Pretty Scary with Clair Buckley
Oct 16, 2026 · 41 min · 11 segments
In just four days, five students were murdered inside their own apartments, leaving an entire university town terrified that they could be next. But as police raced to find the killer, they had no…
Clair BuckleyHost
[match being struck] [exhales] In August 1990, Gainesville was preparing for the beginning of another academic year.
Home to the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College, it was the kind of place that runs on student life.
At the end of summer, cars arrived filled with boxes, clothes, and newly purchased furniture.
Parents helped their sons and daughters carry their belongings into the new halls and off-campus apartments.
New roommates met each other, timetables were collected, bedrooms were chosen, and unfamiliar streets began to feel like home.
For many of the young people arriving that month, it was their first real taste of independence, and among them were Sonja Larson and Christina Powell.
And Christina was 17, from Jacksonville, and reportedly dreamed of becoming a crime scene investigator, which is eerie.
Now, these two girls had recently moved into an apartment together at Williamsburg Village, a closed residential complex used by the students.
It was simply the place where two young women were supposed to begin an exciting new chapter in their lives.
But sometime before the sun came up on Friday the 24th of August, a stranger approached their new home.
He carried an automatic pistol, a screwdriver, and a Marine Corps Ka-Bar knife, and what he did was make his way in the apartment through the back door.
The stranger paused According to evidence later presented in court, he was actually deciding which of the two young women he wanted to attack first.
She tried to protect herself and fought against him, but he placed strips of duct tape over her mouth to silence her.
The wounds later found on her arms showed that she had attempted to defend herself, and the attack itself lasted less than a minute.
[match being struck] [exhales] In August 1990, Gainesville was preparing for the beginning of another academic year.
Home to the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College, it was the kind of place that runs on student life.
At the end of summer, cars arrived filled with boxes, clothes, and newly purchased furniture.
Parents helped their sons and daughters carry their belongings into the new halls and off-campus apartments.
New roommates met each other, timetables were collected, bedrooms were chosen, and unfamiliar streets began to feel like home.
For many of the young people arriving that month, it was their first real taste of independence, and among them were Sonja Larson and Christina Powell.
And Christina was 17, from Jacksonville, and reportedly dreamed of becoming a crime scene investigator, which is eerie.
Now, these two girls had recently moved into an apartment together at Williamsburg Village, a closed residential complex used by the students.
It was simply the place where two young women were supposed to begin an exciting new chapter in their lives.
But sometime before the sun came up on Friday the 24th of August, a stranger approached their new home.
He carried an automatic pistol, a screwdriver, and a Marine Corps Ka-Bar knife, and what he did was make his way in the apartment through the back door.
The stranger paused According to evidence later presented in court, he was actually deciding which of the two young women he wanted to attack first.
She tried to protect herself and fought against him, but he placed strips of duct tape over her mouth to silence her.
The wounds later found on her arms showed that she had attempted to defend herself, and the attack itself lasted less than a minute.
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