it stands as one of 1990's most shocking stories. >> 18-year-old sonja larson was found murdered. >> 17-year-old christina powell. >> 18-year-old christa hoyt. ♪ early this morning ♪ >> three young women, all students have been found. >> there was a mutilation -- >> manny taboada, tracy paules -- >> brutally murdered at their apartment. ♪ i said, hey, lord save me now ♪ >> this was the ultimate nightmare for parents who are sending their kids off to college. in a space of, you know, three days, one after another after another, students in apartments being killed, totally vulnerable. >> now that the death toll has reached five, students are talking of returning home. >> i'm terrified. i couldn't sleep last night. >> it's really scary. >> what's the worst that could happen? well, this was the worst that could happen. ♪ me and the devil ♪

>> they have a serial killer -- >> serial killer is on the loose. >> i'm john donvan. and in the early '90s, abc news sent me to gainesville, florida, to cover the story of the gainesville student murders, one of the most horrifying stories that i had ever covered. >> today people walk and wonder if he walks among them. ♪ me and the devil ♪ >> gainesville is a college town located in north-central florida. it's a beautiful area of the state. >> my name is paige beck, and i've been here at the station for more than 31 years. we don't have high-rise buildings here. it still really has a small town feel. the university plays a major role here. it's the major employer. >> it's a really well regarded research university, and a

really large, beautiful campus. >> it's known for its partying. the students come here with the idea that they're going to have lots of fun. >> football is definitely king. >> so we're a very student-populated area. we have a large amount of apartment complexes. >> a lot of houses and a lot of streets. but there's part of it that's just wooded. but once you're about 30 yards into these woods, you feel like you're in another place, in a secret, hidden place. >> so, it's an incredibly easy place to go under cover, especially at night. >> during the summer, it's a little slower. >> you could literally drive through town during the summer without hitting your brakes probably. >> around the second week of august, there's a lot more activity. you'll see the traffic really pick up in gainesville. the students are coming back. that energy of the city really picks up. >> there was a lot of excitement

over the start of a new semester, gator season. the legendary band fleetwood mac of "go your own way" fame was booked to headline homecoming. ♪ you can go your own way ♪ ♪ go your own way ♪ >> and two of the new students caught up in that excitement, sonja larson and christina powell. they were moving to gainesville to begin classes. >> my name is allison emery and i was christi powell's best friend. christi and i met in high school. our graduation was outside. >> for real? >> for real. >> we were just so excited about the next phase of life, about moving forward, about college. >> all the books, tuition, room and board, paid in full. compliments of mr. -- of mom and dad. [ cheers ] >> as soon as she know she'd been admitted to florida, she was all gator all the time. she got a beautiful gold gator necklace from her parents as one

of her graduation presents. never took it off. >> you have to promise me four years from now, y'all will be going down to gainesville. >> if you make it down the aisle, we'll be there. >> my name is ada larson, and i'm the mother of sonja larson. >> sonja! sonja! >> sonja and i were very close. sonja was the dream child. >> don't worry, be happy! >> everybody who knew her said she was an incredibly sweet, lovely girl. she was a lot more reserved. and she liked to work with children. >> so, these two young women, they had met over the summer doing some courses, and they decided to be roommates. >> we looked and looked for a dorm that she could go to, because i hated the fact that she was going to be in an off-campus location. but we couldn't find any.

they were booked full. >> so christie powell and sonja larson had found an apartment in a complex called williamsburg apartments. >> so this was move-in day for them. and this was going to be their first night in their new place together. >> christi's sister and brother-in-law, as i recall it, were supposed to bring her bedroom set and all the things that she was supposed to have in the apartment. and so they arrived saturday morning, and nobody answered the door. there were some notes on the door from friends like, "hey, we went out." >> we had no way of reaching her. the phone hadn't been installed yet. she hadn't called us, and finally the powells, who lived closer, went over there. >> her parents came down, you know, to figure out where she was and what was going on. they banged on the doors, and

ultimately, i think, got a maintenance person at the apartments to ask -- to be let in. >> i'm wondering if it would be possible to have officer -- meet me? >> okay, what's the problem there? >> i have two girls. the parents suspect there's some thing's wrong them or they've disappeared or something and did not show, and my manager implores me not to go in by myself but to be accompanied by a police officer. >> okay, go ahead. we'll have someone meet you. >> and an officer, ray barber, went to the door. and the powells were behind them. >> my maintenance man broke the door in, and i was standing behind him, and the deputy sheriff was behind me. then when he went in, i followed him in the apartment and saw the young lady on the bed. and you could see -- you could see her in a -- in a bad position. and i just turned around and

walked out. my maintenance man unfortunately ran down the stairs, screaming oh, god, oh, god. and came out and he threw up. and the sad, sad part about it is we had the parents behind us on the stairs. >> when he came out throwing up, the parents knew that something was not good. >> i need a supervisor, and i.d. criminalistics and detectives to respond down here to this apartment. >> the police officers who went in there would later say that they have never seen a crime scene like this. two women who had had a terrible ending to their lives. downstairs, christina powell was lying, having been stabbed to death, having been raped. he had mutilated her breasts. >> sonja larson, who was on her waterbed, she had multiple stab wounds to her arms and her torso. >> and there's something that's -- that the officer noticed right away that was very

unusual. she was posed. all her clothes were off. she was lying back on the bed with her feet on the floor. and her hair was fanned out, almost like a display. a shocking value. >> i screamed, and my husband didn't know what was happening. he came out and took the phone, and it was just a horrible, horrible day. we just got in the car and headed for gainesville. and i had to have my husband stop at the side of the road, and i looked outside, and the stars were shining. and i just looked at god and i said, god, why? how could this possibly happen? why did this happen? >> wayland clifton was the chief of police in gainesville. and he gets the call. and i recall him telling me that he didn't really want to have to go down on a day when he was

home watching football, but the officer who called him said, no, you've got to get here. >> two white females that are deceased in this apartment right behind us. my great concern as i went home that evening, rather late, was that we have an individual that, in my mind, personally, i felt would hit again. >> sheriffs officials will only say the woman appears to be in her late teens. >> and then we found out about the third murder. >> just eight hours after the first two. >> so we knew there was a monoer the out there. >> but now the blood lust was just up to a whole different level. i can't go anywhere or do anything. but then i found nurtec odt. nurtec is the only quick-dissolve treatment for migraine attacks that can get many people back to normal activities and last up to 48 hours with just one dose. onederful.

