When one desires to tell a tale, one must find an audience.  Otherwise, there can be no telling.  In order to attract listeners, the tale must be compelling, its telling must be done in an extraordinary manner, or the teller must himself be a subject of great interest.   Prior to August, 1990 none of these were true of Danny Rolling.  But afterward, when Rolling had transformed himself into the enigmatic "Mystery Rider", he became interesting and, to some, even intriguing.  It was only then that he could have his telling.

Although Rolling has protested that he never "committed these terrible acts of violence in order to become a SUPERSTAR AMONGST CRIMINALS," he was, as we all are, exposed to the intense coverage given to criminals and criminal acts.  When the capture of a serial or mass murderer is covered in the media, the focus will invariably shift within a day or two from the crime and its victims to the perpetrator as a search for the elusive motive commences.   "Inside the Mind of a Killer" has become a catch-phrase associated with many attempts to probe for that answer.  Every newly-caught multiple killer becomes gruel for our insatiable appetite to understand the inexplicable. And their executions become symbols of our ability to persevere against the horrors of the unknown.

Early on the morning of January 24, 1989 the sun's rays broke across the flat landscape of north central Florida illuminating an enthusiastic crowd gathered outside the gates of Florida State Prison.  They broke into cheers as the lights surrounding the compound dimmed briefly, signaling that the horrible life of Ted Bundy had finally come to an end.  Throughout the day, that signal was amplified and re-transmitted around the world.  News programs repeatedly reported about the life of this notorious serial killer, his victims, and the impact of his crimes.  Talk shows buzzed with conversations and discussions about him.

Then, from the evening news hour on, the killer himself was granted an opportunity to address the nation, albeit posthumously, without being required to give any meaningful concessions in return.   Columnist John Leo wrote in the February 6, 1989 US News & World Report that "the networks were allowing Bundy enormous access on his own terms."  Bundy had been holding hostage the identities of probably dozens of victims, for whom their families were still searching.  He was demanding more time in return for revealing them.  Negotiations had come to an impasse.  Yet, in exchange for this coveted broadcast opportunity, Bundy was not required to identify a single one of them.  During his entire interview, he gave no names, he described no faces, he provided no locations.

The State of Florida performed its execution, partly in revenge and partly as a deterrent, an object lesson for anyone who might consider following in Bundy's path.  The message they expected to communicate to the nation, if not to the world, was a warning that "if you come to Florida and kill our citizens, WE WILL KILL YOU."  But Bundy had been allowed to interject himself into the midst of the intense attention being given to the event.  And that gave the message a subtle twist making it instead a promise that "if you come to Florida and kill our citizens, we will make you a CRIMINAL SUPERSTAR!"

In an article appearing the Autumn 1990/Spring 1991 issue of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, "A Blast Into Dark Immortality," Mumia Abu-Jamal warned that, with respect to the Bundy execution and the Gainesville student murders, capital punishment, far from being a deterrent, may have actually acted as an incentive.  He sounded an alarm about the consequences of what had happened.

"This instant leap of Bundy's image to Floridian and national consciousness speaks volumes on the inherent failure of the American death penalty. Had he been left to serve a term of years in prison like thousands of his criminal contemporaries, America's dark fascination with Bundy would have paled. By searing his flesh, the state has made him bigger than life! Bigger than death! And in doing so may have encouraged others to follow his lead."

A drifter from Shreveport, Louisiana who had a portfolio of songs and writings tucked under his arm but no audience with which to share them was encouraged to follow.  He recognized it as a lead to the fulfillment his dreams.  In her book, The Gainesville Ripper, Mary S. Ryzuk described Rolling's aspirations.   "He dreamed of being a singing star, a celebrity, people would know who he was.  But it seems there was a part of him that could never believe anyone would care enough to want to listen."  According to authors John Philpin and John Donnelly, Rolling had even auditioned for a record producer.

