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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. Gainesville was once a peaceful college community. Then one murder happened, then another, and another. Young female co-eds found themselves in the crosshairs of an unknown killer.
The serial murders leave students questioning how and why. The shadow of terror grows larger and larger. Will the monster ever be caught? And is this a script from a movie or a grim tale of real life horror? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 210, The Gainesville Ripper.
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings. As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases and
conduct in-depth, fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Before we get to the show, we've got two new Patreon supporters this week. Thank you so much to Sarah M. and John B. for becoming the show's newest supporters. Now, let's get to this week's episode.
One of the most popular films of late 1996 and early 1997 was the horror movie Scream, a movie that features a ghostface killer who terrorized high school students. Scream became the world's highest grossing slasher film. Because of its notoriety, Scream 2 was released only a year later. What many people don't know is that the movie franchise Scream isn't exactly original.
In fact, the inspiration behind the multi-billion dollar movie franchise is more disturbing than the movie itself. The entire franchise is largely based on true events. The Gainesville Ripper, a real-life serial killer who terrorized a Florida college town during a three-day murderous rampage in the summer of 1990.
The horror that happened during those three days inspired not only six movies, but also a television series, merchandise, and video games. On Sunday, August 26, 1990, the parents of 17-year-old Christina Powell became concerned when they hadn't heard from their daughter in a few days, which was completely out of character. So they decided to stop by her apartment in Gainesville, Florida.
At the time, Christina and her 18-year-old roommate, Sonia Larson, shared an off-campus apartment and were both freshmen at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Classes were scheduled to begin the following day, on Monday, August 27th. So Christina's parents grew even more worried that something was wrong. They didn't want Christina to miss her very first day of school. When they got to the apartment, the first thing they did was knock on the door.
But no one answered, so they knocked again. Still no answer. They decided to walk around the apartment complex until they ran into one of the building's maintenance workers. They explained who they were and asked the worker if they could let them inside the apartment so they could check on Christina. But the worker wasn't sure he was allowed to do that. Normally, they weren't allowed to go inside units unless they had a work order or specific permission from the resident.
So the worker told Christina's parents he needed to go check with the property manager. But the manager also had his concerns. He told the parents that they should wait until the cops got there so they could perform a wellness check altogether. Several minutes later, the police arrived at the complex and went inside with the building's workers, while Christina's parents waited outside on the stairs.
But within seconds of going inside, the maintenance worker came out running, screaming, and crying. Christina's parents immediately knew that something bad had happened. 17-year-old Christina Powell was found half-naked lying on the living room floor of her apartment. She'd been stabbed five times in the back and had also been sexually assaulted. In the bedroom, they also found her roommate, 18-year-old Sonia Larson.
Like Christina, she'd been stabbed to death. Both girls had been bound with duct tape. Sonia had a piece of duct tape over her mouth so that she couldn't scream. Christina's wrists were bound behind her back, so she couldn't move or run away. There was evidence that whoever murdered these girls had wedged a screwdriver into the front door jamb to break in. But before he left, he took it with him.
Based on the conditions of both bodies, the girls were likely killed anywhere between 48 and 72 hours before they were discovered, lining up with the last time that anyone heard from them. The murders of Sonia and Christina shocked the entire community. Gainesville was a big college town with thousands of young people living there, just like those two girls.
So it was practically unheard of for two young college roommates to be found dead and murdered inside of their off-campus apartment. Police immediately investigated everyone close to them. Boyfriends, friends, fellow University of Florida students, anyone and everyone the girls knew were closely looked at by the police. But before they could get any solid leads in the case, another student turned up dead.
Eight hours later, on the morning of Monday, August 27th, the police found 18-year-old Krista Hoyt dead inside her apartment, about two miles away from the first crime scene. Unlike Christina and Sonia, Krista wasn't a student at the University of Florida. Instead, she was taking classes at nearby Santa Fe Community College.
The reason why the police showed up at her apartment was because she was an aspiring police officer. When she didn't show up for her midnight shift at the sheriff's department, her co-workers got worried and went to check on her. And that's when they discovered she'd been murdered. This also meant that some of her co-workers at the sheriff's department were among the first ones who found her body. Krista's apartment was almost identical to Christina's and Sonia's.