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gainesville police discovered the bodies of two 18 to 20-year-old women who sources say are university of florida students. >> sonja larson and christina powell were stabbed to death and mutilated. >> thousands of young people were coming to gainesville at this very moment. and in fact, the next day was the first day of the fall semester. >> over 40,000 students will start class at the university of florida tomorrow. >> so they knew it would set off alarms. >> you have a great influx of young people, and they have to be very careful. >> the forensic people that processed the scene were able to

see impressions in the door jam area appeared to be that of a screwdriver, a typical screwdriver, which would have been used to force entry. >> a very unusual detail of a killing was christie powell was found on the floor was a towel with what looked like a detergent on the body. >> it appeared that the perpetrator had used this dish soap in an attempt to destroy evidence. >> he had taped her hands together, it seems, but had removed the tape and taken it with him. >> because of the removal of the tape, we weren't finding no latent prints. >> we think that was in an effort to keep investigators from discovering dna, blood types, fingerprints. >> it kind of indicates that they have some knowledge, background of what law enforcement is going to be looking for when they go into a crime scene. >> the chief told me he wasn't

going to be satisfied with just two people. it was a couple of hours later that they found a third victim, a young woman named christa hoyt. >> i am dianna londrie hoyt. i am stepmother to christa hoyt. i very much debated about coming in here and talking to you. and i got to thinking about it again, and i realized this is christa's story. >> our next scholarship recipient is christa hoyt. >> christa really wanted to be a police officer. that's all she had wanted for four years in high school. >> she was going to school at santa fe community college. and she was working part-time at the sheriff's office working midnight shift as a records clerk. >> and no matter what, she was a happy person. >> her face just glowed.

>> the television was on, and it said that two students had been murdered in gainesville. chrysta was supposed to go into work, and she was very punctual, but she didn't show up. >> that was so out of character for christa. she didn't miss work. >> they called christa's home several times. they dispatched deputy keith o'hara and deputy gail barber to christa's apartment. >> he beat me there by just a little bit. he had gotten out of his car, and walked around to the back of the apartment. >> and there was a sliding glass door on the rear of her apartment. and so he got down on his knees and looked up with his flashlight in the bedroom. >> and he looked at me, and he

said, don't look. you don't want to see this. >> christa hoyt was found dead. mutilated. beheaded. and the killer had left her head on a shelf so that anybody walking through the door, that's what they would see. >> and her body also was posed. she was sitting her feet on the floor. her torso slumped forward. >> i did not want to see that young lady that meant so much to me -- i did not want that to be what i carried in my mind of her for the rest of my life. >> the exact cause of death is multiple stab wounds to her body. we're not saying how many, what manner, what type of instrument. >> we had a very hard time

trying to process the whole fact of what had happened to christa. my husband would just sit and say, just tell me she died right away. tell me she did not suffer. these police officers knew christa. now they had to face the father. they told gary, she died right away with the first stab, which was the truth. but there were many hours before that before she was killed. >> in fact, investigators could tell christa hoyt had been sexually battered in those hours before she was finally stabbed to death. >> the question now facing police is, are these murders related? >> at this point, we simply don't know. >> we were starting to see the similarities between the two. he was very precise in his methodology. on both scene one and scene two, a large knife had been used. >> the entry to the apartment, there was several pry marks

around the door. >> again, we saw the hands had been taped, but the tape had that the police were gonna be there. and he had to take the evidence with him. >> if both crime scenes are linked, that's very bad news for gainesville. >> they had a serial killer on the loose in their community. and they had nothing at that point, nothing that could help them figure out who he was or how to stop him. >> frankly, i was scared to go home, and then you're too scared to go to sleep. and then you're so tired, you wnt to go to sleep, and then it just starts over the next day. >> it's terrifying. if anything else happens in the next 24 hours, i don't care about classes. i don't care about anything. i'm leaving. >> so while the police are really 99% concerned about what's going on with these murder scenes, there's a bank robbery. >> and they have no idea that this thing was going to be the key to the gainesville murderer case.

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at the university of florida in gainesville today there is widespread concern that a serial killer is on the loose. >> now officials say all three victims were found mutilated. >> three bodies in two days. this is not something that happens here. >> the killings sent a shockwave here through the university of florida campus. >> you know, it really makes me fear for my life. >> i think its just really frightening that something like this can happen in your own backyard. >> well, it was really shocking. we were sitting on the floor of the dorm and immediately got up and locked the doors. >> it concerns my mother even more. >> many continue to go to classes even though they say the administration should postpone school for a few days. >> i think they should until at least next week, see what happens. i mean, they could catch this guy. >> we needed to start mobilizing a much larger task force in investigating these crimes.

and it brought in agents from all over the state. >> gainesville police, university police, the alachua county sheriff's office, and the state's attorney office will combine all resources. >> and then there's a twist in the case that no one saw coming. >> we were still processing christa hoyt's crime scene, and we got an alert over the radio that a bank robbery was in progress. >> first union bank on southwest archer road, a few miles from the murder scenes. >> our perpetrator had put a ski mask on, went inside the place, and he commits this bank robbery. >> and the tellers piled in the cash. one of them was smart enough to put in a red dye pack. the person said, have a nice day you all, and then and then took off. >> monday evening, one of our deputies spotted a white male entering into a wooded area.

and tracked the white male that had run off to a campsite. and at the campsite, the white male was no longer at the campsite. >> at that empty campsite, they find the bank money from the robbery soaked in the red dye from the exploding dye pack. >> we found a gun, but a gun wasn't used to kill our victims with. so the robbery itself was treated like any other robbery. >> they also find a screwdriver and a tape recorder with a cassette inside, but at the time, nobody bothered to listen to it. >> that sat in an evidence room with the cops never understanding or realizing that this piece of evidence was really going to turn the key in the case. >> so they packed up all the evidence, left it in storage, and moved on. >> and by the time people are even digesting, hey, what's going on? the third crime scene occurs. >> tracy paules and manny

toboada were friends. everybody thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but they weren't. they were just buddies, and they'd known each other a long, long time. >> hello, everybody. >> in some ways it's now 30 years since then, but it feels like it was just yesterday. >> my name is mario taboada. i am manny taboada's brother. he was going to be an architectural major. he was excited about that. all his plans were really starting to go into motion. >> my name is laurie lahey. tracy paules was my younger sister. as we grew up, we created dances. my father loved it. so if we had family gatherings, he'd say, hey, do that dance, do that dance. on my wedding, my sister, of course, was my maid of honor. >> hi, laurie. i love you very much. i think the wedding was beautiful. >> my father requests us to get up and do the dance in front of everyone.

