Serial Killer Bobby Joe Long Executed — His Crime, Final Meal & Last Words Revealed

Bobby Joe Long. >> Bobby Joe Long. >> Bobby Joe Long. >> Bobby Joe Long is now dead. After spending more than 34 years on death row, Bobby Joe Long was executed by lethal injection in Florida. His crimes terrorized the Tampa Bay area in 1984, leaving at least 10 women dead over an 8-month killing spree. But it was the courage of a 17-year-old girl, his only surviving victim, that would [music] finally bring him to justice.

The chain of events that would finally bring Bobby Joe’s violent spree to an end started in the quiet early hours of November 3rd, 1984. 17-year-old Lisa McVey was working the night shift at a doughnut shop in Tampa, doing what she always did, wiping counters, serving customers, and counting the hours until she could go home.

Lisa lived with her grandmother, but it wasn’t because her life had been easy. Her mother struggled with drugs and alcohol, and by the time Lisa was just 14, she was basically forced to take care of her instead of the other way around. Before that, Lisa had bounced in and out of foster homes, never staying anywhere long enough to feel truly safe.

You would think her grandmother’s home would finally be that safe place. But it wasn’t. Behind closed doors, things were very wrong. For 3 years, her grandmother’s boyfriend had been sexually abusing her. And every time he did, he held a gun to her head, making it clear that speaking up or trying to escape could cost her everything.

So, by the time Lisa was 17, she was already living in constant fear. In the early hours of that November morning, just after 2:30 a.m., she finished her shift at the doughnut shop, exhausted and ready to go home. She climbed onto her bicycle and started the familiar ride through the empty Tampa. It should have been a simple trip, but she never made it home.

 Not far from the shop, a car pulled up beside her and before she could react, a man pointed a gun at her and forced her to stop. He blindfolded her and dragged her across the passenger seat. Her hands were tied loosely and a cold voice commanded her to strip and she obeyed. Because of the blindfold, Lisa couldn’t see the man’s face, but while they were driving, she managed to peek through a tiny gap beneath the blindfold.

She caught bits and pieces of the car, the maroon seats, a white interior, and the word magnum on the dashboard. [music] And judging from the sounds around them, they were on the interstate. Minutes later, the car stopped at what felt like an apartment building. Lisa had been allowed to get dressed again, and her attacker led her up a flight of stairs.

 Once inside, the real nightmare began. Over the next few hours, he red her four, maybe five times, keeping a gun pressed against her and suggesting he had a knife as well. Lisa was terrified, but she knew one thing for sure. She wanted to survive. Then, as quickly as it began, it stopped. He untied her hands and feet, and for the first time, there was silence. He eventually fell asleep.

Lisa lay beside him, barely moving, but her thoughts kept racing. She told herself that if she cooperated, maybe he wouldn’t kill her. That thought played on repeat in her head as daylight slowly crept through the windows. She didn’t try to escape. She didn’t dare. One wrong move could be the end. For the next 26 hours, Lisa would be held captive in a stranger’s apartment where she was repeatedly and tortured.

But Lisa was a survivor. She had already endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of her grandmother’s boyfriend. And as horrible as this new situation was, she knew how to think under pressure. From the moment she arrived at his apartment, she was blindfolded. She wasn’t able to see his face or her surroundings clearly, but she refused to let that stop her.

 Lisa began to memorize every detail she could. She counted the number of steps from the car to the apartment door. She noticed the texture of the carpet under her feet. She listened to the sounds outside and the TV playing in the background. And she did something incredibly smart. She intentionally left her fingerprints everywhere she could.

 On the bathroom sink, on the door handles, and even on the shower tiles. In her mind, there were two possibilities. Either she survived and told her story or she didn’t. And if she didn’t make it out, she wanted to make absolutely sure the police could find this man. But then something unexpected happened. As her captor washed her hair in the shower after another assault, Lisa decided to take a chance.

 “Why do you do this?” she asked him. He told her he had gone through a bad breakup and that he hated women because of it. Right then, Lisa made a choice. If she couldn’t fight him physically, she would try to reach him mentally. She told him he seemed nice. She said maybe she could be his secret girlfriend and promised she wouldn’t tell anyone what happened.

