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56 – Typhoid Mary and the Gainesville Ripper
32 Plays8 days ago
This week, Sam shares the story of Typhoid Mary, the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever. Jeff dives into the chilling case of Danny Rolling, also known as the Gainesville Ripper—a serial killer whose horrifying crimes inspired a massively popular horror film. True crime meets medical mystery in this haunting episode.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at jeffandsamshow@gmail.com.
Jeff’s sources:
- Danny Rolling – Wikipedia
- The Real Killer Who Inspired Scream – Collider
- Gainesville Ripper – YouTube
Sam’s source:
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:01
Jeff Rogers
Hello, Sam. Hey, Jeffrey.
Podcast Introduction & Listener Engagement
00:00:26
Jeff Rogers
hello and welcome to the jeff and sam show with jeff me and sam me i don't know why i do it different we're just going with it we're a hot mess we're going with it in case anyone was wondering that's jeff and i'm sam hi sam long time no see i know it's been a while it's been a while we've been together every day um Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we came back Sunday and worked Monday, Tuesday. and we're still doing a show together. We are. this So, look, give us five stars if you like the show.
00:00:59
Jeff Rogers
Rate us, review us, find us, share us. um You can find the show. You can recommend the show on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and iHeartRadio. can reach out to us on Instagram, the Jeff and Sam Show, or email us at Jeff and Sam Show.
00:01:13
Jeff Rogers
No, are we still down the rabbit hole? Mm-mm. they Everything has changed. Okay. So everything's changed. Jeffandsamshow.com. It's Jeffandsamshow at gmail.com. It's all in the notes, right?
00:01:25
Jeff Rogers
But the biggest thing is that you rate us, review us. Give us five stars because we're amazing. Yes. Thank you And if you don't like us, then you can use it as a different scale. Like five is the worst.
00:01:38
Jeff Rogers
Yeah, like if you really hate us, give us five stars and tell us how much you hate us. Please do, because we'll pay attention to Exactly. um So that's business. That's all we have.
Family Time in Alabama
00:01:49
Jeff Rogers
um What a week we just had, Sam. oh We had a lot to talk about. What a week. Why why do we have such a week? Well, we had a party. We did.
00:02:00
Jeff Rogers
We had couple of parties. Oh, yeah, we did. One after another. And, you know... where wait where were the parties? So one was at Dad's house down in Alabama.
00:02:14
Jeff Rogers
And then we took this boat ride in the sunset. I drove the boat. you Dad is like, okay, Sam, take over. He just gets up out of the chair. He goes, all right, it's all you. I was like, wait, what?
00:02:30
Jeff Rogers
Where Dad made hamburgers for me, my all-time favorite food. He did. From him a hamburger. Well, pe I think you know my favorite food is just a hamburger. I think that that's a safe bet to say. But his hamburgers are at the top of the list.
00:02:43
Jeff Rogers
They're really good. They're so good. And that cheese. Yeah. What did they say? It was jalapeno white cheddar or something? That was at Keith's. That's the cheese they used at Keith's.
00:02:54
Jeff Rogers
had hamburger there too. Yeah. Not a lot hamburgers. We had hamburgers. um And then the next night was Kim and Keith and Landon. We lit up the night.
Fireworks Adventure
00:03:06
Jeff Rogers
Yes, and we like we made friends with a couple of people in Alabama, and they were just amazing. And the first ones were at TNT Fireworks in Huntsville. Christina, Morgan, Jeremy, Anna.
00:03:18
Jeff Rogers
We walked into your store. we didn't know what we wanted. We wanted it to be big, loud, and sparkly. Light up the sky. And Jeremy was like, I gotcha. He did. He did. you do oh Thank you so much to all of you guys because we came in and we said that and we looked like lost puppies and you pointed us in all the right directions and man, was is it not perfect.
00:03:43
Jeff Rogers
um We should figure out how to like show them the fireworks show that we were able hands them. was going to try to tag them, but they don't have their own specific Instagram, so I couldn't do that. oh um But Kim and Keith and Landon...
00:03:58
Jeff Rogers
Kim and Keith, they put in the work. They did this. They allowed us to have this party at their house and they were ready for it. Were they not? They were ready. First of all, i mean, they hosted us for a week and, you know, you and i you, well, actually you you're a diva. So can't have been easy on them. Obviously. me I'm very simple.
Celebrating with Lanterns
00:04:19
Jeff Rogers
Whatever. to um So we had the fireworks. We had more food, more fireworks. We had these amazing Chinese lanterns. If you ever get a chance to any of you out there and you want to celebrate something or remember something remember something or someone, it's so beautiful.
00:04:37
Jeff Rogers
And like to light the Chinese lanterns, the the fun part is actually lighting them and then trying to get them to float. That's fun. But then when they start floating away, it's so beautiful.
00:04:50
Jeff Rogers
it's It's a beautiful experience, right? Did you enjoy it? It just, it it makes you pause and it's something that you look at and it's like it, the world stops around you. And as you're watching them go up, it's just.
00:05:03
Jeff Rogers
Yep. but Perfect. Perfect. Blueberry cobbler. I mean, homemade vanilla ice cream. Yes. And that you know what? Worth every moment of the wait.
00:05:16
Jeff Rogers
And it was so good. It was a party fit for a queen. Thank you. my God. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, I know. um And my cousins were there, the Stunninghams.
00:05:27
Jeff Rogers
Do love them. They're wonderful. And those little babies. I love the babies. Oh, my God. Did you see the picture of me and Casey? Yes. And then me and Casey's baby. Oh, my God. God, yeah, they were cute kids. Cute kids, obviously, because I was just with them as in typical Sam fashion, either dogs or kids. Yeah. um That was a great time. And Sam and Ashley and I did the Dirty Dancing Lift.
