The Harrowing Story Of Danny Rolling: The "Gainesville Ripper" The Inspiration Of The Movie Scream
Serial killer Danny Rolling terrorized the college students of Gainesville, Florida over a four-day period and carried out a horrendous killing spree. The movie franchise "Scream" was inspired by his heinous crimes.
The life of Danny Rolling was certainly an unhappy one, regarded as a tortured soul since birth, and the horrific abuse that he suffered would later be passed on to his victims.
In 1990, Danny Rolling, who would later be dubbed "The Gainesville Ripper", embarked on a bloody rampage that left the nation in terror as he killed five students from the University of Florida.
The killings generated huge media coverage across the United States and other parts of the world, however, police never actually caught Danny Rolling for the brutal murders he had committed, it was only when he was arrested for an unrelated burglary that he openly confessed to being the perpetrator behind some of the most disturbing murders in Florida's history. Within a few years, the crimes of Danny Rolling, "The Gainesville Ripper", became an inspiration for the famous horror movie Scream.
Danny Rolling's Childhood Before He Became The Gainesville Ripper.
Born Danny Harold Rolling on May 26, 1954, in Shreveport, Louisiana. His parents were Claudia and James Rolling, his father was a police officer who never wanted kids and was often abusive towards both his wife and his children.
Danny Rolling was only one-year-old when his father first abused him, beating him for not crawling to his expectations. In 1955, Kevin Rolling, Danny's younger brother was born, and this caused the abuse to get worse.
Claudia made several attempts to escape from the violent and abusive marriage, but she always returned. Danny Rolling failed the third grade for too many illness-related absences, this, along with the stress of her marriage caused his mother, Claudia, to have a nervous breakdown. School counselors described Danny as "suffering from an inferiority complex, with aggressive tendencies and poor impulse control."
It would be this poor impulse control and aggressive tendencies that would contribute to the uncontrollable rage later in his life.
By the time Danny Rolling was 11 years old, he started turning to music as a release from his abusive father. He sang hymn-style songs and played guitar. It was around this time in his life that his mother slit her wrists and was committed to hospital. Not long after, Danny got caught up with drugs and alcohol, already suffering from an extremely fragile mental state, this made things much worse.
When Danny was 14 years old, he was caught peeping into the bedroom of his neighbour's daughter, when his father got wind of this, he got beaten severely again. Over the course of the next few years, Danny attended church in a bid to stay in control of his spiraling mental issues but struggled to hold down any type of long-term employment. He then enlisted.
Initially, he attempted to join the Navy but they wouldn't accept him so he joined the Air Force, however, the military didn't provide him with the comfort he was hoping for and he was discharged in 1972 after being charged with possession of drugs.
Following his departure from the Air Force, it appeared from the outside that Danny Rolling's life was heading in the right direction of normality, even managing to marry.
Unfortunately, though, this was not the end of his life of abuse, in 1977, when Rolling was 23 years old, his wife left him after he had threatened to kill her. The initial devastation of his wife leaving him soon turned into anger, Danny Rolling then raped a woman who resembled his ex-wife. Later that same year, Rolling was involved in a car accident that resulted in the death of a woman, this made his mental state deteriorate even further, even making him suicidal, however, he could never actually go through with killing himself.
Danny Rolling Becomes The Gainesville Ripper
From the late 1970s to the 1990s, Danny Rolling carried out frequent thefts and other petty crimes, eventually committing a series of armed robberies, this life of crime led him in an out of the prison system in Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama
He quit and was fired from jobs just as frequently as he was in trouble with the law. Meanwhile, the bodies of three victims were found in Shreveport: 24-year-old Julie Grissom, her father Tom Grissom, and her nephew, 8-year-old Sean, who were all killed around the time Danny Rolling lost his last job and returned with anger.
In May of 1990, Danny Rolling completely broke. He shot James Rolling, his father, who was 58 at the time, almost killing him, he managed to survive but lost an ear and an eye in the attack.