Rolling was aware of legendary status criminals could attain.  In their book, Beyond Murder, Philpin and Donnelly recount a visit by Rolling to a historical marker.  "Danny looked at the four-foot monument and read the inscription.  Bonnie and Clyde.  They were famous.  Everyone knew the song about them.  And they had a movie ..."

And so great was Bundy's notoriety that he could command an audience on a par with the President of the United States.   Although he had been nothing more than a cowardly murderer, unwilling until the end to even acknowledge his crimes, Bundy had become a media darling.  John Leo, in his column, cautioned that "the more attention we lavish on our killers, the more attractive the role becomes."

But the role had already become too attractive - and too easy to attain.  If killing was all that was required, certainly Rolling could have for himself an audience such as Bundy had commanded.  And, unlike Bundy, who had apparently produced no art, or songs, or stories, Rolling was fully prepared with his portfolio to take advantage of all the attention he could garner.

In the song "Mystery Rider," written before the Gainesville student murders, Rolling expressed his understanding of the criminal's allure.  Faced with an unexplained act of violence, people will focus on the criminal  ("what's your name?") and his life story ("what's your game?") to find an explanation.  The result is that, as Mumia Abu-Jamal explained:

"to the anonymous, the alienated, the invisible, violence acts as a doorway to some measure of (albeit twisted) fulfillment, identity, visibility."

Certainly, if he followed in Bundy's path, his life would likely be forfeit.  But Rolling had a death wish.   His desire to be executed is one of the few points with which both Lewis and London agree.  Philpin and Donnelly reported that "Kevin Rolling also shared his opinion about why his brother would have gotten so involved in criminal activity in the first place.  'He wants to die,' Kevin said."

He just didn't want to die unnoticed.  As things were going, his prospects were dim.  He likely would drift into and out of prison, a petty criminal clutching a handful of writings.  In his alternate reality, life would be intensely lived.  There would be books, television, movies, interviews, groupies, and even the internet.  He would become the subject of a probe into the darkest recesses of the mind.  The ten or so years he would have to live under that scenario would be far better in quality than the life he was living then.

Years earlier Charles Lindbergh had decided that if he could live ten years as a pilot before dying in a crash, it would be a fair trade for an ordinary lifetime.  Faced with Lindbergh's choice, Rolling would opt as Lindbergh had.  All it would take to effect that trade would be to dispose of a few hapless Floridians.

It takes time to detect, much less apprehend, a serial killer.  Such killings won't catapult one to fame quickly.   However, a rapid series of home invasion killings had that potential as had been demonstrated by Bundy in Tallahassee.  By staging such a slaughter, extended over several days, Rolling could instantly achieve a level of terror that would surely draw the desired audience - and perhaps even outdo Bundy.

So Rolling outlined a plan modeled after Bundy's Tallahassee home invasions.  Unlike Bundy, whose objective was to kill, Rolling's objective was to terrorize.  Mary Ryzuk reported that "in a statement Russell Binstead would long remember, Rolling said he wanted to invoke terror."   Lewis recounted that Rolling would have terrorized again if he could have escaped.  Rolling himself, in interviews, has pointed out the effect he had on the town, as he did in A&E's Murder in a College Town.

"Gainesville is a mild town. People there are basically mild mannered people and when somebody like me comes steamrollering through their town it caused such a confusion and such panic."

Rolling had picked an approach that would certainly have the desired effect of terrorizing a town, but it was also an approach that would require him to kill anyone, barring infants, he found inside any home he did breach.  He could not leave any witnesses, not because they might testify against him - he intended to eventually be caught and convicted - but because they might lead to his being apprehended or, worse, killed before he could complete his spree of terror.

Although Rolling would have no problem killing adults, he might balk if faced with a senior citizen or especially  a child. Rolling was known to have had an affection for children, writing to London on June 7, 1994:

"I do love children. They are such precious creatures of God. I can relate to kids."