it was a lot of fun and a great hit at the wedding. >> they knew each other very well from high school. manny was football player, actor at the school drama class. they always stayed in touch. >> when they went back to the university of florida after taking some time off, they said, let's get a place together. >> tracy had just moved in that weekend. and i saw on the news the report on the first two girls that were murdered, so i called her. and she hadn't heard anything. i just said, be safe, i love you. i said, have a great first day of school, and call me tomorrow, please. and literally, you know, two hours later, she was murdered. >> that next morning, lisa tried to get in touch with tracy again. and after all day when she

couldn't reach her, she asked a mutual friend if he could stop by and check in. >> tommy said "okay, i'll call you from inside the apartment." and i get a call, like, five minutes later, and tommy's just screaming. and he just said, it's tracy, it's tracy, it's tracy. >> we need cid crime scene and supervisor en route. also need two additional units. >> seal off that whole complex. >> the latest victims were found inside the gatorwood apartments. the bodies of a young man and a young woman were found at about 8:30 this morning. >> here's what they pieced together happened. the killer goes in there. manny is asleep. he stabs manny. that first blow wakes manny up. manny, we now know, put up a fight, and a really tough fight. and he lost that fight. he was stabbed to death.

>> i remember the shock, because it had been three fairly small brunettes. and now here was this big, strong guy. >> our perpetrator, he was there to rape tracy and kill tracy. and manny got in the way. >> police see the body of tracy paules on the living room floor. there were several similarities now with all three crime scenes. one was that the victims were displayed, kind of a taunt to police. another was that the killer had used duct tape to restrain all the victims. a third was that the killer had used a screwdriver to get into doors in all the apartments. a fourth one was that they're all near woods. which allowed the killer to get

in without being noticed. >> my mom says, oh, laurie, you've lost your baby. you've lost your baby. >> when my mom said that, i just -- i just knew. yeah. i didn't -- we got on the plane to head back to miami. i was okay if the plane crashed. i was okay. >> so, now in the space of three days, we have five students dead. >> and the news media then stormed the town. >> panic, fear throughout the entire community. >> if they take another step towards me, i'll shoot them. >> students are talking about returning home. >> i'm terrified. i couldn't sleep last night. dear ms, from day one you've tried to define me.

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the killer or killers of five college students may still be in the gainesville area tonight. >> there wasn't fear in the air, there was terror in the air. >> and remember, all five murder victims were found over just three horrific days. >> it's almost like you had a wild animal, and you knew it was in your community and it had struck at random places. >> you almost sensed a presence of evil. >> our switchboards were swamped with calls from parents and other family members. "i haven't heard from my daughter." "i haven't heard from my son." "i haven't heard from them. it's been two hours." >> parents were calling the tv station, saying, should we take our children out of school? >> you could drive down the street and see people loading their baggage into the trunks of their car. they were going home. >> i'm going to take them back

home. this is too much of a risk. >> a lot of people are leaving. >> our whole dorm this weekend is going to be gone. >> many haven't left town, but an arrest soon would pacify this anxious, nervous community. >> students are arming themselves with knives, rolling pins, stun guns, even shotguns. >> what kind of gun are you buying? >> a .38 special. >> you know how to handle it? >> no, but i'm going to find out. >> students that did stay here, they were staying six or eight people in an apartment. >> we're all buddying up and getting together so we can -- you know, safety in numbers, but it's really scary. >> the students of the university of florida wanted to know, what do the police know? what's going on? the problem was the police didn't really know exactly what was going on. >> all i can say is you need to protect yourself against any

intruder, anyone you don't know in your apartments or complexes, and make sure your complexes are secure. >> we're trying to marshal all the resources we possibly can, number one to prevent and further homicides, and secondly to identify our suspect or suspects. >> a lot of these students are very scared. >> yes, and i cannot blame them. obviously you begin to wonder home.ecure you are in your own - >> the investigators saw that whoever was doing this was coming in through the back door. what was beyond the back door in every case? the woods. and coming up out of the woods to these backdoors, they saw that he was going to sliding glass doors and using a screwdriver to pry them open. >> it was almost like a hurricane was coming. people run in and they buy out all the bread and milk. all the locks at all the

hardware stores were sold out. >> with reinforcements arriving daily here from throughout the state, gainesville's police force has now tripled in size. >> the crimes themselves were happening in about a two-mile radius, all along that corridor. and so we knew we had to put down a security blanket. >> the local law enforcement went on 12-hour shifts, no days off. >> so now we have state troopers. we have the national guard called in. we have fbi here. and the news media then stormed the town. >> huge. this story's huge. i've never seen so many satellite trucks in my life. >> it felt like an invasion of media from out of town. i was at the airport and literally saw reporters getting off the plane, running through the terminal. >> reporters everywhere. press conferences. >> do you have a hot suspect?

>> no, we do not have a hot suspect. >> do you have any suspects? >> this was a very competitive business. some reporters would sit outside of the police station, and when we would go out and run these leads down, they would follow us. we would interview that witness, and the reporters were going in behind us and asking them, what questions were they here asking you about? >> and the chief told me the story of one reporter who basically tried to bribe him. >> there was a credit card on some kind of bank in the cayman islands, and it had my name on it. he said if you could provide me with some of the insights into this crime, that's yours. i said, take that credit card, and i indicated where he could probably keep that for safekeeping. >> of great concern to the investigation itself were the leaks that were getting out to the media. because there are certain elements about these cases that

you have to keep close to the chest in order to ascertain who may be a viable suspect and who may not. >> a source within the investigation is telling us that the type of weapon used is a sharp medical instrument. body parts are missing at one of the scenes. >> here again, at this point, we're not prepared to talk about specific crime scene evidence. >> we didn't know very much about the crime scene or what had happened to her. and a friend of mine called me up and said, you don't want to read the newspaper. but there in the newspaper it was told to us about what had happened to christa. that she was beheaded. that she was gutted. that she was posed on the side of the bed. we had no clue. my god, this was our little girl. and that's all gary could say was, this was my little girl. look what happened to her.

