Both parents drank too much. I knew that many people with connections to the Gainesville murders had left Florida. Under state guidelines, he could get nearly two years in prison at sentencing Nov. 8. Rolling confessed to the murder of Hoyt and four others and was executed in 2006.). Then, when Ed was about 13, his grandfather died. I'd stay up two or three days in a row with no sleep and even then I'd have to drink beer to calm down. On Aug. 30, 1990, four days after the first victim was found, Humphrey was arrested after a fight with his grandmother and charged with battery. They say Humphrey made a "sawing motion" across his throat with the knife and threatened to get a gun and shoot them. He'll never change his name, but some day, he says, when he's done with school, he might move somewhere far away. George figured that if someone came after Ed, trying to kill him, Ed could just dial 911. Ed Humphrey and his 79-year-old grandmother had been fighting again. The grand jury considered evidence against Humphrey but declined to indict him. On bad days, witnesses claim, he would act out his military fantasies on the Indialantic boardwalk. But it didn't change the way I felt about him. During that stretch when Ed couldn't get work, Kennedy sent him $1,000. In police audio recordings, he could be heard asking police to accompany him at the request of his manager. She was found raped, stabbed to death, mutilated and beheaded. As they investigated the case, police grew convinced that Ed Humphrey might be their most likely suspect. That setting seemed to fit what investigators and the media had made of Ed Humphrey, said his brother George, a 1991 University of Florida graduate who was his biggest defender. Ed Humphrey had been arrested and charged with assaulting his grandmother, but investigators were taking a hard look at him for the They will not speak to reporters without Ed's approval. There was a toilet, a sink and a military mattress on the floor. But that's pretty much how I feel.". He reportedly threatened several people there with a large knife and once warned a security guard: "God told me to kill you. TITUSVILLE, Fla. (AP) _ Gainesville murder suspect Edward Lewis Humphrey was sentenced today to the maximum 22 months for beating his grandmother after his lawyer said no private psychiatric hospital could be found for him. But at the trial, she testified she had fallen and hurt herself in the dark. He said the officer tracked the man to a campsite. "But, for some reason, somehow, that tape escaped us, and I'll freely admit it.". Before he could stand trial for the murders, however, Rolling was convicted on federal bank robbery charges, Smith said. He hates dredging this up. He is questioned and officers search his car, finding two knives under the seat. I thought they'd already filled her in on who I was and it just kind of slipped. She was quite shocked.". "I kept saying to myself, it's the last thing I can do for her. And it just dropped me into a depression. Russo estimated Humphrey would be in custody for only another seven to nine months because of time served and the states early-release rules. Edward Lewis Humphrey was an early suspect in the case of five grisly murders of college students in Gainesville, Florida; one Daniel Rolling was eventually I want to get married some day and have kids. The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville cited sources it did not identify in today's story about Edward Lewis Humphrey. It was repeated so authoritatively and so often that the term began to lose its inherent uncertainty. Some had already begun to move their children out of the city, which is busiest during the school year. WebEdward Lewis Humphrey was an early suspect in the case of five grisly murders of college students in Gainesville, Florida; one Daniel Rolling was eventually convicted of the killings, Do you understand that? The door opened and before me stood Ed Humphrey. All of them had been stabbed to death and some were left in sexually provocative positions. I felt bad for him. His premonition came true the next day. Im sorry that we didnt clear him sooner, said Alachua County State Attorney Rod Smith, who wrote a letter to Gov. For the families of those students, being there to see him at trial was crucial. The real killer was eventually caught, confessed and was put to death. One said it was a "violent" environment. Hammack had been with the Brevard County Sheriff's Offfice for less than a year, but he'd been to the plantation-style Indialantic house at least five times before. "Whatever happened to change Ed Humphrey can be found back in October of his junior year," says John Stanford, his Spanish teacher at Melbourne High School. "The phone hadn't been installed yet. He also decapitated her and posed the head on a bookshelf. Later, after Ed has gone, one approaches the young woman behind the counter. And law enforcement officials felt intense pressure to bring in a suspect. All of Gainesville shuddered. "Get his good side," offers Marti Mackenzie, the publicist. Brevard sheriffs officials also released reports showing the agency responded to at least 14 emergency calls of Humphrey allegedly attacking his grandmother or mother. When she saw Rolling, she ran back to her bedroom, where she tried to lock her door. His grandmother would later try to drop the charges, insisting Ed never hit her, that she accidentally fell into the fireplace. His parents split up when Ed was about 11, but they didn't divorce for several years. When the discussion turned to a human anatomy class that McGrath was taking, McGrath said, Ed asked her what it was like to cut up bodies and if she ever took skin or body parts home to "mess around with it.". He picked up smoking in prison. I was not there for surf or sun, but in search of a man who had eluded journalists for nearly three decades. He was convicted of armed robbery in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi for several grocery store robberies, and spent most of the 1980s in prison. "Here was a kid who was held up as a ass murderer," Mackenzie says. Humphreys off behavior, Mann said, drew attention to him. I'm not able to make. I had learned he had married and had a daughter. Then he banged his head on the window so hard the deputy worried he would break the glass. He said nothing more. On Nov. 4, 1989, William Grissom, 55, his 24-year-old daughter Julie Grissom and his 8-year-old grandson Sean Grissom were killed in his home in the Louisiana city. "I'm like, 'Yeah, right,"' Ed says. On Wednesday, his grandmother, Elna Hlavaty, died at age 80 after suffering a heart attack in Indialantic. I did not want that to be what