Daniel Harold Rolling "The Gainesville Ripper" : Serial Killer Documentary

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• published: 02 Dec 2015
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Known as the Gainesville Ripper, Rolling murdered four University of Florida students and a Santa Fe Community College student in their apartments in 1990. He decapitated one victim, posed with some of the bodies, removed skin and body parts and arranged the murder scenes using props that included broken mirrors. The macabre slayings began on August 24, 1990 when Rolling broke into the apartment of 17-year-old university freshmen Sonja Larson and Christina Powell. They were found mutilated and stabbed to death. He had raped both women, one after she was dead. The next day, Rolling killed Hoyt, 18. Her body was found propped up, sitting on her bed bent over at the waist. Rolling had sliced off her nipples and left them on the bed next to her, and police discovered that her torso was sliced open, from her chest to her pubic bone. Her severed head perched on a shelf across the room. Two days later, Rolling killed roommates Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada, both 23. Rolling remained at large until September 8, when he was arrested after a botched robbery in the central Florida town of Ocala. He was later linked by DNA to three more killings in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1989. He was not charged in the Gainesville slayings until 1992, while serving a life sentence for armed robbery and other crimes. He pleaded guilty to all five murders as the jury was being selected for trial in 1994.