Danny Rolling

The song Harold Rollings Hymn from the 2007 John 5 album, The Devil Knows My Name is inspired by Rolling. An episode of Murder Made Me Famous, which aired November 24, 2018, chronicled the case.

In 2013, TV documentary series The Real Story aired an episode profiling the movie Scream. It aired July 28, 2013, and tells the story of Rolling’s murders in graphic detail.

Rolling was also the subject of a 2010 episode of Cold Blood, and was briefly mentioned in a 2012 episode of Motives and Murders entitled Not Again. He was also featured in a 2015 episode of Nightmare Next Door.

A 2007 independent feature film entitled The Gainesville Ripper, based on accounts of the killings, was shot in the Gainesville and Jacksonville, Florida areas. In the film, Rolling is portrayed by Zachary Memos. Rolling was also the subject of an episode of Body of Evidence: From the Case Files of Dayle Hinman, a Court TV show (transmitted as Crime Scene USA: Body of Evidence on Discovery Channel in the UK) and an episode of Forensic Factor titled Killing Spree, which originally aired on Discovery Channel Canada and was rebroadcast in America on the Science Channel.

Rolling was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on October 25, 2006, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch appeal. Rolling had a last meal of lobster tail. He sang a gospel hymn, but made no statement immediately prior to his execution, which was witnessed by many of his victims' relatives. He was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m EDT. In a written statement made shortly before his execution, Rolling confessed to the murders of the Grissom family in Shreveport.

Rolling has been the subject of several written works. His crime spree inspired screenwriter Kevin Williamson to pen the script of the popular 1996 slasher film Scream.

Rolling was brought to trial by Alachua County State Attorney Len Register nearly four years after the murders. He claimed his motive was to become a "superstar" similar to Ted Bundy. In 1994, before his trial could get underway, Rolling unexpectedly pled guilty to all charges. Subsequently, State Attorney Rod Smith presented the penalty phase of the prosecution. During his trial, Court TV conducted an interview with Rolling's mother from her home, during which his father could be heard shouting off-camera.

On April 20, 1994, Rolling was sentenced to death. Rolling was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and paraphilia.

As a teenager and young adult, Rolling was arrested several times for robberies in Georgia and was caught spying on a woman getting dressed. As an adult, he had trouble trying to assimilate into society and hold down a steady job. At one point, Rolling worked as a waiter at Pancho's restaurant in Shreveport. In May 1990, he attempted to kill his father during a family argument in which his father lost an eye and an ear.

In August 1990, Rolling murdered five students (one student from Santa Fe College and four from the University of Florida) during a burglary and robbery spree in Gainesville, Florida. He mutilated his victims' bodies, decapitating one. He then posed them, sometimes using mirrors.

On September 7, 1990, Rolling was arrested in Ocala on a burglary charge. In the course of that investigation, his tools were matched to marks left at the Gainesville murder scenes. The small one-man camp where he was living was in a wooded area located near the apartment complexes frequented by students; there, investigators discovered audio diaries he had made alluding to the crimes. In November 1991, Rolling was charged with several counts of murder.

The book Drifter is also based on the 1990 Gainesville murders.

After Rolling was arrested, police in Louisiana alerted the authorities in Florida to an unsolved triple murder in Shreveport on November 4, 1989. Detectives noted that there were similarities between the Gainesville murders and those of 55-year-old William Grissom, his 24-year-old daughter Julie, and his eight-year-old grandson Sean. The family had been attacked in their home as they were preparing for dinner. Afterwards, Julie Grissom's body had been mutilated, cleaned, and posed. Shortly before he was executed in Florida for the series of killings in Gainesville, Rolling claimed responsibility for the Shreveport murders, handing his spiritual adviser Rev. Mike Hudspeth and Florida police a handwritten confession and apology.

Danny Harold Rolling (May 26, 1954 – October 25, 2006), also known as the Gainesville Ripper, was an American serial killer who murdered five students in Gainesville, Florida over four days in late August 1990. Rolling later confessed to raping several of his victims, committing a triple homicide in Shreveport, Louisiana, and attempting to murder his father in May 1990. In total, Rolling confessed to killing eight people. Rolling was sentenced to death for the five Gainesville murders in 1994. He was executed by lethal injection in 2006.