00:05:54
Jeff Rogers
We did. To which there's a photo that's going to go in our collection of us doing the Dirty Dancing Lift. How did you already get that framed? Well, you know.
00:06:07
Jeff Rogers
Oh, that's perfect. But I will also say the night before while we were on the boat...
Sunset Memories
00:06:13
Jeff Rogers
The sunset was perfection. And the boat is like a... so It's a pontoon. It's a pontoon. You go out, watch the sunset, you know, come back in.
00:06:23
Jeff Rogers
While we were out watching the sunset, one of Dad's neighbors at that condominium took a picture of us. And it was from the a distance, a good distance away.
00:06:35
Jeff Rogers
And it was us in the path of the sunset, right? And it was such a beautiful picture that Kim had the idea... To, um she texted me and she was like, can you do this for Sam?
00:06:49
Jeff Rogers
And I thought, you know what? Sam is going to absolutely love that. When did you have time to do this? Not telling. Don't you love that? Unbelievable. So that's a picture of every one of us on the boat.
00:07:04
Jeff Rogers
You can't see anything but the boat and the sunset. And the boat is directly in front of the sun going down. Magical moment. That looks like something that's like an actual picture that like you buy a frame and there's that's Kim.
00:07:17
Jeff Rogers
What an amazing idea. Magical moment caught by a neighbor that I don't know the name of. That's beautiful. Yeah.
00:07:27
Jeff Rogers
I'll post that on Instagram so people can see the picture. It's just wild because like we're all on the boat trying to get the the good pictures of the sunset and get us somehow in it. And then here's neighbor. Yeah. A neighbor taking a photo the group of us.
00:07:43
Jeff Rogers
Isn't that great? That's gorgeous. That like these pictures are amazing. yeah Oh, I haven't posted on anything on Instagram because i I don't even know how to filter through all of the things. And oh,
00:07:58
Jeff Rogers
Good time. That was a good time. A was had.
Family Reunion
00:08:02
Jeff Rogers
And my friends that showed up, Jessica, Larry, Sharon, obviously Amanda and Alan are like, they got to period.
00:08:12
Jeff Rogers
period And Casey and Cassidy and Emma, John Taylor, Charlotte, just that was well needed. but i haven't seen them in a ah while.
00:08:22
Jeff Rogers
So that was, it was like, it was needed. You know what I mean? think not that this it didn't actually surprise me right because I know you at this point but it was so nice to see what you came from because I've met your dad and Janet and I've met everyone else ah some of everyone else before right but seeing you in your element seeing you around all the friends and in the place and I mean, it's just it's no wonder that you are the way that you are because absolutely stellar people, kind, wonderful, accepting, loving. Like they just enveloped me right into that whole just into the fold right there. And it's a family where you can be who you are.
00:09:14
Jeff Rogers
yeah like jay for instance amanda's husband he's not so much a people person but he is but it's kind of on his terms so he kind of you know did the perimeter right amanda jay will never listen to this but amanda will amanda knows exactly what i'm talking about like a cat yes and finally when he wanted to he just come on over had some dinner Chit-chatted with a couple of us. And i mean, i can see i can see how it would be overwhelming. It's a lot of energy. um But it was all good energy. so
00:09:48
Jeff Rogers
Oh, and you know what else?
Cafe Encounter
00:09:51
Jeff Rogers
Good thing i wrote this down. ha Brooklyn. Oh, my Brooklyn at another broken egg cafe in Huntsville.
00:10:00
Jeff Rogers
She was a bartender there with her sad little carrot. You remember this, right? Brooklyn, do you remember the little carrot that you had? picked it out and she was like, ew.
00:10:11
Jeff Rogers
We knew she was our people when she walked away from our table and she slipped. And it was such a graceful slip. And then she caught herself and she's like, I caught myself. Like you are our people. And then she said, and I put this in our phone.
00:10:27
Jeff Rogers
One of the things she said to us is we're put on this earth to be good people. And I was like, oh my God, we love you. yeah You're perfect. um and i mean You will be a therapist. You will be a good therapist. Absolutely.
00:10:40
Jeff Rogers
That's her goal. so You'll get there. She's great. Just keep going. ah So shout out to her. But shout out to my family and my friends that made that. Some of them had to do a two hour drive. it was a hard drive. And then they had to drive back.
00:10:54
Jeff Rogers
And it was a perfect way to celebrate my birthday.
Birthday Bash
00:10:59
Jeff Rogers
It was perfect. It was a thank you magical. Especially Kim and Keith. So, so many things to you guys. Honestly, Kim,
00:11:07
Jeff Rogers
ah I'm not a very emotional person unless it's, you know, anger. I do that well. She does that really well. I do.
00:11:19
Jeff Rogers
But walking into the room and like having a little basket there that you and Jeff and Brittany schemed your way into creating for me. the cheese balls and the cheese it's and the meat steaks and the towel and the bag. I have a bag right now.
00:11:37
Jeff Rogers
It's, um, a Slytherin house, but it's one of those sand cloud ones. That's like really, really good for the beach. And it's, oh man. But, and spending the day, like just finally we had like the most perfect sunny day, Kim, Keith, and I were in the pool just,
00:11:56
Jeff Rogers
doing our thing and trying to stay out of the 100 degree heat. I was out. but But I did come out for and several minutes and I surprised everybody. I was like, look, I'm going to do that. I wasn't even going to do anything.