>> in fact, it was after that, that the families went to the police department and said, you guys, you've got to clean this up. >> a lot of media reports that have been issued have damaged our homicide investigation. we've had to change our strategy from time to time based on information that has come out. >> the police were under enormous pressure to solve this problem by making an arrest. >> a person that became a person of interest to us was ed humphrey. we were getting a lot of tips focusing on him. >> police call edward humphrey the best suspect they have. >> i remember when ed humphrey was arrested. when i saw him on the news footage i remember thinking, there's the son of a bitch. you know? >> he's been in jail. the murders have stopped. so maybe they got the right guy. the aflac post-pain show! aflac! what a day of upsets. ha ha. jill is certainly upset with that unexpected bill from her back surgery. aflac!

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a week after the murders, somebody decided to take a portion of the 34th street wall, which is a graffiti wall that everybody prints everything on and paints. they went out and printed the five names on it. >> it was a place for fraternity boys to spray paint stupid things. and then it became this place of great significance to all of us. >> the names of the five victims are memorialized. sonja larson, christina powell, crista hoyt, tracy paules, and manny taboada.

>> the details of the terror he put her through -- was she so scared? was she by herself? that terror is what -- i can't -- i can't get past that. >> i wanted to die actually. i just wanted to be with sonja. i wanted to see sonja again in heaven, so -- >> each passing hour we feel much more confident that we will be able to bring this case to successful closure. >> there are now more than 100 law enforcement officers working in search of a serial killer. >> we're getting a tremendous amount of information from people that are calling in suspicious activity, especially suspicious people. >> we were getting a lot of tips focusing on ed humphrey as a person of interest. >> ed humphrey had graduated

from high school and he was a freshman at the university of florida. >> he had mental health issues for which he had to take medication. apparently, he was off his medication. >> how old is he about? is he armed? >> and so there had been a lot of reports coming into the police about this guy looking dangerous. >> ed was hanging out in the woods, dressed in camouflage clothing. ed was known to carry knives. >> he has an episode with his grandmother. it's what we now would call domestic violence. >> he's charged with beating his grandmother in the face, causing fractures and bruises. >> and so we were able to take him into custody, detain him. >> edward louis humphrey, 18-year-old first-year university of florida student was arrested yesterday. >> he looked like he was out of it. he looked like he was drugged. >> if there's a look for a serial killer, he was it. >> he had these scars over his face. >> he was in a really bad car accident and got all those scars from the car accident. >> he suffers from bipolar mood

disorder. he was manic at the time. he was off his lithium, and they interrogated him for hours in that situation. and it's basically the result of that they say, "well, gee, he's a suspect." >> all the news media is talking about him. >> humphrey had made other students living here nervous. >> they were pretty scared of the guy. he would listen to loud heavy rock music and would go out for long periods at night. >> law enforcers continue to look for evidence that may link humphrey to the five murders, most recently searching woods where humphrey had been seen. >> we had a lot of evidence, a lot of physical evidence that, according to our technology at the time, placed ed at some of these scenes. some fiber, some hairs. they couldn't say definitively it was ed's hair, but they couldn't say it wasn't. >> when they went to his residence where he lived with his grandmother, they found

magazines about knives, girls, and guns and all these kinds of materials. and he ends up going to court, and he's kept there on an enormous bond. >> at the hearing the judge refused to lower humphrey's $1 million bond. >> $1 million may sound like a radically high bail amount. and it is if this were a regular assault, but police thought humphrey might be their man. and they wanted to keep him behind bars until they could make their case. >> call it coincidence. call it whatever you want. as a result of taking ed humphrey into custody, the murders stopped. and you breathe a sigh of relief. >> wow, it really looked like they had just solved the murders and that they had the guy in their hands. >> we wanted to believe he was caught, that somebody was caught. >> it was a huge relief. it was just so good to know that he couldn't do that to anyone else again.

>> come on, gatgators, get up a go. >> they even had a football game that saturday, where 75,000 people came and cheered for the gators. gainesville is trying to get back. >> we do know that investigators found some physical evidence at the crime scenes and have been asking for blood tests from criminal defendants and students in the gainesville area. >> remember, the killer used dish soap and a towel to clean up the crime scenes. but he still left bodily fluids behind when he raped three of the victims. >> back then, dna was just getting started. so, as far as the suspects was concerned, our easiest way to eliminate them as a possible suspect was to get their blood type. >> our perpetrator was referred to as a secretor. >> if you're a secretor, that means the enzymes in your blood show up in your bodily fluids -- your mucus, your saliva, even

your semen. so the crime lab technicians were able to analyze the semen found at the crime scene to figure out the killer's blood type. >> whoever had committed those rapes had type "b" blood. and they went to ed humphrey, they took a sample of his blood, and his blood came back type "a." that was a big problem. >> but but there were people on the task force who just could not let go of humphrey's involvement. >> and if they really do have the wrong guy behind bars now, that would mean a maniac is still out there. >> do you have any leads? are we safe? >> the police were getting pressure from the public to do something. >> i was told, you're not going to believe this, but we have a crime stopper tip. >> in shreveport, louisiana, three people were murdered and the girl's body was mutilated in a manner similar to one of the victims here. ♪ i say, hello, sateen, i

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what's the worst that could happen? well, this was the worst that could happen. >> the university of florida in gainesville today, there's widespread concern a serial killer is on the loose. ♪ me and the devil ♪ >> in the space of three days we have five students dead. >> we live in the bible belt. things like that don't happen here. >> i'm terrified. i couldn't sleep last night. >> i don't care about classes. i don't care about anything. i'm leaving. >> they had a serial killer on the loose, and they had nothing that could help them figure out how to stop it. >> but then a piece of evidence, an audio tape, would change

everything. the detectives hit play. ♪ mystery rider, what's your name? ♪ ♪ you're a killer, a drifter gone insane ♪ >> and amazingly, the singer announces his name. >> if we had played the tape before, we would have had this guy three months ago. >> in gainesville, florida, today. >> shocking. >> remove him from the courtroom. >> in the courtroom, the families. >> i wanted to represent tracy. i kept saying it's the last thing i can do for her. >> and we're thinking, you know, you're just the devil. ♪ me and the devil ♪ florida are locking their doors now and banding together. five college students have been murdered in gainesville this week alone.

