I’ll never forget that Tuesday night in late August 1990 when my roommate Stephanie called me sobbing. It was just before the fall semester started at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I was at the office of The Independent Florida Alligator, editing the “Applause” entertainment section, when the phone rang. Stephanie could barely speak, but I already had a sick feeling in my stomach. I knew what the call was about.
A serial killer had been terrorizing our college town for the past week. Five students — four women and one man — had been brutally murdered. He broke into their apartments at night, raped the women, stabbed all of them to death, and left their bodies grotesquely posed. One of the victims had even been decapitated, her head placed on a mantle near her body. Rumors spread wildly — at one point, we thought all the victims had been beheaded. That wasn’t true, but somehow the truth was worse.
We felt like we were living in a horror movie. And, in a way, we were — the “Gainesville Ripper,” as he would later be called, would go on to inspire documentaries, books, and eventually Scream, the hit 1996 film written by Kevin Williamson. What made it more terrifying than fiction was that the victims were students just like us, living in our neighborhood.
The four women — Sonja Larson, 18; Christina Powell, 17; Christa Hoyt, 18; and Tracy Paules, 23 — were all white brunettes. The fifth victim, 23-year-old Manny Taboada, was Paules’ roommate. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Stephanie and I shared a small, two-bedroom duplex tucked beside a thickly wooded area — the kind of place where anything could be lurking in the shadows. The murders happened over just four days, but Gainesville remained in a state of panic for weeks. Every time I came home, even in broad daylight, I was afraid someone was waiting behind the apartment. Or next door. We didn’t know our neighbors. Trust was in short supply.
Stephanie’s call came the day police identified the last two victims, Paules and Taboada. She didn’t call to update me on the news — I already knew. She called because one of the murdered girls had been her friend. They’d taken classes together. Her mother insisted we leave the apartment and stay with her outside the danger zone. I went with them, sleeping in a guest room, but sleep didn’t come. All I could think about were the students who went to bed just like me — and never woke up…