A screwdriver had been used to break in through a window, and Christina had been stabbed, sexually assaulted, and her body had been posed while lying on the bed with her feet up in the air. By this point, there were three dead co-eds within only a few hours of one another. So not surprisingly, the murders started to attract widespread media attention. Every news station in the state covered the case.
Everyone feared that a serial killer targeting college students was on the loose in Gainesville, a place completely foreign to the idea of serial killers. Throughout the day on Monday, August 27th, students at the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College started taking extra precautions to protect themselves. Female students began asking campus security guards to walk with them to their cars at night. Others didn't go anywhere alone.
Anyone who lived in an off-campus apartment complex was extra careful about locking their doors and windows. Some put heavy furniture in front of the doors and windows so that no one could break in without them hearing first. Some students even went as far as dropping out of class altogether. Since it was the first day of the fall semester, some decided to withdraw their admission and transfer to the other schools. The fear was just that real.
Then later that night came victims number four and number five. Tracy Paulus and Manny Taboato, both 23 years old and friends since high school, were found dead in a ground floor unit at the Gatorwood Apartments on the morning of Tuesday, August 28th, another off-campus student-friendly apartment complex in Gainesville.
Manny, who was a student at the Santa Fe Community College, had defensive wounds on his hands, suggesting he tried to fight back before being stabbed to death. As a former high school football player, he was just the type of person to fight back. His roommate Tracy, a pre-law senior majoring in political science at the University of Florida, was found posed in the living room.
She had been sexually assaulted, and there was evidence she had tape around her mouth and wrists, as well as soap on her lower body, maybe indicating her killer tried to wash away any evidence. A few days after victims four and five, another couple was murdered about 17 miles away from Gainesville in the city of Melrose, Florida. Although the police were quick to figure out the murders weren't related, it still elevated the fear around the university.
Based on how all victims died, the Gainesville police never questioned whether this was all done by the same person. In their minds, these murders were clearly all committed by the same person, or persons if they were looking for more than one. So the burning questions became, who was this person, or persons? Why were they targeting young college co-eds? And how many more victims would there be until this person was finally caught?
Without a suspect, the murderer they were hunting simply became known as the Gainesville Ripper. There didn't appear to be too much randomness to the murders. It all seemed carefully calculated, and the victims were specifically targeted. With the exception of Manny, all of the victims were petite, white brunettes with brown eyes. They were all young college students, all lived in off-campus apartment complexes in the Gainesville area, and all lived in a
So everything about the crimes screamed there was a connection, and the motives behind each one were similar. Something about college students interested this guy. In response to the murders, the University of Florida extended the deadline to add or drop classes through September 7th. They postponed tuition due dates and offered off-campus residents on-campus dorms if they wanted one.
Some students felt safe on campus because the school had improved its security guard system and campus surveillance, which included the student dorms. This felt like a safe option for some of them because all the victims lived in an off-campus apartment building. There hadn't been any attacks inside the university's dorms. But every strange noise prompted a call to the police. Gun sales skyrocketed across local gun shops.
Students who never thought about buying a weapon were now carrying around knives or mace for their protection. At the time, a lot of people were reminded of Ted Bundy, a serial killer whose cross-country reign of terror only came to an end after he'd beaten two Florida State University sorority sisters to death and killed a 12-year-old girl in the course of a month in 1978.
So when people heard about the Gainesville murders, they couldn't help but worry if a Ted Bundy copycat was on the hunt. But the police did everything they could to ensure the public safety. They reminded people that Money Magazine named Gainesville the 13th best city to live in the U.S. just earlier that year. Gainesville was an area that prided itself on having safe streets. It's not a place that breeds serial killers.
But that wasn't enough reassurance to go around. Students at the University of Florida and nearby community college just didn't feel safe, and neither did their parents. No one was going to feel safe until this guy was caught. By the end of August, thousands of students left campus, and around 700 never returned because they feared for their lives. Do you know what I don't miss at all? That vicious week before my period each month.
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That's happy mammoth.com and use code tails for 15% off today. A multi-agency task force on top of the Gainesville police department was formed to try and track down the killer before there would be any more victims. The task force included local and state police working with federal agents specifically assigned to the case. Within days of the murders of Manny and his roommate, Tracy, they had their first promising suspect.
