“I had been to scenes where people had lost their lives but I’d never been to anything quite like that before nothing nearly that bad. I thought this was somebody that was hitting the University of Florida very much as Ted Bundy had hit Florida State University in Tallahassee. Christa was beheaded her little body had been posed on the side of the bed sitting up. I think he’s trying to send the message that he is in control he’s in control and he’s challenging law enforcement. This was one of those cases just just unbelievable what he did.”
“August 1990 it’s an ordinary summer weekend in Gainesville Florida as university students prepare for the start of fall semester. Little does anyone know a shocking chain of events is about to take place that will push this college town to the brink and make for a terrifying few months that are anything but ordinary.”
“On Sunday August 26th Gainesville police receive a call from the Williamsburg apartment complex. The parents of 17-year-old Christina Pal a resident there are demanding to be led into their daughter’s apartment. When officers arrive on the scene they’re told that Christina and her 18-year-old roommate Sonia Larson have not been seen in days.”
“My deputy chief called me and said ‘Chief I need you to come out.’ I said ‘What you got?’ He said ‘We got a double homicide.’”
“Inside the duplex apartment lay the bloodied bodies of college students Christina Pal and Sonia Larson. They had been dead for uh more than a few hours and probably several days. Sonia’s body is found on her bed. Sonia Larson was killed in a blitz style attack he was immediately attacked overwhelmed stabbed multiple times she had probably been asleep she had obviously died there we tell by the pools of the blood but the suspect at some point had pulled the victim to the edge of the bed and spread her legs. Downstairs investigators find the body of Christina Pal. Actually it was a very much different scene very obvious she had been sexually molested uh very obvious he spent a long time with her she had marks on her wrist where they had been bound with duct tape she was lying on her back her legs were spread apart she had postmortar on partial amputation of her breast when we turned her over we found the stab wound in the back. The brutality of the murders is nothing short of shocking even to the department’s most hardened veterans. It was natural I had a very vivid picture in my mind of what had happened and that’s the last thing in the world I’d ever want to have happen to anyone in my family it was my duty to protect these young people.”
“The stab wounds from both victims give authorities a clue as to the type of weapon the killer used. Characteristics of the wounds led us to believe that the type of weapon probably used was uh a military survival knife the prototype of which would be the Marine KBAR. The knife is a very intimate sort of weapon to use you actually enter the body and your hand is on the handle.”
“Crime scene investigators find pry marks on the outside lock of the back door they believe this is where the killer entered and we found you couldn’t really close that door obviously been stuck I have no idea if the tenants actually knew that door is not locked. It isn’t long before investigators find another important clue near the body of Christina. He had placed a towel and uh a bottle of dishwashing detergent near the body and we summized these were probably used to uh obliterate evidence of rape. We knew by the time we had finished processing the scene this is somebody that had a knowledge of police work.”
“One thought was that it was a burglary another thought was that uh uh it was a romance gone bad and I I didn’t think either of those looked very viable uh particularly after looking at the wound patterns uh we had evidence of bondage at the scene and we had uh post-mortem injuries to the body which are a key characteristic of many serial killers. This is not uh just a usual homicide of somebody that got in an argument but he was very specifically sending us a message. We had a serial murder no question about it.”
“Serial killers like to kill they’re hunters they hunt humans. Our only real question now is how many will he take before he leaves Gainesville. How could I get across to the student population at at the University of Florida that how could I give them the confidence that we were there and we could protect them? Cuz I knew this was going to go on.”
“In August 1990 news of the gruesome double homicide of college freshman Christina Pal and Sonia Larson quickly spreads through the town of Gainesville Florida. I thought this was somebody that was hitting the University of Florida very much as Ted Bundy had hit Florida State University in Tallahassee and would do their damage and perhaps then move on but I couldn’t let the damage be done. Detectives scour the area interviewing neighbors and searching for clues but they come up empty.”
“We didn’t have a lot of eyewitnesses and that makes it tougher because you don’t have anybody that drove by or you didn’t have a promotion where local law enforcement was dispatched or you didn’t have somebody next door that says yes I saw him or I saw people run away.”
“Gainesville authorities waste little time assembling a task force asking for help from other jurisdictions and agencies including the FBI.”
“We just wanted people that could help us figure out what was in this person’s head.”
“A serial killer is an individual who kills three or more people over a period of time between each killing there’s an emotionally cooling off period. He’ll kill period of time goes by he’ll kill again period of time goes by he kills again.”
