JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Just before Danny Rolling was executed Wednesday evening, the serial killer's spiritual adviser said Rolling gave him a note in which he confessed to killing three people in Shreveport, La., in 1989 -- one year before going on a killing spree in Gainesville.
Rolling was always a suspect in the deaths Tom Grissom, 55, his daughter, Julie, 24, and his 8-year-old grandson, Sean, but never prosecuted.
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At a news conference in Shreveport on Friday morning, the Rev. Michael Hudspeth said Rolling gave him the written confession during the four hours he met with the killer at Florida State Prison in Starke before Wednesday's execution.
Hudspeth read from Rolling's note: "Hereby I make a formal, written statement concerning the murders of Julie, Tom and Sean Grissom in my hometown of Shreveport, La.... I, and I alone, am guilty. It was my hand that took those precious lights out of this ole, dark world."
Hudspeth, who was Rolling's pastor when he was a child, said Rolling was remorseful for the murders.
Police said an intruder attacked the Grissoms as they sat down to dinner on Nov. 4, 1989.
Investigators said Julie Grissom, a petite brunette, fits the same physical description as the college girls killed in off-campus housing in Gainesville in August 1990.
Police believe Rolling had fixated on Julie and was seen at a Dillard's department store where she worked.
Shreveport police drew up an arrest warrant for Rolling but it was never signed, KTBS-TV reported. Police may not have pursued it because Rolling was already facing five counts of capital murder in Florida.
After Wednesday's execution, Joyce Burton, the wife, mother and grandmother of the Shreveport victims, joined members of the Gainesville victims' families outside the prison.
"I had to come here to Gainesville and to rely on the law enforement and everyone here to keep me informed of everything going on and keep me in the picture. These people have taken me in and accepted me and we have all been through the same tragedy," Burton said. "What happened today was nothing, nothing compared with what this person did to our lives."
Sean's father, Scott Grissom, released a statement Friday, calling Rolling "the monster we all fear."
"It's the thoughtthat he no longer walks this Earth that gives me some sort of release," Scott Grissom said. "My dad, Julie and Sean would not have wanted us to let this pull us to the bottom. They would want us all to go on with our lives, be happy and blessed."