The University of Florida campus and the surrounding city of Gainesville were plunged into terror in late August 1990 when a serial killer murdered five students over a span of four days, a crime spree that paralyzed a community built around college life and the Florida Gators football program.
The killer, later identified as Danny Rolling and dubbed the «Gainesville Ripper,» broke into apartments near campus between Aug. 24 and Aug. 27, killing four women with brunette hair and brown eyes and one male student. The victims were Sonja Larson and Christina Powell, both freshmen; Christa Hoyt; Tracy Paules; and Manny Taboada, a 23-year-old student described as standing 6-foot-2 and weighing 200 pounds.
The murders occurred just days before Labor Day weekend and roughly two weeks before the start of the football season, a period when Gainesville would normally be buzzing with anticipation. The Gators were preparing to welcome back Steve Spurrier as head coach, a legendary figure whose return had the entire town expecting a revival. Instead, residents found themselves confronting a nightmare with no clear motive and no suspect.
Former student Erik Tallbacka recalled the atmosphere at a local Walmart, where the gun line stretched down an aisle. He compared the feeling to the electricity before a hurricane, except that what was coming was not a storm but the knowledge that people were being killed every night for three consecutive nights. The campus and town shared a palpable sense that everyone was in it together, bound by fear.
With no social media to spread information or rumors, students relied on nightly news broadcasts for updates. Duane Engel remembered seeing braces placed in apartment windows to prevent intruders from opening them. Tallbacka described scanning strangers in stores, thinking any man could be the killer. At night, he and his roommates slept on couches with golf clubs and baseball bats nearby, startled by every car door slamming.
Matt Sovic, a senior returning to campus, attended a party the weekend the murders began while staying at Williamsburg Village, the same complex where Larson and Powell lived. He parked directly in front of the unit containing the first victims' residence. The next day, he watched as a beer can his roommate had tossed into the yard was placed into an evidence bag. Not yet knowing a double murder had occurred, the friends joked that the can's prints made their roommate a suspect.
Kevin Letize, also starting his senior year, said the mood on campus shifted after students learned the killer had also murdered Taboada. Until then, many had assumed the killer targeted only women. Once the large male student was found dead, Letize said, the «tough» students began taking the threat far more seriously.
Spurrier allowed players' girlfriends to sleep in Yon Hall, the high-security complex where the football team lived, offering a measure of safety. The murders stopped after Aug. 27, but many students had already left Gainesville for good. Those who stayed tried to reclaim some normalcy.
After much discussion, Florida opened its season Sept. 8 against Oklahoma State. The Gators won 50-7, and quarterback Shane Matthews became a household name. Spurrier had revived the football program, but more importantly, the team gave a traumatized town a reason to smile. Glenn Summers said he had never seen a place so terrorized.
Rolling was eventually arrested, pleaded guilty to the Gainesville murders and several in Shreveport, Louisiana, and was sentenced to death. He died by lethal injection in 2006. His killing spree inspired several books and a movie, and screenwriter Kevin Williamson has said the «Scream» horror franchise was loosely based on the Gainesville murders. More than three decades later, the week remains vivid for those who lived through it, a dark chapter that briefly made the town forget about football.