00:12:09
Jeff Rogers
jumping off the diving board any flips or anything like that but I was like this is a week of gymnastics for me I was doing gymnastics with a rainbow fucking tutu hell yeah and a sash that said birthday girl and pink cowboy hat ah with fringe it also looked like a lampshade Tara said I said it was the most so important thing I could find thank you um but then I was like okay that last day it was too hot it was too sunny for me i was just done have been social and social and social and I was done and Sam said Sam called me and she said come out here just come out and join us just for a minute so walked out there and suddenly i was like I need to do some flips off that off that diving board you know a man did you oh that was fun
00:12:56
Jeff Rogers
But you taught me how to do a back dive. ah She did it very well. I was so proud of you. That was really good. Couldn't keep my legs together. Whatever. Doesn't matter. Does not matter. You did good.
00:13:07
Jeff Rogers
Thanks. That was Yeah, well, I mean, I've seen pictures and videos of yours in the past, but seeing it in person was, I don't understand how you move your body like that. It doesn't make sense to my brain.
00:13:18
Jeff Rogers
Well, you know, I just did it because, okay, number one, the kids were so excited to see me do it. They were. they were. Me included. Yeah, everybody. so I was like, I can still do this at this age. Let's do it while I can.
00:13:32
Jeff Rogers
Paid for it today working out, though. I still feel that sore muscle in my leg. o Well, your butt was so sore going into it because of the workout. like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The week, like a few days before you left, you were like, my butt right here. And you were like putting up in like the meat parts.
00:13:49
Jeff Rogers
And then there you go, just off across the yard, tumbling and flipping and twirling. and i was like, wow, I can't believe you didn't pop something. I can twirl. Yes, you can. But that was amazing.
00:14:02
Jeff Rogers
Just, yeah, everybody, everything, all at once. Everywhere. It was just good. That was a good way to go into my 49th year. Good way to start.
00:14:14
Jeff Rogers
It's good way to start. Absolutely. Should we flip a coin? Cheers, queers? We should indeed. What are you drinking? I am drinking a San Pellegrino, peach and clementine. Ooh, I'm drinking a Soleil blood orange. You do know I love me a blood orange. Oh, and of course I'm drinking my extra protein, extra ginger, green goddess detox island green smoothie. I bought that for you because changed my key battery.
00:14:44
Jeff Rogers
You're welcome. Cheers, Queers. Oh, I was just lifting my glass to pour.
00:14:52
Jeff Rogers
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Did we mention Ann's blueberry cobbler? Well, we didn't say it was Ann's, but. Ann. Ann. Who's 76.
00:15:03
Jeff Rogers
And does she do right Whoa. Anybody that ever meets anne they're like, I want to be her yeah when I'm that age. Cheers, Queers.
00:15:13
Jeff Rogers
I really think the table's getting longer each time do this. Something's happening. It might be because I'm totally chilled out and like leaned back. Okay. Okay, now it's time to flip a coin. Kim, you know she's gonna mess this up.
00:15:26
Jeff Rogers
Apparently, because my weird thumbs. Okay. Oh. Tell me when to stop. Okay. um Stop.
00:15:34
Jeff Rogers
Okay, what do we got here?
00:15:40
Jeff Rogers
she hit her head on something I'm not quite sure what she hit her head on Canada Canada look at that moose that's a nice moose okay you're the queen obviously and I'm the oh just to also announce this on Monday we're gonna have our last like gay pride episode indeed of the month because it is the final day of pride month this year um end of June so yeah Okay, so moose. You can do it. you can do it
00:16:12
Jeff Rogers
Moose. Oh, God. No, I'm anxious. I'm sweating. Okay. No closing notes.
00:16:19
Jeff Rogers
It's in my lap. Ooh, okay. It's a moose. You go first. What's the plural for moose? Moose? It's moose.
00:16:28
Jeff Rogers
somebody one time said moose eye like cacti that wasn't me and no it's no that was many many years ago she said why is moose not moose eye like cacti with a very southern accent moose eye listen okay okay so here we are again
00:16:51
Jeff Rogers
Jeffrey. Yes. I'm going to tell you story. Tell me a In 1906, a young Irish immigrant was hired as a cook for a wealthy family living in Oyster Bay on Long Island. and know this one.
00:17:05
Jeff Rogers
That doesn't surprise me. I know this one. Within a few weeks, six out of 11 people living in the residence had become dangerously ill. The family hired a sanitary engineer named George Sober to investigate.
00:17:19
Jeff Rogers
He immediately believed the cause was the freshwater clams the family frequently ate. So he did a rapid investigation, interviewed the residents of the home and the staff. When he realized that some of the sick people hadn't eaten the clams, he quickly amended his findings and had to reassess.
00:17:35
Jeff Rogers
He found his culprit and became the first to describe a healthy carrier of the Salmonella Typhi disease.
00:17:45
Jeff Rogers
He began a deeper dive into the investigation. In 1907, he pretty much stalked a young woman named Mary Milan throughout Manhattan.
00:17:57
Jeff Rogers
She had been the cook. The dude stalked her. like he like Imagine the worst sleuth you've ever seen. He had
The Tale of Typhoid Mary
00:18:08
Jeff Rogers
it pinpointed.
00:18:10
Jeff Rogers
So he tracked her activities and jobs and found that she was unknowingly, unknowingly infecting those around her with a disease she didn't realize she had. He attempted many times to obtain samples of her feces, urine, and blood.
00:18:26
Jeff Rogers
How? Yeah. Like, what are you doing? you doing What are you doing? so But they did they did throw it out the window back then. They They did. yeah Well, yeah. He's dead under the window.
