25 Years After the Serial Murders at University of Florida, Reflecting Back

I still sleep with the scuba knife I kept under my pillow my final semester at UF.

Yes, 25 years later, that knife that gave me the little bit of security that I was so desperate for during the serial murders, still brings me comfort for the ‘just in case’ fears that sometimes still grab me at night.

Two of my kids are in college now, but I still feel like that young student when I drive by Gainesville, despite the fact that I’m now in my mid-40’s.  I try to stop by the wall on my visits.  The wall of graffiti where, instead of declarations of love, back in 1990, the names of the five murdered students were painted, a memorial of sorts.  It helps my heart to see that mural is still there, and there’s a group of people who volunteer their time to keep painting over whatever else is put there by people who most likely weren’t around when the murders took place, who most likely have no idea what it did to our tight-knit community.

August 24, 1990, was the night the first two bodies were discovered.  Christa Leigh Hoyt and Sonja Larson.  New students who had just moved into their apartment off campus, coincidentally the same apartment complex I had moved out of just that summer.  I was a journalism student at the time, and happened to be working in the college newsroom on that Sunday night when I heard word of the deaths cross the scanner.  I called my News Director, grabbed some gear, and headed over to the crime scene.  We didn’t know then that these were students who had been killed.  But it was a safe assumption.

Standing there that night, gathering information from the officials on the scene, it was clear this was a murder.  Details were shared that we kept confidential, with hopes that the investigators would use them later to catch the killer.  But those details haunted me for the next several days, years, and even decades.  And not just the details.  I remember the sounds, too.  The sounds of the body bags being slid into the back of the medical examiner’s vehicle…a truck of sorts.  I don’t remember now what kind of truck it was, but I remember that haunting, sliding sound.

The next day there was another death discovered.  This time, a Santa Fe Community College student, Christina Powell.  Were they connected?  We all were hopeful they weren’t, but again, the details at the crime scene said otherwise.

And then, two days later, when the next two victims were found, Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada, it was clear these murders were all connected.  There was a serial murderer who no longer was just preying on women.

The entire campus filled with fear.  The state did, to be honest.  Parents demanded the students, their children, return home, at least until there was an arrest.  Those of us who stayed did so knowing we needed to be careful.  Extra cautious.  We had no way of knowing who was behind the killings.  Rumors ran wild.  A pizza guy.  A maintenance man.  Maybe someone with medical experience, based on what was happening to the bodies.

And as the campus emptied, those left behind tried to look out for each other.  I remember rolling the dice when it came to my neighbors.  My two guy roommates had gone home, so when I got back to my apartment each night, after covering the latest on the crimes for our college TV station, I was terrified to be alone.  So, I introduced myself to the four guys who had just moved in next door, taking a leap of faith that they weren’t the killers.  They didn’t fit the profile the investigators told me about, and I had to trust someone to walk through the apartment with me each night, making sure the madman wasn’t hiding behind a door, or in a closet, waiting to surprise me.  This is where covering the cases added to my paranoia.  I knew that was his MO and my response was to take all the doors in the apartment—except the exterior door—off the hinges.  The closet doors, too.

They’d walk me cautiously, slowly, through the apartment’s three bedrooms, praying we wouldn’t find anyone, and make sure I was safe to lock the door behind me for the night.

And that’s where I’d stay, with my scuba knife under my pillow, ready to grab in case someone did make it into my apartment, before I made it to morning.

Yes, 25 years have now passed since those frightening days in Gainesville.  But I still think of the victims, and their families, and my precious university.  Those crimes changed all of us forever.  And a few things remain as constant reminders of that time.  The memorial wall.  And for me, a scuba knife under my pillow.