“As the city of Gainesville works around the clock to head off another attack The Elatchua County Sheriff’s Office is concerned for one of their employees. Christa Hoy an 18-year-old records clerk has not arrived for a midnight shift.”
“‘Make 25 with Christa Hoy supervisor in records is that she has failed to show up for work contact has made her call records ASAP.’ At around 12:30 a.m. a deputy is dispatched to a residence. I tried knocking on the door um I knocked for several minutes couldn’t get any sort of an answer at all I walked around to the side and at that time there was chainlink fence I noticed that it was pushed down as if somebody had walked across it I started to become alarmed that something wasn’t right. It’s also clear that the lock on Christa’s sliding glass door has been tampered with. There were Venetian type blinds and they were slightly raised on one side and so I got down on my hands and knees see if I could see anybody inside of the apartment that’s when I saw Christa lying on the bed. I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and she had clearly been decapitated. I had been to scenes where people had lost their lives but I’d never been to anything quite like that before nothing nearly that bad.”
“The deputy waits for backup before entering the apartment. And I was wondering not only how many more there might be but whether or not he was still in the apartment. Minutes had turned to hours for me because you’re standing there not knowing what’s going to happen next not knowing what to expect when backup finally arrives they carefully enter the apartment but it’s clear that the asalent is gone.”
“‘My husband called me on the phone and said ‘Christy’s been killed.’’ He broke down and hung up so I have no clue I don’t know if she has been in a car accident I don’t know what has happened to her.”
“Christa Hoy had evidence of sexual assault she had been bound at the wrist with with the duct tape it had all the markings of what they had seen at the first crime scene and my first reaction was ‘You hate to be right sometimes i’d much rather have been wrong.’ She was killed with a single stab wound of the back. The murder weapon is clearly the same size and style of the knife used in the previous killings and most telling Christa’s body was also posed after death propped up in a sitting position at the end of her bed. He is all powerful he’s uh manipulating her body position uh as though she were a puppet on a string. There was again post-mortem mutilation of the body removal of parts of the breast and in her case she was decapitated after she was dead and he had turned a bookcase facing the bed and placed her head giving the impression to you that she’d be looking at herself pretty dramatic scene he also wanted to instill fear in whoever found that body and I think he was successful he would have instilled fear on me if I have walked into that scene. This was a total shock to us we had no idea who could even dream that something like this would happen to your beloved family member.”
“Whenever you find an individual who mutilates sexually mutilates the body that suggests to us that it is a schizophrenic just that mutilation itself a schizophrenic moves in and out of contact with reality but there are periods where they are fully in control. It was a message that was being sent to the police i’m really a very bad guy you know kind of catch me if you can.”
“Authorities from the state and federal government converge on the city of Gainesville as the investigation reaches a fevered pitch.”
“There were all kinds of rumors going around that it was pizza delivery people they had no clue who was committing the murders or where another one might happen at. Police and FBI agents redouble their efforts looking for anything that could shed light on the killer before he strikes again.”
“What happens immediately on a case like this is you do victimology we track their whereabouts as far back as we can we in the same location and that’s where they’re getting targeted are they friends of the same person? So victimology is crucial on a big case like this because we have to figure out how their paths crossed.”
“In this case however investigators find few common links between the victims. Nothing really jumped out initially they were granted college students but beyond that we couldn’t tie them directly together.”
“As the task force delves deeper into the victim’s movements prior to the murders FBI profilers quickly establish a preliminary picture of the killer. A profile is not designed to identify a particular person a profile is designed to identify a type of person. I believe there are basically four steps that are involved in the preparation of profile. One is capturing everything that took place. Step number two is asking yourself why why was the large knife used why was the mutilation postmortm step number three is trying to figure out the sequence of events and step number four is setting forth the characteristics and traits of the unidentified offender who would have done these things for these reasons in this order. In my opinion the person they would be looking for is a white male he would be in his late 20s to mid30s he was extremely well organized that he had planned his crime out very well he brought the tape with him and took it away he washed the victim’s bodies with soap so I believe he was very very cautious and that would have led them to suspect that he had some association with law enforcement.”
“But a profile is merely an investigative tool and is far from 100% accurate. One thing however is becoming abundantly clear the residents of Gainesville are growing more frightened by the moment.”
“Here you have a college town and you have a violent crime and then you have a a second crime scene right after it so now you have a serial murderer amongst the community and the community’s never seen that before so it creates chaos. We do not know who it is that’s doing this we don’t know if they’re after us everybody is terrified.”