00:18:40
Jeff Rogers
Excuse me. But as any of us would have guessed, Mary didn't think too highly of this idea. And she caught him one time. She literally chased him away. So Mary wasn't known for being
00:18:53
Jeff Rogers
ah people person. She was a cook. She loved cooking. But she was a little bit brash. He wasn't deterred. She was Irish. She was Irish. Okay. Irish. Yep.
00:19:07
Jeff Rogers
So he doesn't give up. He's like, man, I'm going get that poop. right. So he looks into her previous work history and found that eight of the families, ah she had worked for eight families and seven seven of them had experienced cases of typhoid.
00:19:23
Jeff Rogers
Out of 3000 cases of typhoid that year, Mary was likely to blame for most, if not all. just because of how rapidly it spreads.
00:19:35
Jeff Rogers
Unfortunately, the vaccination against salmonella typhi was not created and until 1911, so we're a few years before that, and then antibiotic treatment wasn't developed until 1948, so he knew he had to contain her.
00:19:50
Jeff Rogers
He reached out to Dr. Biggs of the New York Department of Health, and together with a Dr. Joe Baker, they were tasked with, quote, bringing her in Mary did not go willingly.
00:20:03
Jeff Rogers
The Irish really came out. She managed to elude the doctors and the police that were sent for her for five hours. When she was finally caught, she fought hard and Dr. Baker had to physically restrain her as they traveled to the hospital for testing.
00:20:21
Jeff Rogers
She was forced to provide samples and I don't even want to really know how that went down because we've tried to get poop samples from people before, but like forcing someone to give you a stool sample, I don't even want to know what happened there.
00:20:36
Jeff Rogers
Maybe they put her in the room and said, you're not leaving until you give us this. Just a possibility, right? Indoor plumbing wasn't really a thing. So it's not like she's flushing it. She ain't got a toilet. hey But that, yeah. Okay. So they got it somehow. um Her stool returned a positive result. She was forced into quarantine.
00:20:59
Jeff Rogers
She was transferred to Riverside Hospital on North Border Island. She was placed in a cottage to live where she couldn't infect anybody else. So forced quarantine.
00:21:11
Jeff Rogers
Two years later, after repeated positive samples, they took like 170 samples of her stool over the course of the two years and like 150 them or something like that came back positive.
00:21:22
Jeff Rogers
And they did multiple experimental treatments, including repeated laxatives, I guess, to try and cleanse her gut and brewer's yeast.
00:21:34
Jeff Rogers
She then attempted to sue the health department. It went nowhere. Nobody ever explained to her what it meant to be a carrier because she couldn't understand. She wasn't sick. She didn't feel sick. She wasn't unwell. She didn't have any of the symptoms. So she's stuck in this cottage all alone on some island and no one's telling her anything.
00:21:52
Jeff Rogers
So they just continued to offer tests and surgeries. She refused to allow them to remove her gallbladder and she demanded to be released because that was one of the suggestions they had. In 1910, the new health commissioner vowed to free Mary under the agreement that she would be helped to find a job nowhere near food.
00:22:11
Jeff Rogers
She was released, but she immediately violated the agreement. She went back to work in the kitchens of unsuspecting families, so she again was a threat to the public. One of her new jobs was as a cook for Sloan Maternity in Manhattan. She had applied under the name Mary Browne.
00:22:30
Jeff Rogers
In her three months of work there, she contaminated at least 25 doctors, patients, and nurses, two of whom died. She was caught again, and sent back to the North Border Island into that small little college. But weren't they also telling her to wash your hands?
00:22:46
Jeff Rogers
Yes. Right? Yes. Was that not part of it? It was, but it didn't fix anything. but and But she wasn't doing that. I told you, she was stubborn. Yeah.
00:23:00
Jeff Rogers
So she was quarantined there for over 20 years. yeah On Christmas morning, 1932, delivery man found Mary on the floor of her cottage. She had had a massive stroke and could no longer walk.
00:23:13
Jeff Rogers
She was transferred to the proper hospital where she was taken care of for another six years until her death. She was buried on a small plot at St. Raymond's cemetery. Upon her death, an autopsy was performed and they found that she was shedding the salmonella typhi bacteria from gallstones.
00:23:33
Jeff Rogers
Some people claim that there was no autopsy actually performed and that they just announced that this happened to settle the nerves of the the public and to and change people's mental picture of what the system was.
00:23:50
Jeff Rogers
At the time of her death, New York health officials had identified more than 400 additional healthy carriers of the typhoid bacteria, but none were treated the way Mary was.
00:24:03
Jeff Rogers
So we make jokes about typhoid Mary all the time, right? You know, when someone starts hacking up a lung in front of you, you're like, all right, back out of here, typhoid Mary or whatever. You know, we joke about like mission zero. um So ah reportedly, she did end up finding peace and comfort in religion during the years that she was alone in confinement.
00:24:23
Jeff Rogers
um But it has to give you pause to think about how she was treated. So the case of Mary Milan brought about a lot of concerns regarding ethics and morals and the way that patients are treated. In relation to many diseases that have evolved since typhoid, carriers and the, quote, healthy ill, so people who infected with something but not necessarily showing symptoms or whatever, have continually been treated like lepers and pariahs.
00:24:50
Jeff Rogers
Mary became the victim of the press and social attitudes against disease in general. Her doctors frequently took the time to push testing and treatments on her, but never stopped to explain anything to her or take the time to talk to her.
00:25:03
Jeff Rogers
So Mary died alone. Damn. And she is now sitting in a weird place in medical history because the term typhoid Mary is actually in medical journals, you know, so it's now this, this thing that became a thing because they quarantined her and they did all this stuff.
