, Sandra spoke to the media. She shared how she truly felt about Danny. And this time her perspective on the relationship was completely different from what she'd been portraying before the book came out. I know. It's just like plot twist after plot twist here. She now admitted that her primary focus in her relationship with Danny was writing the book, not their relationship. Then she claimed that she never considered their relationship to be romantic because there was just simply nothing romantic about it. Sandra insisted that she and Danny simply shared a human connection. She continued stating, quote, I would describe my emotions as more maternal than anything else. I

learned about his childhood and how he came to be. I just wished I could have had access to that little boy to protect him from what was happening to him, end quote. Ew. It feels weird because she's talking about how hot he is and like, oh, he's prowling around like a pussycat, you know, my maximum man. And now she's like, I wish I had access to that little boy. And I don't know, Sandra, that's like some mommy issues here that I can't even begin to dig into. But when she was asked if she missed Danny, Sandra said she did not, adding, quote, what's there to miss? He was a book, and I finished the book, end quote. Ouch.

It's got to hurt, Danny. Means to an end, buddy. Means to an end. You were a dollar sign. That's all you were. How does that feel? How does that feel to be used, abused and discarded? So let's take our last break and then we'll be back to wrap this up. So in the years following the couple's breakup, Danny occasionally spoke to the media, and at one point he wrote a 17-page letter to the Associated Press where he again claimed that he committed the Ripper murders because of the abuse he endured as a child and his treatment in the Mississippi prison Parchman.

This is like the definition of ruminating. It's like, dude, let it go, man. Let it go. He wrote, quote, a mangy dog gets more consideration than what I received in parchment. Imagine being forced to dwell in a prison cell that floods out two to three times a week with putrefied raw sewage and having to exist in such filth over eight months till it drives you crazy as a loon, end quote. Dude, it was eight months. It wasn't even that long. It's not like you were in there for years, my friend. He ended the letter by saying, quote,

any complaint I may have pales in comparison to the terrible wrong I inflicted upon good people. I stand in the shadow of their suffering. If it is to be mercy, then I shall be eternally grateful. If it is to be the wrath of vengeance, then God grant me the strength to face what I must. For I owe a debt I cannot repay, not even with my own life. End quote. No, dude, but it's a good start. It's a real good start. We'll take what we can get at this point. Yeah. I mean, if it's your life, I mean, obviously the debt's not repaid, but you're not around anymore. So there's that.

There's that. Even though Danny acted like he was remorseful in that letter, he still tried to appeal his death sentence, but he was unsuccessful. By 2006, more than a decade had passed since Danny was sentenced to death, yet he was still alive, which was deeply frustrating for the victim's families. They couldn't understand why it was taking so long to execute him. He'd confessed to the murders. DNA evidence confirmed he was the killer. All of his appeals had been denied. Like, what's the holdup? Finally, in September of 2006, Florida Governor Jeb Bush believed it was time to move forward with Danny's execution. He signed Danny's death warrant, and the execution was officially scheduled for October

25th. Many family members of the Ripper victim spoke to the media about their thoughts on Danny's upcoming execution. Tracy's mother, Ricky, said she planned to be there, stating, quote, I've been waiting to do this for 16 years. I hate to sound coarse about it, but that's the way I feel. End quote. I'm with you, Ricky. I'd be there front and center. We're with you. Ricky also, yeah, I mean, obviously I think you would too, right? Oh yeah. I don't think I'd make it to court, but we've talked about that last episode. I think they're going to have to have me on high alert at that point. But if I have other children or I have other significant others in my life, maybe not, but yeah, it's going to be a problem. You just never know. You never know. But Ricky, who is Tracy's mother, she also pointed out the tragic fact that because

Florida had waited so long to execute Danny, some of the victim's parents had already died and wouldn't be there to see him executed, which they're not going to get that same closure. That's not great. So Krista's stepmother, Diane, shared that Krista's dad, Gary, was one of those parents that had passed away. He died in 2000 from heart trouble and stress. Never seen the man. I wonder where that stemmed from. Right. The stress.