Philpin and Donnelly wrote that Rolling would "sit outside his house and play his guitar.  He sang his own songs.  Kids would listen to him, or work out with his weights in the yard.  He was careful to spot for them so they wouldn't get hurt."

It would be useless for him to begin a killing spree in a distant state if he was going to balk when confronted with such a potential victim.  He needed to find out if he had what it would take to execute such a plan or he would have to forget it.

Thus, in November of that year, Rolling targeted a household consisting of a young woman, Julie Grissom, her 8 year old son, Sean, and her elderly father, Tom.  Although the police believed the father and the boy were unintended victims, in the wrong place at the wrong time, the fact that Rolling was first aware of the father's presence outside the home suggests otherwise.  If Rolling had intended only to kill the woman, he could have easily postponed the assault rather than involving those whom he did not intend to hurt.  But he wanted them all.  So he took them all.  He got his taste.

Rolling had difficulties for which he had to compensate during the assault.  He thrust his knife through the child with such force that it went clean through penetrating and breaking its edge on the concrete floor beneath suggesting his desire for a quick and sure kill.  He would have wanted to avoid witnessing a mortally wounded child struggling or even pleading for his life.  Unlike Bundy, who had looked his victims in the eyes when he took their lives, Rolling preferred to stab them in the back.  And, as if he wanted to get it over quickly, he moved at a pace uncharacteristic of serial killers, killing one then another without pause.  Overall, though, Rolling determined he would be able to do whatever he had to do.

The Shreveport murders had been a trial, a test.  Then, ten months later in Gainesville, came the singular main event.

Just prior to the August, 1990 murders, Rolling saw the movie, Exorcist III, in which the spirit of an executed serial killer dubbed "Gemini" forces a prisoner to kill.  This scenario would eventually provide Rolling with a convenient metaphor for Bundy which he could roll into his tale without having to reveal that Bundy had been his inspiration.  He could thus position himself in a more sympathetic light.  An abused child told driven by demons to kill played better than a calculating, self-serving terrorist.  He could make it appear that the crimes were something other than "copy cat" deeds.   The similarities to Tallahassee would seem coincidental rather than intentional suggesting a more onerous undercurrent of evil was behind both sets of crimes.

On the night of the first murders, Rolling recorded what amounts to a farewell message to his mother, brother, and father.   In a way, it was a suicide note to his family.  His tone was resigned as he signed off saying, "Well I gotta sign off for a little bit. I got something I gotta do" which was to set into motion the acts that would lift him from obscurity and earn him a place in history.

Rolling moved quickly and forcefully toward his destiny.  The victims were brutally murdered.  Some were raped.  Bodies were desecrated and arranged in sexually explicit poses which appeared ritualistic, but bore no coherent symbolism.  The only rationale behind these embellishments was to maximize the shock value, further increasing the sense of terror.

Rolling succeeded in his campaign.   The town reacted in shock and fear.  Doors were locked, citizens armed themselves, and many simply fled the town.  Press reports evoked the earlier crimes of Bundy which enhanced the sense of dread.  In the meantime, Rolling was captured for an unrelated crime and began to take stock of the impact he had made and to prepare for his entrance onto the world's stage.

During that period Rolling worked to nudge the course of the investigation toward him.  At times he would drop subtle hints.  When discussing Edward Humphrey, the man initially accused of the crimes, with agent Steve Davenport on April 17, 1991, Rolling made the telling comment, "you need to clear the man's name."  To a cell mate, he described one of the victims as being a cat freak, a detail so obscure that investigators could only confirm it by reviewing the crime scene photographs.  At other times he would blatantly draw attention to his role by confessing to fellow inmates.  He was described as having a big mouth and would even brag about the crimes.

Eventually he became more and more the focus of the investigation.  When forensic evidence cleared Humphrey and implicated him, Rolling was indicted for the crimes and in mid-May 1992 he was moved to Florida State Prison.  There Rolling met Bobby Lewis, Florida's "top con" and one-time best friend to Ted Bundy.  During the next few weeks they involved themselves in intense conversations as Rolling revealed details of his crimes to Lewis.   But he was also learning.