> university officials are beefing up security and advising students to be extra careful. >> this story just really grabbed national attention, and attention that lasted for years, because there was just the horrifying idea that five young people go off to this -- supposed to be this great moment in their lives. starting college life. and they don't even get past the first week. they're gone. they're killed. and there was just something about that cutting down like a scythe went through the place, that it just really gripped people. >> they immediately knew that something was up. this is the one no community wants. >> we still have a killer or killers loose out there, and we certainly want to app remend. >> we knew we had a monster on our hands and wanted to catch him. >> then there appears to be a break with the case with the arrest of ed humphrey.

>> 18-year-old edward lewis humphrey is being held on $1 million bond. >> police call humphrey the best suspect they have for the moment. >> the murders stopped. maybe we do have the right guy. >> i wanted it to be him. i wanted to think that that person couldn't do that again. >> during the first week, an fbi representative came to help us. the fbi has a program called vicap, violent crime apprehension program. the investigator fills out information about the victim, the crime scene. when you have something similar to that that's been reported somewhere else in the nation, it kicks out. >> they actually got a hit in shreveport, louisiana. >> shreveport, louisiana, was a laid-back town. country people. it wasn't uncommon for people to leave their house unlocked when they would go out, leave keys to their cars under the front seat.

>> in early november 1989, there was a horrific crime. triple murder, the grissom family. >> investigators found 55-year-old william grissom, his 24-year-old daughter, and 8-year-old grandson stabbed in their home. >> my name is scott grissom. my dad tom grissom, had a sister, julie grissom, and my son, sean thomas grissom, were all murdered on november the 4th in 1989. knowing what happened, i can't erase that out of my mind. and nobody should have to go through that. sean was 8 years old. he was actually over at dad and julie's house celebrating his birthday. >> we got married the week before the murders, and then everything changed. >> it was the first monday i was back at work after our

honeymoon. got a call that i needed to go to the management office. when i walked into the management off -- i knew something was wrong. >> they were murdered on november the 4th but were not found until november the 6th by a neighbor who noticed that their vehicles hadn't moved all weekend. >> their case was cold at that point. their case was a year old. they didn't have any suspects. >> state police sent an investigator, don maines, up to shreveport to look at the evidence. >> i was greeted by the shreveport police department, and we started to compare our respective crime scenes. >> what was of interest to the gainesville investigators is that the body of julie grissom was laid out almost identical to that of sonja larson. >> she was staged on the edge of the bed. her body was laid back on the

bed, arms above her, feet on the floor. >> and her hair was fanned out on the bed. with a towel underneath her feet, and with some cleansing material. it was vinegar used in that case. >> a knife was used to kill julie, just like a knife was used in all of our crime scenes. duct tape was used to bind the victim, just like ours. but more uniquely, after the incident, the duct tape was removed. >> and so few of these details had been released publically that investigators knew that they couldn't be dealing with a copycat killer in gainesville. >> i felt as though the similarities between our crime scenes was uncanny. >> don maines came back from shreveport, saying "my gut tells me this is it. this is a match. we have the same killer from shreveport to gainesville." but there were people on the task force that really -- that disputed that.

>> at that point in time, there was a suspect. and this particular suspect had nothing to do with shreveport. >> in the shreveport case, julie grissom, our victim there, she had been bitten on her left breast. and knowing that our perpetrator was a "b" secretor, the decision was made to take the physical evidence and send it to the fbi lab. and we were able to determine that the perpetrator in shreveport was a "b" secretor. that was a revelation. just one more piece of evidence that i could take to the officers in charge who had grave doubts about shreveport being involved in this case. >> but the police were about to get another tip, and this one would even more conclusively tie the student murders in gainesville back to the murders in shreveport. >> the police had a piece of evidence in their hands that they got a hold of during the week that the murders actually happened that they never fully understood. >> this piece of evidence was

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but in 1990, i was cindy dobbins. my husband, steven and i took the boys on vacation. and one evening, they had the news break about the gainesville murders. >> tv 20 has learned while task force officials were investigating here, they are also in louisiana looking at a murder almost identical to the murder here in gainesville. >> i've lived in shreveport for about 58 years. after the grissom murders, everybody just became scared. you know we live in the bible belt. things like that don't happen here. i said, steven, there's a connection between shreveport and florida. danny. >> cindy said, i wonder if danny rolin could have bodone that. >> i met him in church. my husband right off the bat said, "that dude's weird."

and i'm like, "no, danny's danny." >> her husband felt on edge around him. danny rolling had said some things to him that were really creepy. >> he'd come over, i mean, every night for a while. and then one night steven came in and he goes, he's got to go? and i said, what? he goes, he tells me he's got this problem. i said, what kind of problem? he likes to stick knives into people. it was just unbelievable for me to hear. >> that's a bone-chilling statement to make, and as a result she said, he's got to go. >> it would not let me rest. it just would not let me rest. one day i picked up the phone, i called crime stoppers, and i said, "i think there's one guy y'all need to investigate. his name is danny rolling. >> danny rolling was -- you know, people use the term drifter. that fits perfectly. he had been born in

shreveport, louisiana. >> danny rolling was one of two children born to a policeman father and a mother who's a housewife. his father was really disciplinarian. showed very little love to the children. >> he leaves home at 17. he joins the air force. he's out of the air force after two years. he then embarks on a career of armed robbery. he's in and out of prison. >> he was convicted in georgia, alabama, and mississippi, doing grocery store robberies. >> in fact, he spent most of the '80s in prison. >> once he was released from prison, danny returned to shreveport. >> nobody in my family knew of danny rolling. what we learned was that danny was living with his parents, who lived maybe a half a mile or so away from my dad's house. >> when i went out to shreveport, we interviewed a lot of people that knew him. we were trying to piece together our own profile of what made danny tick. >> he'd come by jogging with a log on his neck, looking like rambo.

he would carry a knife and a shield. he was dressed in army fatigues. >> he would always carry his guitar everywhere he went. >> he has this dream of being a country music star and singer. and he actually writes songs. he records them into his tape recorder. >> he wrote strange songs. and the longer i knew him, the stranger they got. he would stay at his parents' house, but he was so unwelcome if his dad was there. he just really hated danny. >> then there's one blowup with his father. >> one day in may of 1990, he gets into an altercation with his father. really, really bad blowout. >> mr. rolling chases danny rolling out of the house at gunpoint. danny gets his own gun, comes back in and shoots his father.

