Bobby Joe Long

What the record shows

Bobby Joe Long, recorded by Florida prison officials as Robert J. Long, was convicted of eight first-degree murders of women in the Tampa Bay area of Florida between May and November 1984. He pleaded guilty in Hillsborough County in September 1985 and was sentenced to death for one killing, that of 22-year-old Michelle Denise Simms. According to the Florida Supreme Court's 2013 opinion, he confessed to eight Hillsborough County murders and one in Pasco County; Bay News 9 reported that authorities attributed at least ten killings to him, including that of Artiss Ann Wick in March 1984. Florida executed him by lethal injection on May 23, 2019.

The Department of Corrections record lists offense dates for the eight murders: May 10, May 27, June 7, September 6, September 30, October 4, October 14 and November 10, 1984. A UPI report from November 1984 said the first identified victim, Ngeun Thi Long, was a dancer at a Nebraska Avenue lounge whose body was found on May 13, and that the victims appeared to have been chosen from the strip's dancers and women with prostitution arrests. WTVT (Fox 13) reported that most were strangled, some had their throats cut and others were bludgeoned. The same record shows separate 1984 convictions for rapes in Pasco and Pinellas counties; Fox 13 reported that survivor Linda Nuttall was attacked after Long answered a classified advertisement she had placed; the press called him the 'Classified Ad Rapist'.

The investigation turned on a survivor. On November 3, 1984, Long abducted 17-year-old Lisa McVey as she rode her bicycle home from work, held her about 26 hours and sexually assaulted her before releasing her. She left fingerprints in his apartment and gave detectives details about the apartment, the car and an ATM withdrawal she had overheard. Long was arrested on November 16, 1984, and charged with her kidnapping and sexual battery. UPI reported that carpet-fiber analysis linked him to the murders and that after his arrest he told police where to find one victim's body.

According to the Florida Supreme Court, Long waived his Miranda rights in the McVey case and, when questioning turned to the unsolved homicides, confessed to nine murders even though no attorney was provided after he suggested he might need one. A Pasco County jury first convicted him of murdering 18-year-old Virginia Johnson, and he was sentenced to death on May 3, 1985. On September 23, 1985, he pleaded guilty in Hillsborough County to eight counts of first-degree murder, nine of kidnapping, eight of sexual battery and a probation violation, according to the Eleventh Circuit; the state agreed not to seek death except for Simms. A jury recommended death for Simms by an 11-1 vote, and the sentence was imposed on July 25, 1986.

The Florida Supreme Court vacated that death sentence on June 30, 1988. A second jury unanimously recommended death, the sentence was reimposed on July 21, 1989, and the court affirmed it on October 15, 1992. The Pasco County case went differently: the Florida Supreme Court vacated the Johnson conviction in 1987 and 1992, holding the confession had been obtained in violation of his right to counsel, and on March 6, 1997 reversed it a third time and directed an acquittal.

Courts rejected later postconviction claims, including Florida Supreme Court rulings in 2013, 2016 and 2018 and a federal habeas petition. Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant on April 23, 2019. Final motions argued that the sedative etomidate in Florida's lethal injection protocol was dangerous given his epilepsy and brain injury; the Florida Supreme Court denied relief on May 17, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed denial of a stay on May 22, finding the claims barred by delay and res judicata. Long was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m. on May 23, 2019, at Florida State Prison. Lisa McVey, by then a Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy named Lisa Noland, witnessed the execution.

Long was born on October 14, 1953, in Kenova, West Virginia. According to the Wikipedia article, he suffered childhood head injuries, married in 1974, divorced in 1980 and moved to the Tampa Bay area in 1983. The 1984 UPI report described him as a 31-year-old out-of-work radiology technician.