Victim's Brother Talks About Danny Rolling Rolling's Execution Scheduled For Wednesday POSTED: 6:35 pm EDT October 20, 2006 UPDATED: 6:51 pm EDT October 20, 2006 MIAMI -- Mario Taboada, the brother of one of serial killer Danny Rolling's victims, talked to Local 10's Jeff Weinsier Friday. Manny Taboada was one of five students murdered at the University of Florida in 1990. Now, Rolling, the Gainesville serial killer, is just days from his scheduled execution by lethal injection. Manny's brother, Mario Taboada, said that the execution is not closure -- it is simply the next chapter. Mario and his mother are going to Starke Tuesday for the execution of Rolling on Wednesday. Mario Taboada said he will be at Starke, but he doesn't want to witness the man who killed his brother die. "(I) didn't want to subject myself to anything he might say -- whether it be something cynical, sarcastic or remorse for what he did. I wasn't interested," Taboada said. It was 16 years ago that Mario Taboada's brother, who was an American High School graduate, was killed -- stabbed to death by Rolling. Rolling also raped and killed three women and mutilated their bodies. One of those women, Christa Hoyt, was decapitated and her nipples cut off her body. Diana Hoyt, Christa's mother, plans to watch the execution. Mario Taboada and his mother plan to be outside the Florida State Prison when Rolling is put to death. Taboada said that he thought long and hard and couldn't find a reason to witness the execution. "The only thing is that when we refer to this individual, we will refer to him in the past tense, like my brother. To me that's equal and just seems righteous," he said. Weinsier asked, "Do you wonder what it would be like if Manny was here today?" Taboada said, "Without a doubt. He would have been 40 years old this year." Mario Taboada said, "To this day, 16 years later, there will be someone who will walk up to me somewhere who recognizes my last name and says, 'I know Manny. I met Manny,' and for that instance he's alive again. They will tell me a story. And it's how I can still learn about my brother -- 16 years later." The U.S. Supreme Court is now Rolling's only option, but it has turned him down in the past. Rolling's own lawyer said Thursday that it doesn't look good for his client. All of the families and investigators and state attorneys who worked on the case will be getting together for lunch and then heading to the prison together on a bus. Manny Taboada's uncle will witness the execution. Weinsier is going to be talking Diana Hoyt on Monday night. She will be at the execution. Weinsier is the only South Florida reporter who will be allowed to be present at the execution. He will be filing live reports from Starke beginning Tuesday night. http://www.local10.com/news/10124131/detail.html

Serial Killer's Execution Date Stirs Memories In Gainesville POSTED: 9:07 am EDT October 21, 2006 UPDATED: 9:28 am EDT October 21, 2006 GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The terror started late on a Sunday afternoon in August 1990, just before the fall semester began. A police officer, summoned by worried parents, discovered the first two bodies in an apartment near the University of Florida campus. Freshmen roommates Sonja Larson, 18, and Christina Powell, 17, were fatally stabbed and sliced up with a razor-sharp KA-BAR hunting knife. Just after midnight, before the news of the gruesome killings had a chance to take hold, Christa Hoyt, 18, a Santa Fe Community College student and sheriff's office employee, was found mutilated in her apartment, her severed head placed on a shelf. The next morning, UF students Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada, both 23, were found slaughtered in the apartment they shared nearby, plunging the laid-back college town into a full-fledged panic. Students fled, neighbors huddled together for protection, residents armed themselves. Innocence was lost. Many lives were changed forever. The manufacturer of this nightmare was a drawling police officer's son and career criminal from Shreveport, La., named Danny Harold Rolling. After a dozen years on death row, the now 52-year-old Rolling is preparing to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Florida State Prison in Starke. Thousands of UF students have come and gone since Rolling arrived on a Greyhound bus, pitched a tent in the woods near campus and set out to become, as he would say later, a "superstar" among criminals. But those students and residents who lived through the worst chapter in the city's history locked away indelible memories that are surfacing again as the execution date nears. "It was terrible, because it was an event that unfolded day by day," recalled Larry Reimer, a minister whose United Church of Gainesville offered shelter to frightened college students. "We didn't know the magnitude of it until we were in the middle of it. To wake up each morning to news that another young person was found dead was terrifying." As the body count rose, Gainesville Police Chief Wayland Clifton called for help from the FBI, the Florida Highway Patrol and other agencies. By midweek, heavily armed officers were ubiquitous on the streets, and helicopters with searchlights a nightly reminder that a serial killer was still on the loose. UF President John Lombardi canceled classes for the week, and the world's media descended on Gainesville to cover the story. "What was interesting was how quiet the student areas got," said Ronald Dupont Jr., who was attending UF and working as a night police reporter at The Gainesville Sun. "A lot of people left town, and a lot of people were holed in their homes genuinely afraid. It turned the town from a happy-go-lucky college town into almost like a wake." Steve Spurrier was preparing for the first game of what would be a storied football