For the first time in over a week, the people of Gainesville felt a little bit of relief. His name was Edward Lewis Humphrey. At the time, Edward was a University of Florida student who lived in the same apartment complex as two of the victims. By all accounts, he seemed to fit the killer's profile. He was a student at the university, so he would have known the locations of pretty much all off-campus housing.
He was the right age, not too old or too young. He had a history of mental illness that the police were convinced had something to do with the murders. And he also had a history of what many people described as, quote, erratic behavior. He even looked the part. His face was covered in scars and marks from a previous car accident. And the best part was he was already in jail by the time police identified him as a suspect in the Gainesville murders.
He'd been arrested for physically assaulting his own grandma. So Edward also had a violent side. All of those factors pointed toward Edward Humphrey as public enemy number one. When the police zeroed in on Edward, his photo was everywhere. The local media began reporting that the Gainesville killer had been arrested. Local and national newspapers started running the story. And news traveled everywhere.
Since Edward was already in custody for assaulting his grandma, the police were able to search his home and car looking for any evidence connected to the murders. They also took his fingerprints, hair, and DNA samples to compare against the evidence collected at the crime scenes. While Edward was in custody, the murders suddenly stopped, which only led people to believe even more that they had the right guy. Over the next several months, Edward Humphrey remained in custody.
The students of the University of Florida slowly regained their confidence. Edward was charged and convicted of assaulting his grandma during this time and was sentenced to 10 months behind bars. About five months after his arrest, the authorities assembled a grand jury to decide if there was enough evidence to charge Edward with the Gainesville murders. And they considered everything—Edward's violent past and issues with mental health—
his proximity to the off-campus apartment complex where the murders took place. Even the hair and DNA samples the police collected from him were compared to those found at the crime scenes. But after all the evidence was considered and the grand jury had a chance to look at everything, they shocked everyone. They cited a lack of evidence in the case and decided not to charge Edward for any of the murders.
Simply put, none of his DNA or hair matched the forensic evidence collected at any of the crime scenes. So although they considered him a prime suspect for over five months in the case, there was virtually no physical evidence proving he was the guy. So after he served his 10-month sentence for assaulting his grandma, Edward Humphrey was released from jail, and he was never officially charged in any of the Gainesville murders.
But if Edward Humphrey didn't do it, who did? And why did they suddenly stop right when he was arrested? Once Edward was a free man again, the hunt for the real Gainesville Ripper only heated up. The task force conducted hundreds of interviews, sifted through more than 18,000 pieces of evidence, ran DNA samples, and tracked the flood of tips phoned in by those who were sure they had crossed paths with the killer.
But none of this had any effect on the progress of the investigation until the authorities received a phone call from someone in Louisiana. A police officer with the Louisiana Police Department called the authorities in Gainesville, Florida, and said they thought they were on to something.
According to this Louisiana police officer, three people had been murdered in the town of Shreveport on November 4th, 1989, and while investigating the case, they saw a lot of similarities between that case and the unsolved Gainesville College murders.
Louisiana police were referring to the unsolved murders of 55-year-old Tom Grissom, his 24-year-old daughter Julie, and his 8-year-old grandson Sean. All three of them had been brutally murdered inside their home while preparing dinner. An intruder broke into the house and attacked all three of them. Afterward, Julie's body was found to have been mutilated, cleaned, and posed, similar to some of the Gainesville victims.
Even though investigators in Louisiana tried everything to catch the killer, they were at a dead end. But when they heard about the unsolved murders in Florida, they thought they might be connected. The eight murders shared similarities, which included the posing of the victims, tape residue on some of the victims' bodies, and vinegar to clean the bodies.
Detectives in Louisiana were able to collect unknown DNA found at the crime scene in Shreveport and discovered that the killer had type B blood, another critical similarity to the killer in Gainesville. Detectives were headed in the right direction, but before they could do anything with the unknown DNA, the police received a tip, a tip that changed everything.
Not long after the police connected the dots between the unsolved murders in Louisiana and Florida, they received a tip from someone working the phones at a local Crimestoppers organization in Louisiana. A woman called in, claiming to know the person behind all eight murders. Or, at least she knew of someone the police should investigate. A guy named Danny Rowling.