00:25:23
Jeff Rogers
But she was treated inhumanely. Right, absolutely. There were better ways to go about it. They could have talked to her, they could have explained. Maybe that would have motivated her to do something or given her other options. So, semi sad. That's the story of Typhoid Mary. That's the story of Typhoid Mary. That was good.
00:25:45
Jeff Rogers
That's an interesting story. Have you ever been to Oyster Bay? I have. It is so rich. Yes, it is. It is so very rich. Well, probably wasn't great to be back there in the early 1900s. Nope.
00:25:58
Jeff Rogers
I think that's where um President Roosevelt's, Teddy Roosevelt's house is. I went there once. Still doesn't surprise me. Of all your travels.
00:26:09
Jeff Rogers
Lots of dad stuff hanging on the wall. think. Yeah. Okay. I got a story for you. Tell me. Are you ready? As ready as i I'm ever going to be.
00:26:21
Jeff Rogers
Okay. So at the start of today's story, I want to clarify that the vast majority of people with mental health issues are not violent. They do not pose
Dark Crimes of Danny Rawlings
00:26:30
Jeff Rogers
threats to others. In fact, most people with mental health issues or challenges lead peaceful lives and never harm anyone.
00:26:36
Jeff Rogers
Like you. Thank you. And you. So it's crucial to challenge those stereotypes, right? But I mentioned mental health in this story a lot relating to this person. And I'm not saying that all people have mental health issues are bad.
00:26:52
Jeff Rogers
Trigger warning. The story contains descriptions of violent murder, sexual assault, necrophilia, and the murder of an animal.
00:26:58
Jeff Rogers
If you feel like this is too distressing for you, skip the story. And before the this starts. Yes. So it's the story of the Gainesville Ripper. This is odd for you.
00:27:09
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Have you heard of this one? I have. Okay. I'm proud of you. This is how are you feeling dark. This is dark. Okay. So today we're going to go to Gainesville, Florida. It's August of 1990 and the college students at the University of Florida in Gainesville are gearing up to go back to school.
00:27:26
Jeff Rogers
Start college, right? Students are moving into the dorms, moving into the apartments and meeting their new roommates. On August 23rd, 1990, two of these students were Sonia Larson and Christina Powell.
00:27:39
Jeff Rogers
They're 17 and 18, starting college and they're excited, right? They're moving into their apartment or their dorm. Both of these young women, beautiful. ah They both were petite brown eyes and brown hair.
00:27:52
Jeff Rogers
Remember that. i oh Every time I look in the mirror. Thanks. Night falls and they go to bed. And they're, can you just imagine, like, they're so excited to be there, right?
00:28:05
Jeff Rogers
This is something new for them. Yeah. They're they're away from home. They're away from their parents. Yeah. So Gainesville had recently been called a safe place, and it was one of the best places to live. So Sonia went upstairs, and Christina slept downstairs on the couch for whatever reason.
00:28:20
Jeff Rogers
Both of their windows were left open, and late at night, or early in the morning of August 24th, their apartment door was forced open. The intruder went upstairs, and Sonia was sleeping.
00:28:33
Jeff Rogers
He duct-taped Sonia's mouth, and then Sonia woke up horrified. The intruder was big, so there wasn't a lot that she could do. The intruder proceeded to so stab her with a knife over and over again until she stopped moving.
00:28:48
Jeff Rogers
But he wasn't done. He went downstairs where Christina was sleeping. He duct taped her mouth and bound her hands behind her back. Then he cut her clothes off of her body and sexually assaulted her there in the living room.
00:29:01
Jeff Rogers
He then forced her down onto the floor on her stomach and stabbed her in the back several times until she wasn't moving. But he still wasn't done. He went back upstairs where the now murdered Sonia was and then he proceeded to sexually assault her body.
00:29:19
Jeff Rogers
He then cut her nipples off as a trophy. He jumped into the shower. After this, he left the apartment and he vanished into the night. This would start a horrible chain of murders and events that terrorized the community of Gainesville and even the whole state of Florida. um And this is the story of the Gainesville River. report The next day started and everything seemed normal on campus.
00:29:44
Jeff Rogers
The families of Christina and Sonia arrived on the 25th to help the women get settled into their apartments. They knocked on the door and nobody answered. Some of the other students said that they...
00:29:57
Jeff Rogers
weren't there because they had also been knocking on their door but nobody answered So the families left notes on the door. But the next day, like, they were freaked out. So they asked the maintenance man to open the door.
00:30:08
Jeff Rogers
And what the families saw was horrible. Cops were called immediately. And when the cops arrived, people, including the maintenance man, were vomiting.
00:30:19
Jeff Rogers
What the cops saw was the stuff of nightmares. They found the mutilated bodies of Sonia and Christina. Both bodies had been posed nude in sexual positions and blood was everywhere.
00:30:32
Jeff Rogers
The news of the double murder spread quickly across the campus and it wasn't long until another victim was found. This victim was Krista Hoyt. She was described as a lovely young woman.
00:30:43
Jeff Rogers
She had brunette hair, brown eyes. Stop looking at me like that Krista was working at the sheriff's office, so she was studying to be a police officer. um She hadn't shown up for work, so the sheriff's department immediately sent cops to her home.
00:31:00
Jeff Rogers
Again, found the stuff of nightmares. Between 10.30 a.m. and 11 a.m., Krista had entered the apartment after playing racquetball with a friend and was surprised by the murderer, who placed her in a choke chokehold and After she had been subdued, he then used duct tape to gag her mouth and bind her wrist behind her back and let her into the bedroom, where he cut her clothes off and he sexually assaulted her.