 She also told him she was the only child of a very sick father who needed her at home. Lisa was making herself human to him. Not just another victim, but a person with a life, a family, and someone who might care about him. And somehow it worked. After about 26 hours in captivity, he got Lisa dressed, walked her back to the car and drove her to a parking lot at the intersection of Hillsboro and Rome.

 He told her to keep the blindfold on for five more minutes so he could escape. And then before he left, he gave her one last bizarre instruction. Tell the police, “I’m an ugly man with a beard.” And just like that, he disappeared. Lisa waited, counting the seconds that felt like an eternity. When she was sure enough time had passed, she ripped off the blindfold.

 She wasn’t in a car anymore. She was standing in front of a tree in a churchyard. She was free. She was alive. But even in that moment of relief, another thought hit her. She knew deep down that she probably wasn’t his only victim. And if she didn’t do something, she knew he would do it again. and the next girl might not be this lucky.

But when Lisa got home, there was no comfort waiting for her. Instead, her grandmother’s boyfriend beat her and interrogated her for hours about where she had been. Lisa told him everything about the kidnapping, the blindfold, the apartment, the [music] man. But he didn’t believe her. He even accused her of cheating on him.

 But no matter what he said or did, Lisa’s story never changed. She stuck to the truth. And eventually a call was made to the police and this time someone finally believed her. Detectives listened to Lisa’s story with growing alarm. And even though she had been blindfolded most of the time, she was still able to describe her attacker in surprising detail.

 She estimated his height and build and said he had short hair, a small mustache, a snub nose, and pock marks on his face. And she didn’t stop there. Lisa told them about his car, too. The red carpet, white seats, and the word magnum on the dashboard. She walked them through the route he drove from his apartment to the spot where he dropped her off.

 And she even remembered hearing him stop and use an ATM along the way. Then she described the apartment itself, the number of stairs leading up to his floor, the feel of the watered, and the sound of a TV in the background reporting on her own disappearance. Everything Lisa said was specific, detailed, and consistent, and investigators immediately recognized the pattern.

For months, the Tampa Bay area had been living in confusion as multiple women were being found dead. They were strangled, bludgeoned, and their bodies were dumped in orange groves, wooded areas, and along highways. Most of them were left in disturbing staged positions with their hands bound and their legs spread apart.

It was obvious this was the work of a serial killer, but despite multiple crime scenes, police still didn’t know who he was. But now, with Lisa’s testimony, [music] they finally had a lead. They took her detailed description of the car, a Dodge Magnum with red carpet and white interior, and cross-referenced it with a list of local Dodge Magnum owners.

At the same time, they pulled ATM transaction records from around the time Lisa remembered hearing her attacker use a machine. And when they compared the two lists, one name appeared on both. Bobby Joe Long. On November 16th, just 13 days after Lisa’s abduction, the police moved in. They arrested 31-year-old Bobby Joe outside a movie theater. at the station.

He initially waved his Miranda rights and agreed to talk. Detectives started with Lisa’s case and eventually he confessed to abducting and her. But investigators weren’t finished. They knew there were multiple unsolved murders in the area. And now they strongly suspected that Bobby Joe wasn’t just Lisa’s attacker.

 He might be the serial killer they had been hunting all along. So they shifted the conversation. They showed him photographs of the murdered women, the ones whose bodies had been found over the past several months. They laid the pictures in front of Bobby Joe and waited. He looked at them and said quietly, “I’d rather not answer that.

” But the detectives didn’t back off. They kept pressing, circling back, asking again and again. And finally, Bobby Joe said something that would change everything. The complexion of things sure has changed since you came back into the room. I think I need an attorney. But no attorney was brought in, and the questioning continued for hours.

 And under that pressure, Bobby Joe began to talk. And by the end of the interrogation, he had confessed to nine murders, eight in Hillsboro County and one in Pasco County. After months of fear and unanswered questions, their families finally began to get the truth about what had happened to their daughters, sisters, and [music] friends.

But who were these women, and how had he managed to get away with it for so long? His first known victim was artist Anne Wick, a 20-year-old woman who had hitchhiked from Gas City, Indiana to Tampa in March 1984. She was engaged to be married and had come to Florida looking for work and a fresh start. Somewhere along the way, Bobby Joe picked her up.