According to the caller, a local resident of Shreveport, Danny Rowling, might be the guy they were after. She said about three months earlier in August 1990, she was traveling in Florida and heard about the college kid murders up in Gainesville, Florida from Danny Rowling himself. She told Crime Stoppers she and her husband had met Danny at their church, and during their short relationship, Danny shared some extremely disturbing things with them.
Danny would come over almost every night, and during some of these visits, he would talk about hurting people, or at least wanting to hurt people. He went as far as talking about the knife he would use. Eventually, this woman and her husband decided they didn't want Danny Rowling coming over to their house anymore. They weren't sure if he was telling the truth about anything that he talked about, like stabbing or hurting people.
But the whole thing just freaked them out. So they told Danny he wasn't welcome anymore. Then they heard about the three murders in their hometown of Louisiana. Her first thought was that Danny Rowling might have been involved. So she decided to pick up the phone and call Crime Stoppers to give them Danny's name. She didn't have any physical proof that he was responsible, but deep down in her gut, she just knew.
Once the police got Danny's name from Crime Stoppers, they looked into him as much as possible. They quickly found out that he had already been arrested on September 7, 1990, in Ocala, Florida, for an armed robbery. During that particular incident, Danny used a gun to try and rob a Winn-Dixie grocery store in Ocala, but was ultimately caught after a chase with the police.
This robbery happened 10 days after Manny and his roommate Tracy were murdered. So that could explain why the murders suddenly stopped at the same exact time they arrested the first suspect, Edward Humphrey. Danny was in jail, so that's why there weren't any more murders in Gainesville. Since Danny was already in jail on unrelated charges, it was easy for investigators to get a sample of his DNA. They didn't even need a search warrant.
So once they had a DNA sample, they compared it to the DNA collected at all the crime scenes throughout Gainesville and the one in Louisiana. Through an extracted tooth, investigators were able to match Danny's DNA to all the unknown DNA at the murder scenes. Danny Rowling was the Gainesville Ripper. As soon as they had the DNA evidence, Danny Rowling became the primary suspect in all eight murders. Police immediately went to question him.
And then, Danny did something shocking. He confessed to everything. He admitted to the Gainesville murders almost immediately. In fact, he was almost proud that he was the infamous Gainesville Ripper. So right after his confession, the authorities didn't waste a single second filing criminal charges.
In November 1999, Danny Rowling, the man once known as the Gainesville Ripper, was charged with five counts of first-degree murder. If convicted, he was facing the death penalty. Although Rowling had confessed to the murders and DNA put him at the crime scenes, it would take another four years before he was convicted and sentenced. But during this time, everyone got a glimpse into who the Gainesville Ripper really was.
Born Danny Harold Rowling on May 26, 1954, to Claudia and James Rowling in Shreveport, Louisiana, Danny's life didn't start good. Although his parents were married when he was born, his father, James Rowling, never seemed to either be wanting to be a father or a husband. He was a police officer and was reported to have abused both his wife and children over and over again.
In fact, the first time Danny's father abused him was he was only one years old. He was beaten because his dad didn't think that he was crawling the right way. And when Kevin, Danny's younger brother, was born in 1955, the abuse only got worse. It was reported that Danny's mom, Claudia, tried to leave the marriage several times because of the abuse. But for one reason or another, she always came back. And the abuse cycle simply kept repeating.
By the time Danny started third grade, he was already failing in school. He either didn't turn in his homework or he wasn't showing up to school because of repeated illnesses, and during this time, his mom suffered a mental breakdown. Danny's teachers in school described him as, quote, end quote.
As a child, those aggressive tendencies and poor impulse control seemed to forecast the kind of person Danny Rowling was becoming. He tried joining the Navy as an adult, but they wouldn't take him, so he went to the Air Force instead. But not even the military could provide the kind of support and structure he needed, so he quit the Air Force after doing too many drugs, which included doing acid more than 100 times.
After his discharge from the military, Danny Rowling seemed to live a normal life, at least for a little while. He got married and settled into a regular job. But the normalcy didn't last, and the abuse cycle started over again. At only 23 years old, Danny's wife accused him of abusing her and threatening to kill her.