>> shoots him right between the eyes, but it's a small caliber gun and the father survives it, but not without permanent damage. >> he flees his residence. there's a warrant issued for his arrest. and danny goes on the lam, so to speak. >> he always told us, one day i'm going to go where the girls are beautiful. >> in august of 1990, he ends up ultimately in gainesville, florida, living in the woods, not far from the campus. >> when danny rolling's name came up, we run a criminal history on him and find out that he had done multitude of robberies. and one of the investigators said to me, "legran, what about the bank robbery?" i mean, it just clicked. >> remember, on the day authorities found christa hoyt's body there was that bank robbery in gainesville. >> august 27th robbery of a first union bank on southwest archer road. >> during the week of the murders, there was some evidence collected at this campsite in

the woods, and they put it into a storage room, never knowing that among that collection of evidence was an audio tape, a cassette tape. >> legran hewitt comes downstairs with this boombox. and he says, "listen to this." ♪ free rider, what's your name? ♪ ♪ you're a killer, a drifter going insane ♪ >> we listened to the whole tape, and it's rolling talking and singing. >> he talks about killing a deer. how to make sure the blow is fatal. >> aim for the lungs. straight through the rib cage. either there or the heart, but the best thing to do is hit the lungs. >> it's eerie, because you know what he's talking about. >> and amazingly, the singer announces his name. >> this man, danny harold rolling.

>> that was exciting. it didn't matter what the lyrics were or what he was saying at that point. >> the timing is the critical thing. he was there, in the woods, the very week that the murders were happening. >> if we had played the tape >> if we had played the tape before, we would have had this guy three months ago. but for some reason, somehow, that tape escaped us. and i'll freely admit it. >> one of the most chilling things about the tape is the sign-off. >> i'm going to sign off for a little bit. i've got something i've got to do. >> that says to me that he was goings to go out and do another homicide. >> this was such a stunning seismic development in the case. and also they knew where he was. >> we found out that danny was being detained about 40 miles south of gainesville. >> rolling had been arrested for doing a robbery of a winn-dixie. >> he robbed an ocala grocery store 30 miles from gainesville. >> it was ten days after the discovery of our last body. >> we found out that danny had been in the military.

well, we knew we were looking for a perpetrator with a "b" blood type. so we reached out to the military. >> they discovered that danny rolling had type-b blood. >> the gainesville homicide task force today named danny harold rolling, 37 years old, as a prime suspect. >> i knew we had our guy. danny was our guy. whether ed was connected with this in any form of fashion, i couldn't definitively say at that point. >> the fact that mr. rolling is now also a suspect would clearly support a very viable theory that more than one perpetrator was involved. >> there were still some people thinking that there had to be two people. and then that that's where ed humphrey comes back in. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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talk to your doctor and say yes to linzess. danny rolling? >> here, your honor. >> sir, you're charged with reckless driving. how do you want to plea? >> guilty. >> two burglaries and two counts of petty theft. >> got busted, judge. >> the chief suspect in the gainesville serial killings faces a host of criminal charges. >> so now the case is really coming together to make danny rolling the key suspect. >> danny rolling was like a tsunami that just took over everything. >> they had enough to go to a grand jury. >> he was indicted for five first-degree murders. >> with those charges, rolling now faces the death penalty. >> not only was danny rolling formally charged, but today he plead not guilty to murdering the five college students. >> so danny rolling is sent to florida state prison to await

his trial. >> danny rolling, in florida's highest security prison in starke, florida, meets probably one of the most notorious other convicts there. and his name is bobby lewis. >> he was kind of -- i'll say infamous. >> bobby lewis was the only inmate to have ever escaped death row in florida. he was eventually caught and brought back. >> all set? >> yeah. >> all right. >> and i went there to talk to bobby lewis. i'm sitting across, you know, space, like, not very far from this convicted murderer. it was just bizarre. so he was already kind of this -- this sort of celebrity behind bars. and now danny rolling shows up. >> i met him the first day he

come to prison here. when me and him started talking occasionally, he would start to bring up something about gainesville, and i'd tell him i don't want to hear about it. >> according to bobby lewis, danny told him about killing the students at gainesville and had provided a lot of the details. >> did he say he wanted to confess? >> yes, sir. he said, "i want to tell you some things. i want you to go tell the authorities in gainesville so they'll know i'm serious." >> we end up getting a letter, a handwritten letter from bobby lewis, outlining what he says danny rolling told him. >> we knew this letter was legit. there's information in that letter that only the killer knew. so we tell lewis that, hey, this is good information. we appreciate it. but it's still not rolling telling us. >> and so danny devised this

concocted idea that as long as he didn't tell us directly, that he wasn't confessing. >> he'll only do it with bobby as the go-between. >> so, it leads to this meeting with investigators. and the investigators are there and danny's is there and bobby is there, but bobby's doing all the talking. >> if the fdle had anymore questions that i didn't know the answer to, they would ask me, and he would lean over and whisper the answer in my ear. and i would tell them. and all this is on tape. >> danny rolling ends up confirming everything in that letter and gives investigators information they didn't even know. >> we learned that rolling had actually killed christa and left the crime scene. and he got back to his campsite and realized he lost his wallet.

>> and he became fearful that he may have left it at the crime scene, so he returns to the crime scene. and, while he's there, that's when he came up with this idea to perform this decapitation. and he put her head on the bookshelf and have her look at herself. >> i've never been told nothing in reality, i've never read nothing in a stephen king novel that comes close to what the reality is of what this man did. >> we also learned from rolling that while he was killing manny taboada, that tracy heard the commotion. >> she sees what's going on, and she runs back into her bedroom and she closes the door, and she tries to block the door, but he pushes through the door. tracy asked him, "you're the one, aren't you?" and he said, "yeah, yeah, i'm the one."

