GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Danny Rolling came back Tuesday to the city he once terrorized, and stunned nearly everyone by pleading guilty to the gruesome murders of five college students in 1990.
"Your honor, I've been running from first one problem and then another all my life," Rolling told state Judge Stan Morris. "But there are some things you just can't run from, and this is one of those."
Coming on what was to be the first day of jury selection, the plea from the Louisiana high-school dropout and career criminal was a shock:
"This is quite rare among serial killers," said Jack Levin, a professor at Northeastern University and expert on mass murder. "The overwhelming majority proclaim their innocence until the bitter end."
Public defender Richard Parker said Rolling decided to plead guilty because "he wanted to do the right thing."
Under Florida law, jurors must still be seated to hear evidence. They then will advise Morris on whether Rolling should be sentenced to life in prison or the electric chair. That process is expected to take several weeks.
Said prosecutor Rodney Smith, who will ask jurors for the death penalty: "He pleaded because he did it. And with all due respect, we were going to prove that he did it."
As family members of some victims sobbed, the 39-year-old jailhouse artist and poet stood passively as his killing spree the last week of August 1990 was detailed:
He taped the mouth of Sonja Larson, 18, and killed her as roommate Christina Powell, 17, slept on a downstairs couch. Then he raped Powell, put her face down on the floor and killed her, stabbing her five times in the back.
As he waited for Christa Hoyt, 18, Rolling moved a large bookshelf into her bedroom. When she arrived, he caught her in a chokehold, taped her hands and mouth, and raped her. Then he cut off her head and put it on the shelf.
The only male victim, Manuel Taboada, 23, was surprised as he slept. Rolling drove his knife so deeply through his solar plexus that it damaged Taboada's spine. Alerted by the struggle, roommate Tracy Paules, 23, confronted Rolling. He raped her, then stabbed her to death.
In his sketches, Rolling deals with death themes and blood. The murder scenes - posed in macabre tableaus for shock value - took Rolling's art to a horrifying medium.
Jailed on unrelated robbery charges, Rolling was only linked to the student murders months after they occurred. In Florida's largest and most costly investigation, 1,000 men were asked to give blood and hair samples or fingerprints before detectives settled on Rolling as the prime suspect.
Earlier, a student named Edward Humphrey was identified nationally as the chief suspect.
Humphrey, 22, said Tuesday he finally felt vindicated: "I'm really relieved. That was a hard time," said Humphrey, now an honor student at Brevard Community College who takes medication to control his manic-depression.
Parker says he'll show jurors that Rolling is mentally ill. His mother has testified that Rolling's father, a retired police officer, brutally abused him. Specialists have diagnosed him as a schizophrenic, and his fiancee says he's in constant contact with angels and demons: "He doesn't just believe in them, he deals with them," said Sondra London, a writer who became engaged to Rolling while trying to market his writings and art. She's covering the case for the National Examiner, a supermarket tabloid.
For at least one victim's relative, Rolling's mental problems were of little consequence: "I have no pity for this individual," said an angry Mario Taboada, Manuel's brother. "He's a life form gone bad."