Danny Rolling then used papers he had stolen during a burglary from someone's house to change his identity. In late July of 1990, he fled from Shreveport and traveled by bus to Sarasota, Florida, starting a new life as Michael Kennedy Jr. However, absconding to Florida didn't fix Danny Rolling's issues, it simply made them worse.
On August 24, 1990, Danny Rolling broke into the home of Sonja Larson and Christina Powell, both incoming freshmen at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Rolling had followed them home, broke into their property, and overpowered them. This was the start of the horror story that unfolded.
Danny Rolling bound the hands of both of his victims and covered their mouths with duct tape. He then proceeded to force Sonja Larson to perform oral sex on him, then he raped her and stabbed her to death, before having sex with her corpse. Rolling even cut off the girl's nipples and kept one as a trophy of his kill.
The following day, Danny Rolling murdered his next victim, Christa Hoyt. He killed her in an almost identical way to his other two victims, he broke into her home, raped her, cut off her nipples, and placed them beside her. Rolling then cut off her head and sat her body upright on the edge of her bed, he placed her head on a bookshelf.
By this point, the horrifying news of the violent murders had spread across the University. Police put out as much information as possible in a bid to identify the perpetrator. The students were so fearful that they started to sleep in groups and took extra precautions wherever they went. This didn't stop Danny "The Gainesville Ripper" Rolling from killing once again.
The next attack came on August 27, Danny Rolling attacked Manuel Taboada and Tracey Paules, both 23 years old. He killed Toboada while he was sleeping, then he killed Paules. Police stated that they believed he didn't manage to mutilate the bodies because he was interrupted or believed he was in danger of being caught.
All of these murders had occurred within a 2-mile radius of each other around the University of Florida.
This led the university to cancel all classes for a week, students carried around bats and homemade weapons to defend themselves and no one went out alone during the day or night. Many students even slept in shifts so someone was always awake on the lookout. By the end of August, thousands of students left campus and around 700 never returned as they were terrified that they might be the next victim.
Danny Rolling's father, who was a 20-year veteran police officer of the Shreveport Police Department had taught him two things, how to take abuse all of his life, but also how to cover his tracks.
None of the crime scenes left enough evidence to implicate Danny Rolling in the killings, Rolling removed the duct tape from the dead bodies to remove the risk of leaving fingerprints, and he also used strong cleaning solvents on the corpses to remove any traces of his semen. Some of the corpses had also been left in sexually suggestive positions, this later acted as evidence for authorities.
When Rolling wasn't killing and raping students his string of thefts continued, that is until he was finally caught in Ocala following a high-speed police chase on September 8. Authorities wanted him for the robbery of a Winn-Dixie, however, police still had no idea that Danny Rolling was the Gainesville Ripper.
The triple murder in Shreveport of Julie Grissom, her father, and nephew offered some clues to the police, Julie Grissom's corpse was left in a sexual position after being stabbed to death.
It was in January 1991, more than four months after the murders, that police finally got a break on the case. Due to the similarities of the murders in both Gainesville and Shreveport, authorities sought the DNA of prisoners from Shreveport who were incarcerated.
Investigators found that Danny Rolling's DNA was similar enough to the DNA left at the Gainesville murder scenes to charge him with murder.
It didn't take too long before Danny Rolling confessed to being the Gainesville Ripper. Along with his confession and the evidence put forward by the prosecution, Danny Roling was convicted and sentenced to death, he was executed on October 25, 2006, in Florida.
47 people watched on as the Gainesville Ripper was executed. Danny Rolling requested his last meal of a lobster tail served with drawn butter, butterfly shrimp with cocktail sauce, a baked potato with sour cream and butter, strawberry cheesecake, and sweet tea.
How The Gainesville Ripper Inspired The Movie Scream
Kevin Williamson was a writer during the 1990s when the Gainesville Ripper murders grabbed his attention. Williamson used the case to create a screenplay for a horror movie that revolved around the murders of college students and the media frenzy that followed. The screenplay transformed into the 1996 cult-classic Scream.
“Back when I was researching Danny Rolling, I wanted to write about a serial killer on a college campus, and an FBI agent hunting down a college professor. But then I decided to do Scream.” - Kevin Williamson
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