Campus Ripper

With its sun-drenched climate and beloved football team, Florida's Gainesville has long been an idyllic college party town. But that image was shattered last week. As students began fall classes, one male and three female students at the University of Florida and another woman at Santa Fe Community College were found stabbed or bludgeoned to death in off-campus apartments. Three of the victims were mutilated; one, an 18-year-old female honor student, was decapitated.

The apparent pattern of the grisly murders -- the four women were all attractive, petite brunets with shoulder-length hair -- has touched off fears that a serial killer might be on the loose. Nearly 200 local, state and FBI investigators have poured into Gainesville to provide security and hunt for a suspect described by Police Chief Wayland Clifton as a "methodical maniac." Among the visiting sleuths: John Douglas, who helped track such serial killers as Charles Manson, New York's "Son of Sam" in the 1970s and Florida's own Ted Bundy, who was executed last year.

Some experts believe that the Gainesville butcher is still in the area and that there is enough evidence to track him down. Hundreds of fearful students have deserted their off-campus apartments, at least temporarily, while others are spending their nights with large groups. More than 400 have left town altogether for their parents' homes. "People are petrified," says Marshall Knudson, director of the county's crisis center, which fielded more than 10,000 calls from jittery residents last week.

For now, Gainesville's normally busy taverns are eerily quiet, while many stores report a run on handguns, Chemical Mace, dead bolts, baseball bats and even broomsticks that residents are using to secure windows and doors. Fueling the hysteria are unconfirmed reports that the killer sliced off and carried away flesh from some of his victims. Says sheriff's department Lieutenant Spencer Mann: "People are calling in when they hear a branch knock up against the side of their house." Until the killer is apprehended, the good times in Gainesville are over.