“FBI agents Gainesville detectives and other task force personnel break into squads to track down leads and patrol the city.”
“You couldn’t go back past a a street corner that you didn’t see numbers of uniform police officers. I was trying to send a very specific message to him if you stay here if you keep killing in Gansel you killing near the University of Florida then we’re going to catch you.”
“‘Any major like security system or anything in our apartment building so it wouldn’t be that hard to break in.’”
“The FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime employs a staff of 150 coordinators and is famous around the world for its representation in films like The Silence of the Lambs.”
“Within the span of 24 hours three female college students have been found brutally murdered in Gainesville Florida. Local law enforcement officials are now certain that a serial killer is loose in their community and they’re relying on the FBI’s criminal behavior experts for help.”
“I think he’s trying to send the message that he is in control he’s in control and he’s challenging law enforcement. These murders are not simply lashing out they’re his personal satisfaction.”
“FBI profilers hold daily briefings to update police with their insights on the killer. The individual would be either unemployed or working any menial type job requiring little or no skill. I think he’d be strong physically I think he would have average to above average intelligence he was narcissistic very self-centered that individual didn’t really care about the risk that he was taking.”
“The pressure is on as local law enforcement gets flooded with leads.”
“Everybody’s suspicious then you’ll have people call in about maybe somebody they don’t like or next door neighbors and you have to vet out every lead because you’re not sure which lead is going to be the one you need.”
“On August 27th 1990 Gainesville police hold a press conference warning citizens to be aware of the danger in their midst.”
“I was taking to the students two messages first of all we’re confident that we can catch this person but it won’t be just us working by ourselves in some vacuum you are the potential victims you have to be more careful than you’ve ever been before.”
“But the warning may have come too late.”
“On Tuesday morning August 28th the manager of the Gatorwood Apartments receives a troubling phone call. A friend of Manuel Tabota is worried manny and his roommate Tracy Paulace both 23 haven’t answered their phone in days. The manager agrees to let Manny’s friend into the apartment but as soon as they open the door they know that something is terribly wrong.”
“The murder was striking rapidly but so was law enforcement moving into place. There was some conversation from the gentleman that first discovered the body there that there was a black bag there he waited for the police officer wisely to arrive and we actually made entry into that scene the black bag was gone. We were very very close on these hills at that point.”
“Authorities waste no time locking down the area and immediately begin a painstaking examination of their third crime scene in its many days.”
“Tracy’s body was found uh in the hallway laying on her back again and uh we found uh tape marks on her wrists again evidence that she was alive sometime with the killer. The killer drug her from her bedroom into the hallway and positioned her in a manner designed to degrade and humiliate her even after death and that’s his intent that’s why he did it and he also wanted to shock and alarm the investigators who came to the scene.”
“An autopsy reveals that Tracy was sexually assaulted then stabbed three times in the back with a knife similar to the one used in the previous attacks. Tracy’s body was also posed and cleaned but this time there is no mutilation. The most logical reason why he did not mutilate Miss Pace involves what he’ been through prior to that getting to that point.”
“Manuel Tabota is found in his bed. The killer attacked him rather quickly uh bleeped upon the bed and stabbed him many times in face neck chest abdomen arms and uh in the right leg. The wounds in the arm uh looked uh very characteristic for defense wounds they put up a vigorous struggle. Given the evidence on the scene police are almost certain Manny was killed first.”
“Manny Tabota was a strong young man he was 6’1 and muscular uh fit condition so he would have been uh difficult to overcome unless you attacked him uh in a in a surprise attack.”
“For the third day in a row forensic technicians must sift through a bloody crime scene for clues. A broken lock suggests the killer gained entry once again through the sliding glass door in back. And lab technicians conclude the markings from all three crime scenes came from a screwdriver.”
“Word quickly spreads that the killer has struck again and this time one of the victims is male. The fact that he did attack this man and struggle with this man tells me that he the killer believes he is all powerful.”
“This sent the whole Gainesville area into a panic and at that time we became very frightened we were sleeping in shifts we were afraid terrified to lay down for all of us to go to sleep at the same time. Even I put my wife and my daughter in a hotel to stay because my wife met the description of the the young co-ed who were being murdered and so I wasn’t completely a police officer during this time i was also a husband and father. We had parents calling should I take my kids home of course we had a lot of law enforcement on the streets but even if you put a a cop on every corner there’s no guarantee we could prevent the next attack. Parking lots were literally filled with police cars that were out looking for the suspect so this was like a terror state in the whole community nobody felt safe.”
