"Danny spent quite a bit of time in each of his crime scenes. He drank beverages out of the refrigerator. He ate food," Platt said. "We had soft drink containers, sliced cheese wrappers. We had a number of things we knew were handled by the suspect during the commission of those crimes."

The FDLE lab in Jacksonville finally Rolling's DNA to all three Gainesville murder scenes in January 1991 -- five months after the murders.

It would take several more months -- November of 1991 -- for a grand jury to indict Rolling, It would take several years for Rolling's trial to start.

On Feb. 15, 2004, as a jury was being picked to hear the trial, a plea agreement Rolling had signed the week before was read in court:

"Your honor, this is the defendant Danny Rolling. At this time the defendant would ask leave of the court to withdraw his previously entered plea of not guilty and tender a plea of guilty to all 11 counts entered in the indictment of this case."

Except for his defense team, no one saw it coming. And none of the victims' family members were prepared to hear what the defendant would say next.

"Your honor, I've been running all my life?.there are some things you can't run from, this is one of them," Rolling said.

Family members showed their disgust in court.

"The offender came in and announced his plea in a flowery fashion, self-serving fashion and it was hugely traumatic to the families," Darnell said. "Speaking only for me, it was an intense, emotional sensation. I can't imagine what it must've been for the family."

With the shock of the guilty plea sinking in, it would take several more days to present testimony as part of the sentencing hearing.

"He turned her over, and stabbed her through the heart and she died," prosecutor Rod Smith told the court.

Defense attorneys argued for the defendant's life, saying his police officer father abused Rolling as he was growing up.

Rolling was accused of shooting his father in May 1990, but his father survived. Rolling was never prosecuted in that shooting.

Outside of the courtroom, victim Manny Taboada's brother made it clear how he felt about Rolling's attempt to gain leniency from the court.

"At the age of 24, my dad died. At 29 someone murdered my brother. I've been divorced just four years ago. I didn't have a penny to my name. I didn't go berserk," Mario Taboata said.

Two months later, Judge Stanley R. Morris announced Rolling's sentence: "Defendant committed for execution. May God have mercy on his soul."

In a recording of that hearing, Taboata could be heard predicting that Rolling would soon meet his maker.

"You understand that? Less than five years," Taboada before the judge ordered him removed from the courtroom.

Taboada's prediction, would be painfully wrong. Rolling's date with death would come more than 16 years after Sonja Larson, Christina Powell, Christa Hoyt, Tracy Inez Paules and Manny Taboada were killed in a spree that still sparks raw emotions in Gainesville.