00:31:28
Jeff Rogers
Krista's lifeless body was posed in sort of a sitting position and in a sexual way. She had been stabbed multiple times in the stomach and had been slashed from the pubic bone to the breastbone, and she had also been decapitated.
00:31:44
Jeff Rogers
It didn't take long for the officers to find the head. It was placed on a shelf, like facing toward her body. He did that for sure. um Just hours after he brutally murdered Christina and Sonia, the monster wanted more, so he went to Krista's apartment and he forced his way in.
00:32:05
Jeff Rogers
But she wasn't there because she didn't get home until 1030 or 11. So he sat down, he waited on her, And when she returned home, that's when he did this. By now, the campus was on high alert. Students were freaked out. They were terrified.
00:32:18
Jeff Rogers
Three women had been brutally murdered. Students were taking extra precautions like walking in groups, taking different ways home. Many started sleeping in the same bed, like a lot of people would share an apartment, sleep in the same room.
00:32:31
Jeff Rogers
Yeah, shit. Some students withdrew from the university, understandably, um and the murderer left no clues. Zero. Cops were questioning everybody. It seemed like the perpetrator knew the area specifically, the campus, very well.
00:32:51
Jeff Rogers
So that leads them to go down a certain path. Absolutely. And he had a certain MO. We see that with the three, the certain way of doing it. But the Ripper wasn't done. He struck again on August 27th, 1990, and he broke into the apartment of Tracy Paul and Manny Taboda.
00:33:10
Jeff Rogers
Manny was a big dude. He was a former football player. but Manny was sleeping on the couch, so the Ripper jumped him. They struggled for a while, and then he stabbed Manny to death.
00:33:22
Jeff Rogers
Tracy snuck out of the room to see what was going on, and when she went back into the room, she bolted the door. She was probably terrified. The Ripper busted down the door.
00:33:33
Jeff Rogers
He bound her. He gagged her. He ripped her clothes off, and he sexually assaulted her. And he stabbed her multiple times in the back, claiming his fifth victim. Tracy was a young white woman with brown hair and brown eyes.
00:33:48
Jeff Rogers
He seemed to be in a hurry this time, so he didn't pose the body. This one was more robust. I think it was because of Manny. The the fight caused probably more, not because the first two is quiet, right like right? Both girls were sleeping. Neither woke up. There was no screaming. there was no like He didn't draw attention at that time.
00:34:06
Jeff Rogers
Manny shocked him. Yeah. um At this point, 700 students have dropped out of school there. God dang. And what's crazier is that the perpetrator was still leaving no evidence. Zero DNA.
00:34:23
Jeff Rogers
Granted, it it was at a time when DNA wasn't... It was still new. It was still new, right? So and there were no prints, no evidence of semen. He took everything with him and he destroyed it. He even poured household cleaners all over the bodies to destroy any evidence.
00:34:37
Jeff Rogers
Hmm. But the police, they honed in on a suspect. The man who becomes the suspect is 19-year-old University of Florida student Edward Lewis Humphrey.
00:34:48
Jeff Rogers
Humphrey has a history of mental illness, so people put him into a certain category, right? Yeah. And he had these really big scars on his face from a car accident. So it's easier to put somebody who looks and behaves like him into a category. Yeah, it's our it's our prejudice.
00:35:07
Jeff Rogers
i mean Right. Yeah. He looks like somebody who could potentially do violent things.
00:35:13
Jeff Rogers
Which sucks. That sucks to say. Yeah. That's not me saying that. That's what they were saying at the time. um On August 30th, Humphrey was arrested for assaulting his grandmother.
00:35:24
Jeff Rogers
so what in a stellar person? He just assaulted his grandmother. He was questioned by the cops for the murders. ah He was off of his medication for his mental health issues. He carried knives around with him and he spent a lot of nights in the woods with friends.
00:35:38
Jeff Rogers
He also wore camouflage. Humphrey was held for five months under the suspicion of murder. His bell was set at a million dollars. And then he was bailed out.
00:35:51
Jeff Rogers
Six people people, five or six people at that point. Yeah. He was accused of. Surprised he got bail. You know, that's a lot of money. And while the. Yeah. wonder what it is today.
00:36:03
Jeff Rogers
10 million, maybe. Um, so he was bailed out. The investigators in the public were sure Humphrey was their person, but there was zero evidence and the cops presented all of their quote evidence, which was none to the grand jury, but the grand jury decides there's insufficient evidence. You can't try him for this.
00:36:26
Jeff Rogers
And you can't, you can't just because of your prejudice, just because you think right it looks bad. So Humphrey released. It ain't him. And what's fucked up is that now Humphrey's face, what's fucked up for him is now Humphrey's face is recognizable and associated with the murders.
00:36:45
Jeff Rogers
So he's not, his life is ruined and there was no evidence that he did it. And obviously now the story is national too, but because it's national, the investigators hear of another case in Louisiana, right?
00:36:59
Jeff Rogers
So maybe this is a link, right? On November 4th of that same year, year investigators from Louisiana called the investigators in Florida. In November of 1989, 55-year-old William Grissom, his daughter Julie, and his eight-year-old grandson Sean were getting ready for dinner when an intruder entered the home and brutally murdered the three of them.
00:37:22
Jeff Rogers
He sexually assault assaulted Julie He bit her so hard that he left marks on the skin and then he posed her body. Was she a brunette? Yes.
00:37:34
Jeff Rogers
Same thing. So Don Maines was an investigator from Florida. He traveled to Shreveport to check out the evidence to see if they had a match. And the use of duct tape was the same. The posing of the body or bodies was the same.
