Married to Murder: The Bizarre and True Accounts of People Who Married Murderers (8 page)

Sondra London is known as the queen of serial killer groupies for very good reason. Not only has she made a career writing about serial killers, but London dated one serial killer in high school and married another serial killer, Danny Rolling, whom she wrote a book with.

London’s involvement with serial killers began at St. Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, where she claimed to have dated future serial killer Gerard John Schaefer. Schaefer was a draft-dodging cross dresser and peeping Tom who killed animals as a hobby. Incredibly, Schaefer later became a police officer and used his authority to kidnap, torture, and murder at least two teenaged girls. Schaeffer has been suspected of as many deaths as 34 women. Schaeffer was sentenced to life in prison and was found stabbed to death in his cell in 1995.

Some reports indicate that London kept up her involvement with Schaefer after he went to prison. She even helped him get a collection of his fiction writings published. Some experts think Schaefer’s fiction was based on his exploits as a serial killer.

Around the time of her marriage to Rolling, Sondra London got involved with the “Happy Face Killer,” Keith Hunter
Jesperson. Jesperson is a monster, a six foot six inch, 240-pound man who beat and strangled as many as eight women throughout the American West. He often combined killing with his job as a truck driver. On one occasion, Jesperson even went back to a bar and started drinking and carousing with the boys after killing a woman.

After he went to prison for his crimes,
Jesperson became notorious for promoting the Self-Start Serial Killer Kit. He also claimed that he was responsible for 160 killings. It isn’t known if Jesperson really killed all of the women or simply made up stories to confuse and confound prosecutors. During his period of greatest notoriety, Jesperson was contacted by London and communicated with her but had a falling out after she published some of his writings without his permission.

The serial killer whom Sondra London is most closely connected to is Danny Rolling, “the Gainesville Ripper.” She and Rolling not only married, they wrote a book about his experience called
The Making of a Serial Killer.

At the time of their marriage in 1993
The New York Times
described London as marketing media projects dealing with convicted killers for a living. The newspaper also reported that London was operating a business called Media Queen News and Information Services for that purpose.

Danny Rolling was a man who gave the university town of Gainesville the nickname of “Grisly Gainesville.” In 1990 he murdered and mutilated five college students as they slept in their apartments in crimes eerily reminiscent of Richard “the Night Stalker” Ramirez’s activities in California. Unlike Ramirez, Rolling went to the trouble of cleaning up the crime scenes and posing the bodies.

If anything, Rolling’s crimes were more ghastly than Ramirez’s. He cut the head off of one victim and the nipples off of another. He also stole body parts and women’s underwear from the crime scenes. The press quickly gave the criminal a sensational nickname—the Gainesville Ripper—after Jack the Ripper.

Rolling was a career criminal who, like most serial killers, paid the bills with ordinary crimes such as armed robbery and burglary. Incredibly, Rolling actually robbed a bank in Gainesville while police were searching for the ripper. The bank robbery turned into a fiasco when an anti-robbery device in a bag of money sprayed the money with pink ink, which made it impossible to use. Rolling tossed the useless money away near a campsite in the woods he had been using. Police later found it and identified the cash as the bank robbery loot.

Rolling was caught after another botched robbery at a Winn Dixie supermarket. A supermarket employee saw the robbery in progress and called the police, who caught Rolling while he was trying to make a getaway.

Sondra London wrote Rolling while he was being held in the psych ward of the Florida State Prison. Rolling was in the psych ward because of violent behavior and suicide attempts. Rolling started corresponding with her and soon proclaimed his love for her. He composed a song about his love and sang it at one of his pre-trial hearings.

London’s version of love was somewhat unusual; she copyrighted all of Rolling’s letters to her so she could sell them. She also signed an exclusive agreement to appear on Geraldo Rivera’s syndicated talk show, which was then a national sensation.

Even though Rolling believed in London, his parents apparently didn’t trust her. They told the press that they thought she was simply cashing in on their son. There was little love lost between Rolling and his parents anyway. At the time of the Grisly Gainesville Crimes, Danny Rolling was actually wanted for the attempted murder of his own father.

Rolling attempted to avoid the death penalty by claiming insanity. Among other things, he tried to blame the murders on his evil alter ego “Evil Gemini” and claimed that abuse in his childhood had caused the problems. Psychiatrists that interviewed Rolling claimed he had a personality disorder and the personality of a 15-year-old. Obviously, he wasn’t a very suitable candidate for marriage. The ploys didn’t work, and Rolling was sentenced to death.

Sondra London kept cashing in on her marriage with Danny Rolling by appearing on American, British, Australian, French, and German TV programs. She also worked as an associate producer for the tabloid TV show,
A Current Affair
, and David Monaghan Productions in Great Britain.

London achieved some fame in 1996 by posting Keith
Jesperson’s confessions to her website. The action caused America Online (AOL) to ban her website and Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer to attack her in the media.

More recently Sondra London has produced several books, including the one she coauthored with Rolling. That book,
The Making of a Serial
Killer
contained 50 illustrations by Rolling. The confessions Rolling made to her were published in
The Globe
supermarket tabloid. People in Florida were so incensed by London’s profiteering that the state sued under the “Son of Sam Law,” which bars criminals from profiting from media accounts of their crimes. The lawsuit failed because the Supreme Court had ruled the law unconstitutional.

London is still living in Florida and trying to profit from serial killers and other macabre subjects, such as vampires. One thing is certain: Danny Rolling will never be able to share in the profits. He was executed by lethal injection at the Florida state prison on October 25, 2006. London’s publicity was unable to save her man from death.

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Online Encyclopedia Entry. 28 January 2013.

Ramsland, Katherine. "Serial Killer Groupies, So Many to Chose From." n.d.
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Online Encyclopedia Entry. 28 January 2013.

Steel, Fiona. "Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper." n.d.
.trutv.com/library/crime.
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 28 January 2013.

The New York Times. "Writer to Marry Rolling ." 26 February 1993.
articles.sun-sentinel.com/1993.
Newspaper Article . 28 January 2013.

Wikipedia . "Gerard John Schaefer." n.d.
en.wikipedia.org.
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 28 January 2013.

—. "Sondra London." n.d.
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