Lewis taught Rolling how to manipulate the system, such as faking a suicide attempt in order to draw some easy time.   And Lewis educated Rolling in the techniques of "third-person confessions" including the use of dictation with which he and Bundy had previously experimented.

Drawing on that education, Rolling proposed that Lewis act as his "confessor", an intermediary between him and the authorities.  Such an arrangement would serve to limit how much of his story would enter the public domain.  If directly interviewed, Rolling might be grilled or tricked revealing more of his story than he wanted to.   But, if Lewis were to be grilled or tricked, he could reveal only what Rolling had given him to reveal.

After securing Lewis' cooperation, Rolling was left with the task of finding someone through whom he could publish his stories, someone over whom he could exert control.  Florida's "Son of Sam" law precluded him from telling his story directly.

Lewis knew of someone.  He gave Rolling a copy of Redbone, a screen play proposed by aspiring crime writer Sondra London.  Rolling read the script, which was a romanticized account of Lewis' 1978 escape from death row, and saw in it a writer with a desire for fame, fortune, and love, a combination that would give him the means to exercise control over the content and demeanor of his tale.

Barely six weeks after entering the prison, Rolling had developed a plan and was poised to set it in motion.  In late June, he penned a letter to London extolling the virtues of her writing and suggesting that they together engage in the project of telling his tale.  London took the lure like a hungry fish.

Rolling secured himself away for psychiatric evaluation after a faked suicide attempt.  During this time he remained in contact with London, but, due to prison regulations, not with Lewis.

Upon his return to Florida State Prison, Rolling re-joined Lewis and wrote a confession which he had Lewis copy and then give the copy to the investigators.  After that, Rolling arranged with officials to confess his crimes, but only by speaking through Lewis.  The histrionics involved in this unique arrangement served to augment interest in his story.  The confessions would be a teaser, a preview of coming attractions.

After the confessions had been given and Lewis had incurred Rolling's wrath by departing, Rolling engaged with London in the process of what he called "baring his soul".  As the time approached that he had to deal with the trial, he made a decision to plea guilty.  This would both limit the amount of his story that would become public and also minimize the impact Lewis' testimony.

By using the techniques he had learned from Lewis, Rolling had avoided not only direct interrogation but also, ironically, damaging testimony from Lewis.  He therefore retained control over the nature and amount of information that would enter the public domain.  The remainder of his story would be his to tell.

And he would tell a different tale to London than the account he had originally given to Lewis.  Rolling echoed the idea of a "drifter gone insane," expressed in "Mystery Rider," telling London a confusing When Rabbit Howls kind of tale.  He presented the story of an abused youth who had became possessed by two demons with three or four names, Ennad, the outlaw, aka Jessie Lang and sometimes Jesse James, and Gemini, the fallen angel.

In the original version of this tale, as related by Bobby Lewis to ABC's Turning Point, Rolling had three personalities, Danny, quiet, shy, and humble, Jesse James, a wild outlaw, and Ennad the fallen angel, blood brother to Ted Bundy.  When Gemini appeared in Ennad's place, personalities became demons and the deck of names was shuffled with Ennad becoming the real name for Jessie who in turn became an alias for Ennad. 

Unable to control what Lewis would say, Rolling had to confuse the issue to compensate for any disparity between differing versions of the tale.  The result was that no published version of this tale matched any other.  In a comment to London on February 1, 1994, Rolling attributed the discrepancies to his own confusion:

"I understand your confusion about Danny-Ennad-Gemini-Jesse. My mind is confusing at times... but it is as I have said. I have nothing to hide. There is no reason for me to lead you on."