00:37:51
Jeff Rogers
And the cleaner used to clean off the body was also the same. So this is the guy, right? There's something there. Yeah. And this was a year before the Gainesville attacks.
00:38:02
Jeff Rogers
But body fluid was found on Julie's body. And they tested it. i guess it was blood. They tested it. And whoever did it was a type B blood.
00:38:14
Jeff Rogers
And this is huge because they hadn't had that up until this point. A month later, Crime Stoppers received a phone call from a person in Shreveport named Cindy. She had met a strange man at church and he said some crazy shit to her and her husband.
00:38:29
Jeff Rogers
So for a while, this man would come over and spend time with Cindy and her husband. They'd have dinner together until he made the comment, the strange man, to Cindy and her husband that he liked to stick knives in people.
00:38:43
Jeff Rogers
And the husband was like, you ain't coming back here no more. So, um, how do you respond to that? I don't know. Great question. How do you, if somebody says I like to stick, you're sitting around the dinner table and someone's just like carving up the chicken. was like, Oh, I really do like to stab humans.
00:39:06
Jeff Rogers
Do you get up and leave? Do you play it off like, okay, and then hope that he leaves? I don't have an answer to that one. I think you play it off, right? Like, you just play that one off.
00:39:19
Jeff Rogers
He's going to go away. Everything's going to be good. And then hope that he doesn't bust the door down. Yes. Because he just admitted that he likes to stab people. Okay, cool. So he leaves. They dismiss the comments.
00:39:31
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Okay. And Cindy was riding through Florida one day when she heard about the murders of the young women at the university. So they were similar to the ones Shreveport. And she remembered something else the man told her.
00:39:44
Jeff Rogers
He said he was going to leave this place, Shreveport, and go where the girls are beautiful and lay in the sun all day long. This is when she called Crime Stoppers and gave them the name of Danny Rawlings.
00:39:58
Jeff Rogers
Danny Rawlings was easy to track down. He had recently been arrested for robbing a grocery store in Ocala, Florida, on September 7, 1990, days after the university bodies had been discovered.
00:40:10
Jeff Rogers
black Rawlings was being held in jail... It's just south of Gainesville, so it wasn't too far away. And he was six foot two He was a big guy And what was his blood type?
00:40:23
Jeff Rogers
B. So same as the killer. Danny Rawling was born May 26, 1954, to parents Claudia and James Rawling. His father James was a cop, was also a war vet.
00:40:36
Jeff Rogers
ah But James abused Claudia, Danny, and Danny's little brother often. lot of abuse in that family. One time he beat Danny, and when Danny... he beat him for not crawling the way he thought he should have been crawling. that was one Like an infant. Yeah, when he was like two or one or something. of um One time James even beat the family dog so badly that it actually died in Danny's arms.
00:41:07
Jeff Rogers
So there was a lot there. When did you leave that for hours You know I don't like the animals. I know. warned you at the beginning. Can't go. Other times, Jane, okay, so the dad suffered from PTSD, but let's also remember there's plenty of people that have PTSD that don't do this.
00:41:27
Jeff Rogers
Yeah, that's another one of those things. part of the story. Yeah. um Claudia, his mom, had a nervous breakdown at one point, and she was admitted to a mental health facility. So Danny was forced to deal with all this on his own. And at the age of 11, Danny started kind of harnessing all this and using it to learn to play the guitar.
00:41:47
Jeff Rogers
So he did, and you can still see videos of this on YouTube if you choose to. That's how he coped. He would do this for the rest of his life.
00:41:58
Jeff Rogers
um Again, with the mental health stuff, not an excuse. you know Eventually, as Rawlings grew up, he started having these darker and darker impulses in addition to his drug and alcohol abuse.
00:42:11
Jeff Rogers
He listen enlisted in the Air Force, but because of the substance abuse, that didn't last long. Rawlings went on to get married and have a daughter, but the cycle repeated. he physically abused both of them.
00:42:21
Jeff Rogers
His wife filed for divorce. He started robbing banks and sexually assaulting women who looked like his ex-wife. He was in and out of prison for armed robb robbery. By November of 89, Rawlings went back to Shreveport.
00:42:36
Jeff Rogers
He lost another job, and this is when today's story with the murder of the family in Shreveport happened. And then in May of 1990, Rawling and his father got into an argument. This time, Rawling shot his father in the stomach and then in the head.
00:42:51
Jeff Rogers
He believed that he had killed his father, but he didn't. His father survived this. oh Like, out of all the people to survive, yeah. You know there's sayings about that. Yeah.
00:43:10
Jeff Rogers
Rawling headed to Gainesville, Florida, stopping in Sarasota, where he broke into a house of Janet Frake. He bound her, he gagged her, and then he sexually assaulted Janet.
00:43:22
Jeff Rogers
He then set a tent up in the woods behind the university in Gainesville and would go on to murder the five people that I told about at the beginning of the story. He attempted to rob Winn-Dixie supermarket.
00:43:35
Jeff Rogers
He was caught and then put in jail. In November of 1991, Rawling was charged with five counts of murder. He was brought to trial nearly four years after the murders.
00:43:47
Jeff Rogers
He claimed his motive was to become a, quote, superstar, similar to Ted Bundy. In 1994, before his trial could get underway, Rawling unexpectedly pleaded guilty to all the charges.
00:44:02
Jeff Rogers
Subsequently, State Attorney Rod Smith presented the penalty phase of the prosecution. During his trial, Court TV conducted an interview with Rawling's mother from her home, during which his father could be heard shouting off the camera.