coaching career at his alma mater when the murders shook campus. "It was a terrible time in Gainesville," said Spurrier, now head coach at the University of South Carolina. "We actually allowed a lot of our older players to stay where their girlfriends were because of it. Maybe football helped (the healing), but it was certainly one of the worst tragedies that ever happened in Gainesville." The focus of the task force first fell on a UF student who was unfortunate enough to go off his psychotropic medication and begin acting strangely around town after the slayings. He was eventually cleared. Meanwhile, Rolling robbed a bank and stole a car before leaving Gainesville the day after the last bodies were discovered. Belongings he left at the campsite in the woods would eventually link him to the slayings. Rolling's name first came to the attention of investigators because he was suspect in the similar mutilation slayings of three people back in Shreveport (he later confessed, but was never prosecuted). But it would be December 1990 before they would find him sitting in the Marion County jail a half hour south of Gainesville, awaiting trial for robbing a grocery store there. DNA confirmed he was the killer. Rolling pleaded guilty as trial began on Feb. 15, 1994. In the penalty phase, jurors rejected arguments that he should be spared because of an abusive father, unhappy childhood and history of drug use and mental illness. Judge Stan R. Morris sentenced him to die. Dianna Hoyt, Christa Hoyt's stepmother, said Rolling's execution has been eagerly awaited by the victims' families. Some will be inside the prison to witness it. "What he did was so horrendous, how he tortured our children," Hoyt said. "I think this man can still find enjoyment from that. I just need his mind put to sleep. I don't need him thinking about it anymore." Sadie Darnell, who was the police department's media spokeswoman at the time and developed enduring friendships with the victims' families, said Rolling's execution still matters, even if it also provides him more of the notoriety he sought. "It does not symbolize closure for any of the family members. Retribution, though, is important because it represents that our society is holding that person accountable," said Darnell, now a candidate for Alachua County sheriff. Today's UF students may know the names of the victims because they're painted on a panel on the edge of campus, a memorial that fraternities took responsibility for preserving. Besides being part of the university's history, said Christopher Bucciarelli, president of the UF Interfraternity Council, it's a reminder -- "for everyone to be careful and to be safe." http://www.news4jax.com/news/10127300/detail.html

Victim's Family: Execution Will Not Bring Closure POSTED: 7:51 pm EDT October 24, 2006 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Twenty-four hours before the execution of a convicted serial killer, the Jacksonville family of one of his young victims said his death would not give them closure. Christi Powell was 17 years old and a University of Florida freshman when Danny Rolling murdered her and four other college students including Sonja Larson, 18; Christa Hoyt, 18; Manuel Taboada, 23; and Tracy Inez Paules, 23, during a killing spree in August 1990. Tuesday afternoon, Christi's older sister Barbara Powell Melcolm and two of Christi's nieces gave Channel 4 a statement on behalf of the Powell family. "We are here for a very important reason, to tell the story of Christi's life. For 16 years the focus has been on her death and on her killer's life. Over the next 24 hours, the monster that took her life has been given every privilege that he took from us. He will be given the privilege to give a statement; Christi at age 17 spent her last minutes begging for him to show her mercy," Melcolm said. "Sixteen years is a long time to miss somebody, but we still love her and miss her today." Christi went off to college in Gainesville with the ambition of become an architect. Her family remembers her through pictures and videos: Christi at age 15 delivering a video birthday message for her father, pictures from softball games, and video of Christi with members of the large Powell family celebrating her graduation from Episcopal High School. The youngest of seven Powell children, Christi had 11 nieces and nephews at the time of her graduation party early in the summer of 1990. Her mother, Pat, gave her a Gator necklace as a gift. Christi was excited to be going to Florida. Photos captured the teen's excitement at the graduation ceremony on the Episcopal campus as she and her best friend, Alison Emery, shared their special day. Christi Powell and her best friend Alison Emery celebrate their high school graduation. More than 16 years after their commencement, and 16 years after Christi's death, Emery returned to the Episcopal campus to talk about her friend. "We spent all our time, when we weren't in school, driving around town in a red convertible with the top down even if it was 45 degrees; the radio blasting, with our sunglasses on. We thought we were as cool as they come," Emery said. She said her best friend loved life. "I think you can see from her pictures that she loved life. She drew everyone's attention. She was just that kind of person that lights up a room; you couldn't not know she was there," Emery said. "She was so thrilled about the fact that she was going to the University of Florida. She was the first person in her family to leave town for college. She was a people person. So, whatever it is she would be doing today, it would involve talking to people." Emery said the last 16 years were long ones, noting the time passed was almost equal to Christi's entire lifetime. "We try to remember her life and all the happiness she brought us when she was alive. We try to think about what might have been, and those are really hard thoughts because we'll never know. She made the world a better place and if she were still here, the world would be that much better," Emery said. On Wednesday, Emery will join the Powells and the families of the other students when they go to Starke for the execution of Rolling. One of the victim's mothers said on Tuesday, "Our pain will never go away, but the execution closes a chapter in our never-ending sadness." http://www.news4jax.com/news/10150166/detail.html

