Florida Executes Danny Rolling for the 1990 Murders of Five College Students in Gainesville
Before he died, Rolling handed a pastor a note admitting three killings in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1989, a case for which he was never tried.
Published
In August 1990, the killings of five college students plunged Gainesville into panic at the start of the University of Florida's fall semester. On October 25, 2006, Florida executed Danny Rolling for those murders.
Rolling, 52, was pronounced dead after a lethal injection at 6:13 p.m. He was the 63rd inmate put to death since Florida resumed executions in 1979. Governor Jeb Bush had signed his death warrant on September 22, and on October 18 the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of his last motion for postconviction relief. Rolling spent several hours before the execution with his brother and his brother's pastor.
The victims were Sonja Larson, 18; Christina Powell, 17; Christa Hoyt, 18; and Tracy Paules and Manny Taboada, both 23. Their bodies were found over three days. Rolling, a drifter from Shreveport, Louisiana, was already in jail for robbing a grocery store when belongings he had left at a campsite in the woods, along with DNA, linked him to the killings. On February 15, 1994, the day his trial was to begin, he pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder, and a jury voted 12 to 0 to recommend death for each.
Before his execution, Rolling handed a pastor a note admitting the November 1989 killings of William Grissom, 55, his daughter Julie Grissom, 24, and his grandson Sean Grissom, 8, in Shreveport. Investigators there believed Rolling was responsible, and it was their tip that led Florida police to him. "This is a tough thing, but is a necessary thing to go through," said Dianna Hoyt, Christa Hoyt's stepmother.
The Florida Supreme Court spelled the first victim's name Sonya Larson, while the Associated Press spelled it Sonja.
Sources
- Rolling v. State, No. SC06-1966, 944 So. 2d 176 (opinion), Supreme Court of Florida (via FSU College of Law digital collection)
- Serial killer Danny Rolling executed in Florida, NBC News (Associated Press)
- How a woman in Louisiana helped break the case of 5 student murders in Florida, ABC News