Yeah, exactly. And he never got to see the man who brutally murdered his daughter face his full sentence. Diane said that even though Gary was gone, she planned to attend the execution. She said, quote, I don't think there's any closure for something like this, but there is gratification in knowing that he can no longer think about the killings and get pleasure out of thinking about what he did. I really do believe that he deserves to be put to death. I want it to be over, end quote. Sonia's father had also passed away before seeing Danny's execution. And if that wasn't tragic enough, Sonia's brother, Jim, faced another close tragedy when his wife, Carla, was murdered just a few years after Sonia's murder. One day, Carla was buying grapes and strawberries during her lunch break at a Publix near Walt Disney World

when she was kidnapped, driven to a remote field, strangled, and buried in a shallow grave. Do you believe this? Do you believe that one person can be that close to this much horrendous violent crime? Like his sister is raped and murdered in her new apartment and then his wife is kidnapped and strangled and left in a shallow grave in some field it just reaffirms my my how i am at public places where i'm yelling at people because i won't even let my kids go to the bathroom at a locked off gated off pool club i just can't do it 100 because i traumatize myself every single week with stories like this so it just completely skews my judgment on top of my experience since I was 20 years old. I'm just, I'm doomed. I just don't trust anyone. Our society sucks. Oh, totally. I was at a water park yesterday with, with the kids and Bella was like, can I go to the bathroom? And it was literally seven feet away. And she's like, I really have to go. I really have to go. And I'm

like, I'll come with you. And she starts like running ahead of me. And I'm like, no, I'm coming with you. Like, just wait. And it's just this feeling of like we've all heard the stories you take your eyes off them for one second they're gone and then there's nothing nothing you can do ask John Walsh I'll tell you exactly oh exactly and I just don't know how Jim like how do you continue on and not just look at the world as the most evil, soulless place you've ever seen after that? Well, I think one, you continue on, but you do look at the world that way. You do. Yeah. You can't not. You continue on, but as a shell of yourself. So for Carla's murder, John Huggins, a career criminal turned born again Christian,

was eventually convicted and sentenced to death. And Jim, he told the media that he questioned why tragedy after tragedy kept striking his family. And he said, quote, when Sonia's death happened, I thought this kind of thing happened to other people. Then it happened to Carla. I just can't figure out why us. It's not like we're bad people, end quote. And, you know, it's funny. My 13-year-old son said to me yesterday, we were talking about something, he said, you know, bad things happen to good people. And it was weird hearing that coming from a kid's mouth. And I was like, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a simple statement, but bad things do happen and his minister. Now, at some point during the meeting with the minister, Danny slipped him a letter confessing to the Grissom family killings. Remember, that was the killings that happened in Louisiana. Now, Danny told the minister that he wanted to confess for two reasons, to clear the original

suspect, Julie Grissom's fiance, and to show his regrets to the family. All right. It's kind of written. It's written in like an old English sort of thing. Yeah. If you're watching on YouTube, the letter's on the screen right now for your enjoyment. Yeah. And it looks definitely very, I don't know what he's trying to say. I know that sorrow, that heartfelt bane, that dross the mortal flame, stone pond, stone the final throw, etched hitherto the captive soul. Wow. So I don't know what that means, but he continues on to say, here I make a formal written statement concerning the murders of Julie, Tom, and Sean Grissom in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. Hal Carter, Julie Grissom's former fiance, is 100% innocent, totally pure of that crime. I, and I alone, am guilty.

It was my hand that took those precious lights out of this old, dark world. With all my heart and soul, would I come bring them back? Being a native son of Shreveport, I can only offer of this confession of deep-felt remorse over the loss of such fine, outstanding souls. Have wept an ocean of tears by which mournful doth float upon a sea of regret and quote this guy's an idiot i hate him i hate him so much god damn it i hate him so much because you're not gonna have to deal

with him much longer he's not he didn't cry no ocean of tears he didn't feel remorse over this the only reason he's confessing is because he wants to be this famous serial killer. And he's already getting murdered. He's getting killed. Yeah. Right? So he's thinking, well, the more bodies I have under my belt, the more famous I'm going to be. So I need to make sure that the people know that I did this.

Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a self-serving element to this. to, like you said, to build up his character. To everything he does. Yeah, it all comes back to him. To build up his enigmatic, you know, origin story, the anti-hero origin story. And you got to make sure that everybody knows the kills that you did. You got to make sure you're taking credit for them. So when they write about you and they talk about you,

they know you didn't just kill five people. You actually killed eight people, you know? So, yeah. It's like sit on the table and shut up, buddy. You're gone. Hate him. I hate him. So Danny's last meal included lobster tail, butterfly shrimp, a baked potato, strawberry cheesecake, and sweet tea. Afterward, he was taken to the execution chamber where 16 family members and friends of the Ripper victims were waiting, along with three members of the Grissom family. Before Danny was executed, he did not offer any last words. I'm surprised by that, by the way. I'm stunned. I'm stunned.

