Terrifying real life Scream murderer decapitated victims and 'arranged' corpses

Daniel Rolling was born to a decorated Korean war veteran who abused him and his brother leading him to develop a severe personality disorder including a persona called 'Gemini'

Terrifyingly, the camped-up screams of a 1997 Neve Campbell in the first Scream are not a far cry from the horror which befell a small Florida community earlier that decade.

The real crimes were more gruesome and involved a severed head, bite marks and a propped up headless body. In 1994, writer Kevin Williamson became obsessed with the terror inflicted on Gainesville when five college students were murdered in just a three day span in the summer of 1990.

This became the inspiration for Sydney and the masked killer, who in real life was a sick and traumatised man called Danny Rolling. Rolling’s slew of crimes became the basis for one of the most successful and genre-challenging franchises in horror.

Born in 1954 to a teenage mother, Rolling had a hideous childhood. His father, James, was a decorated Korean war veteran who likely suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

He was violent and abusive towards his wife Claudia and controlling of Rolling and his younger brother Kevin. This emotional abuse turned physical as the boys got older.

Rolling’s only solace was a guitar he got as a present for his 15th birthday. Rolling turned to art and music for solace – his Christmas gift of a guitar at age 15 proved to be one of his happiest memories from adolescence.

In his memoir The Making Of A Serial Killer: The Real Story of the Gainesville Student Murders, Rolling said his early teenage years were when he developed multiple personalities as a "defense" against his father.

After joining the airforce at 18 he was kicked out in 1972, found in possession of drugs. Rolling went to live with his grandfather and momentarily found solace in the church.

Then he married O'Mather Halko, and they had a daughter. Tragically, quickly Rolling began to exhibit the same abusive behaviours as his father and O’Mather fled with his child.

Rolling’s crimes began with voyeurism and escalated when he raped a woman. He then carried out a string of armed robberies that landed him in prison in Jackson, Georgia, in 1979.

This was the beginning of his time in and out of jail during the 1980s. He continued his campaign of rape and robberies over this period.

In November 1989, Rolling was fired from his restaurant job. The same night he committed his first murder which would foreshadow the chilling crimes which inspired the first Scream movie.

He murdered Julie Grissom, 24, her nephew Sean, eight, and Julie’s father Tom, 55. Chillingly, Julie was found with bite marks and her body arranged with her legs spread on the bed. This was eerily similar to the position his later victims were found in.

In May 1990, Rolling confronted his father, pulled out a gun and shot James in the stomach and head. Miraculously James survived but lost use of his eye and ear the-mirror-icon_news_us-news_serial-killers.

Then Rolling fled to Gainesville.

Setting up camp in the woods behind the University of Florida, Rolling hatched his plan. His first victims were freshmen Christina Powell and Sonja Larson and who he brutally stabbed and raped on August 24, 1990.

On August 25, Santa Fe Community College student Christa Hoyt, 18, became his third victim. Horrendously, he left her severed head on a shelf and her body sitting upright on her bed.

Three days later, Rolling targeted two University of Florida students, Manuel Toboada and Tracy Paules, both 23.

Rolling fled leaving the community reeling and baffled. Police incorrectly identified a former college student as a prime suspect, while Rolling was actually sitting in a Florida jail.

Following his murder spree Rolling committed an armed robbery of a Winn-Dixie grocery and was arrested after crashing his car.

In 1991, police finally made the link to Rolling using DNA from the murder scene and linking it to an extracted tooth from the then 37-year-old. Over a decade after his first crime he was formally charged with the murders of the five Gainesville students in June 1992.

At this point Rolling began communications with Sondra London, who he later proposed to and helped him write his memoir.

Rolling pleaded not guilty but used is fellow inmate Bobby Lewis as his "mouthpiece" to confess to the murders. In 1994 just before his trial began, Rolling changed his plea to guilty.

His mother recounted the abuse he suffered and recalled one his personalities "Gemini," who drove him to his most cruel acts. Two psychiatrists said they believed Rolling had a severe and serious personality disorder, but admitted he did understand his crimes.

The jury unanimously found Rolling guilty of first-degree murder on all five counts in late March, and a month later he was sentenced to death.

Rolling faced execution at Florida State Prison on October 25, 2006. Sickeningly, in his final moments the witness box of 47 people heard a religious hymn with the lyrics "none greater than thee, O Lord, none greater than thee."