Florida College Slayer Receives Death Sentence

Relatives of five slain college students sobbed and shouted Wednesday when a judge condemned Danny Harold Rolling to death for a grisly crime spree that terrorized this college town in 1990.

Ricky Paules, the mother of one victim, yelled, “Yes!” as the first sentence was read. As Rolling was led out of the courtroom, Mario Taboada, the brother of another victim, stood and shouted: “Justice is beyond these walls. We have the last say. We will prevail.”

Rolling, who decapitated one of his victims and left her head on a bookshelf, pleaded guilty Feb. 15 to five counts of first-degree murder, three counts of sexual battery and three counts of armed burglary.

He did not speak at the hearing, nodding his head slightly as Circuit Judge Stan R. Morris accepted a jury’s recommendation that Rolling be put to death for two of the mutilation murders.

“I hope that some good can be derived from this small gesture of pleading guilty to these terrible crimes against my fellow man,” Rolling said in a statement issued through his fiancee. “It is the very least that I could do. I pray, ‘God bless Gainesville, and Lord heal its people.’ ”

Morris was not bound by the jury’s recommendation, and the death sentence is subject to automatic appeal. The judge also sentenced Rolling to three consecutive life terms for the rapes and burglaries.

“All of the offenses were committed in a manner that was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel,” Morris said.

Rolling, 39, already is serving three consecutive life terms plus 170 years for a series of Tampa burglaries days after the slayings.

The students were killed in their off-campus apartments in August, 1990, just before the fall semester. They attended the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College.