 He ripped and strangled her, leaving her body in a rural area so isolated that it wasn’t found until November 22nd, 1984, a week after his arrest. On May 13th, 1984, two teenage boys were playing in a field near Interstate 75 when they noticed a horrible smell. Curious and uneasy, they walk closer only to make a discovery that would stay with them for the rest of their lives.

The badly decomposed body of a woman. When investigators arrived, it was clear that whoever she was, she hadn’t died by accident. She was lying face down with her hands tied behind her back and her legs spread 5 ft apart. A noose had been wrapped around her neck three times like a leash.

 The woman was soon identified as Ningun Ti Lana Long, a 20-year-old exotic dancer who worked at the Sly Fox Lounge in Tampa. Lana had been trying to save enough money to return to her family in California. She didn’t have a car, so she often relied on rides from men leaving the club. But one night, she asked the wrong man. Then just 2 weeks later, on May 27th, 1984, another body was found.

 this time off an Interstate 4 overpass. The victim was 22-year-old Michelle Sims. [music] She was discovered nude and bound with her throat slit and her clothing left nearby. Michelle was originally from California and had recently moved to Tampa. She had worked as a receptionist, but was also involved in work and struggled with drug addiction.

 Like Lana, she was vulnerable and someone had taken advantage of that. Then on June 24th, 1984, the body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Ldenbach was discovered fully clothed in an orange grove. She had been ripped and strangled. But unlike many of Bobby Joe’s other victims, Elizabeth wasn’t involved in prostitution. She was a factory worker living an ordinary life.

She had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the victims kept coming. 18-year-old Chanel Williams, 28-year-old Karen Dins, 22-year-old Kimberly Hops, 18-year-old Virginia Johnson, and finally Kim Swan and Vicky Elliot, who were both just 21 years old. Most of them were women just trying to survive, working low-paying jobs, struggling with addiction, or involved in work.

 They were vulnerable, and Bobby Joe believed that made them easy targets. He seemed to think that no one would miss them if they disappeared. He would drive up and down Tampa’s Nebraska Avenue in his maroon 1978 Dodge Magnum, a stretch lined with bars, clubs, and motel where many workers walked the streets at night. He would pull up, offer a ride, and when they got in, he would drive them to a remote location, them and kill them.

 But Bobby Joe didn’t limit himself to women on the street. He had also attacked women in their own homes. From the outside, Bobby Joe looked like any ordinary family man. He grew up in sundrrenched Miami, the only child of a single mother. He joined the army, married his high school sweetheart Cindy, and together they had two children.

 To his kids, he was just dad, the man who picked them up on weekends and played with them in the yard. No one in that family ever imagined that the man they loved would one day be unmasked as a serial killer who terrorized the Tampa Bay area. I was just like everybody else out there. Probably 99.9% of the time I’m as normal as he is or he is or anybody else is.

[laughter] but 1% of the time or whatever that uh there’s there’s some kind of a problem there. >> Behind closed doors, Cindy saw a very different side of him. A few months into their marriage, Bobby Joe was in a serious motorcycle accident. He was thrown from his bike, landed on his head, and spent several days in a coma.

Cindy says that after that, something in him changed. His temper grew shorter. The mood swings became more violent and eventually the physical abuse began. Three or four months after the accident, he hit her for the first time. She didn’t tell anyone because she was embarrassed and hoped it was a one-time thing. But it wasn’t.

 She remembers trying to stay quiet so the children wouldn’t hear the screaming through the walls. And that was not it. On top of the violence, Cindy noticed Bobby Joe’s nearly insatiable sexual demands. If she refused, he became angry and more than once she was forced into. She kept telling herself, “He’ll heal.

 He’ll go back to who he used to be.” But he never did. To the outside world, they looked like a normal little family. But inside, [music] Cindy was living in fear. And while his family was trying to survive what happened at home, other women were being hunted out on the streets. But eventually, the evidence started to catch up with him.

 When police searched Bobby Joe’s car after his arrest, they found exactly what they needed. Fibers from the red trill nylon carpet inside his Magnum matched rare fibers found on several of the victim’s bodies. Tire tracks from his car matched those at multiple crime scenes. And DNA evidence connected him directly to the assaults.

