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The Gainesville Ripper, Part 2
To read part 1, please go here.
As quickly as the vicious murders began in Gainesville, so they appeared to end. Sonja Larson and Christi Powell fell victim on late Friday evening/early Saturday morning, Christa Hoyt on late Sunday morning, and Tracy Paules and Manny Taboada on late Monday evening/early Tuesday morning. The city held its collective breath as Wednesday passed, then Thursday, and then another weekend was upon them. While news of the killings themselves were unsettling, the sudden abatement was nearly as unnerving. Why had the killer stopped? Was he still in the Gainesville area? Was he only a weekend killer? Would he strike again? And if so, when?
On Wednesday, the day after Tracy and Manny had been discovered, Marcia West, the founder of Gainesville’s first center for female assault victims, organized a march through downtown — the same day that the University and local police held a joint press conference. It was announced at the press conference that some 100 investigators, forming a task force, would be working on the investigation, the largest manhunt in Florida’s history. Those investigators who had worked on the Ted Bundy case back in 1978, after Bundy attacked four Chi Omega sorority sisters and one Florida State student off-campus, killing two, and abducting and murdering 12-year-old Kimberly Leach in nearby Lake City, were asked to come back and assist with the Gainesville case.
While the investigators gave little details to the media and worried public, for fear of compromising the integrity of their investigation, by the press conference on Wednesday, they already had what seemed to be a solid suspect in Edward Lewis Humphrey.
Humphrey, 19 years old, was a student at the University of Florida. Six foot two and over 200 pounds, he walked with a limp from a car accident and had many scars on his face. Described as a loner with very few friends, those that knew him said he bragged about being in the Recon and 82nd Airborne (not true) and that he stated he hated women. He had done six stints in mental institutions over the previous few years, was known to carry a large hunting knife on his leg, and until…