Posted on Wed, Oct. 25, 2006 Fla. killer executed for 5 1990 murders RON WORD Associated Press STARKE, Fla. - Danny Harold Rolling, Florida's most notorious serial killer since Ted Bundy, was executed by injection Wednesday for butchering five college students in a ghastly string of slayings that terrorized Gainesville in 1990. Rolling, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. EDT, more than 16 years after his killing rampage at the start of the University of Florida's fall semester. When asked for a last statement, Rolling sang for two minutes what sounded like a hymn with the refrain "none greater than thee, O Lord, none greater than thee," witnesses and prison officials said. He appeared to continue singing after prison officials turned off the microphone, finally stopping just before he died. The bodies of his victims were found over three days in late August, just as the University of Florida's fall semester was beginning. All had been killed with a hunting knife. Some had been mutilated, sexually assaulted and put in shocking poses. One girl's severed head had been placed on a shelf, her body posed as if seated. The killing spree touched off a huge manhunt and plunged the laid-back college town into panic. Students fled and residents armed themselves. Belongings that Rolling left at a campsite in the woods and DNA taken after a later arrest for robbery linked him to the slayings. When he came up for trial in 1994, he shocked the courtroom by pleading guilty. "There are some things you just can't run from, this being one of those," Rolling told the judge. He later told The Associated Press: "I do deserve to die, but do I want to die? No. I want to live. Life is difficult to give up." Dianna Hoyt, who stepdaughter was slain, said the execution marked "the final chapter of this book." "This man brought this outcome to himself, and the law of the land carried through to show us justice," Hoyt said. Outside the prison, death penalty opponents stood in a circle singing "Amazing Grace" after Rolling was pronounced dead. Other onlookers supported the execution. "They're doing a good thing," said Randy Hicks, 35, a truck driver and former prison guard who occasionally watched over Rolling. "This guy deserves it. It's very overdue." Death penalty protesters said the execution only served to provide Rolling additional attention. "The state of Florida is giving this psychopathic killer just what he wanted," said Mark Elliott of Clearwater, spokesman for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. The attention surrounding Rolling's execution reopened old wounds in Gainesville and for the families of the victims. The victims' families ran an advertisement Thursday in The Gainesville Sun, thanking the community for its support: "We hope you will remember August 1990 and the years that followed without any sense of community shame for what has happened here. You turned a blemish into a rose." Rolling was calm and cooperative ahead of the execution, Corrections Department spokesman Robby Cunningham said. He spent several hours with his brother Kevin and his brother's pastor, officials said. The gathering of people on a barren cow pasture across from the prison was reminiscent of the crowds that assembled for Bundy's execution on Jan. 24, 1989 in the state's old electric chair. Bundy was suspected in the deaths and disappearances of 36 women across the country. Bundy died in the electric chair in 1989 in the same death chamber. The case was still fresh in the minds of many when Rolling's killings began the following year in roughly the same area as some of Bundy's crimes. Rolling, a police officer's son from Shreveport, La., arrived in Gainesville on a Greyhound bus, pitched a tent in the woods near campus and set out to become, as he would say later, a "superstar" among criminals. The bodies of Sonja Larson, 18, and Christina Powell, 17, were found stabbed to death in a townhouse just off the University of Florida campus. Christa Hoyt, 18, was found decapitated the next morning in her isolated duplex. Tracy Paules and Manny Taboada, both 23, were discovered dead a day later in the apartment they shared. For months, a task force of local, state and federal agents followed hundreds of leads and took blood samples from dozens of men. They did not know that Rolling was already behind bars for robbing a grocery store. Then authorities in Shreveport, investigating a triple slaying that they believe Rolling committed, suggested police check out the drifter and ex-con. Rolling blamed the murders on abuse he suffered as a child and his treatment in prison, and claimed he had good and bad multiple personalities. But in a letter to The Associated Press in 2002, Rolling wrote: "I assure you I am not a salivating ogre. Granted ... time's past; the dark era of long ago - Dr. Jeckle & Mr. Hyde did strike up & down the corridors of insanety." He said he killed one person for every year he was behind bars. He served a total of eight years in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi before the killings. Rolling was the 63rd inmate to be put to death since Florida resumed executions in 1979 and the third this year. Associated Press Writer Brent Kallestad contributed to this report. http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/15848125.htm