00:44:15
Jeff Rogers
On April 20, 1994, Rawling was sentenced to death. He was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and paraphilia.
00:44:28
Jeff Rogers
When in prison, while in prison, Rawling met a man named Bobby Lewis and told Lewis everything that he did, all the crimes that he committed. Did he not have the official diagnoses before?
00:44:41
Jeff Rogers
don't think so. was in prison. He had never seen a mental health provider. Because he went to prison, that's when they got all the mental health professionals involved. and So he had no he had no diagnoses while... He had never been diagnosed while he was committing these murders, in fact.
00:44:57
Jeff Rogers
But when he was in prison, he met a man named Bobby Lewis. He confessed everything to Bobby Lewis. He got Lewis to write letters to the cops admitting everything. Like, he wouldn't write the letters himself. He got Lewis to write the letters for him. And in all the interviews, he didn't actually speak to the attorneys.
00:45:16
Jeff Rogers
He made Lewis speak on his behalf to the attorneys. Weird. I know. I was like, you piece of shit. You're making somebody else speak for you. or you You know? manipulation. It's part of the borderline personality.
00:45:30
Jeff Rogers
Rawlings tried to blame his actions on many things, including multiple personalities. Right. I feel like that's the oldest one in the book. good It's a good one. He claimed that he had several personalities. ah There was Janad.
00:45:43
Jeff Rogers
There was one called Gemini who made him do all the bad stuff. The Geminis are the worst. Yeah. But the court didn't buy any of it. It was literally the plot of The Exorcist III that had been playing in prison.
00:45:56
Jeff Rogers
That's where he got those names from. On April 20th, 1994, Rowling was sentenced to death. He was... Yeah. What? He got married while he was in prison to a true crime journalist. Shut up.
00:46:10
Jeff Rogers
After 12 years in prison, Rawling was given his last meal. his It was lobster, butterfly shrimp, cocktail sauce, strawberry cheesecake, and sweet tea. Not bad.
00:46:21
Jeff Rogers
And then 47 people crowded into the room that was only supposed to hold about 25 to witness the death of Danny Rawling. Rawling was brought into the chamber and strapped in. he was asked if he had any last words.
00:46:34
Jeff Rogers
He sang a gospel hymn for two minutes. Fuck right off. He made no statement before the execution, and it was witnessed by a lot of the families of the victims.
00:46:47
Jeff Rogers
Rawling was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on October 25, 2006. Golly. god lee Right, like 19 years ago. i mean, you think about the fact that like people can be on death row for 40 years. yeah like And he was on there for 12. So I guess that's a quick turnaround.
00:47:07
Jeff Rogers
So this is like the official end of the story, right? all You think about all the victims and the families of the victims and everything they had to go through. um But there's also an interesting fact about this story. he was the said Rowling was the subject of several works.
00:47:26
Jeff Rogers
Okay, are are you familiar with anything I'm about to say? don't think so Kevin Williamson was an aspiring writer in the ninety s and the nineteen ninety s he was watching TV, a show called Turning Point
00:47:42
Jeff Rogers
and he saw this story and He looked over at his open window, Williamson did, and he wondered what it would be like for a killer to sneak into your home without even being aware and kill you by stabbing you. That's Kevin Williams got to work on a script because he was going to turn that into ah movie.
00:48:03
Jeff Rogers
He created the script about an evil killer that went around college killing people and the media outcry that that caused. The script landed in the hands of Wes Craven. oh Soon this would be produced into a horror movie.
00:48:19
Jeff Rogers
Any... Scream. Good job. Stop What is that move you just did? You just did like a disco dance. So in 1996, the movie Scream came out in theaters. Based on this dude?
00:48:34
Jeff Rogers
Based on this dude. Wow. And in the opening scenes, Ghostface poses the question to the character Cassie. do you like horror movies the movie scream went on to be a blockbuster franchise and a global phenomenon but that is the story of the gainesville ripper piece of shit and of the beautiful victims that wow well done horrible horrible but well done it's an interesting story isn't it i don't think that's one that's very well known
00:49:07
Jeff Rogers
No, I definitely didn't know the fact about the that I mean, I guess now I can see it, but I didn't know that it was... that they made Scream based off of it.
00:49:18
Jeff Rogers
he would Kevin Williamson was watching Turning Point, and he was like, you know, the crazy media outcry, I'm sure that was... warranted that at the time, right? Because they wanted to find the killer.
00:49:29
Jeff Rogers
But, yeah, that turned into Scream. Weird. Which is still... Listen, I still love the screen movies. will every single time go see one of those movies. Every time. Every single time.
00:49:41
Jeff Rogers
Did you ever watch the show? Because I made a TV show. never watched it. I did. It was good. I never watched it. It was good, yeah. Interesting. Isn't that interesting? then little Well little fun trivia fact and all of that horror there for you.
00:49:57
Jeff Rogers
And you guessed the movie. You did so good. yeah There's a lot of pressure. Yeah. My mind was reeling, but then I thought about it and i was like, oh, i well, that's it. and I kept saying college campus.
00:50:09
Jeff Rogers
ah Is that all? ah Rate us. Follow us, rate us, review us, give us five stars. um Do it now but you're hearing while you're listening to us. Do it now.
00:50:20
Jeff Rogers
Because we will continue to bring you our wonderful Vortex of Fuckery. Every Thursday. And we got one for you this Monday. we do. Alan, our overqualified underpaid master publisher extraordinaire. Ashley, the ultimate and epically unmatched hype queen editor.
00:50:38
Jeff Rogers
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00:50:50
Jeff Rogers
And that is it. Goodbye.