Yeah. I'm surprised he didn't have like, they were like, do you have any last words? And he's like holding up a single sheet of paper and then he like moves his fingers and the sheet of paper is like, and there's like. Yeah, exactly. It's like 12 feet of paper. And he's like, I do have some last words. Yeah. But that didn't mean he was quiet. Right.

He sang a gospel hymn. Quote, thou art the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. The sound of thy voice stills a mighty wind. None greater than thee, O Lord, none greater than thee. End quote. Don't think that's going to save you, my dude. Don't think it's going to save you. So Danny was then administered a lethal injection.

He was pronounced dead at 6.13 p.m. Afterwards, the Florida state attorney stated that the death penalty wasn't harsh enough. He said, quote, I'm sitting there watching that and running through my mind is what I know he did to those kids. End quote. I do agree with this in some situations. Without a doubt. Yeah. It's like the electric chair at least was like kind of torturous.

But this lethal injection, sometimes it's like they just go to sleep. And there should be a little bit of an eye for an eye for people like Danny, where it's like, all right, before we lethally inject you, let's do some of the things to you that were done to your victims, you know, just for shits and giggles i'm surprised he didn't and depending on what type of custody he was in i'm surprised he didn't get more backlash while in prison to be honest with you by other prisoners you mean raping kids yeah they technically weren't kids okay they were young over the age of 18 either way raping women i mean i could tell you they must have had him in like some type of solitary confinement, not really around. They probably did. Protection. Yeah. Well, he was on death row. So isn't there some isolation there? Yeah. Isolation there because if he was around other prisoners, he wouldn't have made it to the,

he wouldn't have made it to this. I can guarantee you, he wouldn't have made it. Well, a spokesperson for the state's attorney's office added that he was surprised by Danny's last words, as were we. He said, quote, I really believed if you were truly sorry and remorseful for what you did, you would say something to the victim's families. But I have to realize who I'm dealing with. We're talking about a serial killer, end quote. Exactly. And nobody's perfect, right? Nobody's perfect. But there's like people who have good intentions and who just generally are good, they can never understand the actions of those who are apathetic and have no empathy and just are psychopaths. They don't understand. They're

like, well, logically, I thought you would do this, but you didn't. You're not dealing with a normal person. You cannot make sense. You can't make any sense over what these people do and why they do it. No matter how long you think about it, no matter how hard you try, it'll never make sense to you. Danny's attorney also commented on Danny's last words and said, quote, I was hoping he would have repeated to the families what he told me, that he was very remorseful. I think that's what a lot of those family members were hoping for and they deserved it. End quote. I wouldn't be hoping for that because I wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. Yeah, I don't need any words. I just want to watch you die at that point. I'm glad you didn't say it, honestly, because it's not true.

You're just lying and you've done enough of that and nobody wants to hear shit from you anymore. So Tracy's mother, Ricky, said she felt nothing but hatred when she looked at Danny, yet she couldn't tear her eyes away during the execution. She said, quote, I saw his breath go out of him. I was mad all the way through it. End quote. Krista's stepmother, Diana, said, quote, I saw his breath go out of him. I was mad all the way through it. End quote. Krista's stepmother, Diana, said, quote, I guess this is the final chapter doesn't change the fact that our loved ones will never be with us again. It is a type of closure, but it will never, ever bring our children and loved ones back to us. He's robbed us of so many things, end quote. Yeah, yeah, pretty much exactly. And that's kind of where we are. I'm glad that he was murdered, and I'm glad that he was put to death, not murdered. I'm glad that he was murdered and I'm glad that he was put to death, not murdered. I'm glad that he's gone and that he would not live to see another day.

It's just it's very difficult to to kind of look at what happened and say that this is the outcome that was the best. Like nobody does feel better. Like when she said she saw his breath go out of him and she was angry the whole time, it's because, you know, he died a far more peaceful death than than your daughter, you know? Yeah. I do want to say, though, that just recently, as recently as May of 2024, there was an article in the paper and it says family members missing 17-year-old from Louisiana are questioning whether his disappearance could be connected to serial killer Danny Rowling, who murdered five college students in Gainesville, Florida, in 1990. So this person who's missing, David Yeager, he disappeared from his family home in Shreveport in 1971. His family is still looking for answers more than 50 years later. And obviously, as we know, Danny Danny Rowling went on to kill the five students in Gainesville.