“Bat mace and gun sales go through the roof sority houses hire aroundthe-clock security guards and many abandoned the campus completely.”
“The president of the University of Florida released classes for a week cuz he understood that everybody was nervous they thought they were going to be the next victim.”
“That same day Gainesville officers spot two suspiciousl looking men near a wooded area on the outskirts of the city. One of our patrol deputies observed a black male and a white male and went to confront the two people entering the woods. The white male ran and the black male stayed there. The white male escapes into the forest but during the chase police come across a makeshift campsite. There they find camping equipment bags clothing and cash stained with red dye.”
“About a week prior to the homicides we had had a a bank robbery in Gainesville where a white male and a black male were the suspects. The man caught by police confesses to the bank robbery and reveals the name of his accomplice Mike Kennedy but police are unable to locate him. All investigators can do is put out an APB on the suspect and confiscate the items found at the campsite.”
“Our forensic people put it in our evidence uh room at the Lot County Sheriff’s Office based on the bank robbery.”
“But with no other leads the Mike Kennedy case quickly goes cold. The homicides however remain top priority and the task force is still no closer to identifying a suspect until one name surfaces multiple times.”
“A series of leads came in identifying Ed Humphre uh identifying him in the areas of the university and of the apartment complexes in general and acting bizarre erratic so of course we keyed in on that.”
“Investigators soon learned that like Manny Tabota and Tracy Paulace Humphrey lived at the Gatorwood Apartments. Then on August 30th authorities discover that Humphrey had recently attacked his grandmother. Now we got violence so his name very quickly went up the list.”
“The Florida Department of Law Enforcement interrogates Humphrey for hours and he seemed to have very specific knowledge of things that happened in the crime scene the position of bodies the way that place was cleaned up uh the kind of specificity that gave us a lot of concern. It was a bizarre interview so now he’s looking much better all the time.”
“In August 1990 Gainesville Florida law enforcement are investigating Ed Humphrey as a person of interest in the brutal slangs of five college students.”
“Edward Humphre at the time was uh in custody uh based on the assault on his grandma uh she didn’t want to press charges the state definitely did. On September 6th 1990 a judge grants police a warrant to search Humphrey’s car his apartment and his grandmother’s house.”
“A lot of times your your serial murderers will collect things uh it’s just kind of part of their profile. We knew that there were certain types of tools that were used to gain entrance to the scenes and of course we were looking for a very very large knife and all we would need would be one threat uh one piece of evidence. The crime scene texts did find uh several knives um also several screwdrivers uh so we felt that okay they could have been the tools.”
“They also collect saliva hair and blood samples from Ed Humphrey to compare with samples found at the three crime scenes.”
“DNA was uh very very new to the industry it took like 21 days to get the first profile from DNA evidence. We learned through the news media mostly that Humphrey was a person of suspect again we’re very confused we don’t know whether to believe this or or if what is going on with him because we have not really been informed by the police department uh that this is a sure thing.”
“In October Humphrey stands trial for aggravated assault against his grandmother and is sentenced to 22 months in a state mental hospital. But police are surprised when a few weeks later forensic and DNA results come back negative. Suddenly with no evidence whatsoever implicating Humphrey in the murders investigators find themselves at another dead end.”
“We never found anything that really uh linked him to the scenes. I think it was mixed feeling there was still that question uh was it him was it somebody else or was it him and somebody else and then all at once they say he had nothing to do with it and that’s very confusing uh for us as family members to even figure out what’s going on do they even know what’s going on?”
“I kind of devoted myself I said ‘If we don’t saw this thing I’m going to give up being police chief i’m going to work on this thing till I die.’”
“It was very hard for us not to know who had committed the crimes because we had no closure we had nowhere to go we were very upset over the whole thing.”
“With the case at a standstill investigators turn to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program or VCAP. Vcap is a database through which agents can compare details of their ongoing investigation with those of other violent crimes. The description of the victim how the victim was murdered was the victim posed how was entry gained into the the resident just an array of questions and in return it kicks out any potential crimes of similarity across the United States.”
“The process is used to identify a suspect based on information gathered at seemingly unrelated crime scenes and it isn’t long before investigators hit on a promising lead.”
“We got a contact from a local police department uh in Louisiana. Local law enforcement contacted us in reference to a triple homicide that they had that was unsolved at the time and then of course we started comparing notes uh they went over the case files. Tom Julie and Shawn Gryom were all brutally murdered a year earlier in November 1989.”