So she left him and he went out and reportedly sexually assaulted another woman who was said to look exactly like his ex-wife. Then, after that first sexual assault incident, the real making of the Gainesville Ripper began. From the late 1970s to the 1990s, he committed a series of petty crimes and theft. He usually turned to armed robberies when he ran out of money and needed cash.
So during this time, he was in and out of jail all across Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. He somehow managed to break out of jail several times, but always found himself locked up again. Even on the outside, he couldn't make ends meet. He would get hired and quickly either get fired or quit the job before the employer had a chance to fire him.
In May 1990, Danny broke into his father's house where he shot him twice, almost killing him. Although he survived, his dad lost an eye and an ear. After that episode, he changed his identity with papers he stole from breaking into someone's house. He left Louisiana with his new identity and moved to Florida to start a new life as Michael Kennedy Jr. in July 1990.
But once again, running away didn't make life any better for him. Instead, it only made his situation worse. About a month after he moved to Sarasota, Florida, he broke into the apartment of Sonia and Christina, the first Gainesville victims in August 1990. From then on, he went on his week-long killing spree all across Gainesville and eventually became known as the Gainesville Ripper.
When Danny first broke into Sonia and Christina's apartment, he found Christina asleep on the couch. But instead of waking her up, he went upstairs to Sonia's room where she was also asleep. He then put duct tape over her mouth so Christina wouldn't be able to hear her scream. And then he stabbed her to death. After Sonia was dead, he went back downstairs where he confronted Christina on the couch in the living room.
He taped her mouth shut with tape and bound her ankles and wrists before stabbing her five times. Before leaving the apartment, he did two things. One, he took a shower, and two, he posed both of their bodies. When it came to his second victim, 18-year-old Krista Hoyt, he was able to break into her place through the sliding glass door using a screwdriver. But when he got inside, Krista wasn't home. The place was completely empty.
so he decided to wait in the living room. Hours later, around 11 a.m., Krista returned to her apartment where she was immediately caught off guard by Danny standing in her living room. He put her in a chokehold and then, just like the first two girls, he put duct tape over her mouth and bound both her ankles and wrists behind her back. After he sexually assaulted and killed her, he left the apartment.
But not long after that, he realized he forgot his wallet. So he went back inside and not only did he find his wallet, but he also decided to use that opportunity to almost decapitate Krista and pose her body before leaving the apartment again. When Danny Rowling broke into the third apartment where Manny and Tracy lived, he encountered the most trouble he had so far because both of them fought back.
Manny physically fought him, and Tracy tried to barricade herself in the bedroom when she found out what was happening, but neither one of them was successful. And before leaving, Manny's body was left where he was killed, and Tracy's body was posed. After spending four years in jail, Danny Rowling was finally brought to trial for the murders. At the trial, he claimed his motive was simple—
He wanted to be just like his idol, serial killer Ted Bundy. According to his very own words, he wanted to become, quote, a superstar just like Bundy. But before the trial could really get anywhere, Danny Rowling pleaded guilty to all charges against him. And on April 20th, 1994, Rowling was sentenced to death for his role as the Gainesville Ripper.
Twelve years later, the state of Florida carried out its plan to execute Rowling. On October 25, 2006, the day he was scheduled to die by lethal injection, he finally confessed to his part in the Shreveport murders. He also gave the authorities a handwritten confession and apology letter. After he ate his last meal, which consisted of lobster tails, he was led to the execution room.
He was allowed to say any last words, but he didn't. He didn't say a single word. In the last moment, the U.S. Supreme Court had the opportunity to stop the execution, but they didn't. They rejected his last appeal. And by 6.15 p.m. that night, Danny Rowling was pronounced dead. Florida executed the Gainesville Ripper.
Danny Rowling, known as the Gainesville Ripper, terrorized college students during a three-day murderous rampage until DNA was finally able to tie him to all the crimes. He left behind valuable forensic evidence. He may have been executed, but what he did that summer in 1990 has lived on through one of the most popular slasher film franchises, Scream.
It's sometimes sad to say, but life can be stranger than fiction. To share your thoughts on the story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions about the case.
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Remember, not all stories have happy endings.