Bobby Joe Long (born October 14, 1953), also known as Bobbie Joe Long, Robert Joe Long and Robert Joseph Long, is an American serial killer, as of May 2013 on death row in the state of Florida. Long abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered at least 10 women in the Tampa Bay Area during an eight-month period in 1984. He released his last victim, Lisa McVey, after sexually assaulting her for a period of 26 hours. McVey provided information to the police that enabled them to track him down. Murders Long moved to the Tampa area in 1983. Hillsborough County had been averaging about 30 to 35 homicides per year in the eighties. Then, in 1984, the murder rate escalated. During one eight-month period, a killer with a unique method of binding, raping and killing his victims, then dumping them in unusual positions and poses, was averaging a murder every other week. The first victim was discovered in May 1984, when the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) was called to a crime scene where the body of a nude woman had been found. This began an intensive investigation into the abduction, rape, and murder of at least 10 women in three counties in the Tampa Bay area (Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas) involving the personnel from the HCSO, the FBI, the Tampa Police Department (TPD), the Pasco County Sheriff's Office (PCSO), and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). The bodies were found usually long after the murder in a state of decomposition, dumped near a rural roadside and dragged into the woods Trial The Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office confronted Long with the evidence. The State Attorney and the Public Defender's Office of Hillsborough County reached a plea bargain for eight of the homicides and the abduction and rape of Lisa McVey. Long pleaded guilty on September 24, 1985, to all of these crimes, receiving 26 life sentences without the possibility of parole (24 concurrent and two to run consecutively to the first 24) and seven life sentences with the possibility of parole after 25 years. In addition, the State retained the option to seek the death penalty for the murder of Michelle Simms. In July 1986, the penalty phase of the Michelle Simms trial was held in Tampa. It lasted one week and again received extensive media attention. Long was found guilty and was sentenced to die in Florida's electric chair. Although Long confessed to raping and killing women, his confession was thrown out. His trial proceeded straight to the penalty phase, which was possible in the 1980s. In early 1985, he received the death penalty. Long was convicted and appealed his first degree murder conviction and death sentence for crimes committed in Hillsborough County. Long appealed his first degree murder conviction and sentence of death in the death of Virginia Johnson. On appeal from the Circuit Court in and for Pasco County, in which Long's death sentence was vacated, his conviction reversed, and his case remanded to the trial court with directions to enter an order of acquittal for the murder of Virginia Johnson. On February 24, 1999, Long accused the Capital Collateral Regional Council (the state office defending death row inmates in their appeals) of revealing his private letters to a book author, thus violating attorney--client privilege. He also accused the agency of running a "death pool", betting on the dates on which inmates would be executed, and asked that the agency be removed from his case. An investigation concluded that these allegations were unfounded. Long's petition for a writ of mandamus to require Bob Dillinger, the public defender for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, to relinquish possession and control of his file in State v. Long, was denied. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Long has one five-year sentence, four 99-year sentences, 28 life sentences, and one death sentence.

• published: 24 May 2014
• views: 0