And they basically are wondering, could David have become a victim of Danny's? And even though Danny did confess to killing the family in Shreveport and did not mention, you know, any male victim that he had killed, there's still the opportunity that or the option that he could have done that. So there is a investigation kind of going into to this year, there's cold cases coming out where people are wondering, could Danny Rawlings have been responsible for this? And I don't necessarily know. I think that if Danny had a bunch of other crimes under his belt, he would have confessed to them before he died because I think he wanted that notoriety and he wanted that body count to be as high as possible. But who knows? Maybe he forgot about it. Maybe one of his other personalities did it and he didn't know. Maybe it was Gemini. Yeah. No, I'm with you. And on the surface, without knowing all the details, I agree with you. I don't think it's likely that he's responsible

for this. I feel like, as we mentioned, when he confessed to the Grissom murders, there's a self-serving purpose to it to build his legacy quote-unquote legacy and I think if he were responsible for any other murders or disappearances he would have divulged that information before his death when he knew that there was he was going to be killed and he didn't and I and I will say this about Shreveport and about that area surrounding Shreveport, it's a very, it's got a high crime rate. And so the possibility that someone else was in that area that could have carried out that crime, very plausible, very plausible. I went down to New Orleans for a,

an unsolved murder and we ended up finding that. Well, New Orleans, yeah. Yeah. There could have been 20 or 30 different murders that were connected to this woman, the case that I was working. So it's a tough area and there's a lot of crime down there. I'm not saying I don't love New Orleans, but you got to be careful. You got to be careful. You got to be careful everywhere. No, my takeaway from this entire series isn't necessarily about Danny Rawling or what he did to these victims. It's about our justice system. Honestly, that's my takeaway with this one, because in many cases I'll say,

okay, here's what we can learn. Here's what we can do to better protect ourselves and the people we care about. You guys hear me say it all the time. There is nothing that could be done here. These women and a man were inside their homes and they were doing nothing wrong. They were in fact doing everything right. And yet they still became victims of these horrific crimes because of this animal. And there's no way to prevent that. You walk into your home and someone's inside. I mean, now you have alarm systems, et cetera, all these things, but there's not much you can do in this case. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. And it's unfortunate that it did. But I think as a justice system, as law enforcement entities, we can do a better job of identifying and communicating with each other. to avoid a situation where similar MOs are occurring in different municipalities,

and yet that information is not being shared across jurisdictions, resulting in something slipping through the cracks. Where if there was a better communication line between these agencies, maybe this person would have been identified sooner. And I also think based on their previous crimes, now switching it to the court systems, based on previous crimes and offenses, allowing an individual to continuously get out without any further ramifications from their actions gives them the opportunity to just continue to reoffend. And I don't know, based on what he did do, the crimes he did commit, if it would have prevented this from happening, because based on the robberies that he was involved in, I don't think anybody would sit here and expect him to be in prison for the rest of his life. But maybe it puts him on a radar where he's being tracked a little bit easier. And as far as him getting out, maybe it would have taken a little longer for him to get out after the second or third offense. And yet he was out relatively soon. So overall, just as a law

enforcement officer, a former law enforcement officer, it's hard for me to hear these cases because I don't necessarily think these crimes were preventable, but I do think the investigations could have been streamlined and better conducted where maybe after the Grissom murders, we don't have these individuals being killed in Gainesville. That's what I keep going back to. I think that in general, we saw a lot of this happening in the 70s, the 80s and the 90s. Oh, yeah. And especially in bigger areas where there's multiple law enforcement agencies, where you can cross state lines very easily, where there's not as much communication, and also where these sentences would be very lenient. Like I was talking about, a rape, you're going in for a couple years, if that,

and then you're out and you do it again, and you're going back in, and then you're out again, and it's like there just wasn't a huge understanding of this type of personality that just can't be rehabilitated. It wasn't as much of an understanding of humans. Yeah. So you would see this a lot. And also you've got places like California, places like Florida, overcrowded prisons, you know, people in and out of the system just trying to to get them in and out of prison as quickly as possible so you can fill the spots with somebody else. I would say that it's better now. Not that there's not people like this, but because we have forensics, because we've got surveillance everywhere, because we have the ability to know where they are via cell phones.

