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'It's never been the same''By THOMAS C. TOBIN © St. Petersburg Times, published August 26, 2000
She remembered the way her stepdaughter, Christa Hoyt, learned to drive on the back roads of north-central Florida, often lurching forward when she hit the gas. She said she still can see Christa picking out the material for her prom dress, or standing at the sink washing dishes, or sitting at the table chewing the last bits of ice from a cool drink. "I guess what I'd like to remember is the little scrawny girl that couldn't get a mayonnaise jar open, but, boy, she could stand up for her sister," Hoyt told about 150 people gathered to dedicate a permanent memorial for the five Gainesville students, including 18-year-old Christa, killed by drifter Danny Rolling in 1990. "There were just lots of things about Christa that made life really interesting. . . . I want to think about all those things, not about how she died." The emotional gathering formally established part of a graffiti-laden concrete wall along SW 34th Street as the place for remembering the murders, which mark one of the darkest periods in the city's history. "We were sad, we were shocked, we were very, very scared and we all felt responsible," said Gainesville Mayor Paula Delaney. "My city was being portrayed all over the world as the home of the devil." On one of the wall's concrete panels is a listing of the five students next to a one-word request: "Remember." It was created the week of the murders by two young Gainesville men, Adam Tritt and Paul Chase, who spent $11.25 on paint, rollers and brushes, and worked for about two hours around midnight, never imagining their impetuous gesture would become a lasting memorial. Writing on the wall is technically a misdemeanor offense but police never enforced it, and the work of Tritt and Chase has been considered an icon from the moment it saw light on a grim Monday morning in Gainesville. A few yards away in a median, a city beautification committee recently installed landscaping, sprinklers and five majestic palm trees, each marked with a nameplate for the victims: Sonja Larson, Christina Powell, Christa Hoyt, Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada. On the wall, as on the palms, the students eerily are listed in the order authorities found their mutilated bodies a decade ago this weekend. Both memorials are a few blocks north of the duplex where Hoyt was discovered and the woods across the road where Rolling is said to have camped while committing the murders. About 45 members of the students' families attended the dedication, where much of the crowd sobbed as police employee Priscilla Prince sang The Way We Were and Wind Beneath My Wings. Most of the relatives thanked the police officers and prosecutors and victims rights advocates who have befriended them over the years. They spoke fondly of the slain students' lives and said the wall and median also would be a memorial for all victims of violent crime. But a few said they could not forget the horrific mental pictures that started to unfold 10 years ago today when Gainesville police Officer Ray Barber discovered the bodies of Larson and Powell at the Williamsburg Village Apartments near the University of Florida campus. "God, I remember where I was," said Frank Powell, still sounding stunned as he recalled the scene of his 17-year-old daughter's death. "I'll never forget it," he told the audience. "You better believe I'll never forget it. It's never been the same. It was my daughter and I loved her." Ada Larson said of her daughter: "I can't get the scene of her death out of my mind." After the initial discovery, the following days and weeks at the beginning of a new school year were filled with terror and uncertainty as the three other students were found. Thousands of students left for home. Those who stayed emptied local store shelves of security devices and hunkered in safe havens, staying in large groups. Police and other officials say Gainesville has never been the same, though the once-rabid preoccupation with personal safety has ebbed with time and the annual arrival of new students. Most of this year's freshmen were 7, 8 and 9 years old when the murders occurred, and many of them said this week they knew little if anything about the murders. That's why many of the relatives of the 1990 victims worked on the memorial this summer, scraping off old paint, rolling on a new coat and protecting it with sealant. They said it will serve not only as a memorial for the five but as a beacon for all victims of violent crime and a reminder for students to be vigilant. Among the relatives were three of Sonja Larson's nieces, including 9-year-old Holly Devitt, a reminder of how much time has passed. The girl wore white sandals, a purple dress and a matching tie in her blond hair. Sonja, said her sister Beth Devitt, was an enthusiastic aunt and "was so looking forward to Holly's birth." Because of safety concerns for the large crowd along busy SW 34th Street, the dedication ceremony was held just behind the wall in the manicured fifth fairway of the university's golf club. Five wreaths of daisies, carnations, baby's breath lillies -- all white -- remained crisp in the sweltering morning heat. The crowd included current and former prosecutors, UF officials and local victims of violent crimes unrelated to the more notorious student deaths. "In the future, when I bring my son and daughter to see the palm trees and the wall, I'm going to tell them not what happened in August 1990 but that it represents what could have been with these five lives," said Mario Taboada, the older brother of Manny Taboada, who would have been 33 this year. Taboada praised city police Capt. Sadie Darnell, who in 1990 was a spokesperson for the investigation that led to Rolling's 1994 conviction, and Laura Knudson, then a victims advocate for the Alachua County State Attorney's Office. Darnell and Knudsen organized Friday's ceremonies and have stuck with the families, keeping them informed on the case, sending cards on holidays and birthdays, cooking meals for them and keeping them in touch with each other as they developed into an extended family. Taboada called them "angels" who "have felt the same pain each of us has felt, times five." He and other relatives also tried not to speak of Rolling, saying they prefered to focus on their loved ones. Most of them, however, said they looked forward to his execution, a sentiment also expressed by the freshly painted panel on the wall immediately south of the student memorial. "Danny Rolling. Tap a vein scumbag," the message says, referring to Florida's recent change from electric chair to lethal injection in capital punishment cases. "Your day will come."
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