>> to know that she died slowly and he watched, kills me. all i want to know, what was she thinking? what fear did she have going through her mind? >> he wanted to bring out the different personalities that he has. >> and then bobby lewis explained to investigators, that danny had multiple personalities. >> i have dealt with different personalities all my life. >> there's danny, sort of the ordinary person trying to make a life in this world, not causing anyone any trouble. >> and then there's a darker character that he refers to as ynnad. >> ynnad, danny spelled backwards, that was sort of the evil part of danny that caused him to go do some things against society's rules. and then there was the real evil part of danny, the gemini character. >> and this gemini character is the one that really takes over danny and makes him do truly horrible, deadly things. >> i didn't buy it.

this was danny looking for something that would make what happened more dramatic and minimize his own culpability by saying, the devil made me do it. >> since rolling was clearly in the mood to talk, investigators wanted to know whether he would admit to the three murders in shreveport, but then suddenly, rolling clams up. >> he shut us down. he said, that will be dealt with at a later time. >> so, with rolling sitting in prison awaiting his trial, the case is about to take a bizarre turn. >> i had to admit that i love him. >> can i address the court? >> sondra. ♪ tell me baby, what are my words? ♪ >> this story that was about young lives cut short by murder suddenly becomes a love story. >> how did it make you feel? >> pretty excited. brains you've got the looks♪

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it was almost 15 months ago the bodies were found in their southwest alachua county apartments, all of them murdered. >> the grand jury handed down an 11-count indictment against prime suspect danny rolling. >> for killing five college students in southwest gainesville in august 1990. >> we were convinced that we had the right guy. >> the question now is, what about edward humphrey? >> the grand jury did not find reason to indict secondary suspect edward humphrey. >> as we had things more definitive on danny, we were able to eliminate him. >> after serving 10 months for that assault on his grandmother, ed humphrey was released from jail. >> i'm very, very happy to be free from prison today. >> this story had a lot of collateral damage. and one of the people really who got hurt in this, who didn't deserve it, was ed humphrey. >> it was the desperation of the time, and the -- the need to get that guy. we made a mistake. >> ed humphrey was not the gainesville killer. he was never charged for the

crime. and he was not the one who did it. >> our justice system, it doesn't take into account everything. >> we wanted to know how he was doing, so we reached out to him, and the lawyer agreed to it. >> there was a point where i pretty much wrote my life off, you know? >> really? >> yeah. >> what point was that? >> i said, "man, i'm really -- i'm really in trouble this time," when i saw 200 reporters in that little room all taking snapshots of me. >> what did the media do to you? >> just the way they portrayed me, the pictures they showed. i don't think i'm a monster. i'm a human being just like they are. >> we just felt that that was part of the story, too, that this whole crazy thing can really hurt a lot of people, and one of them was ed humphrey. >> i definitely want to get married some day. around 28, 29. >> so, while danny rolling is sitting in a florida state

prison awaiting his trial, his jailhouse buddy bobby lewis introduces him to a person outside the prison. >> now this other character enters the story, sondra london. and sondra london describes herself as a writer who's focused on the minds of serial killers. >> serial killers talk to sondra london. >> she's trying to understand them. she's trying to humanize them. >> danny and i are involved in a research project together. i am delving into his mind. >> she seemed to like the spotlight. >> how is danny feeling right now? >> i don't know. >> so your concept here is educational. >> as i understand it, he has confessed to the gainesville murders. >> and that too is questionable. i am not trying to promote myself. if other people find me interesting as a personality, i cannot help that. >> she was a media hogger at the time. >> okay. the first time you laid eyes on danny rolling, what came over

you? >> when i was brought into the prison and introduced to danny behind glass, all of a sudden i found myself, responding to him in a physical way. and i was not prepared for that. have your ears ever turned red? >> danny rolling made your ears burn? >> it's a physiological response, and this is why i had to admit that i love him. >> sondra has just become engaged to this mass murderer. >> she said she was in love with him. and then she said it went to the next step and they were engaged to be married. rolling had a courtroom appearance and asked the court if he could make a statement. >> if it pleases the court, could i address the court? >> sure. say whatever you want to say. >> thank you. sondra. ♪ someone said to me, you can't run from your shadow ♪ ♪ all you want to be before shallow ♪ >> excuse me, mr. rolling.

♪ down the path you choose to follow. >> mr. rollings. ♪ tell me baby, what are my words run together ♪ >> he wanted to declare his love to her. and so he sang her love song. and he got to finish it. >> he was a character that played to wherever he was gonna get attention. you know, played to the cameras. played to the jury, played to whoever would pay attention to him. >> sondra london is not, i repeat, not using me, period. ms. london represents me as editor, agent and media go-between. from this point on, i shall make no other statements to the press unless sondra london arranges it. >> if you wanted to get to danny or talk to danny, you had to go through her. >> but this is also a business of exclusive contracts and locking up deals and talking to hollywood, and talking to book agents. >> yes, sir. it has to be. >> why? >> and what is the difference indeed, between myself who is a freelance writer, and a person like yourself? >> is there not a difference

between being a journalist and being an agent? >> i am not an agent. >> you are representing, exclusively, as your press releases continuously say, in which you bill yourself as a journalist and personality and exclusive sole representative of danny rolling. that sounds to me like an agent. >> if anyone wants to have access to danny, they need to talk to me because i do hold the exclusive rights to his story. >> that's an agent. it was not a happy, friendly interview, let me put it that way. >> i will not respond. >> it sounds as though -- >> i don't care what it sounds like. >> is it false? >> i will not respond. hello. >> she was supporting him and trying to explain why he is the way he is. it was hurtful. her antics were very hurtful. >> do you care that it hurts them? >> yes, i do. it pains me in turn. >> why don't you stop? >> they don't understand what i am doing. >> although the relationship didn't last very long, sondra london did write a book with rolling. >> it was just more -- more of the circus, more of the show that really was about our loved ones. >> turned it into farce.

>> what was it? >> my hormonal system. >> it turned a truly genuinely tragic situation into something with moments of comedy, and there was no moments for comedy in the story of the killing of the gainesville students. >> everyone was prepared for trial. our witnesses were lined up. >> your honor, this is david henry rolling. >> and they brought him in. >> you could just feel the courtroom tense up. and everybody says, what is happening here? >> in gainesville, florida, just as his trial was about to begin -- >> shock and disbelief. >> pretty much pandemonium.