I carried in my mind of her for the rest of my life," Barber said. Ed says. During the robbery, a teller had slipped a red dye pack into the bag of money, and later on that night, an officer noticed a man walking into a wooded area, Hewitt said. Rolling's trial for the five student murders began on Feb. 15, 1994, nearly four years after he killed the five students. The two had gone bowling, played pool, hung out together. This time, deputies couldn't just tell Ed to cool off, then file the fight away on an incident report. "In a way, talking about [Manny], as I do sometimes with those who knew him they're kind of alive for that moment, and so, it's comforting. Humphrey was chased and fell as he fled. I just couldn't even sleep. Humphrey, a sometime University of Florida student with a history of mental problems, has been labeled a suspect in the slayings of five students near the campus in Gainesville during the last week in August. Christa Hoyt was an aspiring police officer who'd been working part-time at the Alachua County Sheriff's Office while going to school, according to Gail Barber, the first officer on the scene of her murder. Hes not capable of it., Hes gonna come back home, George Humphrey insisted. "But when they first arrested him (for beating his grandmother), they basically trashed him in the press and said he was a serial killer.". Rolling wanted to address the court. Hospitals run by the Universities of Florida, Miami and South Florida refused to accept Humphrey for private commitment because of his notoriety, Russo said. Your story has never been told.. Investigators narrowed their list of prime suspects to four Sunday in the grisly slayings of five students and hinted that the serial killer left ``messages of some importance.' (Manuel Taboada, left, and Tracy Paules, right, are seen in undated photos. Few who knew him in his early high school days dreamed he would ever become a murder suspect. ", He pauses. As concerns of a killer on the loose mounted, police were inundated with calls from concerned parents. Acquaintances claimed he went on late-night "missions" through the Alachua County woods. "We had no way of reaching her," Ada Larson said. You're a killer, a drifter, gone insane.". A jury found him guilty of one count of battery upon a person over the age of 65, a third-degree felony, and he was sentenced to 22 months in prison, plus probation. Glenn Ruppel, Sean Dooley, and Anthony Rivas. "Oh, that's Ed," the kennel workers will say. The killer would enter the homes through the back doors, and each home was near a wooded area, which "allowed the killer to operate, to get in without being noticed," Donnelly said. Lahey said seeing this man "who destroyed my life" made her feel "frozen to the chair.". Ed has what doctors call bipolar disorder--known more commonly as manic-depression, a devastating roller coaster of fantastical elation and utter despair. Once Florida investigators realized that Rolling had multiple convictions for armed robbery, they realized he could have also been responsible for the bank robbery that occurred on the day that Christa Hoyt's body was found. Related To Sarah Humphrey, Gail Humphrey, Erin Humphrey, Bud Humphrey, B Humphrey. It was upon revisiting the scene that he decided to decapitate her. "That was exciting," Hewitt said. On the 10th anniversary of the murders, Humphrey walked across the stage of UCF arena as a college graduate. He'd seen interviews with his new neighbors on the evening news, and they had said they were afraid of Ed Humphrey. I wanted to ask him so many questions. Edward Lewis Humphrey, 19, had tears in his eyes upon hearing the conviction on a reduced charge of battery on a person over age 65. In the aftermath of the murders, investigators discovered some highly unusual details at the scene. "One day, I picked up the phone, I called Crime Stoppers, and I said, 'I think there's one guy y'all need to investigate -- Danny Rolling.'". There is still a court order not to discuss evidence m the case. The first was named Ynnad -- "Danny" spelled backward. "All I want to know [is] what was she thinking. He was tall, good-looking, athletic, polite. A serial killer, cunning and profoundly evil, was on the loose. He had dreams of being an architect, his brother, Mario Taboada, said. "This was Danny looking for something that would make what happened more dramatic and minimize his own culpability by saying, 'The devil made me do it.'". And nothing the driver does makes a bit of difference. They immediately made her think about a man from her Louisiana hometown church who used to spend time with her and her family. Family trouble, mental problems and sheer coincidence seem to be the main factors that put Ed Humphrey into legal limbo. Edward Lewis Humphrey, 18, of Indialantic, Fla., held in the Brevard County Jail on a charge of beating his 79-year-old grandmother, has been described by police as However, Rolling was "unwelcome" at his parents' house, Juracich said, especially if his father was there. He glances again at the photographer. They didn't connect the robbery to the Gainesville murders until later on, when they listened to it. Rolling's affirmations were caught on tape. The task force investigating the killings put Humphrey under surveillance, and when a police spokesman described him as "an extremely valuable suspect," the media zeroed in on him. Then he would drop into a crouch pretending to open fire. Hewitt said they learned that Rolling had returned to the crime scene after killing Christa Hoyt because he thought he might've left his wallet there. He was released from jail 10 months after he'd assaulted his grandmother. For the family members of the Gainesville victims, it was another moment in this long and heartbreaking story. They found that the suspect had type B blood, but Humphrey's blood was type A. Humphrey was still in police custody when investigators discovered a cold case in Shreveport, Louisiana, that had striking similarities to the murders in Gainesville. She was hoping to become a lawyer. His face smashed into the windshield, leaving deep wounds, and he broke his leg so badly doctors had to implant a steel rod running from his hip to his knee. To do so, he claims, would jeopardize the prosecution. When the police arrested Ed, they put him in a solitary cell in the infirmary for 76 days. "I had to know what Sonja went through. Humphrey could not have possibly understood at the time how high the stakes were or the consequences of the suspicion cast on him. There is muffled conversation by a table of three-piece suits, who glance over suspiciously at Ed. 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