Piece by piece, the picture came together. The case against Bobby Joe Long wasn’t just strong, it was airtight. In September 1985, Bobby Joe pleaded guilty to eight murders, as well as the abduction of Lisa McVey. He received 26 life sentences without the possibility of parole, of which 24 would run concurrently and two consecutively, plus seven life sentences with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

But the state of Florida wasn’t done just yet. Even though Bobby Joe would already spend the rest of his life behind bars, prosecutors still sought the death penalty for the murders of Michelle Sims and Virginia Johnson. And that’s exactly what they got. In July 1986, he was found guilty in those cases and formally sentenced to death.

For the next 34 years, Bobby Joe sat on Florida’s death row filing appeal after appeal. His lawyers argued ineffective counsel and they pointed to claims of mental illness and traumatic brain injuries from childhood accidents. They also highlighted his diagnosis of Kleinfelter syndrome, a condition where a man has XXY chromosomes instead of the typical XY.

 This chromosomal condition caused higher levels of estrogen and led to some feminine physical traits, including breast development, something he was bullied and humiliated for as a child. His legal team hoped the courts would see these factors as reasons to spare his life, but the courts consistently upheld his conviction and sentence.

 And in April 2019, Florida Governor Ronda Santis signed his death warrant, the first one he had signed since taking office. In his final round of appeals, Bobby Joe’s lawyers tried a different angle. They argued that he was a Vietnam veteran whose life had been shaped and scarred by what he brought back from the war.

 They said his brain had never fully healed from multiple head injuries and that years earlier, VA doctors had diagnosed him with what they called traumatic brain disease. Doctors who examined him later testified that this damage affected the parts of his brain responsible for judgment and impulse control. But even with that testimony, the courts were not persuaded.

On May 23rd, 2019, the US Supreme Court declined to review his case, and his final request asking whether a person with severe mental illness could be exempt from execution went unanswered. With that decision, there were no more appeals, no more motions, no more delays. The state moved forward. And on that same day, May 23rd, 2019, Bobby Joe Long’s final day began.

That morning at 9:30 a.m. he was served his last meal. Roast beef, bacon, French fries, and a soda. There were no visitors. No family members came to see him. And he didn’t ask for a spiritual adviser. He spent his final hours alone. At 6:43 p.m., Bobby Joe was led into the execution chamber at Florida State Prison.

 On the other side of the glass in the witness room, sat Lisa McVey Noland, now a deputy with the Hillsboro County Sheriff’s Office, working in the very department that had once rescued her, specializing in crimes and working to protect children. She took a seat in the front row, close enough to be sure he could see her.

 She wore a t-shirt with a message across the front. Long overdue. I wanted to look him in the eye, she said later. I wanted to be the first person he saw. Also in the room was Linda Nutall, another woman who had survived his violence. The rest of the seats were filled by family members of the murdered women.

 One person wore a polo shirt with photos of all 10 known victims on the back and the words, “The ones that matter.” When asked if he had any final words, Bobby Joe gave just one: No. He offered no apology, no explanation, nothing for the women he had hurt or the families he had shattered. He closed his eyes as the lethal injection began.

 Lisa watched him carefully, waiting for him to open his eyes again, but he never did. 12 minutes later, at 6:55 p.m., Bobby Joe Long was pronounced dead. For the victim’s families and for survivors like Lisa and Linda, it didn’t erase the pain, but it closed a chapter that had been open for far too long. In the media room afterward, Lisa stepped up to the microphones and faced the reporters.

 She thanked Bobby Joe not for what he did, but for choosing her instead of another 17-year-old girl who might not have survived. She explained that she had forgiven him, not for his sake, but for her own. “Had I not forgiven you, I might as well be in my own prison without walls,” she said. “I chose not to remain a victim. I chose to live.

” What she shared next stunned many people listening. “The day before she was abducted, Lisa had reached her breaking point from all the abuse she had endured. That night, she sat alone in her room. She felt completely hopeless and was ready to give up. She even wrote a note. But the very next night, everything changed.

 “One bad situation got me to another bad situation is what saved my life,” she said. “Because the night before, I’m doing my note, and the next night I’m fighting for my life.” “That was the moment she decided she wanted to live, really live, and use her survival to protect others.” At the time of his execution, Bobby Joe Long was 65 years old.

What do you think? Has justice been served? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.