We can check their Internet history. We can check their GPS on their cars and things like that. It's very hard to do something and get away with it as easily. And we do also have this system now of DNA, where if you left your DNA at one crime scene, it doesn't matter if it was in Louisiana or California and you commit a crime in another state because this is a national database, you're going to pop up. So we have better things in place to prevent this. But yeah, that's why you see in the 70s, the 80s, and even going into the early 90s, far more serial killers than you're seeing now, because people were allowed to get away with things for a much longer time. It's not the fact that you don't have serial killers now,

right? Because people are like, oh, there's just no serial killers. No, there are serial killers. This personality type is still there. It's just that they're getting caught after committing their first or second crime. So they don't have the chance to go on this like multiple state murder spree before they're put where they belong. And that's ultimately a good thing. So where our justice system still isn't up to par, at least law enforcement has tools at their disposal. Yeah. You have multiple national databases. You have NCIC, you have APHIS, and you have the one you were referring to, CODIS. And those are shared throughout the nation where, like you said, fingerprints, DNA, or just criminal history is available readily anywhere in the country.

You also have deconfliction policies where if you're working a case that could cross over into another jurisdiction, you have to deconflict with those agencies. I also think with the increases in technology and the internet, we're able to use databases for our own police reports where those police reports can now be accessed by other agencies without having to go to that agency physically and pulling the report. Because yeah, back in the 60s and 70s, everything's typed up on paper where now everything's uploaded to these databases

where if you have access, if you have an MOU in place, a memorandum of understanding, you may have access to police reports from other agencies, even though your officers did not work on it. So you can type in certain keywords and see if there's any similarities between cases, even though they're from different departments. So yes, it is getting better. And with the advancements in science and technology, we are becoming a almost national law enforcement agency where regardless of what part of the country you commit your crime in, if it's connected to somewhere else, there are better policies and procedures in place to hopefully avoid a situation where you could be doing the same thing in multiple states and go undetected.

So a lot of improvement. And I think cases like this and looking at them, discussing them and seeing the mistakes that were made, you can look at those holes and try to fix them. So that is that is my takeaway from this case. It's a tragic set of circumstances. I'm glad to see that Danny was caught. I'm glad to see that he was held accountable. And I'm glad to report that he will never hurt anybody again.

And I thought so with the families. Obviously, nothing's going to bring their loved ones back, but I hope that some of them found peace in seeing this monster laid out on a table and put to rest, put down, if you will. Yes, put down like the animal that he is. Absolutely. So we don't normally do this, and Stephanie might get mad at me for doing it, but I'm doing it anyways. We're doing it live. So a few weeks ago we discussed Gypsy Rose and

the episode that we did went crazy. And so we started talking amongst each other. And what was, when I say crazy, it was the opinions on Gypsy Rose's case, not necessarily what we were discussing in Crime Weekly News as far as the coverage she was getting and the popularity she had. That was more the premise of the Crime Weekly News. The comments were more about her involvement in the original crime. And should she even be where she is right now? And if what happened to her was manchelsen by proxy or yeah yeah there's a lot of i didn't realize that there was so many people who really disputed that she had ever been abused at all so then that's when i said we should look

into this right remember i said are we assuming she was and you're like yeah and then people like not so fast there was evidence i thought like that like, that's why we need to talk about it. Yeah. We're going to do a crime weekly deep dive on it because how else can we do it? We're going to get into it with you guys. We're going to break the entire case down. We're going to get all the specifics that we can, and we're going to, we're going to try to come to a conclusion whether or not Gypsy Rose should even be free right now. How much involvement did she have? Was the crimes that she stated happened to her?

Did they actually occur? We're going to go through all of it. And I'm looking forward to it. We've done cases like this before. We just did a Crime Weekly News episode on Adnan Syed. That was a case where a large portion of the population felt that he was innocent. We came to the conclusion that we believe he's guilty. I thought he was innocent. I thought he was innocent after listening to Serial. You did. So I'm interested to see how this one goes because

I haven't gotten into the details of this case. We're going to get away from the social media following and the TikToks and all that. We don't care about that. We're going to get away from the social media following and the tick tocks and all that we don't care about that we're going to get down to the actual case itself and we're going to get into the murder of dd blanchard to see how gypsy rose is connected to it and was she was she served with the proper sentencing based on the fact that she took a deal what should that have been on the table and also was she was she a victim or was it just a convenient story she told to justify the actions that led to her mother's murder? That is the question. And we don't have the answers yet, but we will. And you're going to come along for the ride with us. So be back next week. We'll have a new episode on Crime Weekly News and the start of a new series involving Gypsy Rose

and the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. So we'll see you then. Everyone stay safe out there. Have a good week. Happy Labor Day, by the way. Yes. All right. Take care. Have a good night. Bye.