2 Florida Students Were Strangled, Police Say

Two female college students found slain in their apartment were strangled, authorities said Saturday as they sought to calm fears that the killings were related to the slayings of five students in August.

“There continues to be no connection whatsoever to the serial homicides that took place last fall,” said Spencer Mann, a spokesman for the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. “I think that’s very important. It’s on a lot of people’s minds, and we certainly want to lay that to rest.”

Investigators were still searching for a motive, saying there was no sign of robbery or sexual assault.

The Alachua County medical examiner said the women died between 7 a.m. Thursday and 7 a.m. Friday, when their bodies were discovered by one of the victim’s boyfriends.

Eleanor Anne Grace, 20, a Ft. Myers psychology major, and Carla Marie McKishnie, 22, a graduate student in education from Brandon, had not been sexually assaulted and were dressed in street clothes, Mann said.

“We are confirming the cause of death was strangulation. I’m not going to get into specifics as to the particular details, but they both were strangulation victims,” he said.

Asked if the slayings were the result of a copycat killer, Mann said: “We don’t have any information that supports that or backs that up. At the same time, we don’t have anything that would eliminate that either.”

The discovery of the women’s bodies in the Casablanca West apartment complex early Friday shocked the quiet college town still coping with the loss of the five students who were stabbed to death in August.

Asked if officials fear another serial killer is on the loose, Mann said: “There is no question there’s someone out there who committed two murders. . . . Obviously, that’s a possibility, but the jury is still out.”

Investigators, who have no suspects in the latest slayings, were talking with the boyfriend who discovered the bodies and a former roommate in an effort to re-create the activities of the two students before their deaths.

Neither the unidentified boyfriend nor the former roommate is a suspect, Mann said, noting that 25 detectives were working on the case Saturday.

Gov. Lawton Chiles visited the college and met with police late Friday and announced that classes would continue. There are 16,000 summer students.

No charges have been filed in the August killings, but police have identified Danny Rolling, 37, of Shreveport, La., as their prime suspect.

Rolling is in custody awaiting sentencing for an unrelated armed robbery last September in Ocala, two weeks after the five college students were slain at three separate locations in Gainesville.