Danny Rollin

Danny Rollin

If ever there were someone who deserved to “die for his sins,” Danny Rollins would be it. A confessed killer, thief, and bank robber who terrorized Gainesville, Florida during the last few days of summer vacation in August of 1990 with the grisly murders of five young college students, Rollins never hid from his guilt.
In fact, he wholly admitted to the crimes he was prosecuted for as well as a few other (equally heinous) ones committed previously. These crimes—in which women were hunted like animals, their stabbed and bludgeoned bodies left in grotesque sexually explicit positions or decapitated heads strategically placed eye-level on shelves to greet investigators—represent the very worst of the human psyche. The sheer barbarism left nothing to the imagination. This person, though highly intelligent and self-conscious, gave into his most base desires, destroying families and stealing lives.
Yet here I sit—puzzled. What did we gain? What did we lose? Can we ever really understand why this happened? Or what Karma was played out?
Is it too easy for me to sit in repose, wondering, waxing, arguing over the philosophical ponderings imbedded in government execution? Perhaps I would feel much different would I ever be faced with the pain of losing a loved one to such bitter, horrible violence.
I wonder if those people, any of them, feel the least bit better, freer, happier, more satisfied now that they got their pound of flesh. I pray they do.

I’m reminded of story:
Albert Gaines killed Marty Henderson. It wasn’t an accident perse, but he certainly did not purposefully intend for it to happen. Still the court ruled in favor of murder charges because Gaines, a noted disrepute and troublemaker, had been a ticking time bomb with a rap sheet over 17 pages (single spaced) long even though he was barely 18. That Henderson was in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in the crossfire during a liquor store robbery meant little to the prosecutorial staff. They threw the book at him and deservedly so.

At his sentencing, Henderson’s mother was allowed to address Gaines, who showed no remorse or emotion whatsoever, even though the judge insisted it could affect his sentence. Mrs. Henderson pointed out that if given the opportunity, she would kill Gaines herself—in fact, she promised that one day she would get her revenge; she swore it; she would kill Gaines. For he clearly did not know what it meant to be a human being, to be loved, to love. So, she said, he may as well die. And she would be the one to kill him.

Over the years, Mrs. Henderson began writing letters to Gaines in prison. They were filled with her pain, but also with questions for Gaines and stories about Marty. Eventually she told Gaines just about everything about her son: about his first pet—a cat named Richard whom Marty found on a bike ride, his high school sweetheart Julianna who made him oatmeal raisin cookies and broke his heart, his seventh-grade baseball coach, Mr. Stewart, who taught him how to work hard for something he really wanted, his postcards home from summer camp which he signed “Love Marty” and always in parenthesis wrote (your son) as if she might forget. She told him about Marty failing his driver’s test because he didn’t yield to an emergency vehicle and then her feeling so bad that she bought him and his friend a bottle of tequila and some 7up, about his unending curiosity for life, about his heart.

For years, Gaines never wrote back. Mrs. Henderson wasn’t even sure if her letters were even being read. But she sent them every week anyway, because it helped her feel close to Marty, her only son—the one person on this planet who could read her mind and emotions. Sometimes she talked to him but mostly she thought about all of her memories and tried to wrap her mind around the enormity of her pain.

One day, a letter arrived in the mail. It was from Gaines. It sounded tentative and defensive, rambling and wayward. But Mrs. Henderson wrote back anyway, responding to his questions and starting a weekly correspondence with Gaines that continued for the next nine years.

When Gaines went before the parole board for what would be the final time, Mrs. Henderson was invited to attend and was asked to address the inmate who had killed her son over twelve years ago. She stood and addressed both Gaines and the court, telling them the following:

“Twelve years ago when I stood at your hearing, you were a brash, arrogant, unrepentant thug who had taken my only son,” she said, her voice calm though tears trickled down her face and onto her blouse. “I told you, I swore, that I would kill you, Albert Gaines…And I succeeded. I killed you. I killed that young, cold, heartless child who took my son; he’s dead. That child, Albert, would have been kept alive by my hatred, so I killed him with my love and forgiveness. In his place is you, Al, a grown man with a second chance to live your life. I forgive you for killing my son and hope you find the strength to forgive.”