Rolling was obsessive when it came to telling his tale.  He fussed over every detail.  From my own involvement, Rolling seemed more focused on telling his tale than on his crimes or on his upcoming trial.  His obsession was apparent to Rolling's lawyer and Sondra London as well.   London once noted when recalling a previous conversation:

"I commented to the attorney that I found it exceedingly curious that Danny seemed more concerned about the outcome of his story than he did about his own real life and death. 'I know. It's been like that with him from the very beginning,' was the terse response from the beleaguered attorney."

After four years Rolling published The Making of a Serial Killer, billing it "the real story of the Gainesville Student Murders in the killer's own words."  His "Last Words of a Condemned Man" promised "if I am to lay my soul before you - the reader - I must speak truly."  Like Bundy, he claimed credibility on the premise that a condemned man's last words will necessarily be truthful.

Rolling took to the internet, via Sondra London, to hawk his wares.  In an message posted to alt.true-crime, Rolling invited his audience to peer "into the dark corners" of his mind in their quest to understand him.  It was a clear come on.

"Subject: No Joy Ride
From:danrolling@aol.com (DanRolling)
Date:1997/01/09
Message-Id: <19970109225900.RAA21940@ladder01.news.aol.com>

"On the I-net, Elestria [London] holds her ground truly in the face of all ill-wishers. I see where this one and that one target their flaming darts at Sondra and the book she and I painstakingly wrote over a period of four years.

"It seems to me any in depth study that takes four years to complete stands taller than any fly-by work put together haphazardly in a matter of weeks.

"Well, names without faces, you can criticize Sondra and brand me with the hot iron of your hatred, yet the fact remains, The Making of a Serial Killer is both the most focused and comprehensive material on the subject of 'Why? Why did the Gainesville murders occur?'

"Look! If you good people think it's been a joy ride for me, you could not be more wrong. God as my sovereign judge, I regret with all my heart the spilling of those beloved souls' blood. If only such a terrible thing never took place.

"Then why did it have to happen? Perhaps an answer can be found by peering into the dark corners of my mind, where lies the secrets of the killer's psyche."

His invitation revealed his expectation that a killer's motive becomes the goal of the now inevitable quest that follows any horrific crime and thrusts the criminal into the limelight.  The "Mystery Rider," having done his deed, now expected his reward.

Rolling sold his book and, although he realized no financial gain, he did receive the desired notoriety.  After his trial, a second series of proceedings prolonged his exposure as the state sued to seize any profits under "Son of Sam" laws.  With Sondra London's help he gained access to internet discussion groups.  She sponsored his web site and sold his art and autographs and proffered voluminous and detailed material about him.  He gave interviews and documentaries were made about him.  He is rumored to be now completing a another work of fiction.

But Rolling hasn't been satisfied.   All of this fell short of his expectations.  He never achieved the stature of the man he sought to emulate.  Rolling's tale was contrived and flawed, a cheap knock-off of the genuine article.  Mumia Abu-Jamal described the shortcoming inherent in Rolling's plan:

"There may lurk in America's shadow a dark force, a almost palpable personality bent on emulating (or worse, outdoing!) Bundy ... If this is the motive force, there is a sad irony in it. Whoever this poor soul is, in that creature called the public mind s/he will only be a 'copycat' killer, Ted Bundy's dark acolyte, a pale horrid reflection of Bundy's greater genius..."

In that irony lies the great tragedy of the Shreveport/Gainesville slaughter: it was pointless.  Including a child, eight people died for the telling of a tale that, except to the storyteller, wasn't worth telling.

Rolling is like the mythological dragon.  By attacking a village and then endlessly and boastfully roaring a recounting of that deed, it can taunt the souls it has brutalized and continue to evoke the moment.  As much as they try, the villagers cannot slay the dragon and they agonize as it's bellowing continues and continues.

With perseverance they will ultimately succeed but, in the meantime, the dragon will roar as dragons always do.  There is, however, a way to silence a dragon.  It is, simply, not to hear it.  With no one to listen, it can tell no tales.