Introduction

Sixteen years ago, an ex-convict arrived in Gainesville and embarked on a three-day killing spree, stabbing to death five students and raping three of them during the first week of Fall classes.

Students fled Gainesville, flooded lock shops and bunked in each other's houses, afraid to sleep alone until the killer was caught.

Four years later, he pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and was sentenced to death.

On Oct. 25, he is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in the Florida State Prison in Raiford - 30 minutes from here.

For the families of his victims - Christina Powell, 17, Sonja Larson, 18, Christa Hoyt, 18, Tracy Paules, 23, and Manny Taboada, 23 - the night offers the hope of closure.

But Rolling's crimes affected more than the victims and their families. The murders that consumed a sleepy Southern city still cause Gainesville residents to pause and recount the months-long saga that plunged the city into fear and disbelief.

Some things have changed since then. Women jog alone at night. Some students don't even recognize the name of Danny Rolling. The apartment complex where the last two bodies were discovered now provides firefighters a training ground for putting out blazes.

Other things have remained eerily the same. Those murdered students - who would be in their 30s now - never aged. A memorial on the 34th Street Wall bearing the victims' names is repainted as needed by UF students.

In the week before his scheduled execution, the Alligator will revisit the three days of Rolling's gruesome killing spree and the indelible mark it left on the community.

We'll retell the story some have forgotten and provide updates on the people and places touched by Rolling's crimes. We'll be writing about the investigators, psychologists, family members, students and their leaders, as well as Danny Rolling, with whom this story begins and ends.