In August 1990, as Gainesville, Alachua County and state law enforcement officials spent the weeks after five brutal murders of University of Florida students focusing on prime suspect Ed Humphrey, a 36-year-old drifter from Louisiana -- Daniel Harold Rolling -- was in a Marion County jail, accused of holding up a supermarket.

A month later, when DNA from the murder scenes cleared Humphrey, investigators were still investigating when they got a call from Rolling's hometown.

"Shreveport authorities were alerted to what was going on in the Gainesville area, contacted us and said, 'You need to take a look at our crime scene.'" former Gainesville Police Department spokeswoman Sadie Darnell remembers. "There was a viewing of the crime scene. It was a twin in so many aspects of the crime scene here."

Rolling was their No. 1 suspect in the Shreveport murder of 24-year-old Julie Grissom in 1989. Grissom's 8-year-old nephew and her father were also killed.

All three were stabbed to death by someone using a large knife.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Officer crime lab analyst Steve Platt, who worked on the Gainesville student murder task force in 1990, went to Shreveport to compare the crime scenes. There were many more similarities.

"The first thing was similarity in which how the victims had been displayed," Platt told WJXT's Staci Spanos. "Second thing -- he had attempted to clean up his victims, and put clothes in the laundry."

The Shreveport case may have given Florida authorities a name, but detectives still had to prove that Rolling killed the five students in Gainesville.

The biggest clue was a sighting of Rolling just hours before the fourth and fifth victims -- Manny Taboada and Tracey Paules -- were found.

"Apparently a couple of deputies saw him cross 34th Street and attempted to stop him for questioning and he bolted and ran," Platt said. "When he ran he ran through the woods to this campsite. In that tent and backpack, a handgun was found, screwdriver, knickknacks, and also a tape recorder with a tape in it."

Rolling managed to elude police that night, but the screwdriver found at the campsite would be forensically identified as the tool used to pop the door locks on his victims' apartments.

As for that tape recording, it was an eerie piece of evidence, complete with the self-identification of the man who had recorded it.

"No matter what anyone thinks about this man, Danny Harold Rolling, I want these three people I'm talking to know this is not the road that I really wanted," Rolling can be heard saying.

The tape was dedicated to his brother, mother and father, and runs about one hour.

Besides messages to his family -- Rolling can be heard singing: "Mystery Rider, what's your name? You're a killer; a drifter gone insane. Mystery Rider, what's your game? You're a rebel no one can tame."

Toward the end of the tape, detectives said Rolling eerily foreshadowed the murders he was about to commit: "Well, I'm going to sign off for a little bit. There's something I gotta go do."

Nearly three years later, Rolling admitted he went on his killing spree in Gainesville shortly recording that tape.

"This wasn't just spur of the moment crimes related to burglary. He knew he was going out to commit murder," Platt said.

Despite the screwdriver and other evidence recovered, it was DNA evidence that would conclusively link Rolling to the murders of the five young students.

And detectives had plenty of it.