“Tom Gryom and his grandson Shawn were both found stabbed to death in the living room of their home. Julie Gryom was found in the rear bedroom uh she was completely nude was posed on the uh edge of the bed with her arms positioned around her head and he hadn’t even taken the time to spread her hair out around her head. She had three stab wounds to the back and just like in the Gainesville murders the killer attempted to clean up the crime scene cleaned her body he then took all of her clothes and put them in the washing machine and washed all of her clothes and at in doing that he destroys you know any kind of evidence that we would hope to gain. She was positioned on the bed very similar to the way Sonia Larson had been positioned on her bed tape had been brought and used and taken away by the killer there was no physical evidence.”
“So there’s some of the similarities between the crimes in Gainesville and the murders in Shreport. There was a policeman that walked into that house that was in shock and wasn’t horrified and that shows that you have a monster you have somebody that has totally no dis no regard whatsoever for human life that has a mission in their mind and is going to carry it out.”
“Authorities quickly conclude that the murder weapon is also consistent with the one used in the Gainesville attacks.”
“The fear is there this guy’s out there and we didn’t have any idea who he was.”
“But the Louisiana killer was also profiled by the FBI shortly after the murders. We learned that we were probably looking for a white male that’s going to be in his uh early 30s they said that he would have you know some connection to law enforcement.”
“From the evidence being cleaned up to Gainesville detectives it all sounds eerily familiar. Comparing the photographs with their crime scene and ours it was amazing how close of similarities the rest of the case uh was to us.”
“Investigators from both jurisdictions immediately begin to narrow the search to anyone who had been in Louisiana and Florida at the same time as the murders. Then a few weeks later Shreveport police get a call that breaks the case wide open.”
“The Shreport Police Department they had gotten word that a Shreport man that they wanted on an attempted murder of his father had been arrested on a robbery charge in the town south of here Ocala Florida and they called us to let us know that there’s a connection here. We have a man from Streetport arrested in Florida back.”
“Authorities investigating identical serial killings in Florida and Louisiana take a close look at 37-year-old Danny Rowling who was recently arrested for robbery in Ocala Florida. Police on the ground a preliminary background check on the suspect reveals that he fits the FBI profile.”
“His daddy retired from the Streetport Police Department in May of 1990. Danny Rollins was living with his mom and dad here in Shreport. ‘Not going to amount to anything you’ve never done anything.’ He was uh aggressive combative he’s living with his father who’s a very demanding man. ‘That would be the very best thing you could do with this you knew what to do but what do you do you go for.’”
“He shot his father and then fled the area and we felt that hey he was a person of person of interest.”
“We started running background on him uh when he was a young man he was caught peeking in windows and went to thefts robberies and then breaking in and and sexually assaulting.”
“They soon learned that Rowling had served time for armed robbery in Georgia Alabama and Mississippi and as they scrutinize his criminal file investigators are reminded of the white male suspected of robbing a Gainesville bank back in August the same man who’d eluded police in the woods just several weeks earlier. The name that his accomplice had given authorities was Mike Kennedy but now police aren’t so sure.”
“He was a robber he was on the run. We remembered we had this bank robbery and that it was similar to the grocery store robberies that he had done so we went back to our evidence at the the campsite and started pulling that evidence out.”
“It isn’t long before investigators hit pay dirt. Included in the evidence found at the campsite is a tape recorder with a tape inside and the voice on the tape belongs to a Danny Rowling.”
“‘I know I’ll have to run the rest of my life but I’m getting pretty good at it so I don’t want you feeling sorry for me i don’t want you worrying about me i’m a big boy and take care of myself. We’re all down here for just a breath anyway. Well I’m going to sign off for a little bit i got something I got to do.’”
“Investigators believe this ominous message occurred prior to the first murders in Gainesville.”
“It was a sigh of relief um we we we knew we had him and the bottom line is is time at that point was on our side cuz we knew where he was we knew he was in federal custody and had a pretty good assurance he wasn’t going to be able to escape uh from where he was at. Special agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement uh went to the Maring County Jail to interview Rowling. Danny didn’t admit to anything but did give us consent to get a blood sample.”
“In December 1990 Rowling’s DNA tests come back and are a match to the seinal fluids found at all three crime scenes.”
“That was the nail we needed to put in his coffin that was the piece that tied him to all three scenes that was the piece that tied to him directly there’s no better evidence than that.”
“Danny Rowling is charged with five counts of firstdegree murder three counts of sexual battery and three counts of armed burglary. His trial date is set for September 1st 1993. Then just one month before the trial Rowling contacts authorities from prison he wants to talk.”