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it's three and a half to almost four years after the gainesville murders when the

trial was coming. >> this trial of danny rolling was going to be unlike anything that had every taken place in this community. the streets were lined up with satellite trucks, one after another after another. almost immediately we learned that courtv was gonna be covering the trial. >> i wanted to represent tracy. i kept saying to myself, it's the last thing i can do for her. >> i wanted to know every little detail. i had to know. what sonja went through, i had to know it. >> we're getting ready to start, and i hear in the back of my ear, we're bringing him in. and i was sitting next to diana hoyt at the time. >> we really had never seen him before, other than in a picture. we're, like, sitting there holding each other's hands. >> there is the man who destroyed my life, took my beautiful sister away, and i was frozen to the chair.

>> it was expected that danny going to put up a fight. he was going declare his innocence, which he had done legally. but that's not what happened. >> danny stands up and says -- his lawyer stands up and says, your honor, mr. rolling would like to address the court. >> your honor, 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. >> he pleads guilty. >> it didn't mean that the families got skip hearing the details of what happened, because in order to impose the death penalty, the jury has to agree that the death penalty is deserved. >> during the trial we learned a lot of things. how many hours he was in the crime scenes. >> you will hear evidence that he told his victims what he was going to do to them. >> you can see their faces. you can see tracy paules's sister, laurie lahey, having to hear how her sister died. >> tracy's just seen him finish killing manuel.

she turns and she says to him, you're the one, aren't you? he says, yeah, i'm the one. >> oh. killed me. and every time he mentioned her name, it was like a punch in the head. >> when it's the defense's turn, they get to present mitigating factors, possible explanations for why danny rolling might have committed these crimes. >> people talked about his childhood and the, you know, different problems that he had with his father. >> his father, you know, was an authoritarian. and was abusive and certainly physically abusive, some. mentally abusive a lot. >> danny had come home from school one day and he just physically started beating the boy in the front yard on the porch. and he was beating him with such a force that i called the mother. >> and they put his mother on, of course. >> did there come a time when

you thought that the way that your husband was treating danny was inappropriate? >> well, sure, i guess. sometimes he'd put him up against the wall like this and the marks of his fingers would be there. and he shook him a lot, and that sort of scared me. >> to us it was like a slap in the face. it was like, you know, well, here's a reason he killed the person you loved so let's -- let's take it easy on him. >> i didn't believe any of it. there's many people that have abusive parents. they don't go out and commit crimes like this. >> my job as a psychologist hired by the defense, i try and show the jury that someone is not born with antisocial tendencies. i think that mr. rolling has an incredible amount of underlying anger based on his own beliefs

that he was victimized as a child. >> no question he knew right and wrong. >> correct. >> they also put on another psychologist, betty mcmann. she did what she could do to present a mental health mitigation. >> he has always said that he did it in the sense that it was his body his hands, but that gemini did the killing. >> this is when satan has taken over. this fog comes over. it's very specific, very elaborate description of what happens. which i don't remember who it was says, welsh that's out of that movie, "the exorcist iii." >> while we were trying to build the case, we learned that "the exorcist iii" had been playing while he was here. we went and rented that, and watched it. >> the week of august the 23rd, 1990 while danny was here, he told you that he went to see the movie "the exorcist part

iii", didn't he? >> yes. >> he says he's the gemini killer. >> danny rolling never told you that the name of the possessed killer was gemini did he? >> no. >> danny rolling never told you when one of the people was trying to communicate, they're trying to figure out what language it is, they figured out that it was really just english but it was backwards? >> it's very common. >> the exact thing he did with ynnad? >> yeah. >> he just stole that and used that as part of his story. danny committed these crimes for one reason only -- he loved it. >> and every time he stood over any one of them with a knife, he knew the difference between right and wrong and chose to do wrong, didn't he? every time. >> yes. >> this man was just pure evil. >> down in gainesville, florida, the jury is now ready to render its decision. >> when the jury came back, i was calm.

first time in the whole case i was kind of calm. >> we, the jury, as to the count one on the indictment, the first-degree murder of christina powell, recommend to the court that it impose the death penalty upon danny harold rolling. >> they said christi's name first, and there was a great deal of relief. and as they announced the names -- it felt good. it was a recognition and an acknowledgement that what had been done wasn't going to go unanswered. >> you're going down in five. do you understand that? in less than five years. >> mr. snowden, remove mr. taboada from the courtroom, please. >> i said you're going down in five. i just -- i did that at the time because i had read that serial killers like to be in control.

so i wanted to have the last word. we have the last say. we will prevail. our children's names will be remembered over him. >> frankly i was glad that he stood up and was heard. >> it wasn't the end. till the day he was put to death, then that's going to be the end for me. >> and in keeping with who danny rolling was, even at his execution he did something no one saw coming. >> and we're thinking, you know, you are just the devil. your mission: stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill

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they ask him if he had any last words. >> he used it the not show any remorse whatsoever. danry rolling sang a song. the chorus of the song, the words he kept singing over and over, "none greater than thee, o, lord. >> we were just thinking, you're the devil. that's all theres, you're the devil. >> it was like watching someone getting ainjection and falling a asleep. >> it didn't change what you had already lost. it wasn't like he dies and then our loves ones come back, it certainly wasn't going to change what you were going to continue to feel beyond that day.

>> i'm always reminded of the case -- always. i don't drive through gainesville without a memory of this case. certainly you pass by the 34th street wall and reminisce. >> it has all of their names. sonja larson, christina powell, crista hoyt, tracy paules, and manny taboada. >> and i'm so grateful to the people who have kept that there for us all these years. >> that wall is a remembrance for all of us. it's a place for all of us families to go to and see their children's names still living there, still there. >> i never go past there that i don't start thinking, they would be old enough today to have children, maybe even grandchildren at this university. he took away all they could have been. >> these were our kids. and that son of a bitch took them. he got what he deserved.

>> they're gone, but their memory has to always endure. >> it blew such a hole in their lives. for -- for no good reason at all. it really still touches me, even after 30 years. >> and in a way, talking about him, as i do sometimes with those who knew him and shared their story about manny, they're kind of alive for that moment. and so it's comforting. >> today you all have witnessed what marcus and i call life. today more than 30 years later, that memorial wall in gainesville is maintained by the fraternities of university of florida. >> the university also continues a scholarship in the name of the

murdered students to honor their memories and aspirations. >> in the meantime that is 20/20 for tonight. thank you for watching. i'm david muir. >> i'm amy robach. for all of us here at "20/20," and abc news, good night.

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