“It hard in their heart to forgive. Rowling walked into the interview room as a meek humble type person uh knowing what he had done here in Gainesville and the type person he was it was just an act.”
“Rowling concocts a strange plan where he agrees to speak through his cellmate Bobby Lewis.”
“Danny Rowling was very much into power and control one of the ways he could demonstrate power and control was to tell the police ‘I will give my confession but I will do so through my cellmate and if you want my confession you’re going to have to agree to those conditions.’ And then we would ask Danny to either confirm or deny and so it was really a strange interview never did anything like that before.”
“He told Bobby Lewis that um he traveled by bicycle that was the quickest way to get through town uh we believe that he was on a bicycle going from complex to complex uh looking for his targeted victims.”
“It’s the week before college starts we have 50,000 young people coming into our community they’re all on bicycles they’re in cars they’re roaming around it’s very congested at that time of year so he mixed right in.”
“Rowling ultimately confesses to all five Gainesville murders.”
“I think Rowling knew uh that he had been caught that we had the evidence to prove the case he just needed to be confronted on what he had done. It was a relief when we finally found out who the true person was that had killed Christa.”
“Strangely Rowling refuses to discuss the Gryom family murders in Shreveport.”
“Rowling indicated to us that he would clear those up in due time.”
“Investigators are caught off guard by what he says next.”
“Boy he said he was going to kill eight people for the eight years he spent in prison that was the reason he gave us he was going to take one life for every year that he spent in prison so that that that the bitterness I think that’s just an excuse to explain why he didn’t kill more. Danny Rowling would have continued to kill. The reason he said he he’d killed his eight was because he didn’t want the system taking credit for stopping him he wanted to say ‘I stopped myself.’”
“As the trial begins prosecutors prepare for an insanity defense but Rolling surprises everyone by confessing in open court.”
“‘I’ve been running from first one thing and then another all my life but there are some things that you just can’t run from and this being one of those.’”
“I believe Rowling pleaded guilty so he wouldn’t have to sit in that courtroom and listen to the things he did to these five kids he did not want to hear that.”
“During the penalty phase of the trial Rowling argues that his abusive upbringing was the motivating force behind his life of crime.”
“The abuse Danny Rowling allegedly suffered at the hands of his father physical abuse emotional abuse probably had some impact on his commission of the crimes but I think more importantly is that he felt that he had been abandoned by his mother that she didn’t protect him that’s where his anger against women came.”
“We felt like we had to fight for everything um and fight for the death sentence. I’m a nurse I don’t believe in putting people to death but I knew that he said he would sit in his jail at night and look at the ceiling and look at the pictures of the five students and remember everything that he had done and because of that I felt that that needed to be stopped he deserved to be put to death.”
“On April 20th 1994 Danny Harold Rowling is sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murders of Sonia Larson Christina Pal Christa Hoy Manuel Tabota and Tracy Paulace.”
“‘I regret with all my heart what my hand has done.’”
“I never really felt like he apologized I do not think that he was ever sorry I think that he thought about these murders for a very long time he planned them he he knew what he wanted to do and he knew how he wanted to commit them and I don’t believe he was ever sorry that he did that.”
“Danny Rowling was a sexually sadistic serial killer and he fed off the fear of his victims and he enjoyed their suffering he enjoyed what he did he said that he enjoyed watching the light go out of their eyes he enjoyed killing somebody and these were not the first people that he had killed.”
“Rowling is later linked to the Shreveport murders by DNA.”
“He was indicted by a grand jury in Shreveport Louisiana for those killings they never asked for Rowling to be extradited back they knew Rowling would be sitting here on death row you know first this case here was was very personal because I was here there was a child there’s a whole family that you know this shouldn’t have happened to you know if God would have seen it for us to solve it here five other kids wouldn’t be dead today and uh that’s what hurts at times that’s what you you remember.”
“On October 25th 2006 Danny Herald Rowling is executed.”
“It was with mixed emotions that I went to his death and watched him be executed and I feel like he caused me to have to go through that turmoil when he looked at us during the time of execution uh he turned his head and he watched us while he was dying uh this case I think left its mark on everyone involved in it and on u everyone in this community you know this case really touched people it touched all of us and you can’t avoid that.”
“‘Had everything to live for the most attractive people in the world the brightest people in the world and here I’d let them down.’”
“To me there never is any closure to um losing your loved one Christa’s death still affects us every day but it was a sense of relief the next day after his execution and I realized I no longer had to fight that battle anymore it was done.”
